The Winds of Fate

by Michel, Elizabeth

  “Surely now, there is no explanation needed.” He threw a bloody rag into a basin. “You can attend to yonder patient. He needs water. Perhaps you can offer him something else.”

  Claire froze as if she had been turned to marble, the subtlety of his suggestion obvious. She turned her back to him, refusing to let him see the tears gather in her eyes. What did she expect? A ringing endorsement of what he had seen in the carriage with Sir Teakle.

  Claire weaved, whether from exhaustion or emotion, she couldn’t tell. Everything blurred. A miasma rent the air, spread from infected bodies. She could not breathe. Claire doubled over, her stomach nauseous. Bile rose to her throat.

  “Dammit! Open the shutters,” Devon ordered. “Whose idea was it to entomb us?”

  An islander protested. “The way to cure this disease is to suffocate the evil.”

  “It’s madness. Let the fresh breezes in and carry out the plague to Poseidon. Next you’ll be telling me to eat toads and bathe in milk. Johnnie, take Madame Hamilton outside.”

  Devon watched her through the window. He looked for any signs that might convince him she contracted the disease despite the fact she had told him she had already survived the pestilence. The fresh air revived her, and soon, she entered the hospital again. Devon breathed a sigh of relief. Why did he care?

  She was Sir Teakle’s whore or soon to be wife. He remembered her embrace with that corpulent mass of human flesh, remarkable how she played the innocent with him and threw herself at nobility. Did she moan in pleasure when he touched her?

  Annoyed where his thoughts veered, he turned to his next patient, noting, Claire did not work alone as she did earlier, but chose to work with Johnnie. He glanced at her slim hands as they gently lifted a woman’s head, coaxing her to drink. You would not find the governor’s wife working in this pestilence, nor did he see any other fine ladies from the island.

  As the hours passed, Devon listened to young Johnnie’s humorous anecdotes of his family and ironic villagers back home while Claire gently laughed, returning witticisms of her own. Her puckish wit lightened his mood.

  Lily appeared beside him. “Listening to Claire is like drinking a fine wine. Pretty soon you feel giddy too,” Lily said, following where his eyes rested. “Claire lives her life in sunny optimism, and always believes in the innate goodness of people. Her laughter is contagious and generous, her take on life and how it should be lived−you’re envious of it and want to emulate it. There is no one like her.” Lily gave him the medicines he had ordered and returned to Ames.

  For a moment, Devon imagined himself in another time and place, wishing he was nothing more than a country gentleman come to flirt a few hours away at a dance, inhaling the sweet scent of apple blossoms and listening to the soft strains of a quintet. The need to live a free and carefree life flung so far from his grasp.

  A hand touched his and pulled him from his dreams. Devon looked down, the grim reality evident. The wretch did not know he was dying. He offered some words of consolation. In a few hours he would be untroubled.

  Bloodsmythe arrived, surprising Devon with a package from Anne Jensen. He tore open the wrapping and stood amazed, a fine coat, a cast-off, no doubt, from a former customer of the prostitute. He had cured two of her girls, and this was her way of thanking him. He tried it on and reveled in its exact fit.

  Every once in a while he saw Claire glance in his direction, her eyes disdained to look anywhere the sight of him was possible. Still he preened in his coat, delighting in a small kindness that made him happy for the moment. She lifted her chin in the air and resumed her activities. That stayed fine with him. The strain of maintaining schooled disinterest waxed a heavy toll on his patience.

  Devon plunged his hands into his pockets. He stood stock-still, fingered deeper, feeling round heavy bits of metal sewn into a thick padded lining. The exact size of a gold sovereign. Too afraid to assume his good fortune, and unable to conceal his joy, he strode to the sacristy. Behind locked doors, he used a scalpel to slice through the stitching. One gold coin emerged and another. Anyone else would have overlooked the bounty but his skills as a physician in fingering tumors and veins assisted him uncovering the coins through the dense layers of wool padding. “Sixty pieces of gold!”

  A flapping of feathers drew his attention. Abu Ajir perched on the window sill. “My good friend, enough to buy a skiff to get off this hellhole.” Devon sewed the coins back into place. Anne Jensen never would have parted with the coat if she knew the fortune it contained.

