Christina’s fingertips caressed the painted porcelain locket resting against her creamy skin.
“No it is not a souvenir. It belonged to my mother,” she answered softly. “My father had it painted from a 17th century portrait when he first began studying diaries in the Spanish archives. He suspected at the time, that the girl in the portrait was connected to the story of the ring and the sunken ship that Arthur and I are going to search for.” Still holding the locket, Christina continued, “My father believes that a courier, whose mission was to deliver the ring to the Spanish adventurer, hid the ring in the shaft of a cannon when the ship was being boarded by pirates. Within hours of the attack, the ships were separated by gale force winds in the monstrous, churning ocean.” Christina’s eyes danced with fire and excitement as she related the story to Agatha, who was watching her intently.
Suddenly, flushing self-consciously, Christina said, “I’m sorry, this probably isn’t very interesting.”
“Quite the contrary, my dear,” Agatha encouraged, “please go on.”
Christina smiled politely, her eyes not looking up. “Well, there really isn’t much more,” she paused and lifted a crystal goblet of wine to her softly tinted lips. “As the night pressed on, the ocean’s force pushed the tiny ship onto the shoals off the Tortola coast, where it was torn apart. Its crew was thrown helpless into the dark waters. Salvage crews over the years have ignored the shipwreck area because it was thought to have a worthless tobacco cargo and there was no record that the ship had a cannon aboard.” She flashed a glance at Agatha, who had changed her gaze and who was now looking off pensively into the room while rolling her own large diamond pendant thoughtfully between her fingers.
…
While pouring brandy after dinner, Arthur explained that he had arranged for Christina to begin her diving lessons the following morning and with her father calling soon he felt he should walk her back to the cottage. Thanking Agatha for the dinner, Christina looked forward to the upcoming moments alone with Arthur on her return to the cottage.
Agatha graciously held Christina’s hands for a moment and reminded Arthur to not keep her talking in the “chilly garden for long. She has had a dreadfully long day and you’ll have all day tomorrow to talk.”
As they stepped into the solitude of the veranda a melody of sounds were created by the songs of night birds, the rustle of palm leaves and the increased tempo of the wind chimes in the evening breeze from the sea. Daylight had vanished. The moon paused low on the horizon.
Christina, a slight shiver running down the smoothness of her back, acknowledged, “Your mother seems to have been right about the evening air.” She put her left forearm across her breasts and caught her right shoulder in an effort to cover her bareness.
In a movement that tightened his brilliant white dress shirt against his rather lean frame, Arthur responded by removing his dinner jacket and stepping in front of Christina. She suddenly felt warmed by his body as he shielded her torso while reaching behind her back to pull his jacket up and around her trembling shoulders.
Steadying herself against this adjustment of the wrap, Christina put her fingertips lightly against his chest, just near his arm. Held at this distance by her hand and his grasp of the arms of the coat, the space between them allowed her to look fully into Arthur’s friendly face and at his wide and ever patient smile.
“Is that better?” he asked, pulling the coat’s sleeves ever so slightly.
The lamp light combined with the glow of moonlight in such a manner as to give Christina’s pale skin a special luminescence. Her lips parted and her eyes moved to watch her fingertips as they lightly explored the shirt’s small pleats near Arthur’s collar.
“Have you missed me?” she asked in an effort to elicit some personal feeling from him. Her bottom lip pursed ever so slightly in a seductive gesture as she asked the question and the expression she made with her lips surprised her even as she made it. She felt an instant rush of self-conscious embarrassment while at the same time feeling a mixture of irritation and confusion at Arthur for being so casual with her.
Raising his hand to her face, Arthur put his fingers under her chin and bending, kissed her lightly, softly on the temple. “Of course I’ve missed you Christina. The time that we spent together in Seattle became very special to me. Quite apart from the cannon and the ring, your being here is very important to me…to us…for we will finally have the time to really get to know one another.”
Arthur removed his hand from Christina’s chin and turned slightly away. Looking to a far off place on the horizon he continued, “I think it is important for you to get to know me Christina, here in my home, with my responsibilities and for you to get to know my mother as I did your father in Seattle. She’s very much alone in the world and it is important for me to have you become close to her, to understand her.” His voice trailed for a moment as Christina looked intently at his lips waiting for more words, words that would feel more personal, words that would assure her.
Instead Arthur surprised her by saying, “Isn’t this garden wonderful? My parents gathered these plants from everywhere in the Caribbean. There isn’t anywhere in the world more beautiful to me than this garden.”
Silenced with a deepening sense of disappointment, Christina turned complacently as Arthur put his hand on her back in a gesture that directed her beside him and forward towards the cottage.
“You and I are going to have a grand time, Christina, with lots of time to just talk and get reacquainted. For now, however, you need to talk with your father and to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for you. Your diving instructor is a friend of mine, but he’ll make you work hard, I’m afraid. I think you’ll like him. He is the best around. I have to go to the Office of Antiquities in the morning, but I’ll meet you for lunch and then take you to meet him. Jonathan will bring you in to town.”
