Cordelia accepted her parasol from Micah with a nod. “Perhaps he has some fatal flaw they all know of but we don’t yet. Kleptomania, maybe.”
Mama sighed. “Cordelia, really.”
“Or pyromania.”
“Cordelia!” Only Mama could manage to yell in such a hushed tone. “He suffers no kind of mania, I am sure.”
Cordelia raised both brows and chin, just like Mama did when she was being condescending. “Well, of course we wouldn’t think so after so short an introduction, but if there’s a sudden rash of theft or fires . . .”
A low, muted chuckle slipped out before her mother’s face regained its placidity. “Utter fiddle-faddle. He is a fine man from a fine family, and you would do well to consider him if those glances he sent you continue.”
“Mama. I am all but betrothed to Phin.”
“All but does not keep tongues from wagging, nor does it provide one with security and well-being.” A hard gaze arrowed into her. “I’m not saying you must go back on your word to Phin here and now, mind you. Only that it is a wise woman who has a secondary plan.”
A sigh slipped past her lips. “Don’t you think Lacy will like him? And I imagine he will like her even better than he could me.”
“I will not have my youngest daughter marrying before her elder sister. It would be a blight you may never live down, and if something were to happen to Phin . . .”
“Nothing will happen to Phin.” She kept her tone strong, confident. But uncertainty quaked through her stomach, and she tasted the grit of sand in her mouth, felt that searing pain in her leg.
Oh, Phin, where are you today?
Chapter Six
Awareness crept in, slow and throbbing. The noises struck Phin first—waves lapping shore, gulls crying. Then the smell of salt air and rotting vegetation. Somewhere in the recesses of darkness, he had the impression that he ought to hold on to sleep as long as he could. Hold on to the night. Hold on to the oblivion with the same strength with which he vaguely recalled holding on to a bobbing piece of wood.
But an innocent shift made pain tear through his leg and send a wave of agony through him. He rolled, trying to escape the torment, but that only lit more fires that made him scream. Or try to scream. The sound that emerged from his parched throat was more of a groan that ended on a whimper. He coughed, spat out the grit of sand.
The wave of pain dulled just enough that he became aware of heat on his face. The flames of hell? Had his life not been good enough? His heart not clean enough? Was this how he would pass eternity?
Never in his life had he wished so hard he had paid more attention in church, or to his father’s nightly reading from the Scriptures.
But he’d never heard of the afterlife being filled with seagulls. Phin pried his eyes open, though the lashes were stuck together and it took considerable effort. He had to blink a few times to clear his vision.
But opening his eyes flooded his mind with far more images than what was in front of him. The dark of the night, a pistol leveled at his face. Spencer, traitorous Spencer. Hudgins up the mast, the rail he crashed against. Then a black gulf in his memory. He must have fallen overboard. He’d come to at some point when something slammed into him, but the ships had been out of sight, either because of distance or the storm.
The something that’d hit him had no doubt also saved him. He didn’t know what it had been, other than wood. He’d had just enough energy to crawl halfway onto it and hold on, then . . . then . . . what?
A mottled sky stretched above him, clouds even now overtaking the sun and casting the world in cooling shade. He turned his head a bit to the right and saw a canopy of green leaves nearly over him. Palms and a few evergreens he had no great need to name. To the left crashed the ocean, emerald green swirling through sapphire blue.
The Caribbean. Or so he would guess. He couldn’t have been washed to an entirely different tropic. Though, frankly, he had no idea how he’d held on long enough to wash up on any beach, alive just enough to think he shouldn’t be.
He tried to move, but the pain roared, and Phin sagged right back down into the sand. His mouth was so dry, his skin cracked and tight. The ocean hadn’t killed him, but the sun would. He had nothing. No water, no compass, no idea where he was or how to get where he needed to be.
