“You rotten bastard!” Drake said in a low voice.
He looked like he was about to dive across the room and attack him when Señora Isabel called out, “¡Basta! ¡Basta! What kind of madness is this?”
She rang a little bell, and within seconds two very muscular servants burst into the room ready to impose calm on the situation.
Adam’s heart was about to pound right out of his chest. Why was Eduardo here? What had he been talking to Isabel about? And what did he say that so infuriated Drake?
“This is him, Tomás?” Señora Isabel stood from her chair and angrily motioned at Adam. “Why would you bring an imposter, a thief, into my home? What are you thinking?”
Eduardo smiled as he observed the confusion.
“Imposter?” said Drake. He stepped beside Adam and put his hands on each of his shoulders and gently nudged him towards Isabel. “This is your grandson! This is Santiago’s son! Look at him, for heaven’s sake!” He took some strands of Adam’s hair that had fallen out of his ponytail down the sides of his face and tucked them back behind his ear so that the old woman could see the boy’s face better, then turned and pointed at Eduardo. “That lying snake wanted to kill him, and now your son is fighting for his very life because one of Eduardo’s men shot him!”
At that, Eduardo stood and spoke to Isabel but kept his eyes locked on Adam. “I would have never shot the son of my dear brother. My officer was only trying to stop that imposter from riding away with your son, but he missed and hit Santiago instead.”
“This is madness!” said Isabel. “Why would my son have been riding away with you, whoever you are?” she said to Adam.
“Because he was trying to kill us,” Adam responded, pointing at Eduardo. “First, he hired some men to kidnap me, but I escaped. He had sent a—”
“Wait! Just wait!” said Isabel. “Slow down. Please. I understand English very well, but I cannot follow what you are saying if you are speaking this fast.”
She sat back down in her chair and waited for Adam to continue.
Eduardo said something to her frantically in Spanish, to which she responded, “You be quiet. I have listened to all that you have said, and I will hear what this boy says.” She nodded in Adam’s direction, then said, “Before you tell me what you claim happened, please tell me who you are and why you are here in Havana.”
Adam took a deep breath. His heart was pounding, and the words he wanted to say were flying through his brain. He would have to make a real effort to speak slowly for her, though.
“My name is Adam Fletcher. I am an apprentice to a shipping merchant. My master is a man named Emmanuel Rogers, of Beaufort, North Carolina, and I came to Havana on his ship, the Carolina Gypsy. I have never been on a trade expedition to the West Indies before, but my master wanted me to learn about coopering on the ship.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Did you understand all of that so far, ma’am?”
Isabel nodded. “Yes. You may continue.”
“I grew up with only my mother, but I was told before I came on this voyage that my father left for Havana before I was born but never returned. I was also told that there was a man here who might be able to tell me something about my father.”
“Who was this man?” asked Isabel.
“His name was Alonso Cordova.”
Adam could see that Isabel’s eyes were beginning to water. He recognized that same steely face his mother sometimes made when she was trying hard not to cry. All she said was, “Please go on.”
“After we unloaded the Gypsy and got her reloaded with cargo for the return journey, our captain gave us shore leave. That first night in port we all went out, and then the next morning I was going to go with my friend Martin here to try to find Mr. Cordova. The thing is, Martin was late, and he didn’t meet me on time, so I decided to go by myself. I went to that plaza and was asking around—”
“Wait, slow down, please. You are talking very fast again. What is that last thing you said?” asked Isabel.
“I was saying that I went to the plaza—that marketplace— and asked around for someone who might be able to help me translate, so I could try to find Mr. Cordova. A man ended up approaching me—a man I later found out used to work for my father, but now he works for him.” He pointed at Eduardo. “His name was Hector. He offered to help me and said he knew the family of the man I was looking for and that he would take me to them.”
“And you went with him?” asked Isabel.
Adam nodded.
She and Eduardo exchanged some terse words in Spanish, but Drake translated so that Adam knew what they were saying. Drake said, “She just asked Eduardo if what you were saying was true. He admitted that the man who went over to help you worked for him, but he explained that he had already figured you were an imposter and that you were only claiming to be Santiago’s son so that you could try to claim a piece of the family’s fortune.”
“No!” shouted Adam. “That doesn’t even make any sense! I only learned a few hours ago that your son was my father. I only had the name of Alonso Cordova!”
Eduardo laughed and said, “He is lying.”
Isabel wrinkled her brow, then asked Eduardo, “How would you have known he was trying to claim to be Santiago’s son?”
“Dear Isabel, I am alguacil mayor. You already know I have men all over the place.” He looked around the room, waving his hands, and said, “Even the walls have ears.”
Still looking confused and concerned, Isabel said to Adam, “Have you never known anything about the identity of your father?”
Adam shook his head. “No. My mother never would tell me anything about him other than that he was a sailor and had come to Beaufort the first time in late 1746. She said they fell in love, and by late that next spring they were married on his ship. She was only seventeen, and her guardian would not allow her to marry him, so they married in secret. My father had business to tend to in other ports—at least that’s what she told me—so he left, but then he never came back.”
