Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  The cruiser ceased firing, drawing in closer still until the officers could be seen standing at the railing, talking among themselves, pointing at and watching the dying ship as if in a theater box. All except the captain, who stood alone with the sun touching his epaulettes and the insignia on his cap. He removed the latter to bare his head, waving it above his brown hair, which had the sheen of mahogany.

  It was Lieutenant Donavan — or perhaps it was Captain Donavan now? — the naval officer who had searched her aboard the Lorelei so many weeks before, the man she had persuaded Ramon to allow to escape. How strange were the fortunes of war, to bring him there in a position of command at just this moment. She had saved him from a war prison, and now he was returning the favor by holding his fire. He had not forgotten.

  Lorna put up her hand slowly, hesitantly, to return his salute. He turned to rap out an order, the sound of his voice traveling clearly across the water. The federal cruiser began to sheer away. He looked back, waved again, then turned away with a great show of discipline.

  Before the cruiser was a half mile out to sea, a sailing sloop appeared, ghosting from around a headland as if out of nowhere. Moving silently, but with purpose, it headed toward the ship on the reef.

  “Wreckers,” a man said in tones of disgust from somewhere behind her.

  “Wreckers,” Frazier said, moving to her side, his voice filled with interest and curiosity.

  They were right, both of them, and Lorna had reason to be grateful for it within the hour. It was the wreckers who brought the last load of men from the ship before going back to see what could be salvaged. Among them was Ramon, standing tall and straight, laughing with an equally tall blond-haired man with a rakish white bandage around his head as they jumped into the crystal water at the edge of the beach and waded onto the sand. She started forward with tears rising to her eyes. When she had dashed them away, the two were still there. Ramon and Peter, striding toward her with their arms over each other’s shoulders.

  The Englishman caught her in a bear hug, whirling her around as she laughed and cried and tried to ask him when? How? The wreckers had made it a habit of late to stay near the entrance to the North West Channel, since it was there that the cruisers liked to lie in wait for the ships that had to take that route toward the east coast of the United States. They had seen the fire of the Bonny Girl and, when the excitement died away, slipped out to investigate. They had found him unconscious, lashed to a hatch cover by his belt. He could just remember taking care of that last detail before he passed out, but had no memory at all of the rescue. His bump on the head was nothing; he would live to watch a certain young Lansing sister grow up, and do his bit in the process. He was looking forward to the results, and even the proceedings, though as things were at the present, he didn’t intend to rush it.

  Safe.

  Before, endless ages ago before she had left New Orleans, it had been a word; now, it was a concept rich with meaning. Lorna sat on a rock beneath the shade of a sea grape tree and let the peace of it seep into her. From her vantage point, she could watch as the sunburned islanders stripped the ship and ferried the salvage to the shore. They worked fast, for, bit by bit, what was left of the beautiful blockade vessel was settling. Like dying gasps, the air was driven from her shattered portholes. Water reached her hot boilers, her fireboxes, bringing forth a hissing and bubbling as steam rose into the air. Men yelled, diving for the water as the hulk shifted and sank below the decks in the warm turquoise sea. Lorna closed her eyes tightly then, not wanting to see the last of the drowning masts and crosstrees as the waves lapped around them. When she opened them again, the water was smooth and empty. The Lorelei was gone, but they were all safe.

  Peter came to sit with her awhile, lounging on the rock shelf beside her with his forearm propped on his thigh. He had been there when the ship went down, a silent companion. They had watched without speaking as Ramon, standing on the shore, had turned and walked away then, the angles and hollows of his face prominent as he disappeared among the pines and sea grapes of the limestone cay.

  “What will you do now?” Lorna asked, for something to say to distract them both.

  “The same, I suppose.”

  “You will find another ship?”

  “The firm will supply one.”

  “What of … Ramon?”

  He shook his head. “Who can say? You’ll have to ask him, but he has been dissatisfied with running lately, I think.”

  She did not comment, picking up a twig and brushing at the sand that had lodged in a crevice of the rock. “Has it been decided how we are going to get back to Nassau?”

