Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  “Josephy? You ready for adventure, son?” Thomas put the boy’s palm to the tiller.

  “Yes, Papa.” He was a proper little reefer.

  Young Harry plopped at my feet. His little body had shivers, but he was trying to be brave.

  Charlotte’s gaze remained on Grenada. The view was better now. The steam of crater lake could be seen, swirling the rebel stronghold.

  “You think the Fédons will win, Mama? You think Julien and Rose will lead our people to victory?”

  “Maybe.”

  Couldn’t tell her the truth. Once the British frigates brought more troops and hit the ground with all their numbers and guns, the rebel coloreds and Catholics would be slaughtered.

  Barbados 1795: The Wine

  Bridgetown. I wanted to like it. This could’ve been a place to escape to and rebuild when we could retrieve our family from Grenada.

  Barbados itself was beautiful, a jewel of an island with the whitest sand beaches I’d ever seen. The emerald hills were sculpted with houses that seemed settled and calm.

  That was at a distance.

  Up close, we slept under thin netting to keep the mossies, the blood-biting bugs, from giving us dinga fever. Dinga made the bones and joints ache. Folding up my net reminded me of Charlotte’s wedding veil.

  My poor daughter.

  She didn’t rise from her pillows. Sobbing in her sleep had robbed her of energy.

  Pushing off her netting, I stroked her hair and plaited a fresh braid. It shifted to the side, but her thick curls were soft. The humidity in the air had her tresses and mine feathering. This moist heat, how it made everything sticky, was something to get used to. “I’m going out for a little.”

  “That . . . that’s good.” Her voice was so wet, so sorrowful.

  “Charlotte, why don’t you eat? Let me get you something.”

  With the handed-down rosary and Jean-Joseph’s cross tight in her fist, she shook her head. “Later.”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  She didn’t respond.

  I offered a kiss and covered her. I didn’t know if getting her back to Grenada with a new name would help. Leaving Charlotte gave me little comfort, even if the cook I’d hired would stay and watch her. I pushed out the door onto James Street and headed to the docks.

  Going this way, then that, I lost my bearings and stumbled upon a pink stone building with round corners. The shape I hadn’t noticed as we’d passed it last night, but the singing coming from inside caught my ear.

  The tongue was foreign, but it sounded like a hymn. Was nice to hear a public crying out to God. And in such a building—shuttered windows basking in the light, arched frames pointing up, all housed in coral limestone—it looked hopeful on this bright Saturday morn.

  The rebellion had stopped Priest Mardel’s house meetings. The priest began those when the Grenada council seized the Catholic churches. That had to be the sign to leave a place, when men made laws to take from those who were different.

  The hot sweaty air reminded me I couldn’t stand around. I had to keep working my plan and find Owen. Someone at the harbor should know the boisterous fellow.

  I turned down Swan Street and passed vendors and hucksters. Plantations and cane fields stood on both sides of my path. The enslaved here were barely clothed. Many were barefoot.

  My heart broke for them. The memories, the regrets, the death masks, all the things I couldn’t change often came to my eyes. How do I stop thinking about these things?

  Swiping damp locks from my face, I stepped onto the harbor. The heat made my arms sticky, even with sheer sleeves. The bay churned with sloops and smaller sailboats, but I couldn’t find Thomas’s Mary. That blue pole holding its main sail had disappeared, but he’d probably taken the boys to deeper water to catch bright green dolphinfish.

  “Miss Dolly!”

  That shout? Polk?

  Cupping my eyes, I looked out and saw my friend. My heart leapt. I hadn’t seen that bald head since the rebellion started. Kitty missed her damfo.

  Polk was in Barbados. He’d know how to find Owen.

  His craft, the Dolus, came closer, the water parting at the sloop’s bow.

  But he wasn’t alone.

  A man with a black hat and white jacket and a smile for days came up on the deck and waved.

  I sat on the patio of a modest house, the ancestral home of John Coseveldt Cells. Just off Tudor Street, he had a view of the sea, no plantations.

  “Dolly, admiring my garden?”

