He looked up, and she introduced herself, glancing casually into the bin as he arrived. It looked like just a handful of items. An ancient knife of some sort, a pistol, and some mud-stained jewelry—a cross and a dove, on a chain.
This area of Virginia had been teeming with navy vessels in the eighteenth century, primarily the Royal Navy. She would have liked another look at the pistol he’d unearthed—although she could certainly view it in the scan, it was an entirely different experience to have one’s hands in the earth, on the items that our ancestors had once used.
“Are you through with the site?” she asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Can you tell anything about the remains?”
“Looks like a man, probably the ship’s captain. In the stern, he might’ve been in the captain’s cabin—or even standing on deck when the ship went down. Beyond that, we won’t know anything this afternoon. And you’ll have to notify the State Archaeologist. I’ll have these items in our office when they’re ready for them. We’re calling him the Lost Sea Captain.”
Chapter Four
Marley headed back to the hotel. The legends of Rosalie, the tobacco plantation on the James River, had charmed her for as long as she could remember. Considering she’d grown up in the area as well as attending school here, it was striking that she’d never visited the place. But when she read the legend of the disappearing trio—and Ruth Trelawney’s involvement—she was afire with curiosity. She still wanted to stop by before they left for Florida, but she was already running late.
She found Nan in their room on her phone. Their suitcases sat at the end of the bed.
“Jimmy, I just don’t think I can do that right now. And no, of course I’m not upset that you’re still alive. To tell you the truth, I knew you were passed out, and so …”
And so it goes, Marley thought as Nan glanced at her.
Marley pointed at her watch. Nan nodded absently, and she looked once more through their small room. She wished she’d had more time to linger this morning over coffee in one of the soft robes that came with the room—the sort of thing Audrey Hepburn wore in old movies.
Even the toiletries were brands she’d never have bought herself. She swept the counter free of the extra soaps and conditioners. Then her face stung, and she put them back where she’d found them. Was it so much? Just a little shampoo. They smelled so sweet, as she imagined an island paradise. She’d heard it was included in the price of the room.
Nan would disapprove, though. At times, she resented Nan her good heart. But it was that good heart that had taken care of Marley these twenty years. So she set it out of her mind and returned to the bedroom.
She closed their suitcases and placed them by the door. Nan ignored her, caught up in Jimmy’s false promises. She crossed her arms, tapped her foot. Nothing. Then she lugged both suitcases down the hall, the muscle between her shoulders knotted. At the front door, the bellman—a different one, this morning—held the door for a striking silver-haired man who stepped aside when he noticed her.
Blinded to her approach by the wealthy man at the door, the bellman misunderstood the man’s hesitation and leapt into the doorway to take his luggage. She sighed at the exhausting niceties of chivalry and civilization and waited.
The older man touched the bellman’s sleeve, pressing him aside so she could pass. “Oh, miss! Let me get those for you!” the bellman, embarrassed, said. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Thank you, I can manage.”
She locked the suitcases in the trunk and headed back inside to wait for Nan. Glancing at her watch, she resisted the temptation to go back upstairs.
Finally Nan appeared at the grand staircase. Never had her regal bearing shown more clearly than as she descended the stairs. Marley moved into line behind the well-dressed gentleman she’d passed earlier in the doorway.
“Yes, Mr. Sheppard,” the clerk was saying. “Your daughter Rachel’s checked in, but I believe they’re in the historic area this morning. No one’s answering.”
“Could you call my cell when they check in for messages?”
Another clerk appeared and gestured to Marley, someone she didn’t know. “We’re ready to check out. Room 1746.” She slid the passkeys across the counter to the woman, and the woman scanned the key and began printing a receipt.
The gentleman glanced over. She met his gaze. He smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, then looked away. So did she. Yet she could still feel his gaze on her still.
Nan appeared in the doorway. “I’m quite uncertain why you’re in such a hurry. It isn’t as if we’re on a date with destiny. Colonial shipwrecks aren’t going anywhere.”
The man—Sheppard—turned to look at Nan as if the Queen had arrived opposite him. Marley couldn’t see his expression, but his body language spoke volumes. He froze, as many men did around Nan; she was a stunning woman who still turned heads.
Marley accepted the receipt from the woman and turned away, folding it and slipping it inside her bag.
With an expectant half-smile, she approached Nan, glancing back at the man to catch his expression. Then her smile slipped away as she saw the subtle exchange between them. They knew each other.
“Nan?”
But her grandmother had already turned away as if she hadn’t seen the man, tying a scarf over her hair and walking to the door.
“Excuse me,” Sheppard said. “I think you worked at my company?”
She sent him a withering glance and spoke with an affected Southern accent. “Begging your pardon, sir, you are mistaken. Good day.”
Her grandmother was afraid of this man. And as much as she knew about Jimmy, an abusive lunatic who Nan wasn’t afraid of, what did it say for this guy? They had to get out of there.
She smiled at the man as she ushered Nan toward the door. “You’ve confused my mother with someone else. She works only in philanthropy. Enjoy your day.”
