“Very well, then,” she said and then nodded at the girl. “I believe it is time, Mr. Bennett. These partings are best done swiftly else they might not be done at all.”
“I suppose.”
“Or there is another option,” she said with that half grin she affected when she was teasing. “You could stay with us. I am certain a place like St. Mary of the Island could use a man of your intelligence, and I do enjoy our spirited discussions of literature and the Bible. Have you considered taking up the profession of teaching? You would have to give up your other endeavors, of course.”
“As you likely expect, I must decline your very generous offer.”
She met his gaze with an understanding look and then nodded to Rao, who had been standing in the shadows. “And you, sir? What say you about remaining with us here on Isla de Santa Maria? We could always use a strong man like you to do carpenter work and other tasks around the orphanage. Have you an interest in remaining with us?”
His eyes widened. “Thank you, but no, Mother Superior. Although my mother would be most pleased if I were to give up the seafaring life for work in a more godly location.”
Mother Superior’s attention lingered on Rao and then returned to Israel. “Then the offer shall remain open for both of you as long as you shall live, and you two will get on your way.” She touched Israel’s hand. “But first we pray for the girl, and we pray that your captain has survived. Then you will go and allow us to care for her while you search for him.”
With a heavy heart, Israel carried the girl to the place the nuns had prepared for her. Rao said his good-byes and hurried past, likely ashamed at the tears in his eyes.
But Israel cared not whether anyone spied his sorrow.
The last time this gut-wrenching pain had taken hold of him he’d been in chains and saying good-bye to his bride Nzuzi under the shade of the judgment tree in Mbanza Kongo. Just as he promised her, he now promised the girl.
“You may not remember me, but I will find you again.”
The weeks that followed were a blur of sounds, pains, and deepest black nights of endless slumber. Faint snatches of memories would rise up only to fade before Jean-Luc could make sense of them.
Faces appeared before him, but they swam in the filmy seas of uncertainty between life and death. None meant anything to him, and yet each one meant something. Their images blurred; the sounds they made, both loving and insistent, were only an echo in his head.
His mother spoke to him often, as did Jean-Luc’s baby brother. Even in the depths of his slumber, he knew they were no longer alive. And yet in his fevered state, they appeared no less real than the parade of persons who attended his bedside.
Jean-Luc longed to ask his mother if she knew that the man who killed her had been dispatched to his death, but his mouth would not form the words. Instead, he listened to his mother tell her stories of French Canada where she and her dozen Bienville siblings enjoyed an idyllic life.
He heard his name being called, but Jean-Luc ignored it to give in to the tug of his mother’s voice. To hear more of the stories she told. To be a child again at his mother’s knee.
“It is no use,” he heard another voice—perhaps belonging to his father—say. “He is beyond our reach. We must give him to the Lord and pray the Lord gives him back to us again.”
A figure peered into the fog, her red hair visible even in the swirling grayness that surrounded her. She called his name. No, she called him the captain. Yes. Captain.
Jean-Luc tried to follow, but the girl was gone. Still the girl was calling to him. Reaching out and then oddly, telling him to go home. To return to those he loved.
Once again there was nothing but darkness. The girl was gone.
He tried to follow, tried to call out to her so he could tell her how sorry he was that he had somehow lost her to the ocean. Sorry that she would never grow up and never get another chance to sail again or read another of her ridiculous books.
But hard as he tried, Jean-Luc could not divest himself of the invisible chains that kept him in place. Could not make his legs work to chase her or his voice work to call out to her.
“Where is she? Where did she go?”
At the sound of his own voice, Jean-Luc sat upright. The shadows were gone, and his eyes stung as he looked into a blazing fire.
It was different here.
No gray swirling fog.
No feeling of being wrapped in chains.
Jean-Luc blinked again, believing the fog would return and so would the girl. Instead, a commotion sounded around him. Someone moved between him and the fire. A face he knew. A name that was just beyond the realm of understanding.
“Welcome back, Jean-Luc,” she said in a silky voice that was warmly familiar. “We have been waiting for you to return to your family.”
Abigail. His father’s beloved wife. Yes, he remembered now. A second mother to Father’s two grateful motherless sons and the mother of …
Of whom? He didn’t know. Exhausted from the effort of trying to sort it all out, he allowed her to return him to his pillows.
“It is true.”
Father.
Jean-Luc wrested his eyes open and then lost the battle to keep them that way. Even behind his closed eyes, Jean-Luc was aware of his father’s presence, of his tight grip on his hand, and of the sobs that came from deep inside.
Whether they were his sobs or Father’s, he could not say.
Then came the sounds of voices in the distance. They were arguing, or perhaps it was good-natured debate he heard. Twins, yes. A brother and a sister.
Then the voices were gone and only Abigail and Father remained, although neither of them appeared to be looking at him. Rather, their heads were together—his silver hair mixing with her midnight curls—and they seemed to be praying. Beside them, a fire flickered in the fireplace.