  Of course I was. I needed something to distract myself from the unwelcome news that Owen was rotting in an English prison for smuggling. “It’s lovely.”

  Ginger shoots fanned jade leaves as it coiled itself into long spirals. Palm fronds and tall grasses lined walkways that traversed the garden. In the corners were the yellow and red plants that framed my womanhood, the peacock flower.

  I pointed to it, the harbinger of choice and hate. “Why do you grow those?”

  “That, the plant with the red petals?” He picked up his cup of tea. “It’s called the Pride of Barbados.”

  “Pride?” I thought of it as a remedy or preventative for shame. Maybe that was pride, to think one might be able to control consequences.

  “You’re not eating, Dolly?”

  “I’m not here for a meal. When will the British release Captain Owen?”

  He picked at the cheese that was on the table before us. “You want him again? Thought your ambitions were higher.” Cells wiped his hands on a napkin. “How many children did he leave you with?”

  “No more than you wanted.”

  His frown deepened. That tarn cleft taunted me, made me think of my Edward.

  “Our son forgave me. We’d gotten to better terms, better for a long time.”

  “My boy’s heart was so big.”

  He offered me his handkerchief, a smooth white linen. That soft scent of sweet rum brought it all back and I wept.

  “I’m sorry, Dolly. I’ll always be sorry.”

  Cells reached for me, but I jerked away. “Tell me,” he said, “what you’ll do now, being in Barbados hunting for Frances’s father. Perhaps I can help. A substitute father?”

  His hazel eyes burned. He wanted me to confess that Frances was his, but some secrets were grave bound. I folded his linen cloth. “I need Owen for Charlotte. He needs to vouch for her and claim she’s Mr. Foden’s daughter. If the British authorities suspect she was the wife of one of the Fédon leaders, she’ll be taken into custody and hanged. Jean-Joseph was lesser known, less showy than his brother. My Thomas was able to get her paperwork to quit the colony for a few weeks. I’m not sure how long the ruse will last.”

  “You’re reaching for all your old lovers? Still, a solicitor is a low bar. What of that prince of England?”

  I’d never seen Cells this jealous. Very dangerous state for a man given to reason and plotting. “Thomas is my husband.”

  My voice held even, not a bit of celebration, but my wide smile danced.

  His smirk disappeared. He slunk back inside.

  It was irresistible to see him bothered by my marriage. My unease lowered, and I followed him into the drawing room. It was grand, with empty bookcases on each side of a large mahogany table. None of the books I’d seen in Montserrat or the Hermitage.

  My brooding Cells swiped his finger along a shelf. “The housekeeper needs to dust and keep this place free of moisture. That stops the green dust.”

  “Mildew. I was such an ignorant girl when we met.”

  “You had a lot of living to do, but no one kept dust or green dust away better. You’ve learned a lot and changed.”

  Compliments from him were dangerous. That was how his campaigning started. I went to the garden door and thought of fleeing. The lush fernlike leaves of the Pride of Barbados weren’t enough to hide me.

  “It’s a shame I’m free and you aren’t. Are you, Dolly?”

  “Does Fanny know this?”

  Cells w
as behind me, hovering. “Probably. God rest my late wife’s soul.”

  I swallowed. My jest must sound callous. “Sorry.”

  His sigh burned my neck. “She went in peace. Catharina and her sister and I were with her.”

  Sister? Coseveldt had another child?

  “Let me answer the questions you won’t ask. Louisa is three. My wife and I, after all these years, had a daughter.”

  I closed my eyes. “Do you care for Catharina as much as you did before you had a legitimate daughter?”

  “You know I do. Catharina and Louisa were well loved by their mother. They are both at the Hermitage in Mrs. Randolph’s charge.”

  My heart went wobbly thinking of her being back in that house. “Is Catharina happy in Demerara?”

  He clutched my arm. “Our daughter is mourning. The loss of her mother has made her unhappy, even rebellious, but she’ll settle down.”

  “She’s lost the woman she’s called mother and you’ve taken her away from everything she knew. I can understand why she’d be miserable.”