Lord God above . . . Even his brain felt parched. He knew how to pray. Maybe he hadn’t done so often enough, and never with the devotion his parents tried to inspire in him, but surely he hadn’t forgotten. Lord God. If you’re there . . . if you know where I am . . .
Wrong, all wrong. He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers into the sand. Help me, please. Save me.
Water rushed over his leg, warm but nonetheless shocking. And when it curled up his thigh and into the wound, the pain burned so bright he convulsed, back arching against it. He had to move. Had to get out of the way of the tide.
Phin rolled onto his good side and tried to pull himself up the beach. Panting, screaming, each movement seeming to take every last drop of his strength and yet accomplishing nothing. He managed to drag himself a foot, then another, before his arms gave out and he fell facedown into the sand again. At least his head was now under the covering of a leafy green branch, hanging low overhead.
It wouldn’t be enough protection to make any difference. But it would have to be, for now. He closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath. Tried to calm his frantic pulse. Tried to tell himself his leg was not really on fire.
After a moment, he could hear beyond his own ragged breathing. Was that . . . humming? It sounded close. Somewhere within the trees.
Yes, humming. Humming that turned into a song, the disembodied voice deep and true.
“O God, our help in ages past.
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.”
“Help!” Phin scrabbled around to face the direction of the voice, tried to clear his throat. “Help!” Little more than a croak, certainly not audible over the singing.
He could see a figure now, though, big as his voice. When the man emerged from the tree line, Phin waved an arm.
The black man came to an abrupt halt. He was tall as a mountain, or so it seemed from Phin’s prostrate position. Well dressed, which meant he must be in a high position with his master. He surveyed him for only an instant before coming his way.
“Please.” Phin could only pray the rasp of his voice was at all understandable. “Help.”
The man crouched down, a frown etched deep in his forehead. “What has happened to you, my friend?”
Friend? River was the only slave in his acquaintance who would call him that, and only because of a shared childhood. Why would a black man who was a stranger think to use such a title? Phin scowled. And the man’s accent was all wrong. Granted, not every slave the world over would speak with the Gullah patterns with which he was most familiar, but he had heard plenty of Caribbean slaves talk too—and this wasn’t how they did it. Though those here in Cuba might have a Spanish accent. Was this a Spanish accent? His brain refused to tell him.
When Phin opened his mouth, his words didn’t much resemble what they were supposed to either. More like ill-formed screeches that dissolved into a fit of coughing.
A canteen appeared before him, and hands the size of frying pans unscrewed the top, then held it to Phin’s lips.
Never had water tasted so sweet.
“There now, that should help a bit at least.” British. His accent sounded, of all things, British. And there was something far too sure about his gaze. “I’ve never seen such a uniform, sir. To whose military do you belong?”
“The Confederate States.” At least his voice sounded more like his own now, if still hoarse.
The giant retracted the canteen and stood so fast it made Phin’s head swim again. “Then may God have mercy on your soul.”
“Pardon?” It took him a long moment to process what was happening when t
he man spun away, his booted heel spraying sand all over Phin. “Don’t leave me here! Please, man, take me to your master—I will make it worth his while, and yours too.”
The mountain spun around again, cold fury pulsing in his neck. Phin couldn’t for the life of him think how he had caused it. “Worth my while?” the man echoed between gritted teeth. “And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?”
Phin tried to push himself up a few inches, which sent the fire through his leg again. The man had a point—for the first time in his life, Phin wasn’t in a position to help anyone, to do anything. He was completely at the mercy of this volcano ready to erupt, with no idea what he might do to make the explosion come.
He clenched his jaw against the pain and cleared his throat. “I . . . I have accounts in Cienfuegos. I’ll repay your master fully for helping me and will stipulate that you’re to be given some too. Please, man. I need help. I will do whatever I can in recompense.”
The man snorted his opinion of that, but then he stilled, closed his eyes. His larynx bobbed. When he opened his eyes again, calm had overtaken him. “From where do you hail?”
