Finally darting through a narrow walkway hidden between two tall buildings, she pulled me through the back door of The High Horse Inn. Slipping through the dim-lit hall, she led me up the stairs and peered around to be sure no one saw us as she pulled out a key to open the door.
Entering the darkened room, I took in the familiar scent of catnip, and when she locked the door behind us, I sighed in relief. We had survived the perilous trek through the alleyways of Port Royal, but when she lit the lantern I found no greater comfort in the lavish room I now stood in.
Startled to death by the sound of Sky’s wings flapping through the air, I jumped in fright. “Midnight!” he squawked, and an ice cold chill ran down my spine as I watched him perch himself on her shoulder. The woman before me was as unfamiliar as the strange place she had brought me to.
Having never felt so afraid or alone, terror flooded my heart. Looking around in a panic, I saw paisley print curtains covering the large windows, and that the expensive furniture was all made of dark wood and the cushions were upholstered with rich gold and blue fabrics. There was a fully-stocked bar in one of the corners, and amidst the gold framed mirrors, I noticed that her beautiful paintings were lining the walls. The one of Esmerelda was hanging above the mantle.
Her bird, her paintings, and her secret chest were all placed neatly in this dreadful place, like she had been here all along.
Wondering just what the hell she was up to, I finally mustered up the courage to yelp, “What in the world is going on here?”
“I am taking my life back,” she calmly stated as she removed her hood. I instantly took note of the dark kohl lining her eyes, making the mystic blue look all the more vibrant.
“Taking your life back from whom? What does that even mean?!” I threw my arms out to the sides, becoming angrier with every breath I took.
Unconcerned with my outrage, she slowly removed her cloak. “From the lying adulterer who kept me locked up in that house in London and forced me across the sea.”
Unsure if I was more upset by her statement or shocked by the look of the masculine attire she was wearing, I shrieked, “Why are you dressed like that?”
Placing the cloak in her secret chest, she said, “It is safer this way, my darling. I brought you a similar outfit.”
My mind spiraled so far out of control that I began to feel dizzy and faint. Taking a seat at one of the barstools, I laid my face in my hands and sarcastically grumbled, “Safer.”
“Yes. I have done all this with your best interest in mind. We are partners now, Remington, and together we will make our way in the world.”
I didn’t even know what to say to her.
Sitting at the stool next to me, she said, “I know this must be confusing, but I am finally free to share everything with you. So, tell me, what would you like to know first?”
I slapped my forehead. There was so much I wanted to know that I had no idea where to start. Thinking back on my earliest days of life, my mind wildly flashed across my memories of all of her strange behaviors. Of all the important things that I longed to know, I started by asking, “Tell me how you got this Black Hawke blade.”
A completely sane expression coated her face as she took my hand. With the love of a mother gleaming in her eyes she sighed, “I know that you were engaging in a love affair with Jackson Hawke. Though I am rather disappointed in you for giving yourself away before marriage, I am far more upset about the way I found out.”
“How did you find out?” I felt my cheeks heat up, shame and embarrassment mixing with fear.
Letting go of my hand, she straightened her shoulders. “His wife, Catrina, came to the door looking for you.” My heart plummeted into the turbulent pit of my gut. “Finding that you had gone, I sent Franklin out to search for you and asked her what she wanted. At first I thought that you had made a friend—she was a cute little thing, and for a moment I was happy for you—but judging by her snobby huff, I realized that friendship was the last thing on her mind. So, I invited her in. When she told me why she had come, I was so glad I did.” She steeled her eyes.
“She saw you wandering the dirt road to Black Hawke Forge a few times, and the day Thomas took you to return the knife Mister Hawke made for you, she figured out what you two had been up to. Apparently, she had worked rather hard to convince her wealthy father that it would be safe and wise for her to leave Bristol as that black-hearted blacksmith’s wife, and she insisted that she wasn’t going to let a slutty little tramp like you prove her wrong.”
I started to cry. “I didn’t know he was married, Mother. Truly I didn’t, and as soon as I found out I stopped going to see him.”
“I believe you, my child. But this extends far beyond what is between me and you. That nasty little bitch insisted that you would suffer for your act of harlotry.”
“It wasn’t harlotry, Mother. I loved him. I never told him that, but I know it, now. I don’t want to because he hurt me, but I can’t stop my heart from feeling for him…”
She looked deep into my eyes. “If you sleep with a man you are not married to, you are nothing more than his whore, Remington.”
Her words cut me like a knife. Crying into my hands, I wailed. “I hate him for doing this to me! And her! Why the hell does she want to punish me when I didn’t even know? He is the one who should be punished.”
“That is not the way the world works, my dear. Men can do as they please, while we women are just supposed to sit here and look pretty.”
Not at all liking her answer, I growled, “I don’t want to be a woman! I want to be a buccaneer, like Midnight.”
Her face lifted with a wicked grin. “You are more like her than you know, and from now on, we will be living the way she did. Strong, powerful, and free. From where we will now stand, the venomous threats of prissy rich bitches will never be able to knock us from our lofty perches.”