“My mistake,” he said, giving a courtly half-bow that somehow disturbed her. It was the sort of old-world gesture that usually charmed her.
And with that, they left the lobby.
“We need to get out of here—quickly,” Nan whispered.
“Who is he?”
“Not now. Let’s go.”
She felt his eyes on them even as they climbed in Marley’s old Camry. Not exactly the conveyance of a pampered philanthropic princess. As they headed toward the exit, Sheppard loped toward the front of the car, waving.
In a heartbeat, Nan leaned over and pressed Marley’s right knee, flooring the accelerator. With the other, she grabbed the wheel, jerking the car away from him. The fender brushed the man’s blazer and the car drove over the opposite curb.
“Go!”
A gardener leapt out of her way, sending a tray of red and yellow pansies flying like colored shards in a kaleidoscope. Fear and adrenaline flooded her. She yanked the wheel in the opposite direction, landing Nan against her own car door.
Marley righted the car as it lurched drunkenly down the drive and gunned it toward the exit, her breath coming fast.
“What the hell?” she cried as they turned out of the elegant entryway, narrowly missing an oncoming truck.
Disoriented, she had to think fast to remember where she was headed, and she made a left.
Nan shrieked. “Where the devil are you going?”
“To Florida! Weren’t we?”
Nan’s green eyes had a fire that Marley had never seen. In fact, she had never seen any of this side of Nan before now.
“Oh. I thought—you were going home. It’s the way home. Well then. Look out!”
A careless tourist nearly walked right in front of her on his way to Christiana Campbell’s tavern. He stopped short, then took a few steps backward, glaring open-mouthed at her as she went by—as if she were indeed insane.
She looked in the rearview mirror, saw nothing but an empty street, and slowed down before she continued on toward Richmond.
“Are you all right
?”
Nan nodded, staring out her window.
“What was that all about?”
“Just go! He’s right behind us.”
“There’s no one behind us.”
“You don’t see him, but he’s there. He’s always there.”
They were only halfway to the freeway when once again, Nan’s scream rang out. “There he is!”
Marley looked in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, a black sedan grew progressively larger there.
“Please hurry!”
“Who is this man?”
“Marley, you’ll learn soon enough. For now, please just hurry!”
She floored it as she took the curve to the freeway, and fortunately traffic was light. When she looked again behind her, the black sedan was gone.
A rock song rang out on Nan’s cell phone. I Fought the Law. Jimmy’s ringtone.
“Hello, dear!” Nan sang into the phone.
Marley’s guts were like a basket of cobras. Her grandmother might have been sitting in a parlor having tea and crumpets with the bastard who beat the crap out of her every night.
Her face a mask of indifference, Marley pressed a stiffened index finger on the Down power window button, lowering the front windows at once. The highway breeze rushed in, startling Nan. Marley lightly took the phone, switched it to her throwing hand, and flung it over the car toward the woods at the edge of the highway. Aerodynamics took care of the rest. In the rearview mirror, with satisfaction, she watched it fly, land, and shatter.
She mashed the Up button and exhaled slowly and audibly, relieved that the rush of adrenaline was at last spent. The windows closed, enclosing them in silence.
“I’m sorry about your phone.” Nan had so very little.
“It was wicked of you.”
“Yes, it was. And it’s wicked of him to keep you on a leash twenty-four seven. You deserve better than that awful man. I am too old for the denial and the drama. I simply want peace. Don’t you?”
“What would you have me do, Marley? Poke about for gentlemen callers on your computer?”
“No. Just do things that interest you, and maybe you’ll meet someone with those interests. Why do you have to have a man, anyway? They seem to be more trouble than they’re worth.”
She couldn’t say the words, but it seemed some women put up with an awful lot to avoid being alone. Nan had proven herself to be one of them.
Nan gazed down at the palm of her hand, rubbing it with her other thumb as if blotting out a stain.
“Jimmy was there at a terrible time in my life. I hoped he’d be a good father for you.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“He is a good man when he’s sober.”
“Which is when?”
Nan sighed. “Fathers are important in a young girl’s life. As a lass growing up, I didn’t know mine. But later I lived with my father-in-law, and he was the best father anyone could know. He wasn’t perfect, either—distant and brusque. But I loved him, and I hoped the same for you, in Jimmy. For years I have only pitied him. There is no love for him in me.”
“You don’t … ? Well, what the …” What the hell is he doing sitting in our house guzzling beer and chips right now? Marley cut off the pointless question.
“Child, you are not like me. You are complete, independent, resourceful. You do not need a man.”
She bristled at this, even though she knew Nan had meant it as a compliment, considering their conversation. She might have said she lacked the hunger to be held and loved.
“You’ve always supported that guy! I don’t know anyone more resourceful than you. You run a daycare and a staff of half a dozen, and you somehow eke out a living doing it.”
“Money is but a meager resource when inner fortitude is lacking.”
Marley sighed. Bromides were code for end of discussion.
So she retreated into her thoughts, her search for logic.
Only when they were on the other side of Richmond—when Nan had folded a pillow underneath her head and snuggled under a throw, snoozing against her door—did Marley remember she’d forgotten she wanted to stop by Rosalie on their way out of town. Darn. It would have to wait until they got home from their adventure.
