Into His Arms

by Paula Reed

  “What is your name?” he asked the Spaniard.

  “Capitán Diego Montoya de Madrid y Delgado Cortes.”

  “Well, Capitán Diego Montoya et cetera, et cetera, as it happens, I’ve no taste for blood today.”

  “What’s this?” Killigrew shouted. “Ye’re not goin’ to let ‘im off, Cap’n! ‘E knew what ‘e was up against, an’ ‘e made ‘is choice. Run ‘im through and we’ll take what we want. Then we’ll set this rat-infested crate aflame!”

  Geoff kept his eyes on his prisoner, but he dearly wanted to walk over and take another shot at Killigrew’s nose. The last thing he needed right now was to be challenged by one of his own men. “Shut up, Killigrew, else I’ll toss you overboard!”

  Undaunted, Pete Killigrew tried another tack. His Spanish was limited, but it was sufficient to reach Magdalena’s crew.

  “Cochino,” he taunted a young sailor. The lad was barely twenty, and it was obvious that their defeat had galled him. Killigrew looked him over with contempt. “Su madre es la puta? La prostituta, sí?” he provoked.

  The Spaniard spat in his face, and Killigrew drew his cutlass. A cry went up among the Spaniards that was answered by the English.

  “Hold!” Geoff shouted, but the command was lost amid the shouting of men and the rasping of steel. Magdalena’s crew leaped to their comrade’s defense, and Destiny’s band joined the fray.

  Diego cursed, and like Geoff, shouted to his men to desist, but to no avail. Cutlasses and swords rang, mingling with the cries of wounded sailors.

  As before, Destiny’s men gained the upper hand, and the fracas was nearly at an end when an uneasy tingle zinged down Geoff’s spine. He turned quickly, stepping to the side just as his would-be attacker lunged with a blood stained cutlass. He barely heard Giles’s belated warning cry as he sank his own blade into Pete Killigrew’s chest.

  It brought the last of the battle to a grinding halt. Even the Spaniards stood in stunned silence, witnesses to the clear attempted murder of the English captain by one of his own. Geoff gazed dispassionately on the man who had, quite frankly, become an irritant.

  Killigrew’s body slid from Geoff’s cutlass to the deck, and Geoff gave the careless order to throw it overboard. The incident left Destiny’s crew edgy, filling the air with all the explosive tension of a powder keg in a lightning storm. The Spanish crew, sensing the uncertainty of whatever mercy they could hope for, stayed out of the way, watching in sullen silence as Madeira, exotic spices, precious fabrics, and their salaries disappeared into Destiny’s hold.

  Bound so tightly to the mast that his wrists bled, Diego did not watch the process before him. Instead, he watched the other captain. The man was a mystery. He clearly took no pleasure in the day’s events. Perhaps he was still shaken by his man’s betrayal.

  Without venom, Diego said, “I would not let it bother me. I don’t suppose you can expect much loyalty from a pirate.”

  “Nor you much mercy,” Geoff retorted, though he could not seem to summon much malice either.

  But he had hit upon a nerve. Why had he shown them such mercy? Diego wondered. Why, in this one instance, had Capitán Hampton veered from what he claimed was his usual destruction of a ship that had dared to defy him?

  The pirate who had captured Galeno earlier now directed the activity, keeping a careful eye on the cargo as it was unloaded. So, Diego thought, this man was the quartermaster. The man had long ago released Galeno, after Diego had given the boy strict orders to stay out of the way. Presently, Galeno helped the ship’s doctor wash and bind wounds. In yet another unexpected gesture of kindness, the quartermaster patted the child’s head as the boy scooted past him in search of more bandages.

  Leaning his head back against the mast, Diego closed his eyes. “So Santa Maria,” he whispered softly, “what I wished for most, victory, was not meant to be. Today was not yet my time to be a hero. What now? When does my time come?”

  The only reply was the gentle groan of the mast as the wind pulled at its sails.

