by C. K. Brooke
“Where was the plantation?”
He studied her before answering, “Jamestown.”
“Was it a tobacco plantation?”
Everyone was watching them as the captain’s dark brows pinched together. “Aye,” he affirmed.
Em swallowed hard.
“But what that lowlife didn’t know was that it wasn’t his child she carried. It was mine.” Captain Crawley’s face hardened to stone. “I know it was. An’ he murdered them both.”
Em wasn’t the only one gaping.
The man suddenly tossed his pipe, still lit, across the deck, startling them all. “Anyway, that’s how the rigger got ’er name,” he growled, stalking off.
Before she knew what she was doing, Em was on her feet, hastening after him. “Captain Crawley, wait!” She placed a hand on his enormous back, forcing him to turn.
He glowered down at her, but all Em saw in his somber face was sadness, not a threat. “I know the man who murdered Rose and your unborn child.” She steeled herself and pronounced, “It was Lawrence Grady. Wasn’t it?”
The captain’s face shifted as though he’d never seen her on his ship before.
“He is still living,” Em informed him. “And he’s still at the plantation.”
“You know him?” rasped the captain.
“Most unfortunately.” She frowned. “I am supposed to marry him.”
He watched her strangely, the veiled emotions dancing across his face too varied for scrutiny. Em wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting, but had felt she owed it to the captain to at least tell him. After all, she shared in a small part of his suffering.
“Emeline,” came a gentle voice behind her, and a small hand rested on her shoulder. “Say goodnight to the captain, dear,” Eliza hinted. “Time for bed.”
Chapter 18
Alex, Eliza, and Emeline had hung a hammock in the commander’s cabin, and that was where Em slept while he and his sister shared the cot. By the time they caught the first sight of the Atlantic coast, Commander Redding was able to walk without the cane.
It was dusk when they made port a week later, and the place looked strangely familiar, even as darkness blanketed the quay. “This doesn’t look like Connecticut,” said Em, going to the rail to watch.
“It’s not,” Eliza told her. “We are in Virginia.”
“Why?” Em turned to see Commander Redding limping to stand behind her. “I thought—”
“Miss Winthrop, it is my duty to return you home,” he said quietly.
Em looked between their apologetic faces. “I wasn’t prepared for this,” she argued, feeling betrayed. “I haven’t any idea what I shall say to my family. I’ll be thrown from my home in disgrace!”
“They need to see you are safe,” the commander insisted. His sister nodded beside him. “From there, all of you can decide—”
“Decide what?” she interrupted. “You think I’ll be given any semblance of a choice upon my return? You heard the captain’s story. You both know what a beast Mr. Grady is. And yet, you conspired without my knowledge to sail me here, right back into his wicked clutches?”
“Emeline,” Eliza’s fair face fell, “we didn’t conspire anything, I promise. The captain chose to sail here of his own volition. Miers couldn’t argue.”
“And yet, you two decided to keep it from me.” Em turned away.
“We only wanted to preserve you from distress.” Eliza hooked her arm into Em’s, giving her another encouraging nod. “Besides, we shall go with you, Miers and me. And if your mother and father see fit to throw you into the street? Well, then, we’ll take you home with us. You’ll love New England.”
Em looked into her earnest eyes, and couldn’t help but breathe out. “Thank you, Eliza,” she murmured.
***
They were instructed to stay aboard at port, and not to disembark until morning. All that evening, Em tossed and turned in her hammock, missing the sensation of the ship at sail, unable to comfort her body or mind. Memories of Mr. Grady and his tobacco-stained teeth and portly calves in ivory hose she hoped to never have to mend or launder haunted her. She was too close to home, to the place where she’d defied so many odds to flee. Like a caged bird, all she wanted was to fly free again. She realized that being at sea had given her the first and only taste of freedom she had ever truly known.
