Into His Arms

by Paula Reed

  Faith studied Giles’s face. His mouth was tight and his gray eyes flashed with a trace of temper. “Why are you sorry?” she pressed.

  He heaved a sigh of resignation. “I’m sorry that you were left all alone at the inn. I’m sorry that he didn’t even have the grace to tell you himself.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Giles lifted his eyes to the forest of ships’ masts behind her, unable to look her in the face.

  She tried to swallow, but the lump that had formed in her throat would not allow it. “He’s gone to Winston Hall, hasn’t he? He’s gone to fetch my aunt and uncle.”

  Finally, Giles looked at her. “He woke me in the middle of the night, ranting about two people from two different worlds. I tried to tell him that you only needed time to adjust. If he could have seen you walk down here today, he’d know he was being a fool!”

  Every time she had dared to think of this moment, the moment when she would know beyond a doubt that the affair was over, Faith had been overcome with despair. She expected that emotion to return with overwhelming force. Hence, she was entirely unprepared for the wave of rage that engulfed her now.

  “Ha!” she barked, and Giles gaped in surprise. “I need time to adjust? Do you know what your best friend is, Giles Courtney? He’s a bloody coward!”

  Suddenly, Faith knew why people swore. She felt a pure, clean release when the vulgar word passed her lips. Raising her voice, she continued. “A bloody, bloody, damned, bloody coward! And—and he’s a bastard, too, that’s what!”

  Giles’s shocked expression melted into a grin.

  “What are you smiling about?” Faith railed. “Two people from two different worlds? We’re cut from the same cloth, we two. I’m the best damned thing that’s ever happened in his whole bloody life!”

  Laughing outright, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her fondly, then he set her at arm’s length. “Do you know Faith, I think that you are going to be just fine.”

  She stared hard into his face. “Damned right I am.” This last curse lacked the conviction of all the earlier ones, and at last, the anticipated tears came. “Oh, God, Giles, he’s done it, hasn’t he? He’s left me for good. You told me that he would.”

  “Shush now, Faith, don’t waste your tears.” Giles’s expression softened, and he pushed her hair from her face.

  “He told me that he would. But I wouldn’t listen. I thought—I thought...”

  She lost the sentence in a torrent of sobs, and Giles pulled her back against him. “Don’t cry, now, Faith. I cannot bear weeping. My sisters ever played me for a fool with their tears. I’ll toss him overboard when he returns. Will that suit you?”

  “Aye,” she sniffled against the wet splotch she’d made on his shirt.

  “There now,” he murmured, and again, he pulled away from her. “Chin up. You’ve a whole new life ahead of you. You’ve but finished with one adventure so that you can start another. The countryside’s nothing like here. You’ll like Jamaica, and your family’s plantation is one of the finest.”

  He stopped and looked at her miserable face. “He loved you, you know.”

  Tears welled up again in her eyes. “Why could he never admit it?”

  Giles shrugged his shoulders as though to rid them of some ponderous weight. “In many ways, Geoff’s the bravest man that ever I met. Who would have thought he’d flee in fear from a mere slip of a girl?”

  *

  No sea breeze stirred the heavy, wet air in Faith’s room. The curtains hung listlessly on either side of the window, though it was open wide. Another night and another day had come and gone. Giles had stopped by and taken her to one of the smaller, less seedy taverns for the midday meal. Otherwise, she had filled the hours affixing a ruffle of lace just under the hem of her gown, giving it the appearance of having a fine petticoat underneath. She had just finished the task and dressed again, for the light was waning, and she expected the maid would be in soon to light the lamp.

  She was surprised to open the door and see that Giles had returned. Then she looked over his shoulder at the couple that accompanied him. The man was tall and thin with long, dark hair streaked by silver. He wore a coat and vest of silver and black, accented with fine, white lace, and a hat trimmed in silver braid. The woman wore a breathtaking gown of emerald silk, pulled back to reveal an underskirt of gold tissue, but her face was hauntingly familiar. She looked very much like Faith’s mother.

  For a moment, no one said anything. They simply stared at one another with no idea what to do next.

