Toward Love's Horizon

by Michele du Barry

  “Tell you what?” she asked snatching the cloth away crossly and pressing it tightly against her mouth as another wave of nausea started.

  With an understanding look Amy got the basin again and helped her sit up. When it was over she fell back limply, her face white.

  “I feel wretched!” Angela moaned rocking back and forth on the bed. Her stomach was in a tight knot and she couldn’t keep anything down.

  “I’ll take care of that. I have a concoction that will settle your stomach like magic. I don’t think I could have managed any of my pregnancies without it.”

  Angela’s shocked eyes flew open. “But—but I’m not. It’s impossible!”

  A frown creased Amy’s brow. “But, I was so sure—you have all the symptoms. But after all you should know....”

  “No! No! No!” her voice rose to a shattering crescendo. “I can’t be! I won’t let myself be!”

  But Amy was right and even as she uttered her protest she knew it was true. She was pregnant. Laporte’s final revenge! And Angela writhed in misery before the cold hard facts.

  She started crying, loud agonizing sobs. She was carrying the seed of a monster, a reminder that would haunt her the rest of her life. The things he had done to her she could hide, but not this last humiliation. He had ruined everything! How could she go to Scott now, heavy with a pirate’s child, a bastard? He would never understand.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed at Amy, furious because she was the one that revealed her condition. “Get out!”

  Amy left in a panic at the raving madwoman Angela had turned into, running for Ezra. He would know what to do. They were close and she had a feeling he knew all her secrets. Where was he?

  Staggering from the bed Angela made her way to the window holding onto the furniture. She leaned out the window swaying. The gravel path was far below. Hadn’t she done this once before in terrified desperation? She knew nothing only that there was an unclean creature, a deformed little parasite growing inside her sucking away her strength and life. She must be rid of it at any cost!

  Her legs were dead weight but slowly she managed to get one knee on the windowsill. Her arms trembled, hardly able to bear her slight weight. Now. She had to do it now, before the thing infected her with its presence, before she felt it move.

  She had just accomplished the monumental task of getting the other knee up when the door behind her crashed open. Not even bothering to look Angela threw herself forward, for an instant falling free. There was a smothered scream and then she was caught by the waist, hanging outside the window before Ezra dragged her back in.

  “Let me go! I have to—don’t you see?” she screamed in a frenzy kicking at Ezra. But her feeble struggles were ineffectual.

  He threw her on the bed holding her down, visibly shaken. Amy stood in the doorway whitefaced with her hand over her mouth. Angela was screaming like a banshee, her mouth open wide and her head thrown back as if in a convulsion.

  “Stop it!” ordered Ezra shaking her, not quite sure what was happening or what to do with a hysterical woman. He put his hand over her mouth muffling the sounds but snatched it away again when her face turned purple. “Stop, you will make yourself sick. What’s wrong? Shut up, damn it!”

  “She is with child,” Amy said in Ezra’s ear. “When I mentioned it she started carrying on.”

  “Oh no. No!” A look of impotent rage gave way to one of anxiety.

  “Mrs. Newton, do you have something to make her sleep? I think that’s the only thing we can do right now—later maybe I can talk to her.”

  “Yes, I’ll get it right away.” She ran smack into Jack on the stairs.

  “What is going on?”

  “Come to the kitchen with me, Ezra is with her.”

  Once in the kitchen Amy closed the door and with shaking hands unlocked the cupboard where the medicine was kept. Selecting a small brown bottle she measured a spoonful into a glass of water, then on second thought added another.

  “Well?” Jack prompted.

  “It seems your friend is going to have a baby and didn’t know until I said something. She threw herself out the window.”

  “Did you send for the doctor?” Jack sprang up off the chair.

  “She is not hurt. Ezra caught hold of her as she was falling. I shudder to think of what would have happened if he had reached her a second later.”

  “Pregnant. I wonder who the father is—not her husband that’s for sure. He’s in New South Wales.” Jack’s eyebrows drew together in a heavy frown. “Angela has been in the Bahamas for the past two months, and before that Jamaica.”