  Chapter 14

  Faith gripped the flintlock in white-knuckled fingers. She heard men going in and out of the hold, but they were eerily quiet. Perhaps this was the mood on a privateer ship when the captain had been lost in battle. Footsteps departed from the path to the hold, pausing outside the cabin door. She screwed up her courage as the door opened, and she raised the flintlock to her head.

  “Good God, Faith, put that damned thing down!”

  She was so relieved to see Geoff’s face that she didn’t even care that he had taken the Lord’s name in vain. She dropped the gun to the desk and rushed into his arms, tears of relief spilling over her cheeks.

  He held her tightly against him. She was a brave wench; he’d give her that. The determination in her eyes gave testimony to the fact that she had been prepared to die. No screaming, no hysterics, just a dignified end at her own hand. He took her anxious, beautiful face between his hands and gave her a thorough kiss, one that sent both their heads spinning.

  “No time to tarry, love. There’s much to do and a long story to tell you. You’re safe, and I’m here, and I’ll be back soon, for I’m wanting you a damn sight more than what we’re loading up now.” He smiled at her, and the quickening of his breath promised a reunion worth a few hours’ more waiting. And he had called her love.

  “I’ll be waiting,” she replied. “Do not keep me long, for I’d have you know how glad I am to see you.”

  For all their lighthearted banter, Faith still felt jittery inside. He could have been dead. It was only by the grace of God that he was not. But what about the next time, and the time after that? It was a sin, what he did for a living. He stole from innocent people. How much longer could he count on God’s grace?

  Every time that Faith’s confidence flagged, each time that she wondered if she had sacrificed everything, her family, her home, her soul for naught, she assured herself that surely this was God’s will. She had prayed for deliverance, and He had given her Destiny and her captain. Now, she had to ask yet another question. What might Geoff have prayed for, had he any belief in the power of prayer? How was she his deliverance, too, and from what?

  Geoff would never have wished for anyone like Faith. Well she knew that. And yet, was she not what he needed? She knew that she could give him the love he didn’t believe existed, but any number of women could give him that. She could preach to him, teach him all that her church had taught her, but she was in such turmoil over her own religious convictions. Surely God could have sent him a far better missionary than her pitiful self.

  It seemed that Geoff had been given to her so that she could ask the very questions that terrified her, defy all that she had ever accepted as true. Could she not be the same for him? It had all been too easy for both of them. She had been handed all the answers, and Geoff had been told there were none. Even as he encouraged her to seek the truth, could she not do the same for him?

  *

  Later that night, or really, early the next morning, Faith sat at the desk, holding up a delicate chain of gold filigree. Lamplight danced off the facets of a sapphire surrounded by diamonds that dangled from the chain. Her eyes were wide with wonder, but he could tell by the little tug of guilt at the corner of her mouth that she was about to refuse it.

  “Now, Faith, ‘tis not as though it cost me anything.”

  She cast him a look of dismay. “That is just the thing. It seems to me that to accept a gift I know is stolen is the same as stealing it.”

  “Where do you think I got the silk?”

  Faith’s conscience pricked her. The dress was finished, but there was no way to clean the delicate fabric on the ship, so she was waiting to wear it. “I guess I didn’t think about it. I was so busy worrying that it was sinful in and of itself.”

  Geoff laughed and pulled her up and against him. “‘Tis a funny thing. I would think you had given up on all those commandments.”

  Faith flushed, but her smile belied any shame. “I ca
nnot explain it. I know any minister would disagree, and mayhap I am only seeking an excuse for my behavior, but I cannot feel shame for what we share.”

  “I tell you, Faith, the rules you follow are the rules of men, not any deity.”

  She looked wistfully at the pendant. It tempted her, not for its beauty, though it was an exquisite piece, but for its value as a love token. Still, there were moral boundaries that went beyond the choices she made for herself.

  “To whom do you suppose it belongs, and where was it going? What if this belongs to someone’s mother, and she is sending it to her son for his bride-to-be? What if it is some last memento of a loved-one lost? For you I am willing to risk my immortal soul, but I cannot take something from an innocent.”