“And when were you born?” asked Isabel.
“I was born on the twenty-second of March in 1748.”
“Who told you the name of the man—Alonso Cordova—before you came here to Havana?”
“Valentine told me,” said Adam. “Valentine Hodges. He’s like my grandfather. He was my mother’s guardian after she was orphaned as a young girl, and he owns the Topsail Tavern, which is where I was born and was raised by my mother.”
“How are you a—how do you say?—aprendiz of this man you said?”
“Apprentice? You mean Emmanuel Rogers?” Adam asked.
“Yes.”
“I was bound to him in May of last year.”
“He is not the one who told you of this first mate?” Isabel asked.
Adam shook his head. “No, I said it was Valentine who told me.”
Eduardo interrupted again and said something to Isabel in Spanish. Drake interrupted him, and there was a heated exchange.
“Damnit!” Drake exclaimed. “Everyone in this room”—he motioned to the guards— “except maybe those two speaks English! Why leave this boy out of the conversation? And let’s not forget while we’re all here arguing: your man shot Santiago!”
“He is being brought here as we speak,” said Isabel. “I have arranged for it.”
Drake, Adam, and Martin all looked at her, completely stunned at this revelation.
“You can’t move him!” said Adam. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s already really bad off. The surgeon said he really shouldn’t be moved, and he’s worried about an infection starting.”
Isabel nodded. “I understand that, which is why I sent my personal physician and four of my servants in my coach to go to this ship of yours and bring him here. Once we have him in his bed, he will not need to move again until he is recovered completely. He will rest much more soundly in his own bed with our servants taking care of his every need. Also, this home is, I a
m sure, much cleaner than your ship. It will be healthier surroundings for him to convalesce.”
“Respectfully, señora,” said Adam, “you shouldn’t do this yet. It might be too hard on him to be moved right now. It could kill him. Not to mention I don’t trust that man”—he pointed at Eduardo—“and he may even have someone finish the job that they started earlier today. It’ll be a miracle if my father makes it here from the Gypsy alive!”
“This boy is a liar,” insisted Eduardo. “He is simply a liar.”
Isabel ignored his comment. She directed her response to Adam. “Do not be absurd, boy! I will not leave my son to die on some strange ship.”
“You’d rather him die here, then?”
“Con la ayuda de Dios he will not die, but to answer your question, if he were to die God forbid, yes, I would rather it be here in our home.”
“Are we forgetting that this man—this criminal who you have invited right into your home—he is to blame for all of this?” Drake said, pointing again at Eduardo.
“No!” Eduardo fumed. “The only criminal in this room is that boy, and I will not sit by as he comes into my country and tries to take what is rightfully mine!”
For a couple of seconds no one said anything.
Finally, Isabel spoke. “What is rightfully yours, Eduardo? You mean what is rightfully my son’s?”
Eduardo inhaled sharply and let out a fast sigh. “Of course that is what I mean. You know I am not so good with the English as you. I meant what rightfully belongs to the Velasquez family.”
“Why don’t we tell Señora Isabel about how you are the reason Santiago never went back to his boy?” Drake said to Eduardo. “Let’s just have this out here right now.”
Eduardo looked at him in confusion, and then he suddenly appeared to be nervous.
“What is this?” Isabel inquired.
Drake rubbed his chin and looked like he was contemplating what he would say. He walked over to where Isabel was and took a seat on the end of the chaise lounge next to her chair.
“Señora Isabel, your son and I, we’ve been friends for many years now, right?”
Isabel nodded. “Sí, claro.”
“We’re like brothers, Santiago and me, and we’ve shared a lot of stories about our pasts.” He went on to give her a brief history of what he knew about Santiago—and Mary and Adam—along with how it was because of Eduardo that Santiago never returned to his wife and child. He never did tell Isabel that Eduardo had questioned Santiago’s legitimacy, though.
Isabel wrinkled her brow. “Is this true?”
“It is all lies, but that is what liars do. They lie,” said Eduardo.
“I swear it’s the truth,” said Drake. “I’m telling you that man”—he pointed at Eduardo— “is a snake in the grass. He was making all kinds of accusations back at that fortress he has in the woods, and threats about how he was not going to let Santiago or his son take the Velasquez family inheritance away from his sons.”
“I said I was not going to let this imposter come in and take our family’s inheritance,” Eduardo insisted to Isabel.
“Your sons would not inherit any of Santiago’s property unless he dies without heirs,” said Isabel. “If this boy is telling the truth—if he is the child of my son—then Santiago has an heir. Is that why you kidnapped this boy?”
“I am telling you, Isabel, he is lying! He is not Santiago’s child! He is a stupid English boy who is trying to come in to Havana and steal the family’s fortune!”
“That would make no sense if he did not know that Santiago was his father,” she commented.
“That’s just it! I didn’t know,” said Adam, “and for what it’s worth, I’m not interested in any inheritance. I only wanted to know who my father was. That’s all I ever wanted when I came here.”
