AT FIRST SIGHT: A Novella Page 10

  “Gantu!” Evangeline cried and, grinning widely, shot to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  He hung his head to his chest. “Baron Craven, force me he did to lead his troop here.” Then with abject misery, he eyed her. “You understand, right?”

  “This village is becoming quite the gathering place,” Adam said grimly. Sitting, he was at eye level with Gantu’s hands. On each, it appeared the small finger was missing and poorly bandaged, obviously by the man’s own efforts. “I see we both have something else in common – missing digits.”

  “My God, Gantu,” she said grabbing his hand. “Are all my men maimed?”

  “I would not tell them where you be, you see?” Gantu said with a gulp, “So the Baron, he ordered then Skute’s right front paw lobbed off. After that . . . ” tears choked the giant’s voice, “when he went to order Skute’s left rear paw . . . I couldna help meself.” At that, the man was blubbering like a baby.

  Her men? Adam had not missed that and wondered if he was included among her men. But he only said, “So, he’s here? William Craven is here?”

  With tears spiking his long lashes, Rasannock lifted both of Gantu’s hands and kissed each of the bloodied bandages. “That is enough,” Gantu growled, but the affection between the two was obvious.

  Rasannock said in a raw voice, “The Englishman tells my uncle he comes in peace, also. But look at my Gantu’s hands. The Englishman, he will do what it takes to have what he wants. He wants you, Mistress.”

  Bonnie Charlie pushed upright on one forearm. “You can tell his royal arse that I’ll see him burn in eternal fire first.”

  She whirled on the four men. Hands on her hips, her scowling gaze swept them with what might have been described as contempt. “Look at yourselves. The three of you cripples could not defend yourselves against a mouse. And Rasannock, here, would never harm one. I can take care of myself and vile men like Craven.”

  She turned back to Rasannock and released a pent-up breath from quivering lips. “Come along. At least, I would hope you can interpret for me.” She flung aside the entrance flap, saying over her shoulder to the rest of them, “Stay put. I shall return shortly.”

  Sparing a sorrowful glance for Gantu’s hands, the Indian obediently followed.

  Bonnie Charlie and Gantu looked at each other with raised brows.

  “Like hell, I’ll stay put,” Adam said. He retrieved the parchments from his saddlebags, stuffed them inside his doublet, and shoved himself upright. Starbursts of pain obscured his vision, and he placed a steadying palm on the wall. Gantu shot out a supportive bandaged hand and twinged with the painful contact.

  Then, Bonnie Charlie wobbled to a stance, and Gantu had to shoot out another hand to support the old man, who grinned at Adam. “Looks like yew are one of us wise men now.”

  Six Ironsides soldiers weighted with either heavy cavalry swords, muskets, or pikes stood at attention outside the counsel house. Adam recognized the two – Wilkes and Browning. Inside, Evangeline stood in its center, the muscles in her jaws twitching. Sitting next to Peminacka, Craven took a puff from the calumet before passing it back.

  Exhaling a helix of smoke, he leaned an arm on one propped knee. “Ahhh, the Devil himself joins us.” He glanced back at her. “Tell me, my dear, while I am quite gratified you have given your irrevocable word, I am nonetheless curious. Would you have so honorably sacrificed yourself -- facing an English court trial in trade for the freedom of Sutcliff here – if you had known that he personally escorted your father and brother to the executioner’s block?”

  Her eyes wide, she half twisted to flash Adam a questioning glance.

  He stepped forward, his lungs suffering the stab of pain with each jarring step. “Aye, what he says is true,” he told her remorsefully.

  She recoiled. “Why . . . all this time . . . you knew . . . .” The horrible hurt that filled her eyes, her chin trembling, was an even greater stabbing pain.

  “Come, come,” Craven chided. “At least, now you know Sutcliff for the scurvy weasel he is. At every step, he took advantage of you in order to conclude the land purchase. And while I am delighted you are returning with me to London, I must admit, I will sorely regret not prosecuting Sutcliff for both dereliction of duty and desertion.”

  Rasannock, sitting on the sachem’s other side, intervened. “You do not have to do this thing, Mistress. My uncle, he offers you his protection.”

  She glanced at Adam again, her eyes bright with desolation. He also saw hate simmering just below. He didn’t know which he hated more, seeing her hate vie for her love for him – or hating himself.

  Her gaze switched back to Craven. Her still quivering chin lifted. Adam could see she was fighting hard to hold back her tears. “There is such a thing as honor,” she said in a raw voice. “My word is good.”

  Tormented love vied with triumph in Craven’s expression. But another emotion, bitterness, pulsed beneath. “My dear, I, in turn, pledge to do all that is possible to see you get a fair trial.”