  “I’ll leave you to your speculations. I had better get this upstairs before poor Ezra’s eardrums are shattered.”

  With Ezra holding Angela down Amy managed to get about half of the medication down her, the rest spilled onto the pillows. A few minutes later the screams gave way to hoarse cries and her eyes closed. When at last Angela fell asleep she still made small whimpering sounds and Ezra turned distressed amber eyes on Amy.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Please, don’t condemn her for what she tried to do. If you knew what had happened—but I say too much.”

  “Was she raped?” inquired Amy and his eyes didn’t waver as he made no reply.

  “You can go if you want. I’ll stay here with her till she wakes.” He turned his attention back to Angela. “It will be a long time.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She needs me. I will stay.”

  “You love her very much, don’t you, Ezra?”

  “She saved my life,” he replied simply.

  And he was still there when she woke from dark swirling dreams that threatened to suffocate her. She couldn’t remember exactly what they were only that she felt as lost and alone as an abandoned child. Everything was fuzzy, even the small night light cast a fractured glow and Ezra’s face was distorted as if Angela was seeing through invisible rippling heat waves.

  “Here, my lady, drink this. It will make you feel better.”

  After she drank she did feel better. The tightly clenched knot in her stomach relaxed and she lay there trying to remember.

  “Ezra,” her voice was rough from screaming, “you have to help me—you will,won’t you?”

  “You know I will!”

  “There is a baby, Laporte’s, and I have to get rid of it. If I don’t I will die!”

  “Shh—be still,” he soothed. “Think about it tomorrow. Get your strength back and we will find a solution to your problem.”

  “I’m not supposed to have any more children. The doctor in Scotland told me that. Oh, what was his name?” Angela frowned searching her memory. “I can’t think straight. But he said another child would kill me. I wouldn’t care if it were Scott’s. I wanted the one I lost, but not this one—not his!”

  There was anguished understanding in Ezra’s eyes as he spoke to her. “I know how you must hate the child because of its father and what he did, but part of it is you too. You can’t hate what is your own flesh and blood!”

  “Yes—yes! I hate it and myself. How could I have let this happen?”

  “It just did. There’s no sense to anything that happens in people’s lives. But what is important is you! You must never, never try and harm yourself again. There is Robert and Lorna to think of, Scott waiting for you in Australia. You are too important in their lives to let a little setback like this spoil your life. Please,” Ezra pleaded vehemently, “think it through. You will see that I am right.”

  She just lay there shaking her head, large eyes eclipsing her face. “I can’t have his baby. I can’t, and I won’t!”

  Eyes followed her everywhere: brown eyes, gray eyes, anxious amber eyes. She wasn’t to be left alone for a minute for fear of what she might do to herself. Only after she promised not to jump out the window again did Ezra give up his nightly vigil of dozing lightly in a chair beside her bed. Now at least her nights were private.

  Regaining her strength Angela drank down Amy’s concocti
on every day and it worked, warding off the morning sickness. She had never had it with any of the other children and it only reinforced the thought that the child was defective.

  Angela sat in the garden beneath the flamboyantly blooming poinciana tree. Its foliage made feathery patterns on the grass and when the fitful breeze blew, red flowers showered down. The sweet fragrance of orange blossoms drifted in the air, supplanted only by the salty tang of the ocean.

  The house was small but lovely, the finest on the island, where most people opted for tumbledown shacks. A ship’s carpenter had constructed it out of the choicest mahogany salvaged from an ill-fated ship. It was entirely fitted together with wooden pegs in the Bahamian style with deep double porches. Coral vines clung tenaciously to the delicately carved grills around the porches. On the roof was the captain’s walk where someone was constantly on watch for the wrecks that their livelihood depended on.