  “The wreckers have agreed to take a few of us to the big town, for a price. I’ll be going to see about transport for my crew. I expect Ramon will do the same, and you, of course. There’s food and water for the men, enough to last a day or two, and that’s all the time it should take to send after them.”

  There was a long pause. He looked from the beach where the wreckers were stowing goods to where she sat beside him. His gaze rested on the pure oval of her face, and, as she turned her head to face him, his dark blue gaze was clouded.

  “Are you happy, Lorna?”

  Surprisingly, considering the unsettled state of things around her and of her future, she was. She told him so.

  “I’m glad. It helps.”

  “But … what of Charlotte?” She could not forebear to ask. It wasn’t vulgar curiosity that moved her, or a probing into his feelings, but rather the need of reassurance that she had not hurt him.

  “She’s spoiled and willful, but there’s something worthwhile underneath. I like the way she says what she thinks, and the way she is developing in looks, and … I’m trying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Save your sympathy,” he said, his smile twisted as he squinted out over the bright water. “I’ve broken a few hearts in my time, and I suppose I deserve to know how it feels. No doubt it will be the making of me. “I’m sure Charlotte would say so, if she knew.”

  “Do you think she doesn’t?”

  He gave a light shrug. “Probably. If not, I think I’ll tell her, see what she says, see if she’s capable of compassion, or maybe even jealousy. Should be interesting.”

  “You are not to experiment with her,” she said severely. “She’s too young for that.”

  He sent her a glance that brimmed with amusement, though it faded slowly as he looked at her. “Dear Lorna, you would tell me if you weren’t really happy, wouldn’t you?” He frowned, saying quickly, “No. Don’t answer.”

  He left her soon after that. She saw him talking to the captain of the wrecker’s sloop. Within an hour, he had boarded her and was gone.

  Ramon did not go. Charging Peter with a message to Edward Lansing concerning arrangements for their deliverance, he stayed behind with his crew, and Lorna with him. He spent the remainder of the day organizing the men into parties to erect shelters of poles and palm thatch, dig a latrine, gather wood for fires, and to scout for flesh water, ripe fruit, and the possibility of wild boar from swine whose ancestors might have been left on the cay by buccaneers a hundred and fifty years before. His time away from the beach, in the wooded interior of the cay, or small island, had been used to good purpose, for he knew the size of it and the most likely locations for the things they would find useful.

  He had also discovered a cave well away from the others. Dry, clean, not large, it had a tiny spring just below it where the limestone formation jutted out over the sloping shelf of the beach, much like the caves on New Providence, except on a smaller scale. He showed his find to Lorna early in the afternoon. She was delighted at his thoughtfulness, and the prospect of a measure of privacy away from the watching eyes of over three score of men. Toward evening, she returned with a pair of blankets from the store left behind, a tin cup to drink from, and a length of cloth for sketchy bathing. She spent a domestic hour seeing as best she could to their comfort.

  The day came to an e
nd. They feasted on roast pork, beans, hard tack, mangoes, and, to drink, lemonade improved by the addition of a goodly portion of rum. It was served up by Cupid and eaten in the rose-pink glow of sunset. Lorna and Ramon ate with the others, but as the talk grew louder and more raucous, he picked up his guitar that had been brought ashore from his cabin, and led her away to their blanket-lined bower.

  The trade winds blew gently over the island. The waves sighed onto the sand. A gibbous moon rose, shining over the moving sea, gleaming on their faces, so they seemed pale. There wasn’t room to stand in the low cave; they sat in the entrance, leaning against the sides of the opening. Ramon’s guitar lay across his lap and he brushed his thumb over the strings, picking out a soft melody as they stared out over the water.

  It was the first time they had been alone to talk since she had been taken from Nassau. There was so much Lorna wanted to know, to say, but she could not find a place to start. She shifted, glancing at him.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked, his voice warm in the growing darkness.

  “Yes. Very. I … was just wondering, since you managed to save your guitar, if you also salvaged your gold.”

  “Part of it. It was in my trunk, and I was there to protect it with pistol in hand; otherwise, the wreckers would have claimed it. As it was, because I couldn’t get to shore without their help, I divided it with them for carting it in for me.”