“I don’t see what—” He cut himself off with a groan when his leg took up a new throb, as if hammering home that he was in no position to question the fellow’s right to seek answers of him. “Savannah.”
When the man rolled back his shoulders, he seemed to grow another foot. And the calm, cool gaze he directed Phin’s way was even more intimidating than the mystifying anger had been. “Savannah, you say. The Lord Almighty has obviously washed you up on my beach for a purpose, rebel. I’ll help you—on the condition that you help me.”
“I’m no rebel. I’m . . . Mr. Phin.” Through the cloud of agony, Phin caught a glimpse of how the strange pieces of this puzzle fit together. He fell back into the sand and closed his eyes. The British accent. The too-sure attitude. The way he called it his beach. “You’re free.”
“Any man who breathes the air of England is free. And I’ve been breathing it since the day I was born.”
An unamused laugh coupled with a groan. Most people in his acquaintance said regularly that there was no creature more dangerous to all that the Confederacy stood for than a free black. They stirred up things best left untouched, made discontent those who’d never grumbled before. Phin had never particularly agreed with that idea, but this man sure seemed like he’d live up to the reputation. Not the help I had in mind, God.
He wanted to ask what it was this man would demand in return for his aid. Wanted to argue against being called a rebel. Wanted to make it clear that his cause, the Southern cause, was about far more than just slavery—it was about the rights of a people to govern themselves.
But the overcast sky fell atop him, and the world went gray and nebulous. The earth swung under him even as unspeakable weights pressed his limbs down. At least the pain lessened, faded away, and he could see Delia’s face more clearly now. Or perhaps it wasn’t now but here—in some netherworld beyond the pale.
Maybe he’d just stay here for a while. Delia would understand.
Luther heaved a sigh as the rebel soldier’s head lolled to the side and his body went lax. He winced at the oozing wound in the man’s leg, at the raw patches on his neck and the ripped clothing. Somewhere deep inside, sympathy stirred. Deep, deep inside.
But on the surface the anger still boiled and seethed. “Really, Lord?” he whispered into the sultry breeze. “This is why you sent me down here this morning? Not for news of Eva, not to commune with you, but for this? This man who thinks himself my natural superior?”
What had he said his name was? Mr. Phin. Well, Luther had no intention of referring to him as that. He was happy to use a “mister” if he had a last name to go along with it, but not with a first name, like one of his slaves. For now, Phin would have to do.
He knew well what the Lord expected of him—he had to get this sorry young chap back to the bungalow and see to the wound. Fetch a doctor, no doubt. Nurse him back to health, if possible. Put his search on hold that much longer, as if months hadn’t been wasted already.
But the Lord had His plan, had His time. And this was obviously part of it.
Savannah.
Luther flexed his hand and stared at the unconscious soldier. True, he couldn’t be sure Eva had ended up there, but he knew it’s where the ship had gone. It’s where she would have been sold. If he could but get into the city, he could discover to whom she had been sold and follow her trail from there.
Except that entering Savannah was impossible for a free man of color, thanks to the laws of Georgia forbidding them entrance into any port. He had already tried and been sent back to Cuba, his name put on a list assuring he’d be barred entry if he tried it again.
“We don’t need any uppity coloreds sowing dissent and troubling ideas about freedom,” the official at the dock had said.
Was it any wonder so many of these unfortunate black people from America’s South held England as an ultimate goal? Yet here Luther was, desperate to gain entrance into that land of bondage and misery.
For Eva. Only for Eva.
As for now, this Phin chap. Luther indulged in one more sigh and then stepped back over to his side. Crouched down, scooped the fellow up.
A long, guttural moan brought Luther’s sympathy a little closer to the surface. He hadn’t thought to ask how Phin had come to be on this out-of-the-way stretch of Cuban beach with a bullet in his leg. But then, the answer wouldn’t matter all that much. He would help him in any case.
