Poseidon's Daughter

by Diane A. S. Stuckart

  Gamely, he fought the queasy sensation that had settled in his gut ever since the ship raised anchor half an hour before. Damn, but he hated the bloody ocean and every mother's son of a bloody ship that sailed it! Why, even the name of the steamer on which they now traveled irked him to no end. The Retribution, it was called...a bloody unpleasant sort of moniker, under the circumstances.

  Reminding himself that the emerald he carried would cancel out that trifling bit of ill omen, he gave Wilkie a resigned shrug. “Remember what I told you last night. In the end, you will find this voyage a small enough price to pay for the prize at stake.”

  “'Ere's ‘oping, then.”

  The doubt in Wilkie's tone indicated his belief that the chances of such an outcome were slim, at best. Still, Malcolm knew that his partner would follow his lead, if only from habit.

  The older man had arrived in Savannah the night before, reaching their rendezvous spot several hours after Malcolm had quit the bank. Reassuring Wilkie as to the state of his health, Malcolm had gone on to relate the details of his capture and subsequent abduction. Wilkie's relief upon discovering that his partner was alive and in the city had given way to smugness as, for much of the remaining evening, he recounted the steps he had taken in the aftermath of Malcolm's unexpected disappearance.

  An’ a right fine piece o' work it was, too, he had opined with no little pride. With a wry smile, Malcolm recalled the rest of the man's tale.

  When his partner had not returned to the hotel, as planned, Wilkie had assumed the worst. He first sent word to the benevolent society Malcolm was scheduled to address that night that Sir John had fallen ill, with his chances of recovery slim. Then, with the shrewd instincts of a man who had successfully outwitted any number of local constabularies, he began piecing together the details of Malcolm's abduction.

  With no other clue at hand, Wilkie had made his way to the Davenport brownstone only to find the house locked and deserted. Making unorthodox use of an upper story window, he had gained entry and begun a swift search. The only evidence he had found as to Malcolm's fate had been more than a little alarming…several blood-soaked cloths left lying in a basin.

  Fearing for his partner's health—if not his very life— Wilkie set out on their trail. He had managed to track down the hack driver whose carriage Christophe had borrowed to carry the trio to the dock. From there, it had been a matter of a few coins pressed into the right palms to discover which ship they had boarded. Within hours, he had been on a ship bound for the same destination as Malcolm, and he possessed a fair description of the three kidnappers.

  Now, Wilkie heaved a gusty sigh and deliberately turned his back on the distant shore. “So, 'ow long do ye plan on waitin' afore ye let 'er catch a glimpse o' ye...that is, if she'll even recognize ye?”

  “If the ‘she’ you are referring to is Miss Davenport, I would venture the two of us will cross paths quite shortly. After all, there is hardly room here to hide,” he explained with an encompassing gesture at the tidy little steamer on which they were traveling.

  In answer to Wilkie's other observation, he absently scrubbed a hand across his smooth upper lip, his mustache and bushy sidewhiskers having gone the way of the departed Sir John. Given the fact that he had affected that style for the better part of a year now, he had been hard-pressed to recognize himself in the mirror last night once he'd shaved away the last of his facial hair. Without it, he looked little older than a school lad, was his own private assessment. Still, the fewer ties he had to his most recent alter ego, the better, especially in this part of the world. With that in mind, he had also reverted to the use of his true name for this particular venture.

  He returned his thoughts to that matter. This voyage, he had learned, would be brief—little more than two days to travel to Florida's southeastern coast, and then a short journey through the Straits of Florida to the Biminis. He knew nothing more of Halia's plans beyond that; still, it followed that she must hire a smaller vessel capable of plumbing the shoreline once they reached the islands. Those details, however, he would leave to her.

  He fondly patted the breast pocket of his coat, where the Atlantis coordinates were safely tucked away. He had learned the page by rote, lest some unforeseen disaster occur and he be forced to recreate its contents from memory. Either way, however, he held the trump card in this game of theirs...a card he was more than ready to play. It only remained now to be seen if she joined him willingly, or not.