Far too concerned with the final outcome of this entire situation to rise in the uplifting surge of her speech, I fanned my hands to rush her along. “Please tell me what will come of this mess I made before I begin worrying about your crazy new plans for us.”
Looking annoyed by my comment, she went on with a huff. “Never wanting you to suffer the way I once did, I covered your trail this time. But you must never forget how close you came to suffering whatever the hell punishment that wretch would have found fit for your crime.”
Thinking of the way I felt when I first heard of Odelia’s death, and then reliving the revelation that unveiled in my room as the cloaked woman force me out of my window, I covered my mouth with my trembling hand. “What did you do to cover my trail?”
She looked at me with a fire of hatred burning in her blue eyes. “Dead men tell no tales, Remington, and this dirty little secret will remain uncharted.”
Icicles ripped through my veins. Powered by sheer dread, I leapt to my feet and squeezed the handle of my Black Hawke blade. ”You’re mad. You’re absolutely insane! You can’t run around killing people!”
“You do not yet understand how cruel the world is,” she responded with a cold, foreboding tone.
“And you do, I take it? I suppose murdering women left and right will give you a good taste of the world’s cruelty.”
“I saved your life, Remington.” She shouted in a way that halted my wild pacing. Looking at her through tear-filled eyes, I saw the pain on her face as she hissed, “If she had lived to tell this vile tale, you could have been flogged before a crowd and scorned by society for all your days to follow. It would bring shame to the man who raised you and a curse to any good man who might have wished to wed you. I simply could not allow that to happen.”
Thinking of my evening with Joel and the promising future Father was attempting to arrange for me, I saw her actions in a new light. She had indeed saved my life, but the mention of the man who raised me led me into another fit of tears. I wanted him to hold me and tell me everything was all right, like he’d done when I had a nightmare or when I scratche
d my knees. Beyond all my greater fears, I dreaded the thought of him knowing what I had done. So, I asked her if he knew.
“No. He doesn’t. Only you and I and the devil know.”
“What about Jackson? Where is he? You didn’t kill him, too, did you? Oh, please don’t, if you haven’t,” I begged.
“I have not.” She sounded regretful. “And I won’t. He is not a threat, but a lowly idiot who knew not the value of your love. Plus, he’d be a fool to ever admit that he mistreated your father’s daughter.”
Before I could respond, she slammed her fist against the counter. “So in the future, you must remember, it is not worth the hell of sleeping with a man you are not married to. A few seconds of pleasure could ruin the rest of your life, and we can only pray that he has not already infested you with the growth of his child.”
Good heavens, that possibility had not even crossed my mind! Shit. I could have ended up with Sweeny’s child, too, behaving as I had. Feeling like I deserved to be flogged before a crowd, I flopped my head down on the counter and prayed that neither of them had planted their seeds in me.
She carried on. “Hold tight to your virtue, Remington. A man can make a slave of you if you become weakened by his child, and we cannot be burdened by such inconveniences along our new path. No matter what you do, or who you deal with, trust no one and always keep the upper hand. It takes more than brute strength to make a fine warrior, and the power of a good secret is far more dangerous than any weapon that master blacksmith ever crafted.
You must keep these things in mind and always remember, you have the blood of a king running in your veins and you must hold yourself to the royal standard of which you were bred.”
Stunned breathless, the words king and royalty echoed in my mind, reverberating so loudly against my fearful excitement that I hardly heard her when she said, “Mason Bentley is your father, Remington Rain. He is the Mason who loved Midnight, and I am Midnight.”
“Midnight!” Sky called out from his perch on the counter.
There were no words to explain the sense of shock that overtook my body.
Weakened by the flood of memories flashing through my mind, I set my hands on the counter to keep myself afloat. Mason Bentley. The fearsome buccaneer captain, king of everything he touched, was my father? No. It couldn’t be. My heart rate picked up, swirling with a vibrant mix of alarm and exhilaration as I let my mind revisit the things I knew about this man.
First, I remembered all the things Father had ever said about him, and then I recalled my first view of him, standing tall on the Talon—the ship he later stole from the owner. Imagining the way he looked entering the door of The Captain’s Wife, well-dressed and revered by all he passed, my memory settled on the sight of him warding off the raging bunch of men who wished to attack his son. I had never before seen anyone act so ferociously.
I had always admired the Mason in Mother’s stories, and I had been following the adventures of Mason Bentley and his son, Sterling, since I first heard of them. They were untouchable. Surely, out of the realm of my simple reality. There was no way this could be true.
Closing my eyes, I visualized his handsome face, and I gingerly touched my bold nose. All these years I’d wondered who I looked like, and now I finally knew. I looked just like the father I never knew. Thinking back on his image, I wondered how I had not seen the similarities. I looked so much like him. Then I thought about Sterling. He was my brother! He looked just like Mason, too, but the streaks of blond in his hair set my mind ablaze. Long ago, Mother had drifted off into one of her trances after mentioning the possibility of my hair turning blonde in the sunlight… “What about Sterling? Is he anyone to you and me?” I asked.
Tears filled her eyes. “Yes, Remington Rain. That handsome young man who now howls at the thunder that he once was afraid of is my son and your brother.” Her face grew so pale, as if she had expelled a ghost from her soul.