  It gleamed white in the blazing sun and Angela caught a glimmer from the telescope lens reflecting the light. Jack was up there on the roof carefully scanning the ocean. There had been no wrecks since she had arrived but there soon would be. Summer brought daily thunderstorms often violent in nature and the winds were unpredictable. Then there was always the chance of a hurricane.

  Amy often worried about that eventuality. She had never been through one and from what she had heard she didn’t want to. She told Angela frightening stories of the ocean washing across the entire island taking everything and everyone with it, of winds that could pick up a ship and deposit it on dry land. There would be no safety in Cayo Hueso if a hurricane struck.

  Cayo Hueso, Bone Island, the Spanish called it because of the piles of Indian bones they had found bleaching in the tropical sun. Americans called it Key West; a tiny dot in the Atlantic sandwiched between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The Gulf Stream bathed the shores in clear warm water then headed out to open sea. Only four miles long and less than two miles wide it was populated by Bahamians, Cubans, Negros, and a smattering of Americans and Englishmen.

  The ocean was just a stone’s throw away, ever changing in mood and disposition. Angela could see part of it shining between the orchid trees covered with pale purple blooms. The garden was wildly unkempt but that only added to its charm. No well-ordered English garden in the tropics! The plants grew so fast in the warm climate that it would take a dozen gardeners to keep up with it. As it was there was only one besides Amy, who loved to putter around in it.

  Now she knelt transplanting some low lacy ferns beside a bordered path. Amy looked up quickly as Angela got up and walked around the side of the house. She hurried after her, stripping off her gloves.

  “Are you going for a walk?” she called gaily. “May I come with you?”

  “I would like to be alone,” Angela explained. “Just for a while. You understand, don’t you? I want to walk along the beach and think without having to make conversation and with no one watching me.” She laughed at Amy’s woebegone expression. “I won’t throw myself in the ocean if that’s what you are worrying about! I promise to come back in one piece. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Well,” Amy hedged. Jack would have a fit if anything happened to Angela and she was supposed to be taking care of her now. “It’s only that we are all concerned about your safety.”

  “You think I’m a lunatic!“

  You did give us quite a scare, but no—not a lunatic. You were upset, overwrought. I can understand. It must have been a nightmare to have—”

  “To have what? Just what did Ezra tell you?”

  “Why, nothing. I guessed. No woman could hate her own unborn child so much unless—”

  “Unless what? You seem to be unable to complete your sentences. Do I upset you that much?”

  “Unless it was forced on you,” she finished in a rush, nervously tucking a strand of golden hair into the coil at the back of her neck.

  Angela started laughing, harsh bitter sounds. “You think I was raped! Well I wasn’t. I did it willingly. That was one of Laporte’s stipulations and I did it. I did everything he told me to.” Her mouth was turned down as if she was going to cry and a hot flush appeared high on her cheeks. “Don’t you know a slut when you see one? I’m nothing but a whore disguised as a lady and this,” she placed a hand on her belly, “is the bastard of a pirate!”

  She wheeled and ran along the path toward the ocean leaving Amy stunned in the garden. Kicking angrily at the sand she sent it spurting before her in a pale golden spray. “Why me?” she asked clenching her fists, needing a target to direct her blows at. But she knew the answer and rail as she might against the course her life was taking she was once again powerless to stop it.

  Bending down Angela removed her shoes and left them beneath a palm tree. The sand was hot beneath her feet, too hot to stand in one place so she started walking briskly toward the water and the cool, wet sand. Aimlessly she strolled along the beach, heedless of the foaming waves wetting the hem of her skirt. It was good to forget momentarily.

  Voiding her mind of the continual problems that plagued her Angela concentrated on nothing more than feeling. She was alive and healthy, rich and beautiful, that should count for something. The soft wet sand felt delicious and made sucking noises as she walked kicking spurts of salt water before her. The sun was hot, melting into her with a comforting warmth, dancing on the surf.

  “Angela!” Jack’s voice came rolling toward her over the soothing ocean sounds.

  She turned, shading her eyes from the sun and stood waiting. So Amy had run to him with her angry words ringing in her ears. Had she expected any less? In the back of her mind she had known this would happen and that he would come.