  ###

  Halia leaned against the railing of the steamer's upper deck and turned her face to the breeze. For the first time in recent memory, she felt almost at peace with herself. Her outlandish plan had proved a success, after all. Here she was, free at last of the Englishman, and well on her way to Bimini.

  She tied the white ribbons of her straw hat more tightly beneath her chin and let her thoughts drift back to the past two days. With the money she had wrested from Malcolm, she had begun making preparations for the final leg of her journey. In addition to several weeks' worth of rations and supplies, she would be in need of a boat and crew. To that end, she'd send advance word to an acquaintance of her father's in the islands, one Captain Rolle.

  Captain Rolle, the journal notes had indicated, was a native Bimini Islander and an experienced sailor, with a sloop of his own. True, he had not been with Arvin Davenport during that last, most important discovery of his—oddly, no ship or crew of any sort was mentioned in that account—but his knowledge of the surrounding waters would make the captain an ideal candidate for the job she had in mind.

  She could only hope that her message reached him before she landed...and that he was not already otherwise engaged.

  With the appropriate telegrams sent, she had set about purchasing the first of her supplies, having already booked passage on the Retribution for the following day. That accomplished, she performed her most difficult duty, saying good-bye to Christophe.

  “Me, I can't be goin' with you,” he had flatly stated the night before.

  He had refused to elaborate, so that Halia had been at her wits' end. Vaguely, she recalled Lally hinting that her brother harbored some dark secret that had forced him to leave his native Haiti when he was but a young man. What it was, she could not guess. An illicit love affair, perhaps. Hardly reason enough to leave two women to travel on their own, Halia had thought in some pique. Still, she could hardly force the man to go where he did not care to go.

  “Perhaps it is just as well,” she had finally conceded as she counted out his return passage. “I would feel much better knowing our town house was attended, lest a certain Englishman of our acquaintance decide to pay a visit while we are gone. Besides which, once we make Bimini, Captain Rolle will see to our welfare.”

  Now, however, she realized that her concerns over her and Lally traveling alone were groundless. Indeed, there was a sort of freedom that a clear sky and calm, open waters brought with them that she'd never quite noticed while traveling with her father. She intended to revel in it.

  With that in mind, she left her post at the ship's bow and strolled about the deck, greeting her fellow passengers who also were enjoying the ocean breeze. One of them—a portly, bespectacled gentleman of middle years whose most remarkable feature was his bushy gray beard—seemed familiar. Her first thought was that she might previously have met him at some lecture or another she had attended with her father. When the man gave no sign of recognizing her, however, she decided that she must have been mistaken.

  But she was more certain of the identity of another of her fellow passengers whom she suddenly glimpsed across the deck from her.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed in horror.

  The deck beneath her feet seemed to tilt wildly, as if she were a landlubber unused to the ocean's movement. She clutched at the railing for support, a litany of denial now playing through her mind.

  It couldn't be...no, surely this would be too cruel a trick for the Fates to be playing.

  Some perverse sort of curios
ity held her there, waiting for him to look her way. For she had not seen his face, as yet, given the fact that his back was to her and he was engaged in conversation with another, older man. She reminded herself that there still remained a chance that she was again wrong in her identification, that it might not be he.

  Then she shook her head. She could never mistake the coolly arrogant set of Malcolm Northrup's shoulders or the understated elegance of his gestures.

  As if feeling her gaze upon him, the man turned in her direction.

  Her instinctive gasp of dismay became a sigh of relief when she saw that, unlike her nemesis, this man was clean-shaven. Just a silly mistake, she scolded herself and made as if to continue her walk.

  Then he favored her with a cool smile and a jaunty salute, so that her uncertainty came rushing back. What if it was he, and he had merely taken a razor to his face? Unwilling, all at once, to test that hypothesis, she spun about and headed for the sanctuary of her quarters below deck.

