The Pirate Bride

by Y'Barbo, Kathleen;

  Skirting the edge of the beach, he kept a brisk pace until he reached the inlet where the Lazarus waited at anchor. Only when he reached that spot did he look back to be sure he had not been followed.

  Given the behavior of the young nun, Jean-Luc preferred to take all precautions.

  Mother Superior assured him the novitiate he’d interacted with in the mahogany forest would not pose a threat. However, a woman who wished to become a nun should never be that good at causing a man pain.

  Out of curiosity, and possibly to warn the old nun that one of her charges was a danger to others, Jean-Luc retraced his steps to find the tree where the woman had been spying on them. He assumed she had been spying, although Mother Superior indicated this particular female had a past history of hiding herself in trees in order to read her books without being interrupted by the children.

  “And you are certain there is no danger because she has seen us?”

  He watched the old nun’s wrinkled face for any evidence of what she might be thinking. As always, hers was a face that was unreadable.

  “I am certain. As I said, she is harmless. Just a girl who grew to a woman who has not yet forgotten childish things on occasion.” She paused. “Had I any concern that you and Mr. Bennett’s enterprise would be endangered, do you think I would not warn you? I stand to lose much should any of you be caught.”

  It was a plausible answer, although in his business, plausible answers were not good enough. He would not risk his men’s lives over a supposition. And if the girl were to tell anyone what she saw, many lives would be at stake.

  He walked down the narrow path, pushing back the foliage as he went. Just around a bend in the path, he tripped on a thick mass of exposed tree roots and went sprawling forward.

  As he climbed to his feet, Jean-Luc spied a rectangular object—a brown leather-bound book—wedged into the sand at the base of the tree. He retrieved the book and dusted off the sand to read the title.

  And then he laughed.

  “Of all the lost books in the world, I would find Robinson Crusoe abandoned on a tropical island.” He glanced up at the sky through the filter of mahogany leaves and smiled. “Thank You, Lord. I needed some good humor today.”

  After going in search of the girl who had obviously lost this book, he encountered Mother Superior hurrying down the path. Somehow the blind woman managed to step right over the tangle of roots that had caused him—a man with completely good eyesight—to stumble.

  “I must insist that your ship depart immediately,” she said as she turned him around and set out down the path toward the inlet beside him.

  “Have we overstayed our welcome, Mother Superior?” he asked in jest.

  “In a way, you have,” she responded with her characteristic lack of humor.

  “I was on my way back when I found an item I believe one of your novitiates dropped.” He offered her the book.

  If the old nun realized he had offered the book to her, she gave no indication of it. “Did the book or she happen to fall out of a tree? Perhaps both?”

  “The book might have,” he said. “She did not, but only because I caught her first. However, I’m sure she would like her book back. I found it on the path back there.”

  For the first time since Israel introduced him to the nun, Jean-Luc found something akin to shock in her normally placid expression. He studied her a moment, trying to figure out just what he had said that upset her.

  “Please accept the book as a gift from St. Mary of the Island Orphanage and go,” she told him, urgency in her voice.

  “Are you certain? I don’t mind doing a search to find the book’s owner, although I do not relish repeating the sort of greeting she offered the last time.”

  “I am certain,” she said. “And make haste. I wish you no offense, but you truly have stayed too long.”

  “Then in that case, I will accept your gift and take my leave.” Tucking the book under his arm, Jean-Luc made his way back to the Lazarus with that same smile still in place.

  “What’s got into you?” Israel asked when he arrived on deck.

  “Cast off for home, my friend,” he said. “I’m going to go see a man about an island.” At Israel’s confused look, he gestured to the book under his arm. “Robinson Crusoe,” he said. “I found it. Can you believe that?”

  Apparently the humor was lost on his second-in-command. Israel just shook his head. “How many times have you read that book, Captain?”

  “I’ve lost count,” he said. “But when I do get a tally, I’ll add one to it. I’ve needed something to think about other than the mission that brought us here, and now I have it.”

  “You wound me, Captain,” Israel said with a broad grin. “I had hoped to challenge you to finally read Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek.”

  Jean-Luc shook his head. “You, sir, are the expert in the scholarly languages. I keep to English, French, and Spanish.”

  “A pity,” Israel said. “There’s just something about reading the philosophers’ words exactly as they wrote them. No translation measures up.”

  “And I would counter with the statement that there is something about reading a book about a man who finds peace alone on a deserted island.” Jean-Luc used the book to gesture to the bow. “We’ve completed this endeavor successfully and our hold is empty. Order the anchor raised, and let’s go home, Mr. Bennett.”

  Once in his cabin, he placed the book on the corner of his desk and then went to work updating the log. Just as he was reaching for the novel, a warning bell rang. In his surprise, Jean-Luc knocked the book onto the floor.

  He reached for it and banged his head on the edge of the desk as the schooner tilted. Leaving the book where it landed, he went up to the deck in search of the reason behind the warning bell and found a squall churning ahead of them.

  Setting to work alongside his men, they fought the weather. By the time the crew had steered the ship through the storm, exhaustion sent him to his bunk for much-needed sleep.