  Released from hard labor into this catastrophe had given Devon hope to renew his escape efforts, but now the eventuality of that escape became real. He grew anxious for a meeting with that rascal, Tom Dooley, the single man who could procure a boat. Devon rounded the baptismal font and stepped back into his makeshift hospital. Whistling a happy tune from his boyhood days, he observed Claire rising from her labors.

  “I have hardly eaten in two days,” she said to Johnnie. She yawned then stretched her back, the outline of her soft breasts taut against the fabric.

  Devon’s whistle broke off.

  “You must fortify yourself, madam if you are to keep up this pace,” said Johnnie.

  Offer in sympathy was the easiest way to a woman’s heart. A vein in Devon’s neck pulsed and swelled dangerously.

  “Please escort me,” she allowed. “You must have sustenance as well.”

  Devon hated Johnnie.

  Johnnie a trifle unsure, but with a warm, reassuring smile Claire bestowed on him, easily complied. Claire tripped on the hem of her dress. Johnnie caught her.

  Devon felt his breath burn raw in his throat.

  He followed her with his eyes.

  They had gone into the little garden aside the church. Slaves had dropped off foodstuffs at the rectory donated by islanders for the sick and those who cared for them. Claire and Johnnie broke fast on salt-breads and fruits laid out on a table. Rich sweet papaya juice flowed down her chin. She patted it with a clean cloth and laughed at her indiscretion, a secret joke to share with an infatuated young Johnnie. Claire used that same cloth to wipe the crumbs off Johnnie’s face. He sat there grinning like a foolish child. She weaved her spells around every man. Devon felt a dull pain in his hand and looked down to see his nails digging into the palm of his closed fist.

  Two weeks into the plague, Claire had overslept arriving at the hospital later than everyone else. She observed Lily quietly working with the blond-haired slave named Ames, the one she had been so taken with that day on the docks. Ames whispered something to Lily. To Claire’s complete consternation, the look on her cousin’s face entirely transformed. As Ames’s steady gaze appraised her cousin in silent expectation, Lily beamed. Gone was the austere, non-indulgent, practical Lily. Claire did not know what to think. In the corner she saw Cookie unleash orders with that hefty Bloodsmythe fellow. He followed her around all dewy-eyed like a great big hulking puppy. What on earth was going on beneath her nose?

  At last, her eyes fell on her quarry, exactly where she knew he would be at this hour. He sat reviewing a list next to the altar, making adjustments with his quill. She bit her tongue, putting up with Devon’s snubbing and innuendos long enough. She stood prepared to do battle. In fuming silence, she stalked past Lily and Cookie, stopping inches from him.

  “What is it?” Devon leaned back on a cane chair, his black hair rumpled and falling over his forehead in an untidy fashion. He looked tired, his eyes had lines beneath them, and his mouth formed an impatient scowl. “What is it?” he repeated and glared at her.

  Claire put her hands on her hips.

  “Are you feeling well, doctor? Perhaps you are exhausted?” she said sweetly. His struggles were not lost on her. He did not know how to react.

  “Thank you for your concern, Madame Hamilton.” He clearly enunciated each word, and in doing so lost some of the musicality of his Irish lilt. He regarded her with a deceptively lazy stare.

  She let out a satisfied sigh. “
I wanted to make sure your health is fine, whatever it takes to protect my investment.”

  Claire heard his indrawn breath, saw his dark lashes sweep down to veil his glittering eyes. But when he straightened his demeanor was formal. “Good day, Madame.” He rose and left her.

  When he was gone, Lily set down a bucket of water. “You shouldn’t toy with him. Your baiting him could come to a bad end.”

  Claire folded clean linens, surprised to find that she was smiling. “I’m well aware of that. But the rewards far outweigh the risks. To provoke him is to repay him for his lack of civility.”

  Lily gave her a hard look. “Do you dare taunt a caged lion? Do you see the way he looks at you, Claire?”

  “He looks at me?” Claire asked. “I haven’t noticed him looking at me. He’s barely spoken a word to me.”