  “I suppose Nate’s hoard is at the bottom of the sea.”

  A quirk of a brow indicated that it was the first time he had considered the matter. “I guess so.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the Lorelei.”

  He sent her a brief smile across the space that separated them. “According to the ancient legends, Lorelei was a siren singing on a rock who lured sailors to shipwreck on the reef. Maybe she is where she was meant to be.”

  His tone was fanciful, not meant to be taken seriously, a cover, she thought, for his loss. “You can replace her.”

  “There is no need. I won’t be running the blockade again.”

  She turned her head sharply, trying to see his expression. “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking of applying for rank in the Confederate navy. There’s this urge I’ve had for some time to shoot at Yankees, instead of being shot at. This has helped make up my mind.”

  “You … you mean to sign on to command a commerce raider.” Her tone was flat. It was not a question.

  “I thought you would be pleased,” he said, his tone pensive.

  “It will be so dangerous.” She turned again to look out over the sea, the sea that would take him away from her.

  “It’s something worth doing.”

  “You will be leaving Nassau.”

  “But, I will be able to make the port often, as such things go.”

  “I would almost rather you replaced your ship.”

  “Why, chérie? You are my Lorelei.” As she swung to stare at him, he went on hurriedly, “No, no, don’t look so. I speak not of destruction, but of living. I meant only that you are a part of me, the echo of my heartbeat, the sweet breath I draw, the quiet song that haunts my dreams, my companion I love immeasurably more than any soulless ship that ever came under my hands.”

  For a moment she could not speak, then she whispered, “You love me?”

  He put the guitar aside and came to kneel beside her in a single fluid movement, taking her forearms in his strong grasp. “How could you doubt it, when I have told you so a hundred times, in a hundred ways.”

  “You said I was an obsession; you never spoke of love.”

  “Then, let me speak of it now. You are the compass that directs me and the lodestar that will draw me home. I see your face in the storm and hear your voice in the wind. The love I feel for you defies the puny disputes of men and will endure to make an endless future. I want you as my wife, to know you are waiting for me, to know that I can find sweet solace in your arms, to feel that the blessed joy I find in you I can return, and the love, always.”

  “Oh, Ramon,” she whispered.

  She was in his arms then, and their lips were clinging as they strained together, seeking blindly the human closeness that banishes the visions of horror wars bring; attempting, in full knowledge of the impossibility, to stave off the ‘morrow; finding an affirmation of life in the warmth of the desire that raced in their veins. She said again, with passion and laughing surrender in her voice, “Oh, Ramon.”

  “You will, won’t you, marry me, that is?”

  He did love her. Hadn’t he proven it by following after her in the teeth of the northern navy, by destroying his ship for the sake of her safety? “If you want me.”

  “I want you,” he said, a throbbing note in his deep tones. “And will you stay in the house I will build for you in Nassau, and wait for me?”

  “Until the war is over?”

  “Until the war is over,” he agreed. “There will be gold enough to maintain the household, and as for the rest, it will be put in your name, in case—”

  She touched her fingers to his lips quickly. “No, don’t say it.”

  “No. I will leave the gold for you then, to do with as you will, to aid the South or not.”

  “I will keep it for you. For Beau Repose. Afterward.”

  His hold tightened. “We will return there. No matter what happens. With Bacon gone, there is no one to press the murder charge. Your tale of an accident will be readily believed, when witnesses to Franklin’s character are brought forward. That’s if there is anyone who will remember the incident or, remembering, care to see it opened again after the passage of a year, or even two, and everything that may have happened in that time.”

  “You think that’s possible?” she asked, her voice low.

  “I know it. We will live at Beau Repose, in the old house, and I will see you at the foot of my table dressed in silk, with camellias in your hair, and with our children lining the board between us. Later, we will retire to the back bedchamber, and I will make love to you before the fire, on a cotton bale we have grown”

  She bit her lip, wrenching her mind from the enthralling picture he painted, saying quietly, “You may see a child of ours sooner than that, while we are in Nassau.”

  “What? Chérie!”

  She heard the shock, and then the glad triumph in his voice, and she sighed, resting her forehead against his chin, aware of the release of a deeply held terror.