  “You could know her. She would’ve called you Mother by now if you’d returned with me after Charlotte’s wedding. But you had a prince to keep company.”

  It would be like Cells to make Catharina’s sadness my fault. I pushed him away. “Don’t make your failings with her my doing.”

  He moved and dropped into a dining table chair. “Forgive me, Dolly. That’s not what I meant. I failed you. I’ve done so many things wrong. I want us to be friends. For Catharina’s sake, we need to be.”

  Was I capable of forgiving this man who made me question my worth? Staring into his eyes, the face it took forever not to hope for, I didn’t think it possible.

  “You came for Owen, thinking he could vouch for Charlotte. Dolly, the minute things get difficult, he won’t be around. Questioning from officials would be too much. That’s why he’s jailed. We can’t risk Charlotte’s safety.”

  He was trying too hard with all this reasoning, but his voice was soft, drawing me to him. I went the opposite direction.

  “Dolly, I have an idea to save our Charlotte.”

  At the door, I stopped short of seizing the door latch. “Cells, tell me what you’re plotting.”

  “I’ll take Charlotte with me to Demerara. I’ll get her established in the colony as Charlotte Foden. You know I can look authorities in the eye and not reveal a thing.”

  Trusting Cells to do something that had no benefit to himself? I shook my head. “I know you can lie and not blink, but this is my daughter.”

  “The child I helped bring into this world. Who danced in the halls of my Hermitage like she was my daughter. The child who never wanted for anything until we parted. Can you doubt I’d do this for her?”

  In that moment, I couldn’t. Nothing he said was untrue. Hadn’t I always felt he loved her like she loved her Papa Cells?

  “What’s in this for you, Coseveldt? What’s the benefit to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s a risk, one that could ruin me. If I falter, it could take away all the credibility I’ve built.”

  “Then why?”

  “Why do what’s right, Dolly? Because maybe it will show you I’ve changed. That you can trust me once again.”

  He slipped from the chair, strode to me with that confident walk, and put my hand in his. The strength in his palms, his fingers remained. He was older, with salt-and-pepper hair. Lines etched his face. Tiny crinkles set about his well-groomed mustache. He still looked good, well preserved to my aging eyes.

  Together, we clutched the latch. “Bring Charlotte to me tomorrow and the next for dinner. We can determine if she will carry on this deception.”

  “Because you’ll be at risk?”

  “Yes. I’m willing to do so, but I have to know she is as committed to this as you are. Your determination has to be hers. Then she will succeed at all costs.”

  Ignoring his backhanded praise, I had to admit that Charlotte was fragile. I didn’t know if she’d go with Cells to Demerara, but I needed to try. “I’ll get her to come. I know she’ll want to see you.”

  “I’ll have Polk take you back and pick the two of you up tomorrow evening at six.”

  Fingers still entwined, we slid the latch. Flinging free, I shot through the door. “Have Polk hurry. I’ve been gone too long from her.”

  For Charlotte’s safety, there was no other choice than trusting Cells. I had to figure out how I would deal with owing him. And how I’d tell Thomas.

  Barbados 1795: The Way

  I sipped red wine, a claret cupped in fine crystal. This was the second dinner Charlotte and I had with Cells. It was different being his guest and now his equal.

  He waved off a server, one fully dressed with shoes. I didn’t ask her status. I was glad this older woman with silver hair curling beneath her red-and-blue-patterned scarf looked healthy.

  “Dolly, you keep staring at my bookshelves.”

  “I spent a fair amount of time cleaning them. Can’t help looking at how empty they are.”

  “The humidity is bad in Bridgetown. I’ve ruined more than one special treasure here. Mildew is everywhere. My books stay in cedar trunks.”

  His gaze at me burned, like he knew my thoughts, but I abandoned his gaze and concentrated on the feast of roasted partridge over dandelion greens. The oattie nut bread, the texture of it, always tasted of happiness.

  Yet I could barely lift my knife. How could I eat when Thomas and I had had words? Well, I said a lot of them and he listened as I tried to convince him and my soul of this arrangement with my old love.