Christina protested. “I could go with you in the morning. I really would like to….” her voice trailed off with expectation. The phone began to ring in the cottage and the sound of it jolted her attention from her hopeful request.
“That will be your father. You’d better hurry. Tell him hello for me,” Arthur instructed. “Jonathan will bring you in to town at noon.” He patted her back and brushed her hair in a gesture of good-bye.
Christina hurried into the cottage and while closing the door turned and smiled back at Arthur with a sense of confusion mixed with feigned politeness.
He nodded and raised his hand slightly in her direction. “Good night Christina,” he murmured.
Turning quickly, she closed the door and rushed to the phone.
“Hello.” With her free hand Christina brushed the bare shimmer of tears from her eyes. “Hello, Daddy. I’m so glad you called. How are you today? … Oh I’m sorry it’s turned out to be an inconvenient time. Did Mrs. Walters look in on you today?”
Chapter 4
The radiance of the mid morning sun streamed through the curtains as they danced in the tropical air and the rays of it warmed Christina’s outstretched arm as it rested against the sheets. Soft strands of hair moved by a sea-scented breeze brushed against her cheek. She stirred in her sleep and slowly awakened.
Opening her eyes, she remained for a moment disoriented to her new surroundings. Shaking off her unsettling dreams, she lifted her body forward and sitting on the edge of the bed stretched her arms and legs like a cat languishing in the sunlight. She showered before the open window, its breath-taking view becoming a potpourri of greens and blues as the glass steamed and was transformed by the ever changing water patterns. The uncovered window had obviously been planned. The cottage’s position on the hill made it impossible to see into the bath. Christina felt, nevertheless, slightly irreverent in her nakedness before the window, but she smiled, shut her eyes and lifted her chin to the sun as it warmed the droplets of water that joined in a singular stream between her breasts before dividing and flowing downward across her thighs.
Stepping into the tiny kitchen Christina caught her breath in a startled gesture at the sight of a breakfast tray on the counter. Someone had been in the cottage and she hadn’t heard them. An uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability swept over her as she reached for a note on the tray. Opening the folded paper, Christina’s senses took in the aroma of coffee, tropical juice, breakfast muffins and marmalade.
The note read:
Good morning, Christina.
I trust that you slept well. When you are ready, Jonathan will drive you into meet Arthur for lunch. He expects you about 12:30 and he wanted me to remind you to take your swimming things and whatever else is involved with that sort of business. Do have a good day dear.
Agatha.
Taking a bite of a honey flavored muffin and washing it down with the interesting juice, Christina, on impulse, switched on the intercom and to her fortune she thought, Jonathan answered.
In matter of fact tones, she asked, “Jonathan would you take me into town in twenty minutes?” She loosened the towel and shook her hair backwards.
A tone of concern in his voice, Jonathan replied, “Mr. Vaughn can’t meet you until after twelve o’clock, Miss Weldon and…”
“I know that Jonathan, but I’d like to go into town early and shop. Please take me,” Christina implored politely as she air dried her hair fluffing it vigorously with her hands.
A short while later, having responded to her request, Jonathan found himself in Road Town stopping the car in front of the Town Square. Hurrying around to her door, he offered, “I’ll show you around Miss Weldon until it’s time to meet Mr. Vaughn.”
Christina declined reassuringly, “I’ll be fine, Jonathan, just tell me where I’m to meet Mr. Vaughn.”
Jonathan, a worried expression crossing his ordinarily relaxed face, protested, “Mr. Vaughn wouldn’t like me to leave you here. No, I’m sorry; I really must stay with you.”
Christina, standing her ground said “no” quite emphatically and touching the back of his hand, said, “Jonathan don’t worry about me. I really will be quite all right and I’ll tell Mr. Vaughn that I am entirely responsible for being here alone.”
With hesitation and concern, Jonathan explained the rudimentary layout of the town and directed Christina to the restaurant where she was to meet Arthur and then he watched her with an expression of concern as she bid him farewell.
Alone, a small athletic bag flung over her shoulder, Christina walked into Town Square, the city’s central complex. A barren hillside dotted with houses rose sharply behind its gleaming, white arched arcades. The brilliant light reflecting from its stucco walls produced a glare around the edges of her Givenchy sun glasses and Christina’s backless wrap-around sundress allowed the sun to burn against her winter paled skin.
In the daylight the buildings surrounding the square looked smaller to Christina than she remembered from her childhood and the faded pastel colors of the buildings appeared worn and old. As was the case yesterday, the buildings served as a contrast to the dress of the people. Today, however instead of children, native women, impeccably dressed and wearing nylons and good shoes, occupied the high curbed sidewalks. Some wore hats and some carried colorful parasols. The tourists among the people were obvious by their pale skin and casual dress.
As Christina shopped and browsed the small venues along the square and studied the windows filled with trinkets and souvenirs, her mind began a slow emotional journey back across time to her first day in Tortola with her mother and father so many years earlier. Everything, though seemingly smaller, was familiar except for her inner feelings of loneliness. Even Arthur’s presence on the island did not, for the moment, dispel her sudden sense of isolation. She fought back her feelings by trying to become occupied with a superficial interest in a group of children running after a chicken that was making the best of an escape.