  The foam swirled over his boots and he stood looking down at Angela with a scowl on his face. Then he threw back his head and loosed loud laughter into the blue-vaulted sky.

  “Duchess, you are priceless! Shock Amy speechless and escape from under her nose as cool as a cucumber. I don’t know whether to spank you or—”

  “Or what?” Angela asked with a smile trembling on her lips.

  “Never mind! You always get your way, don’t you?”

  The smile disappeared and a shadow of grief flitted across her face. “Not always, not nearly enough. I meant what I said. I’m sorry if I upset Amy but I was cross.”

  “But not any more,” Jack observed, “only sad. You never had that quality, those sorrowful eyes, when I knew you before. How can any man be immune to you now?”

  He took her hand, so soft and small, lost in his callused hand. “Come, little girl,” Jack said indulgently. “We will walk and talk, and you can tell me the things that have changed you.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You have been hurt deeply, yet you blame yourself for what others have done. Sometimes a wound seems healed on the surface but still festers unseen, so it must be lanced and cleaned to heal properly.”

  Angela tilted her head, glancing sideways at him as they walked. He was so positive, taking command of every situation. He had that particular quality that made her feel as if she had known him forever—that he cared immensely what happened to her. And there was still a spark between them—in spite of Scott—in spite of Amy.

  They strolled down the beach in silence watching the pelicans swoop down into the ocean to capture fish in their expanding pouches below their beaks. They were ungainly, almost clumsy looking birds but somehow they managed to fly and they dove cleanly into the water emerging with their prizes.

  Jack drew her after him, up the beach away from the fishing boats to a more secluded spot hedged about with palm trees and sea grape bushes. He sat down with his back against the long smooth trunk of a tree, his legs stretched out in front of him. Angela sat with her chin on her knees, arms around her legs and buried her bare feet in the warm sand. She didn’t look at him, gazing instead at the blue hypnotically moving sea.

  “Talk to me, Duchess—tell me what happened to turn you into such an unhappy woman. Tell me a
bout Gaston Laporte. ...”

  “No!” She hid her face against her knees cringing from the hated name.

  His hand touched her bent head, big fingers moving in the dark silk of her hair. “I love you, Angela—still. I told you once I would never forget you and though I tried I couldn’t. No matter what you have done I’ll understand. Love forgives everything!”

  “You love Amy.”

  “Yes, Amy is the love of my life. Without her I would be like a ship without a rudder. But where is it written that a man can only love one woman at a time? You and she are as different as day and night, yet could we continue to exist without either?”

  Jack was removing the pins from her hair, caressing the back of her neck lightly with the tips of his fingers. She wanted to remain indifferent, stubbornly resisting his efforts to make her relax. But the touch and his masculine scent made her tremble with a melting sweetness of remembered yesterdays.

  Raising her head Angela looked into the calm determined eyes and he smiled, his gaze like light kisses brushing her face. Jack searched the twin aquamarine pools, plumbing the depths of her soul. Then putting a finger beneath her willful chin he tipped her face up and covered her slightly parted lips with his.

  His kiss was infinitely tender, searching yet demanding nothing, giving everything. The familiar pressure of his mouth, the soft prickle of his beard and mustache were making her swoon with pleasure, in some subtle way more intimate than total possession.

  “Sweet,” he panted in her ear. “Your kisses are sweeter than honey and I know only too well what they can do to me!”

  “Oh, Jack!” She felt lethargic, completely in his power, desperately wanted him never to stop. But no! “We can never be lovers again.”

  “I know,” he whispered aware of the forbidden danger of their closeness. “The time for that is long past. We have different lives, different loves. Things have changed and we can never go back.”

  “There will always be the past. No one can take our memories away.”

  What was she doing clasped in Jack’s arms speaking of love when it was Scott she loved? Yet she couldn’t think of this as a betrayal. There was something indefinable—a feeling between them, an attraction that was obvious.