  “Innocent? It belonged to a Spaniard.”

  “My uncle is a Spaniard. Why is that so terrible?”

  “Ask the poor souls who’ve faced the Inquisition.”

  “Are we English without sin? Do we not justify the murder of savages in the name of God?”

  “For God’s sake, Faith!” At her wince he sighed in frustration. “I’m sorry. Damn your bloody commandments! Must you make everything so complicated? Spain has been a thorn in England’s side in these islands for over a century. Even the king grants us his blessing in plundering their greedy stores.”

  “Has the woman who wore this been a thorn in England’s side?”

  Thrusting a hand through his hair, he sighed in frustration. He had never thought of himself as stealing from people. He had always stolen from Spain.

  “If it troubles the king not that we take the entire city of Panama, what care you for a little trinket?” he grumbled. He felt another twinge of conscience over the whole affair of the Spanish ship, not at all liking it.

  She shrugged and handed the necklace back to him. “It has oft occurred to me that the laws God gave Moses on the mountain protect us from doing injury to others. The Bible instructs us in many matters, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that much of that instruction is open to interpretation. The Ten Commandments are not. They are clear and unambiguous. The eighth commandment prohibits me from taking this.”

  “Is the Bible ambiguous about fornication?” Geoff challenged, snatching the rejected offering from her fingers.

  “Nay.” Faith worried her lower lip with her teeth. In truth, she prayed every night that God would forgive her once she and Geoff were married. The fact that he had never given her any indication that he had changed his mind about marriage was something she refused to contemplate.

  “‘Tis simply that you are willing to break that rule?”

  “This is unfair! You know why I have broken that rule, but if I try to actually talk to you about it, you get angry. You say that I am ‘complicating’ it.”

  Geoff rose and contemplated the darkness beyond the window. “Can you not see why we cannot continue like this?”

  “Like what?” she asked, more bitterly than she intended. “I do but give you what you have, all along, told me you wanted, and I ask nothing in return.”

  “I wanted it to be the same for both of us!”

  “It is. You’re just too stubborn to see it. All my life, I have been told that this world and its ways are evil, and I have believed it because I had no way of knowing different. That belief made me afraid, and I worked ceaselessly to prove that I was good. Do you not see?” Geoff shook his head, perplexed. “We are the same, you and I. You see the world as evil, a place where you must take ere someone takes from you. No one has ever shown you any other truth, so you have worked ceaselessly to take all you could.

  “You urge me to give up all that I have been taught, and I am seeing it differently, that’s sure, but what of you? Can you not open your eyes to a new truth? My love is real, Geoff, though you would deny it. All the world is not evil. We can choose to treat one another kindly and to share the love we have, even with unknown Spaniards! I was always told that God is not moved by the works of men, but I have come to see that we move each other. He admonishes us to love one another. Perhaps that is the purest way we live His Word.”

  Geoff said nothing, only stared out the port and into the night. The words she spoke were so full of hope they left a hollow ache in his chest. Would that she could make them true, but she was young and naïve. A few days in Port Royal and a few months on a sugar plantation would show her otherwise. She would give of herself, and those to whom she would give would cut her, hurt her until she learned that she must look to her own interests. How long would it be ere she would realize that life with a privateer would not serve her?

  When he turned back to her, he kept his face carefully unscrupulous. “There’s a girl! God meant us to love one another, and if you’ll not take my trinket, mayhap there is something I have that’s more to your liking!” He reached for her, but she caught his wrists in her small hands.

  “Nay, Geoff! You hate it when I hide my feelings from you, yet you think nothing of hiding yourself from me. If you cannot love me, at least do not lie to me.”

  Geoff pulled her close so that she could not see the depth of his own hurt. “Forgive me, my sweet. I have no head for this, but I would not try to hurt you. Come, let me soothe the hurt.”

  What he could not tell her with words he told her with his body, and because Faith knew this, she accepted what he could give.