  A moment later, white skirts aswirl and hat tilted at a precarious angle, Halia burst into the tiny cabin that she shared with Lally, not bothering to close the door behind her.

  The Haitian woman was sorting the contents of a frayed carpetbag across one narrow bunk. Halia, despite her distress, noted an eclectic collection of items. A glance revealed a half dozen bundles of chicken feathers, carefully sorted by size and color; a dozen or so slim candles, some black, some white, some red; numerous paper packets of various herbs, fresh and dried, whose combined fragrances filled the cramped quarters with a heady perfume.

  At the commotion, Lally replaced the squat bottle she held alongside a collection of similar such containers. Then, smoothing the skirt of her simple yellow shift, she favored Halia with a look of mild reproach.

  “An’ what be your big hurry, girl?”

  “He's here,” she gasped out, collapsing onto her own berth. “That is, I think it is he.”

  She shut her eyes and tried to catch her breath. She had to be mistaken, she told herself. She had left him safely behind in Savannah, had said nothing to him of her plans save her final destination. Perhaps the events of the past few days had taken their toll on her, and she had merely imagined she had seen Malcolm standing on the deck below her.

  Lally, meanwhile, was staring at her in bemusement, the task before her momentarily forgotten. “Who be here?”

  “He ...him...Mr. Northrup.”

  “Dat man?”

  Lally's ebony eyes widened; then, just as swiftly, they narrowed into dark, dangerous slits. Purposefully, she reached into her bag and pulled forth a clear glass vial, which she raised to catch the glimmer of daylight shining through the cabin's hand's-breadth of a porthole.

  The bottle's liquid contents glowed a malevolent ruby hue. The woman added, “This time, I be fixin' him good.”

  “Fixing him? No, Lally, wait!”

  Halia leaped to her feet again and stared in horror at the slim bottle, her heart seeming to still in her breast. Just a few days earlier, she had nearly managed to kill the Englishman. She certainly had not nursed him back to comparative health only to let Lally dose him with some lethal brew.

  “We've no need to take so drastic a step,” she swiftly insisted. “Believe me, we'll find some other way to rid ourselves of Mr. Northrup. We can't just poison the man simply because he followed us from Savannah.”

  “Poison?”

  Lally favored her with a sly smile as she uncorked the bottle. She gave its contents an experimental sniff. Then, with a shrug, she restoppered it and set it out with the rest of her potions. “Who be sayin' anyt'ing ‘bout poison? Dat juice, it won't kill him. It just make him be wishin' he was dead.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Relief set her heart to beating normally once more. She could ill afford the luxury of giving way to panic, she reminded herself. She had to determine just why the Englishman was following them... and what she must do about it.

  “Perhaps he wants his money back,” she hazarded aloud, the idea sending an uncomfortable shiver through her. “After all, ten thousand dollars is quite a sum to lose, even if one is wealthy. Or, maybe he thinks to follow us to the Atlantis site, and then abscond with whatever riches he can lay his hands on.”

  Then an even more appalling possibility struck her, one so outrageous that she did not even dare voice it except to herself. She recalled all too clearly their parting at the bank...that frightening, heady moment when he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Even as she had raged against such cavalier treatment, a small part of her had responded.

  What if he had been equally affected? What if Malcolm had come, not in search of money or even treasure, but in pursuit of her?

  “Here now, luv,” came a familiar voice from the doorway, “Surely you don't think me as crass as all that?”

  Halia's eyes flew open again, and her gaze locked with that of the Englishman as he stood leaning against the door-jamb, regarding her with a bland smile. For one painful moment, she feared she might have spoken that last thought aloud, and mortification swept her. Then she realized he simply was referring to her comment about riches, and she sagged with relief.

  Never again would she even think about the other, was her silent, fervent vow. They were hardly lovers, but were instead enemies, in ideology if not in act. The only common ground between them was beneath their feet. It was a fact she would do well to keep in mind.