Behind the children, a mother noisily chased the group through the crowd. Christina, forgetting her reverie for a few seconds, smiled at the sight and the darkness of her expression lifted.
As she walked further, the road began to curve and a small Catholic church sitting quaintly in a grove of shade trees came into view. A short distance past the church the town’s jail stood dreary and Spartan-like in marked contrast to the colorfully dressed people on the street and the brightness of the island’s light. Christina was nearly in front of the jail before she realized what it was; its large front gate heavily barred but offering pedestrians a depressing view into its dirty debris strewn courtyard.
She paused and shadowing her eyes with her hand ventured a look through the bars into the interior of the jail. In the center of the barren courtyard, stood a small tin roofed structure with a porch heavily shadowed in the nearly mid-day sun. The entire place looked deserted and similar to how she imagined a jail would appear in some far off French Foreign Legion outpost.
Suddenly from the shadows just near the gate a lurid face stepped within a foot of Christina and a barely audible cry of fright rose in her throat. A hideous, toothless smile leered through the bars at the bareness of her shoulders and as she recoiled backward, she simultaneously felt her body touch the bare sticky, moistness of someone’s skin. She turned frantically into the unpleasant face of another man, his scent sickening with perspiration and alcohol. Almost paralyzed with fright, Christina’s legs felt detached and not within her control.
The man inside the gate acknowledged the intoxicated man near Christina with thick disgusting tones, “Well George, my buddy, is this here old Patrick’s getting out present you done promised me?” Both men laughed wickedly and a third man now standing behind Christina began to cough with thick congestion which he spat onto the sidewalk near Christina’s sandals.
Her exits seemed blocked and the moment became suspended in Christina’s mind, a sickening slow-motion encounter in which her body seemed to stand still while time and evil moved around her.
As one of the men on the sidewalk staggered a step toward Christina, he wiped a dirt encrusted hand across his sweaty chest and tugging his loose trousers up around his fat waist he rubbed his other hand on the crotch of his filthy pants.
Panic gripped Christina’s throat and, her heart pounding in her ears, she turned into the face of the third man, still coughing and spitting as he alternately smiled and rubbed his forearm across his mouth.
“Don’t you worry yourself, darling, old Patrick’s go’in to have himself out of here just as quick as this here guard opens these pearly gates, you be’in the heaven he never thought he’d see.”
The word “guard” resounded in Christina’s ears. Her eyes darted in through the gate and beside the leering man, indeed a guard was fumbling with a ring of keys.
He looked up to recognize Christina’s frightened expression and offered, “You’d better go along Miss. Pay no attention to them; they’re harmless enough but I got no jurisdiction to keep ‘em from talking to you.” From behind the guard several more prisoners had stepped from the darkness of the porch and were now whistling, rubbing their crotches and throwing lewd comments in Christina’s direction. One of the men approaching from the group behind and out of sight of the guard began to fumble with the zipper of his pants.
As unexpectedly as the prisoners had appeared from the shadows, Christina felt a sharp pain in her left arm as a hand grabbed her and nearly lifted her off the ground. Through sheer muscular force she was helplessly being led forward away from her entrapped position by the gate. As a gasp was leaving Christina’s mouth, a mouth now dry with terror, a voice attached to the owner of the hand on her arm offered, in utterly calm tones, “Nice girls like you should be more discerning about where they walk.”
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As she was being held and led involuntarily forward by a man’s grasp of her upper arm, Christina looked up and over her shoulder. Beside her and looking straight ahead was the large, handsomely sculpted face of the man whose flat tire had interrupted her journey the day before.
In response to her glance the man’s gaze flickered over her graceful body and he nodded in the direction of the church. “We’ll go over there. It’s cooler. And it’s safer.” Even though their pace had slowed the man’s fingers continued their vise-like grip of her arm.
Christina, struggling to gain some sense of control, felt both rescued and newly threatened. Indeed this man was as unknown to her as were the drunks now a half a block behind and he was hurting her. Stopping with a jerking movement Christina angrily pulled away from the stranger’s grasp. His fingers lingered for a moment, reluctant to let go of their powerful control. Shorn of her customary reticence, Christina rubbed her arm and examined the marks made by the man’s grasp.
“I appreciate your concern Mr….,” she paused and looked demandingly into his dark blue eyes.
“Corbett,” he replied, a sense of amusement crossing his expression.
“Mr. Corbett,” she emphasized. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much.” She rubbed her arm with a look of irritation, inwardly grateful to the stranger for whisking her away from the men who were now singing and kicking at a trash can on a the curb near the jail.
Trying to marshal her emotions into some semblance of order, Christina observed, in self-assessment, “Yes, I’m fine….I mean I would have been fine by myself.” She paused. “Do you make a habit of grabbing women on the street and wrenching their arms?”
He smiled apologetically, “I’m sorry, it seemed like you needed to be away from that crowd of rogues in a hurry, but maybe I was mistaken. I hope I wasn’t interrupting the formation of some sort of dinner party.”
Courier of Love Page 4