  Cells, the easygoing man, had Charlotte talking in more than one sentence. She smiled when he mentioned the Hermitage.

  “You and your brother loved roaming the halls. I miss that.” Cells offered a thoughtful look and lifted his glass. “A toast to Edward.”

  Part of me wanted to toss my goblet at him and watch the burgundy-colored liquid stain his rich-man-white white jacket. “What type of toast? Will it be a light one?”

  Cells bit his lip, then said, “It will be my deepest regret to not have been a better man to my son and to you, all of you.”

  Charlotte pushed away from the table. “At least you two had a son to bicker about.”

  “Sit, Charlotte. Your mother and I are making peace. It’s hard sometimes with a sea of misunderstanding separating us.”

  My daughter clasped the back of the chair. Then she smoothed the full skirt of her widow’s weave and retook her seat.

  “Hmmm.” He thumbed those lips of his. “Charlotte, your mother and I think that you should quit the colony of Grenada and move to the Hermitage.”

  “Quit?”

  “Yes,” he said, “we should all gather in Demerara. It’s ready for business. It’s finally growing, now that it’s firmly under English control. The French and Dutch are never to claim it again.”

  “How good, Cells? You’re finally right. Only a few years off.”

  Charlotte stabbed a cut of boiled yam with her fork. “This is peacemaking?”

  “It is,” I said. “It’s how we navigate things. Tweaking his nose, reminding him how we survived without him.”

  The instant I said it, I regretted it. “Sorry.”

  His smile returned, for he knew I was still hurt by his leaving, his taking Catharina.

  “This will help make amends. Yes, Dolly and all the Kirwan-Thomas brood should come to Demerara. We could be one large family. Never had that.”

  If he’d chosen me, I wasn’t sure if I’d have as many children. And Cells didn’t love like Thomas did. I wouldn’t want my heart broken again and again because my babes didn’t fit into Cells’s white world.

  He left his end of the table and came to ours and waved a servant to refill my drink. “Dolly, there’s a great demand for services in Demerara, but you’re probably waiting for the rebellion to end to reap British contracts. I hear you’re still collecting on your contracts in Dominica. Always my enterprising Dolly.�
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  “We weren’t all born to run rum plantations.”

  That took his smirk.

  Charlotte dropped her fork. It made a hollow clang on her bone china plate. “You two couldn’t make it two minutes. No matter how you put it, for there to be new business with the British, the Fédons must lose. I need to return to Grenada and fight with Rose and Julien.”

  “Charlotte, you can’t say those names in public. They link you to the rebellion. You could be killed.”

  “Maybe I should be. Maybe I should die and be with Jean-Joseph. He must think I’m a coward. A coward like you two pretending you hate each other, when you are the same.” She pushed back from her chair. “I need to leave.”

  My daughter bolted across the polished floorboards. I bounced up and caught her, putting my arms about her, holding her up. “Charlotte, we squabble, but we both love you. We both want the best. That’s why you’re returning to Demerara.”

  She stayed in my embrace for a moment then ran toward the door.

  “Stop, Charlotte.” Cells’s voice vibrated, loud and strong.

  She dropped her hands to her sides. The air went out of her. “Yes, Papa Cells.”

  “I’ll have someone escort you upstairs to a bedchamber to refresh yourself. I’ll make peace with your mama while you rest.”

  She swiped at her eyes and nodded. The look on her face was that of a little girl lost.

  I wish I knew the words, the herbs, the way to make it all better. Then I realized her Papa Cells could.

  With a flick of his wrist, Cells pointed to a server who escorted my daughter out of the room. Then he said, “Everyone, please leave us.”

  All the fellows in onyx mantles that had lined the wall disappeared.

  “She’s grieving very hard, Dolly.” He moved to the glass doors that led to his garden. “She’s not you, Dolly. No one is as strong as you. We must convince her to come live at the Hermitage. Catharina and Louisa will love her.”

  He opened the double doors and let humid air inside. The smell, the citrus and perfumes of flowers, overtook the meal’s.