The Winds of Fate

by Michel, Elizabeth

  Entering the library, Claire’s skin prickled. Her uncles strained countenance reeked of secrets. Did you wish to see me?

  Jarvis pursed his lips. “I have consented to a courtship between you and Sir Teakle.

  “Indeed, Uncle. I am in mourning with the soil fresh on my husband’s grave. A year is protocol. To do anything else is scandalous.” Claire forced a smile.

  Her uncle snorted. “You did not think of your scandalous behavior in the governor’s garden? Did I not catch you alone with a slave? What do you have to say about that disgraceful activity?”

  “I did nothing to be ashamed of.” Her voice ascended to a murderous falsetto.

  Sir Teakle cleared his throat, and Claire whirled to see him there.

  “There is talk of scandal firing about the island,” said Sir Teakle.

  “No doubt I stare at the source.”

  Her uncle drummed his fingers on his desk. “My blood runs cold thinking how a slave put my niece in a compromised position. I cannot allow a slight of this proportion. Who knows, I might find it a personal pleasure to see him flogged to death or hanged, makes no difference.”

  She had no question of what her uncle stood capable of. “You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” Claire accused bitterly. Her hands clenched helplessly at her sides. Sir Teakle’s lecherous eyes roamed over her.

  “I’m going to do you a favor, Madam Hamilton,” purred Sir Teakle. “I am going to take on the onerous duty of marrying you, relieving you of scandal and making you an honorable woman.”

  Her nails dug half-moons into her palms.

  Her uncle pressed on. “You could do no better, Claire. A member of the peerage with important contacts, I cannot think of a man more suited to you. He is intelligent and twenty years your senior and will be able to give you a guiding hand.”

  A loathing like bile rose in her belly. “There is no point in this discussion. My solicitor said I do not have to marry again. I am protected under the law.”

  Sir Teakle spoke up. “My years of education have been in studying law. You have been misinformed by your solicitor.”

  Claire swung around, her eyes blazing with contempt for the knight. “I will not marry.”

  Sir Jarvis cracked his cane on his desk and Claire jumped. “You will marry Sir Teakle. I will no longer tolerate your rebellion.” He raised his cane threatening her. “You remember the last time, Claire? I will not hesitate to use this on you, but on Lily also. Your Cookie and cousin will be thrown out. Remember that. What’s more, I can arrange an untimely death for that slave you purchased.”

  Shivers raced up her spine. If she didn’t marry Teakle, Jarvis would make good on his threats. The corpulent Teakle gloated. She inhaled to fight off the dizziness, the horror she was to commit too. “I concede.” How could she thwart, Sir Teakle?

  A week had passed since that night in the governor’s garden where he dared to get above himself. Devon Blackmon stepped knee-deep into sulfurous muck. Clouds of mosquitos swarmed in the heat. A tree had fallen and pinned a slave. “On the count of three lads,” he ordered and put his shoulder to the log to heft it up and off the poor wretch. He prayed he did not have to amputate.

  Claire was a thorn in his side. He could not get his fill of her. Kissing her in the garden had been a mistake. He’d come too close to losing control of himself. No one had seen anything. They had their suspicions, but with no evidence to be seen, no one could claim otherwise. Claire would be safe from scandal. Yet the governor had guessed.

  He did not deserve her affection. He did not even desire to be worthy of it. It was as if she had looked into his soul and seen his revenge against her for what it was…a farce.

  Her occasional knowing glance, patient smile and even laughter at times piqued him while her temper amused him. His sharp words, she rebuffed, his sarcasm she met with smug response. He challenged her in every way a man could challenge a woman. In return, she honed her shrewd wit on him as a blade sharpened on stone. She offered a rare treasure to be sure with lively intelligence and opposing reasoning. In his travails across the continent, he’d met many contentious scholars, but this rare beauty could argue reasons for and against, rivaling and burying the best of them. Any man would be proud to have her, once he’d see that blazing spirit. Full of mischief, it was hard to imagine her face without the playful undercurrent of one who knew more than she was telling. He could imagine the same smile, close beside him some night, her head on the pillow, her chestnut hair tousled, her cheeks flushed with passion.