Jean-Luc blinked and saw them clearly now. Remembered the moment his father introduced Jean-Luc and his brother to the woman who would take their mother’s place.
Though she was a full two decades younger than Father, theirs had been a love match. Life had become good again when Abigail came to them. And she loved Father as much as he loved her.
All of this he remembered, and yet he could not recall what happened to the girl who eluded him in the fog. “Where did she go?”
Father and Abigail jolted, both climbing to their feet at the same moment. “He’s asking for someone,” she told his father, although their images had begun to swim again. “Who are you looking for, son?”
“Red,” he managed before his eyes closed again.
“She is here,” Abigail said from somewhere far away. “If the woman with the red hair is who you’re looking for, she is here with us.”
“Girl,” Jean-Luc corrected, though he could not be certain he had managed to speak the word aloud.
Later, when he could manage it, he opened his eyes once more. The flames had died down to glowing embers. Embers that matched the hair of the woman who now sat in the chair beside the fireplace.
Maribel?” Jean-Luc managed through lips that refused to cooperate. “You?” was all he could add.
But it was enough, for the woman with the red curls stumbled to her feet, tucking her hair beneath a scarf as she hurried to him. “Hello, Mr. Valmont,” she said as she knelt beside the bed. “Can you hear me?”
He reached to grasp her hand and then struggled to sit up as the room spun around him. He was weak, so weak. “I thought you were lost.”
“Hush now,” she said. “I’ve been with you all the while. I will just go and fetch your father. He asked to be alerted if you were to awaken.”
“No, don’t go,” he said, but his grip was too weak to make her stay. His legs refused all demands to follow, and his eyes continued to be unreliable when commanded to remain open.
Finally, he awakened and found the room flooded with sunshine. There was the red-haired girl again, back in the chair by the fireplace after chasing him thr
ough the fog of his dreams.
Abigail was there too, her hands deftly working knitting needles as she created some object of clothing that would be far too warm for the New Orleans winter. The itch of last year’s Christmas gift, a sweater made from wool taken from her family home, had been a source of much jesting between Jean-Luc and his younger brother Quinton.
“I sincerely hope that sweater is not for me.”
“You are teasing me, Jean-Luc,” Abigail said. “I refuse to jump and run to your bidding.”
With that one comment, Jean-Luc knew he was fine. Knew he would live.
For as fiercely protective as Abigail was of him and his family, she would not make light of his situation unless she knew him to be safe. Though he wished to allow tears at the knowledge he was not being taken to heaven just yet, instead, he matched her humor with teasing of his own.
He shook his head and instantly regretted the action, all the while keeping his attention on the woman holding the yarn for Abigail. “Have I been much trouble?”
His father’s wife laughed, a pleasant sound that reminded him of good days and smiles shared with this family of his. “A bit,” she said, “although as the months went by, we did despair of hearing your complaints ever again. I am very happy to be wrong about this.”
The red-haired woman looked away as if she might be uncomfortable with him watching her. Clearly the situation had been reversed for some time, because he could see now that the woman was obviously in the employ of Abigail, possibly as a companion or nursemaid.
No, that could not be right. The twins, Michel and Gabrielle, were beyond the age of needing that sort of supervision.
“Who are you?” he finally asked the woman before turning his attention back to Abigail. “Why is she here?”
“Back to your charming self, I see. I wonder if you will remember this conversation. You and I have had many these past months, but you rarely seem to recall them.”
“In fact, I recall none,” he said. “Not because what you say isn’t worth recollection. I think there might have been some other trouble that caused me to be less than attentive.”
“Yes, quite.” She folded her knitting into the basket at her feet and cast a sideways glance at the woman beside her. “This is Kitty. She has been invaluable to us during your inconvenience.”
“Kitty,” he said as his gaze went back to the woman who now returned his smile. “Then I must offer you my most sincere thanks and an apology that I have not been able to fully appreciate your beauty until now.”
She looked at Abigail. “Is he always like this?”
“No, dear,” she said with a laugh. “Sometimes he is worse.”
Jean-Luc almost managed a chuckle, though the effort pained him through his chest. “I don’t know if I ought to be offended or not.”
“You ought to be thankful that this lovely young lady gave up a good portion of her time over these past months to see to you. She was trained at the Hospital St. Louis in Paris. You could get no better care than in her hands.”
Red hair, green eyes, and a smile that lit her face. Despite his current situation, Jean-Luc was intrigued. “I was fortunate to be visiting when this need was made known to me.”
“Months?” he said as he tried to remember the last time he had been on his own two feet. Though he failed miserably, he somehow knew that when he did remember, he would not like what he recalled.
Her voice was heavily accented with her native French tone, but the words were beautifully spoken. “Indeed I do thank you for your care,” he said in French.
“De rien,” she responded easily as she looked away, a coquette in nurse’s attire.
“Come,” Abigail said abruptly, “and let’s send up his butler to handle his needs. You and I are no longer needed here.”