  “He looks at you. He watches you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Lily.” Claire moved across the room and knelt on the floor next to Johnnie. Working together, Claire had built an easy friendship with the young slave. She shook her head, realizing the circumstances of disease and death, vanished social mores. Strange to feel at home with Johnnie’s company.

  “Johnnie,” she said, “Isn’t it strange that Dr. Blackmon should show kindness to most but others he seems to−” She did not want to say it aloud, nor did she desire to admit how Devon brought out the worst in her.

  Johnnie stood up with the bucket in hand. “Dr. Blackmon? He’s always going out his way for people. You don’t believe it? Madame Hamilton, I could tell you stories...and I know, too, seeing as I’ve known him for the past year. You’ll never meet a better a man. I have to fetch some fresh water.”

  Claire was silent, digesting Johnnie’s words. “I’ll go with you.” She held out her hand and Johnnie pulled her to her feet. They were high praises from a young man like Johnnie who wouldn’t be afraid to speak his disapproval to her. “Really? He seems otherwise to me.”

  “Well you just don’t know him real well. He took care of us in the gaol, then during the crossing, even a couple weeks back, he saved me from a whipping by your uncle, taking on the master’s wrath to earn a whipping himself. It was last minute orders from the governor that saved him from harm. But he saved me nonetheless, and I won’t forget him for it.”

  Claire mulled over that bit of information. Devon had sacrificed himself?

  He had complete respect of the rebel-convicts. He had emerged as their leader. That could be menacing and dangerous if they collaborated. They walked outside and pumped fresh water into the bucket from an open well. Johnnie jerked the bucket. Water spilled over the rim onto the stone walk at the exact spot where Claire set her foot. With a cry, she skidded and would have fallen, but Johnnie caught her arm and held her erect, upsetting the bucket and dumping all of the water. Claire, supported by Johnnie’s solid arm, turned to meet his eyes, a combination of surprise and laughter widening her own. They stared at each other for an instant and then amusement defeated dismay. They started to giggle, then laugh, Johnnie still supporting her, each lost in the merriment of the moment encouraged by their absurd position.

  All but the ill, stopped and stared. In the middle of this exuberant scene, Devon looked up from his labors. He scrutinized the pair, his annoyance increased as he advanced toward them. When he spoke, his voice was laced with sarcasm.

  “This is a charming little scene. Claire, I had no idea you would find a slave’s life so amusing.” Claire stood immobilized. Johnnie removed his hand from her arm.

  “We had a little accident, is all, Doctor Blackmon,” he explained. “Madame Hamilton slipped on the water.”

  “That is amusing,” Devon replied with bitter irony.

  Claire stared at him. “There is nothing of it and nothing improper to find a little humor in this terrible devastation.” She kept her voice confident, asserting the objection in her reply. Bitterness and anger rested in his voice, a dramatic departure from the frigid formality of the past few days.

  Claire lifted her nose in the air. “I think you presume too much.” She dared him, intimating he was getting above himself. She walked past him. “You’ve taken command of the whole hospital. Has your new kingdom gone to your head?”

  Startling her, he grabbed her arm and propelled her into the sacristy, closing the door behind them. Claire attempted to wrench away from his impossible grip. Her heart thundered at the anger she provoked in him. The silence grew oppressive. Light spilled from a stain-glassed window, heating the stone floor with a golden iridescence, back-lighting his powerful frame. Devon lifted his gaze, coolly regarding her. “You have a problem, Madam. You maintain a predilection for collecting men.”

  “You twist and distort, perverting everything with your own foul mind. I can see it is no use to go any further. If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Why waste time with frivolous deception? Off to see young Johnnie. I’m sorry to interrupt your plans for a lover’s tryst.”

  Her head jerked up. The color drained from her face.

  “Bastard.”

  The weeks of dreary labor, of her uncle’s commands, Sir Teakle’s vileness, Devon’s taunts, obedience, fear, had all taken its toll. She lunged and slapped him, raging with pent-up strains and tensions, she attacked him. She wanted to punch his chest, to hit him over and over again.

  He grabbed her wrists as she threw herself at him. Claire struggled to break free−to strike out at him, but she was powerless beneath his solid grip. In fury and despair, she began to sob, her diatribe never ending, but becoming high-pitched, hysterical sputterings of all the wrongs incurred on her.