When morning came, she felt a wreck. She hadn’t slept well, her shoulders were sore, and her hair felt like a bird’s nest, not having been washed in two weeks. Eliza did her best to help her comb it out, and Em felt somewhat stronger at her side. But only when the commander took her other hand, standing tall despite his wound, did she feel a slow, powerful surge of reassurance from her breast to her knees.
She embraced and exchanged farewells with the crew. She wanted to thank Captain Crawley in person, but the man was nowhere in sight. She would have to trust Alexander to deliver the message, but not before asking the boy if he should like to come home with her.
“My parents could hire you to work on the farm, and you and my brother Jackey would be great friends,” she tried to convince him.
But the boy stayed put aboard The Black Rose. “Much appreciated, Mrs. Redding, but a pirate I am, and a pirate I’ll be,” he declared proudly.
Taking her hand with his free one, Commander Redding guided Em down the gangway. She looked up at him. In the presence of his sister, they had never discussed the night of their kiss—and whatever had gone wrong between them. Although Em still hadn’t an idea what the commander might feel for her, if anything, she knew by the way he watched her now, without the exchange of words, that he had a plan…that he wasn’t about to let her fall.
She recalled when he’d rescued her, not only when she’d first found herself aboard the Rose, but the night he’d shot her assailant. She would never forget when he’d told her, I ought never to leave you again, the tenderness in his eyes and how his voice was like a beam of starlight infusing her. Though gentle and unassuming, the man was, in spirit, a fierce defender. He had done everything—lied, stole, even killed—to rescue the women he loved.
“Miss Winthrop, do you trust me?” he asked her.
She met his eyes in the late orange sunrise, wanting to sail straight into them. She didn’t have to search for her answer. “I do,” she replied.
They hired a coach and buggy to carry them the two-and-a-half miles to her father’s farm. All the while, Em’s palms grew sweatier. Over and again, she loosened her collar, feeling more ill with every dreadfully familiar twist and curve of the dirt road.
“My bonnet,” she gasped, remembering. “Mother will be appalled to see me without it!”
“Where is it?” asked Eliza, peering around as if they might spot it in the buggy.
“I tossed it out to sea,” Em confessed, and Eliza laughed.
When they rolled up to the wooden fence and the little barns and coops, with the house standing so stout and plain in the dirt yard, Em longed to cry, though from apprehension or relief, she wasn’t sure.
The coachman helped her out of the buggy, then Eliza. The commander paid him to wait, and the man tipped his cap, remaining by the horse.
Flanked by her companions, Emeline strode up the yard to the house. Chickens squawked. She heard Henrietta scolding them, but didn’t see the woman.
Her family made it to the door before she did. They poured out onto the lawn, even her father with his bad leg, and she was smothered in tight embraces and shouting and tears as they spoke over each other, demanding to know where she’d been.
“Mama, I cannot breathe,” Em choked.
The older woman stepped back, steepling her hands and bringing them over her mouth. Fat tears glistened in her eyes. “Oh, Emeline.” She shook her mob-capped head. “Why ever would you torment your poor mother as you’ve done? For a fortnight I’ve been worried sick, unable to keep down a peck of food, my hair near to falling out!”
“Mrs. Winthrop.” Commander Redding stepped respectfully fo
rward, holding out a hand.
“Commander.” She clutched his hand, bringing it to her heart. “You found our girl, our little runaway!”
He smiled in that patient way of his. “Indeed, Madame. However, your daughter is no runaway. She was abducted.” His expression straightened, and every-so-subtly, Em caught his eyes glimmering mischievously over at her. “By pirates, no less.”
“Say what, now?” demanded Mr. Winthrop in his booming voice, as young Jackey’s eyes grew wide.
“Brilliant,” the boy intoned.
Mrs. Winthrop looked between the commander and her daughter, her mouth an unchecked o. “Pirates?” she breathed in horror. “Oh, Emeline,” she framed her daughter’s face in her warm, rough hands, “please tell me you weren’t hurt?”
Em shook her head, not just by way of response, but to free herself from the woman again. “No, Mama. Commander Redding saved me just in time.” It was the truth, after all.