“What?!” No longer feeling sick, or weak, I sprung to my feet. “What the hell happened, Mother? How did you end up without your son?!”
She began blubbering like a baby. “I have never told that to anyone, Remington. He is the greatest secret I have ever harbored, and every day I hate myself for doing what I did to him.” I had seen her in many different lights over my lifetime, but the sight of her drowning in her own tears was new to me.
Though I desired to hug her, I was too fired up by the untangling of her riddles to let her cry her way out of this. “You snuck me out of the house in the middle of the night, promising to tell me everything. So, spit it out. Why are you not with your son, and why have I not been raised by my true father?” Guilt stabbed my gut. As much as I admired Mason Bentley, it didn’t feel right calling him my father.
Pulling herself together, she wiped her tears and took a few deep breaths. “I promised to tell you everything, and I will.”
She told me it was going to be a long story, so we moved over to the sofa and snuggled up like we used to when she told me the stories of Mason and Midnight. Only this time I knew she was reciting a memoir, so my eyes were wider than ever when she began telling me the truth.
The first part of her story covered her first sail to Barbados, her secret romance with Father, the terrible things that happened to her when she was stolen from him, and the soul saving romance she found with Mason Bentley. The next part told the tale of Midnight and Mason. As the childish fantasy I had always adored morphed into the strange reality where my mother was the woman I had always admired, and the man I had always adored was indeed my birth father, I was glad to be sitting down. I believed every word she said, but it was also hard to comprehend the truth of it.
As she went on, I learned that the sweet memory she made in the chartroom of Esmerelda was the making of the brother I never knew, and Selah—the funny little islander I always loved to hear about—was the woman responsible for keeping Mother and her unborn baby alive in the swamping Caribbean heat that would otherwise have killed them both. Shark, the young African-Spanish buccaneer boy who I had always wanted to be best friends with, was the one man on the crew who knew Midnight’s secret, and she had faith that he was holding his confidence tight to this day.
To my great surprise, the fearsome buccaneer who all men dreaded loved my crazy little mother enough to settle ashore and raise a family with her. The love in her eyes when she revealed that part of the saga warmed my soul with hope, but the shocking news of Father’s ghostly return ripped my heart in two.
She had no idea I was already growing in her womb when Father asked her to run away to London with him, and loving him as I did, I couldn’t imagine her denying his offer. Especially after all she had lost. But she had also gained so much with Mason and Sterling that I couldn’t understand how she was able to leave them behind. Apparently, she didn’t understand it either, and the guilt and regret she’d carried over what she now called the worst decision she ever made, is why she had suffered all these years.
“Oh, my. You are not crazy at all,” I sniffled through my tears. “All of your rambling behavior was not based on nonsense.”
She let out a long, exhausted exhale. “Oh, I’m barmy all right. I haven’t had much of a mind since my own father died. Honestly, I don’t know how I have survived all the pain I’ve endured since then, but I have done some terrible things to those I love and will most likely burn in Hell for all the trouble I have caused.” She patted my leg. “But who knows, maybe I will be less crazy now that I have told the truth.”
“That would be wonderful, because I truly do enjoy your company when you act normal.”
She smiled.
With the wall of secrets collapsed between us, I was finally able to see her for who she truly was, and I loved her more than ever. “So what’s next? Are you going to tell Mason you still love him? Do you think he still loves you?”
“I know he still loves me. His letters have been a constant reminder.”
“Well, what about me? How do you think he wi
ll react to the news?”
Sitting up, she put her hands on my cheeks. “He is going to love you like you have never been loved before.”
Though she looked warmed by the concept, her words drew up a wall of defense in my heart. Blood or not, Thomas was my father, and I was certain that no one would ever love me like he did. And I would never love another man the way I loved him.
“Does Father know any of this?” I slowly pulled away from her.
She lowered her head. “No. All he knows is that I was saved from my captors by a buccaneer, and I belonged to him at the time that he came back for me.” Remembering the night that he said something similar in the carriage, I suddenly understood why she became so upset. “But he still has no idea who this buccaneer is, and we have never spoken about you being anyone’s child but his. I honestly wasn’t sure whose you were until the day you were born. The moment I saw your cute little face, I knew you were Mason Bentley’s little girl.”
Feeling terribly sad for Father’s blindness, I closed my eyes and saw his face. The reason she had given him such a hard time all these years was because—as I had guessed—she was indeed still in love with the man who wrote her those letters. Suddenly, Father’s terrible act of adultery didn’t seem so bad. “What is Father going to think about this? Do you think he will still love me if he finds out I am not his?”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He chose that redheaded slut over us, so he can have her and we will reunite with our true family.”
“True family,” I hummed, too confused by all of this. “But I love my father. I don’t want to be away from him. I still want to see him.”
“I understand. Thomas may not be your birth father, but he is the man who raised you and I know you love him dearly. We will work out the details in the morning.” Standing up, she kissed me on the forehead. “Come, my little raindrop. Let’s get you to bed.”
Every Time It Rains (Uncharted Secrets, Book 3): Endless Horizon Pirate Stories Page 9