  Adam looked at the folded parchment he tugged from his doublet. He had what he had come for. He would be the most foolish of men to forfeit that for which he had escaped servitude, made a modest fortune in sugar trading, and climbed to the top ranks of the Cromwellian regime – that being Sutcliff Manor, his soul-driving purpose. To abandon the fulfillment of that purpose . . . well, it would be his head he would be putting on Cromwell’s chopping block.

  Yet, incredulously, he heard himself say, “Rasannock, tell your uncle that the gold and all the gifts they will buy are his.” He held up the signed deed, swishing it above the fire pit’s flames. “In addition, no white people will be settling on Lenape land – if he will see that Craven and his guards – along with myself – are escorted safely from the village.”

  “No!” she shrieked and reached for the deed, but he held it aloft, out of her reach.

  “Craven,” he said, now flourishing the second parchment along with the first. “In trade for the Lady Evangeline – you can have myself and this, your voucher on your mortgaged estates.”

  She whirled to Rasannock. “Tell Peminacka that despite his daughter’s death from hemorrhaging, I saved Robbie– his grandson – and saw to it that he was returned to his people. I ask that the sachem and his chiefs hear my plea. My menfolk are kept safe here – and I accompany the Baron Craven and his guards.”

  Adam grabbed her arm with his free hand and spun her to face him. With the back of his hand, he slapped her face deliberately, not hard, first one side, then the other. An outraged gasp issued from her. Next, she screamed in insane fury and lashed out with fingers meant to claw.

  But his arm, secured around her waist, held her small, struggling body firmly against his side, all the while holding the parchments out of her frantic reach. “Tell your uncle what I said, Rasannock.”

  Craven shot to his feet, his hand on his rapier’s silver hilt, threatening.

  Bonnie Charlie tottered forward, his grip on his tomahawk’s haft, warning.

  The giant Gantu limped into the arena of contestants.

  “What’s it to be, Craven?” Adam demanded. “Your home and my head – or a woman who does not love you, oh?”

  Craven’s eyes were a flinty hard, but his shoulders slumped. He made no further move.

  Evangeline continued her livid screeching, but one solid swat on her bottom sent her into another paroxysm of livid gasps.

  The sachem nodded approvingly.

  “Tell your uncle,” Adam ordered Rasannock.

  Rasannock looked at him as if he were possessed but relayed the offer.

  Adam glanced around the circle of the subchief’s solemn faces. One by one each spoke, each taking an inordinate length of time, when it seemed to him that a simple yea or nay would serve – especially, as the wildcat in his arm continued her various two-fisted assaults on his chest and throat and face.

  At last, Peminacka nodded and spoke at length, and Rasannock translated. “My uncl
e says that it is a wise man who rules his house and his women. He says that you, the Englishman, and his warriors will be escorted from our village.”

  Adam relinquished his grasp on the parchments and watched them flutter like autumn leaves into the hissing flames.

  §§ CHAPTER NINE §§

  Cuffed in chains, hands behind his head, Adam had been dozing on and off upon the Sovereign’s orlop deck. Below the water line, it was where the overloops of cables were stowed. If captive he must be, what better place than the orlop deck, which was next to the storage of beer casks?

  Well, actually, he could think of a hell of a lot of better places, and most certainly Whitehall’s chopping block was the least of the lot.

  The slap of the water against the hull proclaimed that with the high tide at dawn, the brig would be setting sail for illustrious England and his not so illustrious fate.

  With that, he allowed himself the luxury of dwelling on Evangeline. Ruefully, he thought of all the years wasted, thinking no one woman could be so important to him as acquiring Sutcliff Manor and later a series of estates, setting himself up as a landed magnate.

  But nothing could be so important as she. Her face. Her voice. Her spirt.

  In his courtship of her during their escape to the Lenape he had come to know her. And that knowledge of her was enhanced by visual memories of her that entangled his woolgathering in such an unorderly fashion.

  The babe in her arms nuzzled against her breast; the moue of her lips in losing a pawn; the ivory polish of those breasts rising above her gown’s décolletage at the St. Knut’s ball; her enthrallment with their canoe flight up the South River while musket balls whizzed by on all sides; those same lips speckled with mud and those lavender blue eyes laughing

  She had not been cowed by the dangers of their headlong flight. She had demonstrated her mettle in confronting both Peminacka and Craven

  Once again, the line from Marlowe’s poem haunted Adam – “Where both deliberate, the love is slight; whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?”

  And, aye, that he had done. Loved at first sight. She was his weakness.

  So, could he blame her for hating him with the magnitude of a volcanic explosion? He had to be the village idiot. A reckless, self-absorbed village idiot. This was what came from always traveling his own solitary course.

  He suspected his time left here on earth was not long – if his wound’s suppuration didn’t kill him first, then the executioner’s axe most likely would – and he wanted to spend every delicious moment left reminiscing about her. But, too, he needed to consider his future, such that it was.