“Aye, by a stroke of Providence,” Commander Redding informed her parents, “my sister and I rescued her at a port in Barbados, and sailed her home at once to safety.”
“Barbados?” gasped Mrs. Winthrop, eyes as round as saucers.
“What were the pirates like, Em?” Jackey wanted to know. “Was the ship big? Do they keep parrots? Did you find gold?”
Em had to purse her lips at the enormous grin on his face.
Mr. Winthrop gave him a whack over the ear. “Your sister was in grave peril, boy. You ought to drop to your knees and thank the good Lord she wasn’t killed or worse.” A shadow passed over her father’s scarred face.
“Or made to walk the plank!” Jackey bounced on his heels.
Her mother was weeping now, along with their old slave, Henrietta, who stood at a respectful distance with Sara and Daisy. Em nodded a silent hello to the black women, feeling guilty to have caused her household so much concern.
“Oh, Commander, how can we thank you?” The man appeared mildly startled, but handled it graciously when Mrs. Winthrop wrapped him in her plump arms and held onto him, crying against his jacket. “I’ve lost a child already,” she whimpered, and he patted her kindly on the back. “I couldn’t bear to lose another.”
She blew her nose into a handkerchief, already looking embarrassed by her display. “Which is why,” she turned to Emeline, “I’ve since decided, I shall call off the engagement.”
Em paused, not daring to believe her ears.
“If you do not wish to marry Mr. Grady,” her mother straightened, appraising her daughter with watery eyes, “then I’ll not force you.”
Em knew it was too good to be true. At once, her father hovered over her mother. “Wait a bleeding minute, now, woman. I can’t go back on my word to Lawrence Grady!”
“And why not?” her mother challenged him.
Em gaped. Jane Winthrop never defied her husband.
“We shook on it! Make enemies with the wealthiest man in Jamestown, we will,” her father warned her. “I’ll never be trusted as a man of my word again. We can’t afford to lose our neighbors’ esteem like that.” He indicated the meager farm around them. “Why, our livelihoods depend on their patronage!”
“That does not concern our daughter,” said Em’s mother. Though she was shorter than her husband, she had a way of looming over him that made even the commander take an involuntary step back.
Her father was just about to retort when footsteps pounded the dirt road behind them and an indiscernible shout rode the air. Em turned to see a flurry of white in a flailing mass of petticoats soaring through the open gate. A full basket swung from her arm, its contents threatening to spill. “Mama,” she called, then skidded to a halt, noticing their company. “Em?” she cried.
“Prudence!”
The sisters embraced, rocking each other side to side, gasping into one another’s hair.
“What happened to you? Where did you go? We’ve been worried sick! Mama’s been having kittens for a fortni—”
“Emmy was kidnapped by pirates!” Jackey informed their sister with relish.
“Pirates?” Pru pulled away, alarmed.
“Prudence,” Mrs. Winthrop addressed her eldest daughter, “why is your basket still full? Did you not deliver Mr. Grady’s order this morning?”
“Well, that’s just it, Mama!” Pru’s eyes were wide while her chest still heaved from the long run home. “I arrived only to discover,” she panted, “Mr. Grady is dead!”
Chapter 19
Em struggled to hear amidst the hubbub.
“Murdered, in his sleep,” cried Pru, “by pirates—that’s what they’re all saying!”
Em felt an odd detachment from the rest of her family as she turned to Commander Redding and his sister. The pair appeared just as speechless as she felt.
Pru’s arm flung around Emeline’s shoulders as she held her close. “Oh, Em, it’s got to be the same ones what kidnapped you!”
Mrs. Winthrop covered her mouth with a hand.
“Did you find out their names, Em? There’s a search brigade, and all the constables are looking, but they’ve found no one but workmen at port.” Her sister prattled on, but Em was hardly listening.
Lawrence Grady, dead?
“Commander!” Pru finally noticed their company, but had been worked into such a state, it appeared even she could forget her manners. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Em nudged her.