  Chapter 15

  “All of it? You let them take the entire shipment?” Don Luis’s face was purple with rage. “That pirate has pillaged two of my ships in as many months!”

  “Don Luis,” Diego protested, “we had already lost seven men to the fever, and even with a full and healthy crew, we could not have defeated the English. We did our best, I assure you, but in doing so, we nearly lost the ship as well. When we made port here in Cartagena, I was told that he usually torches the ships of those who challenge him.”

  Don Luis narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “So he does. But you fought him, you say?”

  “With all that we had. We were greatly outnumbered.”

  “I will not have this! I want this man, this Captain Hampton. I want him here, in Cartagena, to face justice for the losses he has caused me!” He pinned Diego with his blazing brown eyes. “You captained Magdalena back to Cartagena. Do you want to keep your command?”

  “Yes, Don Luis. I am a good captain. I tell you, I made the wisest choices I could under the circumstances. I am not a coward, sir. If I could meet Captain Hampton in an even match, I would do it, and I would win.”

  “Then you will have your chance. I will give you three months and lend you Marguerite, my largest ship. If you deliver the English dog to me, I will return command of Magdalena to you, permanently. If you cannot find him, send the ship back to me, but you need not return with her.”

  “I will find him, Don Luis.”

  “I prefer him alive, but if you must kill him, then bring me proof.”

  Diego stalwartly ignored the sense of uneasiness that pulled at him. Yes, the pirate had spared his life and those that remained of his crew, but he had killed others. For that, he must face justice.

  *

  With a stormy mixture of dread and excitement, Faith caught her first glimpse of the island of Jamaica. This was the culmination of a daring voyage and a land filled with exotic promise. It was also, quite possibly, the end of her time with Geoff, and she felt as though her heart might burst with anticipation or shatter with grief. Which would come first, she couldn’t say.

  Beside her at the ship’s rail, Geoff watched the island too, his face an unreadable mask, a sign that never boded well.

  “‘Tis beautiful,” Faith ventured at last, unable to bear the silence any longer.

  “Aye, ‘tis,” Geoff replied flatly.

  The colorful tumble known as Port Royal lay scattered on a flat swath of land stretching between the Caribbean Sea and a long, narrow harbor. Beyond the harbor rose mountains choked with vegetation and swept by gray clouds and afternoon rain. There were woo
dlands aplenty in New England, but the glossy mystery of these forests surpassed anything she had known before. She knew, for Geoff had told her, that these dense, vibrant mountains were home to Maroons, those slaves who had managed to escape. It was a harsh existence, but a free one.

  “Will we go ashore?” Faith asked, then held her breath waiting for his answer.

  Still, there was no trace of emotion, either on his face or in his voice, when he replied. There was no way to know what he was thinking. “Aye. You’ll want to do some shopping, I imagine. You’ve never seen anything like the stalls of Port Royal. And I know of a place where we can find a room for a few nights. It’s toward the end of High Street, away from the worst of the taverns and,” he paused, “other establishments.”

  “A few nights?” she asked.

  “Aye.” He gave her a terse smile, then turned abruptly away to speak with several crewmembers. Faith looked back out toward the island with no better understanding of what was between them than she had ever had.

  Across the deck from her, Giles approached his captain. “Her heart is in her eyes, y’know,” he commented, nodding toward Faith’s back.

  “Aye, I know,” Geoff replied. “I could hardly miss it.”

  “And while most would never see it, we’ve been friends long enough that you cannot fool me. Yours is in your eyes, as well.”

  Geoff gazed impassively into Giles’s serious countenance. “Is it, now? And what do you see, old friend?”

  “That you’re about to make the gravest mistake of your life.”

  “What would you have me do, Giles? Look out there. Do you see a town where Faith would make a home? Am I to leave her there for months at a time while I’m at sea? Nay, she’ll be safe and sound with her family, and they’ll find her some pious, respectable farmer or some such. It’s better this way Giles, and you know it.”