“What were you planning to do with him, Eduardo?” asked Isabel.
Eduardo shrugged, then said, “I wanted only to scare him so that he would leave and not come back with his lies.”
“You say you did not know my son was your father, as you claim,” Isabel said to Adam. “So I am wondering how he came to be involved with this business.”
Martin stepped forward. “Excuse me, but I can explain that, ma’am.”
Isabel gave them all a confused look, then nodded. “Fine. I am listening.”
“When I realized Adam had taken off without me to look for this Cordova fella, another shipmate, Charlie, and I went and told our captain—he’s Charlie’s big brother, by the way—that Adam had gone off somewhere, but that we didn’t know where he was. We waited for him for a right good long while, but he never showed up, so we finally knew we had to tell our captain. He told us we should go look for Captain Velasquez, since he is a friend of our boss, Emmanuel.”
He looked at Isabel to try to ascertain whether she had understood all of what he had just said.
She nodded and said, “Yes, continue.”
“I came here to this very house with Charlie just a couple of days ago, and your servants let us in. We were able to talk to your son. We didn’t know he had any connection to Adam at all. We only knew that he lives here and that he speaks Spanish, and that he might be able to help us find our friend.”
“So what happened?” asked Isabel.
“Well, it’s kind of funny, but by the time we figured out where Adam had been taken, he’d already escaped. And then what do ya know? He was coming to look for us! We had been put in this little prison hut over at that fortress he has.” He motioned at Eduardo, then looked back at her to make sure she understood everything.
“All of you? How are you free now?” she asked.
“That man there”—he pointed at Eduardo—“didn’t lock Captain Velasquez in there with us. He wanted to see him privately. But as for how we came to be freed, all I can say is that your grandson has enormous . . .” He stopped himself midsentence, then smiled meekly and said, “Well, he’s very courageous, ma’am. Soon as he learned we’d gone off looking for him, he got a couple of other fellas from our ship to go with him back to that snake pit. To make a long story short, Adam and your son—together—demanded that he let us go so that we could escape.”
Eduardo said nothing. He just leaned back in his chair with one leg crossed over another and stared blankly ahead with a disgusted look on his face.
Isabel seemed to take note of his lack of reaction and asked him, “Eduardo, tell me something.”
The man slowly looked up and met her gaze. “¿Qué?”
“If this young man and others were with your nephew, what cause did you have for arresting them?”
Eduardo’s face turned red in fury. He leaned forward, then began ranting to Isabel in Spanish.
Drake translated as quickly as he spoke. “He says that compound we wandered into is a secret defensive base in case there’s ever another attack on Havana like the one back in ’62. And he says, how was he to know that we weren’t criminals or some kind of threat? He claims when he saw that Santiago was with us, he locked us up so that he could get Santiago alone in case he was being held under duress.”
Martin let out a loud laugh. “Good Lord Almighty! There’s a special place in Hell for men who can lie as good as you do, Eddie!”
“How dare you!” Eduardo fumed. “You will not speak to me that way!”
“Well, I reckon I just did,” said Martin matter-of-factly.
Eduardo sprang from his chair and flew across the room. The guards weren’t able to move quickly enough to stop him from lunging at Martin, but Martin responded quickly and swerved out of the way, then grabbed Eduardo and pulled his arm up behind his back and held him like that until he winced.
“That is enough! This violence must stop now!” demanded Isabel.
Martin let Eduardo go but gave him a bit of a push. Thrown off balance, Eduardo started to fall and was only able to steady himself by grabbing hold of a gilded table, knocking several fancy-looking ob
jects, including a porcelain statue, off of the marble top and onto the floor.
Isabel motioned for her guards to grab both Martin and Eduardo and separate them.
“I apologize for all of this confusion, señora,” said Drake, “but we have stood here and listened to your brother-in-law tell lie upon lie, and after all we have been through, and your son’s present condition, our patience has worn a little bit thin.”
“I do not know who to believe,” said Isabel. She looked at Eduardo with some disgust and said, “Eduardo and I have never been very close, but I do not know this boy at all. They will be here with my son soon. I pray that he can help me to make sense of what has happened.”
“Ma’am,” said Adam, “I pray that he can too, but regardless, I want you to know that I had no idea of the mess I’d stir up by just trying to learn something about my father. The fact is if he’d have been able to be around to raise me like a father should, I reckon none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”
Isabel was left speechless.
Adam ran his fingers back through his hair and thought for a moment. He still had one more thing to say. His dark-brown eyes met hers in an intense gaze. “I am glad I met my father, but I realize you don’t know me, and your own brother-in-law acts like he’s going to do whatever it takes to get me out of the picture. But the truth is there really would’ve been no need for any of this—for me to have been kidnapped, or for your son, my father, to have been shot. If I had only known he had been alive and well and living here in Cuba this whole time, I don’t even know that I’d have bothered to try to meet him. I sure don’t want a piece of anything that’s here. I just want to go home. In fact, I’m leaving now, and you don’t have to worry about me coming back again uninvited.”
Captured in the Caribbean Page 13