“Prudence,” chided their mother, still trembling. “Commander Redding is the one we have to thank for rescuing our Emeline. He and his sister, Miss—?”
“Newbury.” Eliza beamed, stretching her hand to Pru’s for a tiny shake.
“Oh.” Pru’s face morphed from confusion to astonishment as she shook the woman’s hand. “You rescued my sister from pirates? How—?”
“The commander intercepted me at port and recognized me,” Em supplied, quickly remembering his version of the story. “Thank goodness you had introduced us to your husband’s friend, or he would have never known who I was.”
Pru brought a hand to her heart. “Oh, my, that is fortuitous!”
Em looked up at Commander Redding. “Yes, he is my hero.”
He gave her a small, gradual grin in return.
“How can we thank you for saving my sister?” Pru implored him.
“Please, stay with us,” Mrs. Winthrop besought them, while Mr. Winthrop tried to pass a few coins from his pocket the commander’s way.
Commander Redding declined it. “My sister and I don’t wish to be an inconvenience. In fact, we need to procure tickets back to New Haven.”
Em’s spirits wilted. Just like that, they would leave her, walk out of her life for good? She was out of danger, she supposed. The pirates were gone, and so was Mr. Grady. But what about…?
“Procure your tickets, then,” Mr. Winthrop advised them, gesturing to the coachman and buggy awaiting them in the road, “but do come by for supper. We owe you at least a square meal. Both of you.” He gave a little bow to Eliza too.
With the promise to return, the man and his sister departed them, leaving Em with her family.
***
Supper was a merry affair, quite different from the first time, just weeks ago, that Commander Redding had dined with them. There was laughter and conversation all around. Even boring, straight-laced Mr. Bonworthe seemed fascinated and actually changed his facial expressions as he listened to their fabricated story.
Eliza was especially popular between Jackey and Pru, who seemed endlessly entertained by her tireless and animated chatter. More than once, she almost came close to telling the truth, and stopped speaking abruptly. No one else appeared to notice. But when Em peeked under the table, she saw Commander Redding stepping on his sister’s boot.
Though they sat a few chairs apart, Em’s gaze frequently panned up to his end of the table. It was only because she couldn’t stop wondering. Wondering if they would have another chance to speak again, in private…wondering what she would say if
they did…wondering if this would be the last time, for the foreseeable future, that she might see the man who’d saved her.
She liked the way he smiled at something her father had said, and her stomach grew queasy at the absentminded way he brushed a lock from his brow with the back of his hand. That very flesh had once grazed her chin, the side of her cheek, as he’d so tenderly kissed her.
As though sensing her, Redding glanced over and met her eyes. His lip curved, and he blushed before looking back at her father, who resumed speaking.
Smiling to herself, Em glanced down at her plate. But not before she noticed her mother catching the exchange.
***
Commander Redding and his sister went to stay with Pru and Mr. Bonworthe for the evening, as the flat above their shop had a bedchamber to spare while the farmhouse did not. After Sara washed the last of the dishes, she too left for the slaves’ quarters, leaving Em alone with her parents and a dozing Jackey.
Home was quiet, so much quieter than she’d ever quite realized. There were no whining strains of Bucky’s fiddle, no sailors laughing coarsely, or boot steps pounding planks, or the constant rush of the ocean in her ears. There was only a whisper of wind in the grasses, and the occasional lowing of cattle outside.
Em finished her glass of milk and went upstairs for a bath, grateful to finally scrub the salt and sweat from her skin. With a towel outstretched, her mother helped her out of the water when she’d finished. She wrapped Em snugly as though she were still a small girl, and patted down her shoulders and arms.
For once, Em said nothing, and let her. She was feeling extra charitable toward her mother that evening, not only because she was admittedly happy to see her again, but because of what she’d said about Mr. Grady before she’d even known that he was dead.
“I’ll say, I realized this evening what a nice-looking fellow that Commander Redding is,” her mother remarked, mussing Em’s hair with the top of the towel.