  He awoke during the night as wide awake as if he’d slept until daybreak. Swinging his legs out of the bunk, Jean-Luc retrieved the sandy copy of Robinson Crusoe with the intention of reading. The light was not sufficient to see the pages, so he placed the book on the bunk beside him and lay there until sleep finally overtook him.

  The next morning he awakened to the book on the floor and a letter with the seal of the Cordoba family beside him on the bunk. Jean-Luc snatched up the letter and then looked around the cabin to see if perhaps it was some kind of joke.

  Only one man aboard this vessel knew of his connection to a certain red-haired girl. Surely Israel felt that loss as keenly and would never make sport of anything in relation to her.

  Still, what else could be the explanation?

  “Come out and show yourself, Israel Bennett,” he called to the man he hoped would have a guard posted outside to report back to him. “Your pitiful attempt at a joke at my expense has failed.”

  Silence.

  He called out again but met with the same reaction.

  “Truly, your joke has gone too far,” he added as his temper rose. “You and I both know what the girl meant to us. To make this sort of jest is not like you, my friend.”

  Once again, there was no answer. This time his curiosity got the better of his temper. The letter looked real enough, the wax on the seal certainly giving it an official appearance.

  And though the seal had been broken, indicating someone had already read it, the letter was intact and appeared to have been recently written. He turned the letter over and then set it beside him on the bunk.

  Finally, with shaking hands, Jean-Luc opened the letter. When his eyes reached these words, his heart felt as though it had stopped:

  Your mother and I came to this city we now call our home in hopes of being closer to the place where you were last seen. It was our hope, a hope we never once gave up on, that our precious Maribel would somehow return to us. No expense has been spared in
our search for you, my sweet granddaughter. And now at last you have been located.

  Located.

  He let the letter fall to the floor and then picked it up to read it all over again. Located where?

  Jean-Luc’s eyes went to the book. Surely this letter hadn’t been inside.

  He breathed in. Breathed out. Forced himself to calm his thoughts.

  A man in his position did not allow speculation to rule him. He took action.

  “Israel,” he shouted as he stormed out of the cabin. “Israel Bennett, where are you?”

  He emerged onto the deck and called to the first crewman he saw. “You there. Have this ship turned around. We are headed back to Isla de Santa Maria, and see that we get there as swiftly as possible.”

  “Aye, Captain,” he said, hurrying away.

  Jean-Luc found Israel at the wheel, standing in the same place where he had left him last night. “Did you not sleep?” he asked.

  His old friend smiled. “I sleep enough when I need it. So what is this I’m hearing about turning the Lazarus around?”

  Rather than respond, he handed Israel the letter. After reading it, Israel looked up at him. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was on my bunk this morning.”

  He thrust the letter back in Jean-Luc’s direction. “An odd place to find a letter from Don Pablo Cordoba, don’t you think? I say ignore it. It cannot be authentic.”

  “I did wonder for a passing moment if you might be playing a joke on me.”

  Israel’s expression showed he took great offense at the suggestion. “Surely you’re not serious. Why would you think I would joke about the girl?”

  “I wouldn’t,” he said, tucking the letter away, “but that was my first thought.”

  Israel, too, bore some measure of guilt over the loss of their youngest crew member those many years ago. But then he also bore guilt that he had not been aboard the ship when the French took them down.

  In all these years, Jean-Luc had not managed to make Israel realize none of these things were his fault.

  “And your second thought is what?” he asked, his expression now tender. “That somehow returning to the island we just left will answer the question of what happened to Maribel Cordoba?”

  “Yes,” Jean-Luc said with a smile. “Remember the book I brought back with me to the ship?” At Israel’s nod, he continued. “I found that book at the base of a tree. Earlier a young novitiate had been climbing down that very same tree, so I assumed it might belong to her. When I attempted to return the book, Mother Superior insisted I take it as her gift and go quickly because we had overstayed our time.”

  “All right,” Israel said slowly. “So how does all of that relate to the letter from Cordoba?”

  “I don’t exactly know except that I believe the letter was inside that book.”

  Something in his old friend’s expression changed. “And the owner of the book is on Isla de Santa Maria? I see no reason to believe this, Captain.”

  He gave Israel an even look. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, but possibly. The only way to know is to go back and see if she is there.”

  Israel nodded to the crewman nearest them and indicated the man should take the wheel. “Stay the course for now,” he told the man, and then he ushered Jean-Luc to a spot away from any crewmen. “Think carefully about this, my friend. Do you really want Maribel Cordoba found?”

  “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

  “For my own sake, perhaps. I do miss the girl.” He paused and looked past Jean-Luc toward the horizon. “But for your sake? No. I do not.” Israel swung his attention back to him. “Think, Captain. Everything you worked for, your reputation and perhaps even your father’s could be gone if that girl tells anyone who you were. The Valmonts could lose everything.”

  “You’re assuming she remembers any of it, or that she would connect Jean-Luc Valmont to a privateer working under an assumed name.”

  “Maribel is a smart girl. I say it because I do know she is out there alive. Just like the Lord spared me and those other three, I have no doubt He spared our Red.”

  Jean-Luc leaned against the rail. “I know I have hoped He did.”