  “Faith,” the woman whispered at last, and she held her arms open to the niece she had never known. “My dearest Naomi’s Faith.”

  And Faith stepped forward to embrace her aunt and her future.

  “I brought these,” Giles said, holding out the clothes she had brought with her from New England. “I thought you might yet need them awhile.”

  Elizabeth Fernandez took the small bundle of clothes from the ship’s quartermaster. Running her hands over the rumpled wool and worn cotton, a thousand memories seemed to skim across her face. Then she scrutinized the daughter of the sister she had not heard a word from in sixteen years.

  “It is uncanny,” she said. “You look so like Naomi, but fairer, more striking with those eyes.”

  Faith self-consciously smoothed her silk skirt.

  Elizabeth glanced at the dress and smiled softly. “What a lovely gown. An interesting mix of where you have come from and where you are, my dear.”

  “I think that I am ready to truly leave behind where I have come from,” Faith said.

  “Well,” Elizabeth offered, “we can do that, at least in terms of fashion. Ere we leave, we’ll buy fabrics and trimmings and see if we can’t break poor Miguel. Oh! I have forgot myself. Miguel, your niece, Faith Cooper.”

  Miguel smiled kindly at her. In his mellifluous Spanish accent, he replied, “It is a great pleasure, Faith. I did not know your mother well, but I remember she was a good woman.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry that we have been separated all these years. And I cannot thank you enough for coming to my rescue. My mother said that you would.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes teared. “I’m so glad that she knew that. Oh, I have missed her so much! You must tell me everything. Everything! The sea captain who brought us here told us all about that awful minister, but he knew little else. He said that you have brothers, besides Noah, I mean.”

  Faith kept her voice carefully level. “And where is Captain Hampton?” she asked.

  Elizabeth paused and searched Faith’s face. “He claimed to have some very pressing business. I had hoped that he could delay it long enough to reunite us, but it appears that it was not to be. He was thoughtful enough to appoint Mister Courtney, who has been too kind.”

  Faith looked up at the man who had come to be such a dear friend. “Thank you, Giles.”

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It was the least I could do.”

  “When you see your captain, tell him...tell him—” Faith searched for the right words. What? Tell him that it would have been better to let her die in the rat-infested hold than to have done this to her? Tell him that he could rot in hell for all she cared? Neither of those was really true.

  “I’ll tell him you said goodbye.” Giles’s own eyes were suspiciously moist.

  “Aye, that will do. And goodbye to you, Giles.”

  He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her head, a gesture so like her twin brother that she had to break the embrace before her emotions overwhelmed her.

  “Good luck, Faith. You’ll be fine, you’ll see. Your aunt and uncle are so happy to have you here. They’ll take good care of you.”

  “Aye,” she repeated. She glanced at the couple who had waited patiently through the exchange, and Faith wondered if her feelings were horribly obvious.

  Giles took his leave, and Elizabeth and Miguel made arrangements for another room. They would begin the jour
ney back to Winston Hall on the morrow, after what was to be a rather daunting excursion through the market place.

  The next day, Faith followed Elizabeth and her uncle through countless stalls. Out of apparent deference to her distinguished companions, Captain Larken made no indication that he and Faith had ever met, but he winked at her when Elizabeth’s back was turned. She discovered that Miguel had a gentle sense of humor, and he jokingly made a fuss about the many packages of cloth, lace and ribbons his wife cheerfully loaded into his arms. Faith adamantly protested the trouble and expense, but her aunt waved her concerns away.

  “God never granted us children, dear. At last, I can dote upon one of my sister’s children. You cannot deny an old woman such a simple pleasure.”

  Elizabeth looked far from old, and ‘twas clear she knew it. She smiled at Miguel, who quickly defended his wife’s beauty, as though they had played out many a similar scene before. Faith could not imagine a comparable conversation between her parents. Surely her father would be shocked were her mother to display such vanity. Still, her aunt and uncle’s relationship seemed easy and comfortable, and Faith felt a stab of longing.

  This might have been her and Geoff if he hadn’t been so stubborn. The thought filled her with sadness, dampening her enthusiasm.