Though he’d let the rebel think it conditional for a while. Maybe it would inspire the boy to discover a way to get Luther his Eva back.
He settled the young man as best as he could against him and turned back toward the path through the trees. Luther had trod this same little footpath morning and evening for too long. It was supposed to have been a holiday. A few months away from his church, from his students. A chance to not only meet Eva’s beloved Grammy, but to purchase the old woman’s freedom and take her home with them.
A good deed, born of love.
He ducked under a low-hanging bough and tried to ignore the ever-present question tickling the back of his mind. Why didn’t you warn me, Lord? Why didn’t you tell us not to come?
No, the better question to ask would be why men treated each other as they did. Why such evil still prevailed in hearts that claimed to know Him.
A colorful bird swooped across his path, and the smell of ripe fruit teased his nose. Luther strode over the uneven ground and glanced down again at the injured man. He had a face tanned from days in the sun, but not burnt, which meant he hadn’t likely been on that beach for long. Salt water had dried to a white crust on his jacket’s fancy gold braid and buttons. The holster on one side of his hip was empty, but the sword on the other banged against Luther’s leg with every other step.
Luther’s bungalow came into view, a tiny little hut more part of nature than shelter from it. Even after months in its diminutive walls, he couldn’t quite fathom how Grammy had lived there for decades, how Eva had grown up in its negligible shadow. He still couldn’t help but contrast it to his tidy flat in Stoke Newington, on the outskirts of London.
Yes, he missed his silver tea service. His favorite chair. The new curricle he had commissioned not yet a year ago, along with the fine pair of horses to pull it. And oh, those shelves of books, leather-bound spines all facing outward with gold-leaf type marching across them. He missed his books most of all.
That, and the feel of a cool breeze on a foggy morning. How he yearned to be cool again, a sensation he hadn’t felt for six months. Hard to believe he had been looking forward to the tropical climate when they first planned this trip, that he’d enjoyed these balmy breezes for the first few weeks.
Now each hot wind felt like a mighty hand squeezing the life out of him. The very air was heavy, the earth ready to rear up and erase all evidence of man.
He didn’t dare look at the freshly mounded grav
e as he strode over the small clearing before the bungalow. It would only remind him that he hadn’t been quick enough, hadn’t been good enough.
The door stood partially open. Luther toed it to a wide gap and ducked down to clear the threshold. He’d forgotten that crucial move a time or two and gotten a sore forehead for his forgetfulness. This whole house gave him a crick in the neck, given that he couldn’t stand upright in any part of it.
He covered the distance of the floor in two steps and knelt in the corner by the single cot. With care he’d be certain not to admit when Phin came round again, he eased the man onto his stomach on the straw-stuffed mattress.
Had he mentioned that he missed his feather bed? The one large enough for his frame? He ventured to guess he would come to miss this cot, now that he’d be relegated to the floor.
The soldier groaned again as Luther positioned his injured leg on the ticking. His head thrashed from side to side, but his eyes didn’t open. Just as well. If that oozing leg hurt as much as it looked like it would, the fellow would be better off unconscious.
Luther fetched a lamp, lit it, and set it on the rickety bedside table, which he scooted toward Phin’s leg. Light aplenty spilled through the window, but he wanted to get the best possible look at the wound to determine if he should go fetch the doctor. When he leaned in close and saw the way the fabric from the man’s uniform was stuck to the wound, even after what must have been hours in the water, he suspected he had his answer. To be sure, he rolled the lad gently onto his side.
No exit wound in the front, as he’d thought. Which meant the bullet was still lodged inside. This definitely fell beyond Luther’s expertise. He hated to leave him alone long enough to fetch Dr. Santiago, but he had little choice.
After removing the lamp well out of range of flailing limbs, he moved the table within reach and set a tin cup of water upon it. If Phin awoke, he would no doubt be more concerned about water. And in case the pain gave way enough for the lad to realize he needed food, he set some bread and cheese there, too, covered with a cloth.
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