And only much later, when they were well into Georgia and stopped to fill the tank one last time, did she connect two troubling details. She remembered that moment this morning when she’d glimpsed a woman who’d reminded her of her lost sister, Rachel. And past that, to the mundane conversation between the desk clerk and the man Sheppard.
“Your daughter Rachel’s checked in, but I believe they’re in the historic area this morning.”
.
Chapter Five
The storm came upon them without warning. They all had good excuses for not noticing, but still it came.
Marley had two decades of self-defense walling her off from the modern world and its threats, and she was intent on relaxing. Just one week to herself without fear.
Nan had no choice. Marley had destroyed her only link to an illusion of control. Without her phone, she was adrift.
The ship’s crew followed their captain, a capable and arrogant sort who had little use for the opinions of his men.
And the captain? Well, his wife was in New York visiting her mother, and he was in his cabin impressing his mistress.
So the ship’s dozen passengers began their cruise lounging about the sloop as they approached Mayaguana, one of the few unpolished jewels left in the Caribbean.
Virginia Beach was the only beach Marley had ever known, and her lowered expectations made the Bahamian waters the most pleasant of surprises. Virginia Beach’s usual state, after all, was gray. Gray clouds matching gray aircraft carriers and destroyers cruising in and out of the gray port of Norfolk. Even the sand was gray.
By the time she retired to the deck with sunscreen and a spy thriller, the Caribbean palette of turquoise and aqua emerged. She sat on the deck of the Island Girl with a plastic cup of rum punch, recalling trips to the beach with her family. They would sit under an umbrella in the sand and count the sails glimmering on the water while Mama reapplied sunscreen and fed them chicken nuggets and sliced oranges and watermelon.
Once, a gull had swooped in out of nowhere, grabbing Rachel’s finger sandwich. She had shrieked, hunger sharpening her surprise into an angry howl. Then Marley had screamed with laughter at the absurdity of it all—not helping matters.
Sometimes they buried Daddy in the sand while he recounted to them the historic trivia surrounding Norfolk. He had once been a sailor, as had his own father, and he told them of the early days of the sword that was the American Navy, forged in Boston, hardened at Norfolk, and tempered at Yorktown. As much as Rachel had loved her father, she had never cared for their earliest college lectures. “Daddy, let’s go to the amusement park! Please? Last time you said …”
Daddy had no interest in such frivolity. And so Rachel retired under the umbrella with Mama, leaving Marley to the important task of heaping piles of sand upon their father. It had been on one of these trips that her father had begun to teach her how to hold her breath underwater for long periods of time. She loved their ocean trips for she had his complete attention, and she soaked up every word as he explained the simple story of people who weren’t treated fairly by their king.
For Marley, these stories were like fairy tales, complete with brave-hearted knights and villains and pretty ladies. John Adams and his cousin Sam, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Crispus Attucks. Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Sally Hemings. The villains, King George, General Gage, Admiral Graves, Governor Dunmore, and General Cornwallis—all rich and well-dressed and angry with the pesky little farmers and peasants who dared to raise their voice against the King and demand equality.
The only blot in the romance of the stories of America’s founding was its slavery—and these stories, Daddy told with such striking realism that they made her cry. He spoke of small children on slave ships, and t
he death and disease the people encountered on the middle passage between Africa, the Americas, and Europe.
Sitting here now as a ribbon of dark clouds formed far on the distant horizon, Marley marveled. Why had it taken her so long to realize why she had become a historian?
Where many children found historic dates to be dull, meaningless numerals signifying nothing except stressful exams, they were for her like dollhouses or toy garages opening to a world of philosophy her father had taught her to love.
Nan had summed up such things with the brusque admonition, “Marley-love, you’re an odd bird.”
She wasn’t odd, she thought as she rose to her feet for a refill. She was her father’s daughter.
“Careful, love, you’re not a drinker. And would you refill mine. Please and thank you.”
Marley stopped to grin at her.
“What? I am most certainly a drinker. Can’t you see?”
She returned and passed Nan her cold pink punch and sipped her own. Calypso and zydeco music filled the air, and she lay back in her lounge, stretching in the warmth of the sun.
“Nan?”
“Yes, love.”
She turned to see Nan’s reaction, obscured though it was behind oversized sunglasses. “Who’s Rachel Sheppard?”
Only the slightest lift of her head betrayed Nan’s lie. The idea of Nan lying disappointed her, she didn’t hear her words.
“I’m sorry, I missed that.”
“I said I’ve never heard the name before.”
That much must be true. Surely she wasn’t so adept a liar.
“Why do you ask?”
She gave her a direct and utterly inscrutable smile. “No reason. Just wondering.”
Nan closed her book. “Yes, but why were you wondering? It’s rather an odd question, out of the blue.”
“The fellow you’re so afraid of has a daughter named Rachel.”
“And?”
“It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
“How so?”
“Nan, do you have any idea how frustrating it is to ask you the simplest of questions?”
Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2) Page 4