  “Indeed, Mr. Northrup, this is quite a surprise,” she managed, her tone not as unruffled as she might have wished.

  She tried not to stare, though her feminine curiosity was piqued by his altered appearance. He looked younger without his mustache and sidewhiskers, even—dare she admit it?—more handsome. Now, she could see the firm line of his well-cut chin and the almost sensual cast to his mouth.

  And he has dimples, as well, spoke up a flighty inner voice unlike her usual sensible self. Appalled by this lapse, she took a steadying breath and went on, “And what odd coincidence brings you here, Mr. Northrup? As I understood it, you have no great fondness for sea travel.”

  “Very true, Miss Davenport, but sometimes one must make sacrifices in the pursuit of one's goals.”

  “And just what might those goals be?”

  “Money...treasure,” came his lazy reply that quite accurately echoed her own earlier guesses.

  He did not wait for Halia's reply but nodded toward his companion standing behind him—a lean man of middling years with a pockmarked face, whose wiry blond hair stuck out at right angles from beneath his bowler.

  “Might I introduce you to my associate, Mr. Wilkie Foote. Wilkie, this is Miss Davenport, the charming young woman whom I told you about.”

  “Right pleased t' meet ye, miss,” came that man's almost mournful reply as, sweeping off his hat, he made her a stiff little bow.

  Halia's murmured acknowledgement was almost as dismayed. Malcolm, however, let his gaze travel about the tiny cabin.

  “And, ah, yes, the redoubtable Lally,” he finished his introductions and gave the Haitian woman a mocking tip of his own straw boater. Then, with a gesture at the paraphernalia she had spread across the bunk, he added, “Cooking up a bit of mischief, are you?”

  “Dat's for you to be findin' out,” Lally spat back with a glare that would have unnerved a lesser man. Catching up a bundle of red rooster feathers, she brandished them menacingly in his direction. Then, reaching for her carpetbag once more, she began shoveling her bottles and potions back within its threadbare confines.

  Malcolm merely shrugged, then returned his gaze to Halia. “So tell me, Miss Davenport, are you enjoying spending my hard-earned money?”

  “Hard-earned?” she retorted, righteous indignation reviving her powers of speech. “Indeed, that is hardly the term I would employ. And you know full well that my intent is not frivolity, but scientific study...which was, as you'll recall, the claim you made to those people from whom you swindled that money in the first place.”

 
“Ah, then perhaps you will have some interest in the proposal I am about to make you. You see, I have given this notion of yours about searching for Atlantis some serious thought. I have concluded it would be to both of our advantages if you and I were to become partners in this particular venture.”

  “Partners with you?”

  Her voice quivered on an emotion that lay somewhere between hilarity and horror. She glanced behind her to see that Lally had paused in her packing. The parcels of herbs in her hand seemingly forgotten, the older woman stood staring at Malcolm with the same expression of disbelief Halia knew must be written across her own features. As for Wilkie, his pockmarked face remained impassive, though his discreet cough might have been an expression of dismay...or else, amusement.

  With a shake of her head, she turned back to Malcolm. A second searching look convinced her that he was quite serious in what he had proposed. But what could have made him think she would consider taking him up on so ludicrous an offer?

  “It seems I have taken you by surprise,” Malcolm broke the silence and favored her with an ironic smile. “Let me elaborate. I am proposing that we travel on to the Biminis together. Once we reach the islands, you will conduct your search for the Atlantis site, funded by the monies I have so generously advanced you. Anything you find, we divide into equal shares—half to me, and the other half to you.”

  “Equal shares,” she faintly echoed.

  The words gave rise to her sense of the absurd, that emotion followed quickly by righteous indignation. Really, but the man had audacity! Not only did he think to follow while she conducted serious research, he expected her to do all the excavating while he no doubt basked upon the beach. Likely, he expected her to cook and clean for him and his partner, as well.

  But more galling than Malcolm's high-handed suggestion was the fact that he regarded her scientific expedition as nothing more than a treasure hunt.