  “Well, you surely are a patient girl,” Elizabeth said. “You look exhausted, and here I am dragging you all around the market. I do love to shop, as Miguel can tell you, but it’s high time we were on our way. We won’t make it there until tomorrow, but we’ve friends with a plantation where we can spend the night.

  Once they’d made all their purchases, they headed back to the inn to retrieve Elizabeth and Miguel’s carriage. On the way, they had to carefully avoid the attention of a hard-drinking pirate in the middle of the street. He sat on a cask of rum, threatening to shoot anyone who refused to drink with him.

  Elizabeth shook her head and took her niece’s hand. “Not much like Boston, I think.”

  “Nay,” Faith affirmed, thinking of Veronique. She couldn’t suppress a smug grin at the thought of the temptress’s indecent neckline obscured by heavy wooden stocks. Oh, what her Puritan neighbors would do with a woman like Veronique!

  She didn’t dare glance into any of the taverns. If she had, she would have spied the man who hid in the door of the Sea Nymph, the tavern where he had been half hoping, half dreading that he might see her pass by.

  The blue silk gown was beginning to look the worse for wear, but he was glad that she had not resumed her old attire. Among the memories that he had so carefully stored away, this final glimpse would last the longest. It would be the one he carried with him until fortune saw fit to find him an opponent more skilled than himself.

  Chapter 18

  Winston Hall seemed to Faith far more than half a world away from home. The plantation was called after her mother and aunt’s maiden name, as it had seemed unwise to keep the Spanish name it had borne before the English claimed the island. When Miguel had lived there alone, he lived in a small hut, just as most of his neighbors did. In deference to his English bride, he’d had the manor house built of stones brought from England as ships’ ballast.

  The kitchen stood separately, behind and to one side. From the spacious veranda in front, they enjoyed an exquisite view of a small bay and the Caribbean Sea. In the shallows, the water was a cool aqua, just the shade of Faith’s eyes, though she never made the connection. Farther out, where the water was deeper and all manner of sea life played among the reefs, it was the color of flawless sapphires, and sunlight danced upon a thousand facets.

  The grounds were no less breathtaking. A spacious lawn with stone walkways surrounded the house itself. Dogwood, ironwood, and island mahogany provided shade, while ackee, wild lime, naseberry, mango, and almond trees added sustenance to their ornamental function. The gardens were brought to life by coral clusters of tiny, star-shaped ixoria blossoms. Magenta pussy tails, long and fuzzy like tiny boas, mingled with earth orchids in shades of crimson and fuchsia. Arbors provided shade along the walkway.

  Cane fields stretched from the lawn to the sea, where sea grape and coconut trees provided shade along the edge of the water. Behind the house, cluster palms and other lush vegetation hid a wealth of bananas, plantains, and even more mangos and ackee.

  Ackee, Faith discovered, was a curious, pod-like fruit. The inner flesh looked like scrambled eggs, though it tasted nothing like them, and was fatally poisonous if eaten before the fruit ripened and popped open, exposing the pulp and black seeds within.

  One morning, Faith dressed in one of Elizabeth’s gowns and sat sewing in the gallery in a chair next to her aunt. A cool sea breeze blew through the open windows lining both the front and back walls of the long, elegantly furnished chamber. In the week since Faith had arrived, several black seamstresses had slaved day and night to complete the collection of gowns that would become Faith’s new wardrobe. But Elizabeth insisted that she and Faith attach the trimmings of ribbons and lace.

  “They’ll steal bits and pieces, you know,” Elizabeth explained, “and then they’ll get into fights over them.”

  The thought made Faith sad. How little they must have to fight over bits of lace. She had wanted to talk to the slave women who had come to fit her for the dresses, but Elizabeth strongly discouraged it, and the women had quickly done their jobs and left. Likewise, her aunt kept her away from the kitchens and the women who worked them, and made sure that she never went near the field hands. Even with such limited exposure, it occurred to Faith that slavery was the serpent in this Garden of Eden.

  Glancing at her niece’s gloomy face, Elizabeth sought to cheer her. “Did Naomi ever tell you about the chickens we bartered for a long strip of lace?”