  He supposed he should have been troubled by what others thought of him. He stood in Cromwell’s high regard; of that, he had no doubt. Cromwell would deem him the better man in comparison to Craven, but Adam had failed to procure the Lenape land purchase. Which provided his singular satisfaction ~ that Craven would return a failure, as well.

  How was he going to talk his way out of Craven’s charges of dereliction of duty and desertion? Not even a large serving of his considerable charm would accomplish that.

  And, more importantly, should he be that lucky – and, after all, he was one lucky devil – what did he do with the rest of his blighted life? He had been on his own, alone, most of his life, with nary a friend. At least, a living friend. Those few he had possessed had died early deaths back in Barbados. Lucky, them.

  With the gentle slap of the waves against the hull, his lids grew heavy, and he awoke to a shadow-draped apparition leaning over him, bringing him harshly awake. A jute rag muffled his protest. Next, a blanket smothered him.

  Bundled like Cleopatra in a rug, he was hoisted upon two pairs of shoulders.

  From what he could make out, he was carted up through a hatch to the gunners storage, next up a deck to the officers storage, then up the main staircase and past the great cabin. At this jouncing rate, his ribs would never heal. Perception of blanket-filtered light told him they had reached the stern lantern.

  “Halt, there!” a faint voice challenged from the distant bow. “What have you?”

  “A roll of carpet,” responded one of his captor’s, grunting with his human weight, as they both strode on across the deck.

  At the same instant Adam heard the creak and felt the give of the gang plank, he recognized the other’s voice – Gantu’s sing-song voice – add, “A belated Christmas gift from Baron Craven to his lordship, Governor Risingh.”

  Within the blanket, Adam struggled – only to be cuffed hardily.

  “Dam’me,” Bonnie Charlie huffed, “first my hair I almost lose, next my hide I’ll be losing, all over this blasted lucky devil.”

  Across a bumpy road and down an incline of some kind Adam was carried, then once more he heard the wash of water against the shore. Next, with a solid thud he was dumped in what must be a small craft, if judged by its wobbling. His own ribs wobbled fearfully.

  He could feel dampness seeping through the blanket. His chained hands struggled to wriggle free of it. Dazed, he stared around him in the predawn half-light. He was in the keel of a long, dugout canoe.

  Bonnie Charlie, kneeling in front of him, yanked the rag from his mouth, and with a muttered oath he spat out the jute strands.

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” Bonnie Charlie said, “but couldn’t risk your refusing our abduction to one and all within hearing range.”

  Adam lifted his head. Just beyond Bonnie Charlie, ashore, he saw Rasannock’s shadowed form. The Indian shoved the canoe’s prow until the dugout grated off the pebbles into the water, then he nimbly hopped inside and picked up a paddle. Bonnie Charlie twisted his bony frame to the forefront, collected his own paddle and began stroking.

  From somewhere behind Adam, a dog barked, and the dugout tilted perilously. “Sit, Skute,” ordered Gantu. With the thrusting dip of his paddle, he asked, “Upriver or downriver, Mistress?”

  Surely, Adam thought, either his feverish brain must be rampant with delirium or he was still asleep and dreaming. because next he heard Evangeline’s melodic voice. She was kneeling, leaning over him, and cradling his head up onto her lap.

  “Into the wilderness, Gantu. I cannot think of a better place for Adam and Eve.” Tears of joy glistened in her eyes.

  She bent her head, her hair falling around his face, gently kissed his lips, then murmured, “I once said eternity would come before you received a kiss from me. What do you think about living out eternity with me?” Then, she chuckled softly and tapped her fingertip on the bearded tuft in the center of his chin. “Well, with me and these three oafs?”

  He blinked back his own tears. He had thought himself all alone in the world, without family or friends. He swallowed hard and got out gruffly, “I think I am one lucky devil.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, “and there will be one more to join us.”

  “One more?”

  “Aye.” Above his face, her own dimpled. “But I do not think we shall be able to term this wee one a virgin birth.”

  It took him a moment, and then jubilant laughter rolled deep from his chest, even though his ribs protested the pain. “What better belated Christmas present, my love.”

  § § §

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  Parris Afton Bonds is the mother of five sons and the author of more than thirty-five published novels. She is the co-founder of and first vice president of Romance Writers of America. Declared by ABC’s Nightline as one of three best-selling authors of romantic fiction, the award-winning Parris Afton Bonds has been interviewed by such luminaries as Charlie Rose and featured in major newspapers and magazines as well as published in more than a dozen languages. She donates her time to teaching creative writing to both grade school children and female inmates. The Parris Award was established in her name by the Southwest Writers Workshop to honor a published writer who has given outstandingly of time and tale
nt to other writers. Prestigious recipients of the Parris Award include Tony Hillerman and the Pulitzer nominee Norman Zollinger.

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