  During her outburst, Claire’s vision blurred with her tears. She did not see Devon, his expression undergoing a myriad of changes. Although the softening of his features escaped her, she heard with surprise the quietness in his voice as he released her.

  “Sit down and compose yourself. We need to talk.”

  She collapsed on a chair, still sobbing, her head bowed, her body slumped.

  He stood over her. “Tell me everything, Claire.”

  Did he see the torment and sorrow that ravaged her heart? The isolation of the sacristy somehow made sharing confidences less condemning. This was her one chance to say everything that had been bottled up in her for so long. “A chance encounter in London brought me face to face with my uncle. I had not seen Sir Jarvis in years and never hoped to lay eyes on him again. He informed me I was under his control and peddled me in the marriage mart. Since I was a poor relation with no dowry, Jarvis demanded a huge settlement with the offers narrowed down to one. The Duke of Hawthorne provided an enormous sum quickly contracted by my uncle.”

  She shivered then took a deep breath, sinking into the rhythm of her story. “The Duke of Hawthorne is a very old man, withered and wrinkled as a prune shriveled in the sun. I cringe even now from the remembrance. He touched me. Like a claw from a grave, cold and clammy, his fingernails like yellow corkscrews. An employee of the Duke’s, an old acquaintance of Cookie’s gave warnings of her employer. He had raped and beaten four of his earlier wives, all chosen because of their youth and unfortunate financial circumstances. Within two years of marriage every one of them died. After all, who would question a peer of the realm?”

  His body tensed.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know why I am telling you this.”

  “Go on,” he encouraged, but his voice hardened. Then he spoke more temperately, and she shoved away the self-protective caution she hid behind. “You can confide in me, Claire.”

  “With single-mindedness born of desperation, I set out to fend off disaster. I told you in the gaol how I called on an old friend, Sir Thomas Durham. I had shared every sordid detail, believing he would understand my dilemma. Then I did the unthinkable. I asked him to marry me. That was when he informed me he was to be married to a very wealthy heiress. All was not lost, he promised. He assured me once he was married and had control of his wife’s money he’d make me his mistress. Then he g
rabbed me. ‘Why wait?’ he said. I don’t remember much after that−except shoving him into a fountain. That’s when I sought you out after Cookie informed me of the Newgate alternative. After foiling my uncle by marrying you at Newgate, I thought I would be free. That was not the case. My uncle forced us to go to Jamaica.”

  Her voice broke. His jaw clenched so hard, it ached. “My uncle beat me with his cane when I defied him by marrying you. He can force me to marry anyone he chooses even one as despicable as Sir Teakle. If I don’t, Jarvis will put Cookie and Lily out. I have to protect them.” Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m as much a slave as you. It’s tearing me apart. My future a mere whim of men.” He offered her a cloth.

  “Here now this won’t do. Dry your tears,” he said with the same gentleness he had shown his patients.

  Claire raised her tear-stained face to peer at him, tentative, still unsure if she heard him right. He’d steal her soul even as he scorned her heart. She closed her eyes, her chest ached. It was so easy to listen to his soothing words. She came under control, but she felt drained from the release of tears and all the pent-up emotions of the last months.

  He took the linen from her hands and wiped away the tears then made her blow her nose. “I have not been fair. Better now?” he asked, pulling her chin up to see her eyes.

  Claire nodded a little sheepishly. She found his gesture at odds with his earlier aloofness, and answered with a quavering smile.

  He extended his hands to her.

  This was more than a simple plea for friendship, but something much much more. Something more lasting. Eternal. She looked at his long supple fingers, so strong and caring. She remembered his hand as it held hers in the gaol when they recited their vows, how it had closed around hers. An intimation of trust, fire and steel, capability, confidence−safe−could be read in those hands of his. Her heart wanted desperately to try, but some tiny voice of reason warned her that it was a mistake. Her mind screamed with skepticism, a reality that what he offered led to nowhere but the sweetness of pretending, just this once, to forfeit reality and live in a dream for a short time. She almost capitulated.