  The statement snapped Faith from her musings. There were a few very wealthy women in Boston who trimmed their collars with a small amount of lace, but she had never seen her mother do such a frivolous thing.

  “Nay, she never did.”

  “Oh, it was a delicate bit of finery!” Elizabeth said with a fond smile and a faraway look. “‘Pretty enough for a fairy’s wings,’ Naomi said.”

  It was hard to imagine her mother indulging in such a fantasy. “My mother said that?”

  “Aye! It was her idea, the whole scheme. We were still living in England at the time. A peddler came through our community, hawking fabrics and such. Our little village was made up of Puritans and farmers. They bought plenty of muslin, but no one had any use for the lace he carried with him, as well. While our mother perused sensible bolts of cotton, Naomi insisted that we simply had to have that lace.”

  “My mother?” Faith repeated dubiously.

  Elizabeth only giggled. “Well, we hied ourselves home, and Naomi got this grand idea that we could barter chickens for the lace. The peddler would have to eat, she said, and he’d be glad of a couple fine hens. I said that mother would not be so very glad to have lost them, but Naomi was certain that we could convince her that they’d run off, if only we left the gate open.”

  “Nay!”

  “Oh, aye! Well, we left the gate open. When all was said and done, we lost five chickens that day. Three we found in the woods, but two never did turn up.” She winked at Faith. “Mother beat us both for our carelessness, but we had the lace.”

  “Mother stole two hens and lied to Grandmother?” Faith asked incredulously. “Are you sure we’re speaking of my mother? Naomi Cooper?”

  “Nay Faith, we are speaking of Naomi Winston. And that was not the worst of it,” Elizabeth answered. “There wasn’t enough lace for each of us to use for anything separately, so we agreed that we would trim one of our petticoats. That way, we could share it, and no would ever need know because it would be under our dresses. But our mother knew everything. I often thought God spoke to her directly whenever we misbehaved.”

  Faith laughed. “My mother is like that now. None of us children could slip much past her.”

  “Mayhap it comes with children, that
tattle-tale voice of the Almighty,” Elizabeth chuckled. “Anyway, Naomi was the one wearing the petticoat when our mother demanded that we lift our skirts. My foolish sister tried to shoulder all the blame, but I’d my fair share to take. We took all our meals standing up for days!” She rubbed her backside in remembered pain.

  “You must have been very close,” Faith commented. At Elizabeth’s sad nod, she asked, “Do you never hate them, your parents and my father? It breaks my heart when I think that I may never see my family again, but I made that choice knowing what I risked. What they did to you was so cruel.”

  “I made a choice, like you,” Elizabeth answered. “And so did they. My parents hurt me, I’ll not lie, but I know the teachings of that church. A more stiff-necked, intolerant theology I’ve yet to encounter. There was little worse than Catholicism in their eyes. Black witchcraft, maybe, although perhaps not. The first time I genuflected before a statue in Miguel’s church, I thought surely God would strike me dead for idolatry.”

  Faith smiled. “And yet, here you are.”

  Elizabeth surveyed her skirts and held her hands before her face. “So I am!” she exclaimed in mock surprise.

  “I suppose it is foolish, when you think of it,” Faith reflected. “We are all Christians. What can it matter to God that we worship somewhat differently?”

  “Here in the Caribbean, we see people from everywhere. Have you ever met a Mohammedan?” Faith shook her head, and Elizabeth continued. “They are as fierce in their devotion to Allah and Mohammed as any saint to God and Christ.”

  Faith paused, deep in thought, before she said, “And so, in the name of their devotion, people have slaughtered each other in crusades and pushed loved ones away. Think you, Aunt Elizabeth, that it is possible that we all worship the same God, in the end?”

  With a sideways glance and shake of her head, Elizabeth replied, “Not much of a Puritan, are you?”

  “I was, once. I thought I was.” Faith’s brow was furrowed in thought. “I know what happened to me. I couldn’t stand it anymore, swallowing my emotions, dutifully obedient to the point of nearly having to marry a man who despised me! But what happened to my mother? What became of the girl who took two beatings, all for a lace-trimmed petticoat?”