  “Lorna?” he said anxiously. “Are you all right? You took no injury last night? I could murder Bacon with my bare hands for the peril to which he exposed you!”

  “You did that — almost.”

  “Yes,” he answered, satisfaction rich and hard in his tone. “Yes. Come now and lie down. You must be weary. You should rest.”

  She allowed him to draw her down on the blankets beside him with her head resting on his broad shoulder. Quietly, they lay. She could feel the steady and strong beat of his heart, the gentle touch of his fingers as he smoothed the hair back from her face.

  It was going to be all right. They would share their lives, she and Ramon. He would care for her, and she for him. She would depend on him, and he on her. She would not give up her sewing of shirts, and might well expand the undertaking in his absences. He would not mind that, she thought, and it would be independence enough. In all other things, she wanted to be a part of him, to have him become a part of her. Loving would be a puny thing if such closeness were not a part of it.

  In the sweet silence of her contentment, a thought came to her.

  “Ramon?”

  “Yes, mon coeur?”

  “It was you in the garden, playing for me, wasn’t it?”

  “Was it?”

  There was a sound of teasing amusement in his voice that sent peculiar vibrations along her spine, radiating to the center of her body. “I know it was.”

  “Do you?” He played with a satin strand of her hair, letting it drift from his fingers over her breast, following its lengt
h along the soft contour as he smoothed it again.

  “I think it was,” she answered, the words catching in her throat.

  “Shall I play for you, chérie, so that you can see?”

  “No,” she whispered, lifting her hand to his face, turning, drawing his lips down to her softly parted mouth. “Not … not now.”

  Author’s Note

  The problems, dangers, and thrills of running the blockade during the early years of the Civil War are depicted as accurately in Surrender in Moonlight as the research materials available a hundred and twenty years later will allow. The attitudes and atmospheres described are as true to the times as I can make them. All characters in the book are fictional, with the exception of those famous figures mentioned in passing that will be obvious to all: Captain, later Admiral, David Farragut, the conqueror of New Orleans; the Confederate spy Elizabeth Greenhow; Confederate General Jackson; and Union Generals Butler, Banks, Fremont, and Shields. However, many of the fictional characters are partially based on fact. There was, for instance, no small number of naval officers from the South, with academy backgrounds and service records similar to Ramon’s, who resigned their commissions to command blockade runners and, later, commerce raiders for the Confederate navy. Several English naval officers on furlough, like Peter, ran the blockade for the sake of experience under battle conditions, afterward gaining fame and rank in the service of England. The “conchs” of the Bahama Islands, on whom Frazier was based, were superlative seamen with intimate knowledge of the channels and reefs, and served the Confederacy well during this period. Elizabeth Greenhow, on her release from prison, made a highly successful diplomatic journey to London and Paris in 1863, much like that ascribed to Sara Morgan, though, while returning through the blockade with dispatches for President Davis, she lost her life when the runner she was on ran aground.

  The Royal Victoria Hotel was an actual hostelry and served its allotted part. A magnificent building in its day, it is now falling into ruin, with the verandas gone, the stucco disintegrating, the windows boarded up, and a strong smell of stray cats in the rooms that are littered with falling plaster. Because of its place in the history of Nassau, it deserves restoration before it’s too late. But, its gardens are still there to be enjoyed, the old trees grown enormous, with houseplant ivies such as scindapsus aureus and syngonium strangling their trunks and branches, and tropical fruits lying ripe on the ground. There, also, is the balcony in the ancient silk cotton tree, though rebuilt with a wrought-iron railing. I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness in the preparation of this book to Faye Hood, Jane Stone, and the staff of the Jackson Parish Library in Jonesboro, Louisiana, for their aid in finding, ordering, and photocopying material from far-flung sources for me, and for their infinite patience with my requests, phone calls, and laxity in returning books. Thanks also to John MacPherson of J. B. Armstrong News Agency, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for providing maps and information on the port of Wilmington and the Cape Fear River; and to Joy Dean of the Nassau Public Library, Nassau, Bahamas, for her cheerful and competent aid in finding and photocopying information for me on a sultry August afternoon.