She sent Kitty out first and then lingered until the young woman was no longer nearby. “You’ve given us quite a start, Jean-Luc Valmont,” she said, her mock scolding light but her meaning clear as she grasped his hand and held it tight. “First, know that I am more grateful to God than I knew was possible that He chose to spare you.”
“As am I,” he said.
She released his hand to kneel at his side. “Then I will have two promises from you.”
He leaned back on his elbows and offered what he hoped was a charming smile despite cracked lips and who knew what else. “And what would those be?”
“First,” she said as her eyes held his, “you will never put your father in this position again.”
Not knowing exactly what had been discovered regarding his last weeks at sea, Jean-Luc decided to let Abigail tell him exactly what she referred to rather than offering anything of his own. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Held prisoner by a wanted man and then nearly dying aboard a French Navy vessel?” Abigail shook her head. “I fail to see how you managed any of that. You are a lawyer, for goodness’ sake. You manage your father’s business interests in the territory and see to the details of trade agreements. How in the world does that translate to putting yourself in such danger?”
“I wish I had an answer for you,” he said. “I do not.”
“You do not remember or you do not want to tell me?” She held up her hand. “No, do not respond. Just understand I will not have you upsetting your father needlessly in his condition. Should you ever come back to my home battered and bleeding again, you had best have a good reason for it.”
“I promise.”
“I am not finished, Jean-Luc. Your father adores you, and I love you like my own flesh and blood. It was pure torture to watch you move between life and death for months on end. Your fever broke and you will live, but I do not want your father to have to endure this again. Do you understand?”
He stifled a smile. Though Abigail was barely older than him by a decade, she had taken to mothering him quite well. She also knew how to get her point across so that he comprehended clearly. And then there were the tears shimmering in her eyes. Indeed he must have frightened them all greatly.
“I do understand,” he said, “and I shall endeavor to keep this promise.”
“Don’t you endeavor me, Jean-Luc Valmont. I am not some woman you can fool. I know whatever you were doing that landed you in this fix is likely something you will do again.”
He let out a long breath. Sadly, she was right.
“But I will not do it in the same way,” he said. “On that you have my word.”
She gave him an even look and then nodded as she swiped at her damp eyes. “I will accept that as a promise and move to my next point, but not before I give you this book. It was a gift left on our doorstep some months ago.”
“Thank you,” he said as he lowered himself back to his pillow to look at the thin volume of Homer’s Odyssey. As expected, inside there was a message from Israel letting him know he survived and where he would be waiting.
“How long ago did this arrive?”
She shrugged. “Not long after you were brought to us,” she said. “So several months ago.”
Several months. He let out a long breath. Israel could be anywhere by now. But what of the others?
“This doctoring that was done,” he said. “Do I have Evan Connor to thank?”
She looked away and then rose. Trouble etched her beautiful features. “No,” she said gently.
“Then he …”
Jean-Luc could not complete the question. Stupid, for he already knew the answer. Any man who did not step aboard the French vessel alive went down with the ship. Grief compounded with guilt coursed through him.
“Though I cannot blame you for this, Abigail,” he said, all good humor gone, “my head is beginning to hurt again.”
“No doubt you’d like me to call for your nurse,” she said. “And that brings me to my second point. Do not toy with that girl’s affections.”
He looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“A woman knows things, Jean-Lu
c, and she has been by your side for months. You may not be aware of this time passing together with her; she has been acutely aware of it. You are all she has known for months, and because of this I believe she has formed a bond with you.”
Jean-Luc shook his head. “Yes, of course. I will proceed with caution.”
“You will proceed with the intention of marrying her or keeping your relationship on a completely platonic level. I have promised her mother and father I would look after her, and that is what I will do.”
He looked down at his broken body and then back up at Abigail. “I doubt she wants a weak man with the scars I bear. So your nurse is safe from me, I promise.”
This was a promise he should never have made.
Four months later, with all weakness gone, he had fallen hopelessly in love and married the red-haired nurse whose care had brought him back from the grave. Eleven months after that, Kitty and his unborn son were buried in the same grave.
He was beyond inconsolable. When he finally realized the Lord had not meant him to die alongside them, he retrieved the book from the shelf where it had been hidden all those months ago and found Israel again.
With that reunion came news that others had survived, which made him grateful but could do nothing for the guilt he bore.
If he could not find happiness of his own, then he would turn back to the life he led before. The promise he made to Abigail would be kept, for this time he planned to do the same thing in a different way.
It took Maribel the better part of three years to realize the secretive man who sometimes did work for Mother Superior was the same man who once sat in a cell and played draughts with her. The carpenter kept to himself and never allowed anyone near while he was working, and no one considered it odd.
Then came the day when she was reading in the guango tree and he passed beneath it in conversation with Mother Superior. “As always, we at the orphanage appreciate your help in this matter, Mr. Rao. We’ve despaired of how to repair the trouble with our window in the chapel, so you’ve arrived at just the right time.”
The Pirate Bride Page 10