  At night, his dreams were filled of her. Soft. Beckoning. Intoxicating. Her gentle voice, musical, lavishing her full attention on that—fop. The image burst his imaginings. She was his wife. Fury drove him over the edge, Teakle leering into her bosom. His hands itched to have a sword.

  Devon slipped into the mire. Ames gave him a hand and pulled him out. He wiped the mud from his eyes, the rest coating him from head to toe would dry quickly in the tropic sun. No matter thought Devon, his weary and wretched condition protected him against the ceaseless insects and torrid sun. The men lifted the unfortunate to the roadside. Devon would administer to him to the best of his ability.

  Claire’s life turned into a nightmare. Sir Teakle commenced his courtship, insisting on hours of her attentions and wreaking constant humiliations upon her. On long carriage rides across the island his hands would always find their way to stroke and fondle her while the black slave drove, his eyes straight ahead. She longed to slap Sir Teakle, to scream at him to go away, yet he’d fake some movement to touch her. Claire shuddered when he’d hover his florid lips close to hers and make a horrid sucking sound. The color drained from her face when they passed Mrs. Bennett. What would the islanders think? Sir Teakle had leaned back and laughed, delighted in seeing her shrink from him.

  “Soon, my dear you will know what I intend for our wedded bliss.” He dropped his handkerchief on her leg then groped between her thighs to retrieve it.

  Claire slapped his hand away in hatred and disgust. “Do not touch me again.”

  “Whatever do you mean, my love?” he chuckled, pretending innocence, but Claire grew sickened when she viewed the lustful excitement in his eyes. “Remember−” he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Lily and Cookie’s lives depend on your cooperation.”

  After several days of torment, Teakle ordered their route to be altered. Around midday, the sun rose to its zenith, the wind had quit and the air grew horribly oppressive. They pulled up to a remote structure where several half-naked men toiled in a swamp, digging an irrigation channel. Puzzled, Claire shaded her eyes against the sun’s brightness and looked about. They were gaunt, filthy and sunburned from their heavy labors. Of a sudden, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. A black creature, barely discernible as human was covered in mire. Her heart pounded.

  Devon.

  His dark hair lay matted to his brow. He was kneeling next to a slave when his gaze fell on her. He froze mid-motion and received the crack of the whip from an overzealous guard. Devon rose and spun around, taking two steps toward the guard, an ugly welt of fresh blood oozed from the mud coating his shirt. Trembling, Claire stared, the blood drained from her face.

  “My dear, you look so pale.” Sir Teakle spoke, his wonder dripped with benign charity.

  She sat paralyzed as Devon was struck down by two guards, forcing him back to work. “Please, can we leave now?” To say anything in Devon’s defense would bring his death as threatened by her uncle. She had heard of Jarvis’s floggings. Many had not survived.

  “Even though the governor is none too particular about the company he keeps, I find it despicable to have rebels at my dinner table,” said Sir Teakle. “Are you ill?”

  “No not really, Sir Teakle,” Claire said aghast to see Devon in this condition. Gone was the well-bred gentleman and in his place was a wretched creature, filthy and degraded.

  “Good. Because I don’t intend to allow you to escape me any longer. Our betrothal will be announ
ced soon, my dear, don’t you think? Perhaps next month. We’ll make grand wedding plans for next August, I think.”

  “August?” Claire barely recognized her own voice.

  With his fleshy fingers, he pinched her chin cruelly and pulled her face to his. She shrank away, but he held her firmly, his drooling lips lingered over hers.

  “Please don’t do this in front of these men.”

  He leaned closer, making it look like they were lovers ready to embrace. Claire closed her eyes nauseated as he whispered to her. “Remember my dear−Lily and Cookie’s lives depend on your complete cooperation. Are we to forget them?”

  He released her and laughed. She saw that all the laborers had stopped, an audience to a sadistic play. Devon froze into a stone statue, his green eyes blazing his hatred toward her.