  “However, the four on those skiffs who were spared slaughter at the hands of those French dogs, we took an oath.”

  Not only did they take an oath, but also those four men had made guarding him and his reputation from anything and anyone that might tarnish it their sole mission. To these men he owed his life and everything he had in this world.

  Them and Evan Connor.

  “I am forever in your debt,” Jean-Luc said.

  “Between us we have no debts that have gone unpaid, Captain,” Israel said. “If you go after that girl, you just may find her. Then you’ll have to deal with what happens next. We will not be able to protect you.”

  Israel was right, of course.

  Jean-Luc shook his head. “There’s nothing in what you’ve said that I can find disagreement with.”

  “And yet you will not rest until you have found her.”

  He shook his head. “She found me, Israel. That letter did not come to me by accident of fate. There is a purpose behind me knowing our Maribel is alive, and yes, I will not rest, but you are wrong about one thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I don’t have to find her, but I do have to find out what happened to her.”

  “Then let me do this. I will go ashore and inquire,” Israel said.

  He looked up into the concerned eyes of his best friend. “I must do this myself. You will not change my mind, but I do respect your concern. I wish to do this together, though.”

  Israel stuck out his hand to grasp Jean-Luc’s, though the reluctance was still showing on his face. “Then we do this together, my friend.”

  “Together it is.” Jean-Luc caught the attention of the crewman at the helm. “Turn back for Isla de Santa Maria, and make haste about it.”

  “We’ll be weathering the storm once more,” Israel reminded him.

  “Then so be it,” he said. “I doubt it will be our last.”

  “Of this, I have no doubt,” Israel said as he turned to his work, his shoulders noticeably slumped as if in defeat.

  “Take heart, my friend,” Jean-Luc said as he clasped his hand on the bigger man’s shoulder. “You cannot protect me from everything.”

  Israel turned around to face him. “I wear the scar of a flintlock’s wound that proves this point. You wear more scars than that.”

  Only his friend knew how he hated the fact that first the Spaniard and then the French had marked his body. Every time he looked at the lines etched in his skin—some so deep he’d been told the physician could see bone—he was forced to remember the hands that put them there.

  And every time he remembered those hands, he had to release them to the Lord for His revenge. Because Jean-Luc had learned the hard way that seeking one’s own revenge was often the true source of those scars.

  Israel reached out to place his palm over Jean-Luc’s heart. “So when you ask me to take you down a path where you will very likely add more scars to the ones you’ve collected? I follow your lead because you are my friend and my captain, but I do not follow that lead willingly.”

  Jean-Luc nodded. “I often say the same thing to my heavenly Father, and yet I do follow Him all the same.”

  Maribel paced the deck of the Paloma, not caring that rain threatened. Half the day was now gone and the vessel had not left port. If it was going to rain, then get on with it. If not, then get on with that as well.

  She shook her head. Never had she allowed her nerves—or perhaps it was fear—to control her. At least not in a very long time. Nor had she thought herself an impatient person until this very moment.

  Had Mother Superior not chosen her path, Maribel might still be back at the orphanage trying to decide what to do. Now, with that decision made for her, there was nothing left to do but somehow manage to pass the time until she ar
rived in New Orleans.

  “Fired indeed,” she muttered as her fingers toyed with the ends of Mama’s scarf.

  Of course they both knew why Mother Superior did what she did, but that did not remove the sting of having her choices limited to only one. She had packed her few meager belongings with tears in her eyes.

  All the books she read had come from the little library that seemed to grow by a book or two almost monthly. And though the volumes that appeared were often classics such as the works of Homer or other philosophers, Maribel found it curious that the occasional volume of seafaring adventures found its way onto the shelves despite Mother Superior’s edict that the books were not fit for young ladies and gentlemen.

  Stepping onto a sailing ship after all those years on land had been exhilarating, despite how her last trip at sea ended. Her cabin offered a level of comfort she hadn’t expected, but then her comparison was to the hammock she’d had slung between two posts in a tiny space no bigger than a prison cell.

  But that prison cell had been a special courtesy to her privacy and a labor of love from Mr. Rao, who fashioned the space in a far corner of the hold, and Mr. Piper, who fashioned a hammock from sailcloth.

  Maribel turned her back on the horizon and its ominous black clouds to take another long look at the home that had sheltered her these last eleven years. All the children had come to the dock this morning to see her off, accompanied by the sisters and Mother Superior. It had been a tearful farewell, made all the more so by Stephan’s declaration that he would always have the upmost respect for her.

  She had been crying too hard to correct him.

  Then, when Mother Superior had tucked the package into her hand, the crying paused only for a moment. “A book?” she said as she looked into the old nun’s eyes.

  “Two,” she said with tears shimmering. “A book of the Psalms and another I’ve been told is a favorite of yours. I thought perhaps you might make some time to further your education while you are en route to your new home.”

  Now as she allowed her gaze to drift across the buildings that made up St. Mary of the Island Orphanage, across the avocado trees that lined the beach side and the copse of guangos that filled the center of the structures, she was struck by how small it all looked. Her gaze lifted to the cross decorating the chapel as her mind returned to the first time she arrived here.