  Disaster clutched the island in its hideous dark talons...the cold breath of the grave wreaking its vocation. A yellow flag flew over Port Royale. The governor hailed the cataclysm a catastrophe. Mary cried the tragedy an evil. The clergy heralded the debacle, the end to the world. The townspeople shuttered their doors. The harbor closed. All commerce and visitation halted. Everyone crossed themselves, hoping to evade the Grim Reaper. For Claire, the calamity produced a miracle.

  The plague. Smallpox. Rich, poor, young, old, it did not discriminate. The priest used his bully-pulpit, calling everyone forth to give aid where possible. The church evolved into a hospital, flowing with the sick. Since Claire, Cookie and Lily experienced the pox when they were young, they offered their services, working to mend those in need. Some of the healthier islanders retreated inland, isolating themselves while others chose to leave the island. The first to sail out was Sir Teakle.

  To Claire’s joy, Sir Teakle’s departure came sweet as the rain at noon. She met him at the door of the great-house, wiping her hands on her apron. She gazed innocently at him. He grew stressed to see her dressed like a common woman.

  “I have just come back from doing my Christian duty at the church,” she informed him.

  “Good God. You have been working in the house of plague? Are you mad?”

  Claire touched his sleeve, congratulating herself on her cunning. His eyes had grown round with horror. It was all she could do to keep from laughing. “It is a terrible contagion, is it not?” She coughed twice to add emphasis.

  He backed away from her. “I am departing for England. I had planned to take you with me. I-I’ll return for you as soon as possible.”

  “Do not tarry. This illness is bad business. Dreadful, I assure you, one never knows where the pox will strike next.” She looked pointedly at him. “What’s more, the lasting effects stay in the air for an indefinite time. Years some say.”

  Her ploy turned him on his heel, fleeing in his carriage in direction of the harbor. The satin coat she touched, torn off and tossed onto the road. That was the last she hoped to see of him.

  Claire, Lily and Cookie expended ungodly hours fighting the plague. There were times, Claire thought, as she scanned the ocean of bodies, the hospital would close in on them, eating them all up. A welcomed sight brought relief. A small group of slaves from different plantations, supplied to aid assistance, filed into the hospital, blinking at the virulent devastation before them.

  In strode Devon.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  He gave her a scorching look.

  She refused to let him bother her. But he did. The dreadful things he must think of her. Would he suffer from the pox? Without Jarvis, or any other authority about, he took over the hospital operations.

  He did not attempt to address her. Never a, “Good Morning” or “Good Evening” as he was inclined to do with everyone else, disregarding Claire’s inquiries with off-hand nods or short, terse directions. What would it be like to hear him say, “Claire”? He remained determined to disregard her. Why wouldn’t he? She had insulted him, intimating he was not fit for her. Sir Teakle created a monster of an impression. An impression, a man like Devon could never forgive.

  Claire shrugged. The damage was done. Besides she could not allow herself to get close to Devon. The unfortunate path would lead to her ruin.

  She looked at his broad back, his short heavy wisps of hair, dark as a ravens. Stripped of his coat, the sleeves of his coarse shirt rolled to the elbow, and holding a bloody rag in his hand, he barked out an array of orders.

  He fit here in the hospital with his work, tending the sick. Yet in Claire’s mind, he didn’t fit. As she had speculated earlier, she again considered him in the same mysterious light. He seemed alert, aware, with a restrained wildness about him, ready to fire a reaction at a moment’s notice. The assured poise he demonstrated in dictating where patients were to be set in order of their weakness and severity disproved the nature of an ordinary physician. His pleasant yet authoritative voice ringing out those commands with innate confidence belied a man of a different mien that she couldn’t quite identify. He remained a puzzle to her, a man of contradictions.

  “Malaria, smallpox, usual remedy is quinine or “the bark”. Opium pills−I’ve cut it down so they can rest,” he snapped to his stewards. “Smoke and lime to kill the contagion. Lay sails over the courtyard and set more beds beneath. Get to the apothecary.” His commands ripped through the air like a cannon down the coast.

  “What are you doing here?” His sour tone matched his mood.

  Claire didn’t turn around. She squared her shoulders. She remained impressed for out of devastating chaos; he had restored order of epic proportions with improvisation and invention. It surprised and galled her how the islanders deferred to him, despite his status as a slave. Her hands dropped slowly with the cloth she held to a fresh basin of water.

  “I will thank you to address me properly−” Claire did not desire a fight. She pressed the cloth to her patient’s fevered brow.

  “The man’s a slave−” he said.

  She squeezed the cloth, twisting and twisting until every last drop wrung out.

  “The tone of your discrimination is noted. It stands an ignorant and false assumption on your part, Doctor,” she rebuked him. “Nonetheless, the man is a human being.”

  “Your uncle would be of a different sentiment. He regards such chattel as vermin, better left to die of their miseries.”

  “As you can see, I am not my uncle.” She turned, frowned and stared at him a moment with increasing haughtiness. “What is it that makes you think that my uncle and I share the same opinion?”

  “It is a kindness, your efforts, but if your uncle were to learn of it−” he shrugged.

  “I shall deal with my uncle when the time comes. The concern is mine, not yours, Dr. Blackmon.” She turned her back to him.

  “You are at risk.”

  “How wonderful of you to voice concern. But never worry. I am immune. I survived the pestilence my eighth summer as did my cousin and Cookie in her youth.” There stood too much work to do to bicker further. With so many people crying out in fever and pain, Claire decided to let him wallow in his contempt of her.

  By Devon’s orders the islanders and slaves were divided into pairs to maximize resources. Cookie worked with an older giant of a slave, and Lily with a slender golden-haired slave. Claire chose to work alone.

  She grimaced at the hideous corpuscles, oozing with blood, inflicted on a poor woman. Claire had been spared the scarring from her battle with the horrid pestilence. For this woman, the scarring would be nothing if she survived. Mrs. Bennett. Claire did not recognize her. She had met her twice at the governor’s mansion and regretted never being able to learn more of her father. Claire procured a pillow to make her more comfortable. The woman’s eyes fluttered.

  “Claire. You are a dear girl.” Her breaths came labored. “I know you own the plantation. I feel it in my bones. I found a hint in my old journals that were not destroyed by fire.”

  Claire listened. What did you discover?”

  “You do not have to be forced to marry anyone. Find the deed.
”

  Claire sponged her forehead. She needed Mrs. Bennett to talk more. The woman lay limp. Claire was at a loss for she did not know what else to do. She looked up, regarding the yawning beams of the belfry. The bell hung, despairingly solitary. She needed help. She hated to ask him.

  “Dr. Blackmon?” she said, as she moved beside him.

  He didn’t seem surprised to see her. Did he know she was coming?

  “Is there a problem, Madame?” he asked without turning to her. A barely controlled hostility simmered beneath his formality, if released, would roll her over with the force of a tidal wave. What lay between them could never be openly discussed.

  “The patient by the column, Mrs. Bennett, I-I do not know what else to do.”

  “Johnnie. Move that woman out−the west side.” He jerked his head to where Mrs. Bennett lay.

  Claire closed her eyes and said a prayer, the west side−a silent assignation for the patients that would soon die. “Is there not something you can do?”

  “A friend of yours?”

  Claire nodded.

  He crossed the room and examined the patient. “The pox has done its job. She has passed onto the next world.” He covered Mrs. Bennett with a sheet and checked the man beside her. Johnnie appeared. “Take this man as well.”

  Claire stared down at her hands as the men carried the dead out to be buried. She liked the older woman. Her life ended in tragedy. The man next to Mrs. Bennett was a pewter merchant with four children, his wife now a widow. Claire swiped at a tear.

  “What else?” Devon snapped, breaking her out of her reverie.

  “I-I was going to offer you an explanation about Sir Teakle, but there isn’t enough room for me and your pride.”

  He ordered the blond-haired slave working with Lily to his side and whispered. “Ames, send a message to the governor and order a crew to dig more plague pits for the ones who are not so fortunate. We need to move them out with haste. Their air multiplies the contagion.”