Chance the Winds of Fortune

by Laurie McBain

  “You don’t know what it means to a woman to know that she has a secure fortune. To know that her children will be well provided for is something she longs for, but seldom succeeds in attaining. You say that you are still a sea captain. Well, that is hardly a comforting thought for your wife to live with, never knowing if you will return from one of your journeys. You lead a very dangerous life, Dante; at times I’ve thought you thrive on danger. But it is quite a different story when you have to sit here and wait for someone to come home. I’ve had to take many things into consideration when planning my future. After all, Dante, my late husband’s estate is not going to last forever. And I’m afraid Uncle Edward is going to live another fifty years. I’ve never seen a man of his age so disgustingly hearty. I have to think of myself. You do understand my reasoning?”

  “Indeed I do, but if, as you claim, you love me so desperately, then shouldn’t that love conquer all obstacles? I’m afraid yours is a bit fainthearted. That is why I suggest you look elsewhere for your future husband, for I shall not change my ways, nor do I suspect that you shall, either. We are too much alike,” Dante told her as he spread out his palms to the warmth of the fire. The flickering light danced across his chiseled features, which were, at this moment, expressionless as a statue’s.

  “I’ve been accused of being an opportunistic, fortune-hunting bastard, as well as a few less flattering descriptions,” Dante admitted. A sardonic gleam entered his eye as he added without hesitation, “and you, my dear, are a coldhearted bitch. We make quite a handsome pair, but hardly an honorable one. We have enjoyed the pleasure of each other’s company in the past, but I fear we now know each other too well for either of us to be comfortable with the other, and certainly too well for further lies and pretenses. And since there is no longer any need for a marriage between us,” Dante told her indifferently, “I think it would be wisest for us to pursue our pleasures elsewhere.”

  Nervously, Helene moistened her dry lips, her frustration showing itself in the tapping of her red satin slipper as she stared at an apparently inaccessible Dante Leighton. But Helene Jordane was not one to give up, or to admit defeat when she wanted something, and she wanted Dante Leighton.

  “Your detractors are right, for you are a bastard at times,” she told him mockingly, making a concerted effort to appear unconcerned by his rejection. Hiding her fear and dismay, she continued almost conversationally. “I shan’t even try and reason with you when you are in one of these stubborn moods of yours. ’Tis only your pride which is smarting, my love,” she accused him, with a short laugh that hung in the frigid air between them. “And, Dante, mon cher, you’ve lain in my bed far too long for you to find satisfaction with another,” she warned, a look of remembered passion flashing in her dark eyes as she tried to fan the flames of his memory as well. “You’ll soon tire of playing the gentleman with these quivering Charles Town virgins, and since you are quite fastidious, I doubt you’ll spend much time in the local bawdy houses. You’ll come back to me, Dante,” Helene told him, her smile confidently provocative. “’Tis just a matter of time, and I have all the time in the world. In fact,” she added, her chin raised challengingly, “I shall be accompanying m-my uncle t-to the country. I-I’ll be g-gone,” she tried to say as she fought off a sneeze. But she was unsuccessful and fell into a fit of sneezing.

  “’Tis that damned cat! He’s in here, isn’t he? You know I can’t abide those dirty creatures. Whenever they’re around, I-I-I,” she said and sneezed again, “I go into a fit of sneezing. Oh, damn! I’ll be breaking out into blotches soon,” she complained, worriedly examining her pale shoulders for a disfiguring rash.

  “I would suggest then, Helene, that you’d best leave,” Dante suggested with solicitous concern. “Is your carriage nearby? If not, ’twill be my pleasure to provide mine,” he offered generously, his dark lashes masking the laughter in his eyes as he caught sight of Jamaica slinking through the shadows, seeking the warmth of the fire.

  “Yes, I must l-leave at once, o-or ’twill take me days to get rid of these damned blotches,” Helene agreed readily, willing to end their conversation for the time being. “I’ll wait in the courtyard for your coachman. I-I must g-get some fresh air,” she said huskily, on the verge of another fit of sneezing. Quickly, she retrieved her cloak from Dante’s bed, and with a swishing of skirts, approached the man standing indolently in front of the fire. Although wearing only a brief towel slung carelessly about his hips, he seemed completely at his ease, an amused smile curving his lips as he watched her come toward him.

  Helene halted before him, her eyes reflecting the burning flames of the fire as she stared at him longingly. Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her half-parted lips against his, and even when his lips remained unresponsive to her, she continued to kiss him, until finally she drew back with a look of heartsease. She alone knew how much effort it took to appear serene. “Something to remember me by, my love,” she whispered. Then, with a nonchalant laugh, she sauntered from the room.

  Dante was fastening his breeches when Kirby quietly opened the door and entered the room. The steward had a rather self-satisfied expression on his face as he hurried to place the captain’s slippers close at hand.

  “Jamaica’s arrival was well timed, Kirby,” Dante commented as he slipped his stockinged feet into the leather mules.

  “Thank you, m’lord,” Kirby replied. “I thought he might expedite young madam’s departure from the house. My apologies, but I never saw her enter, and I’m afraid I forgot about the broken latch.”

  Dante glanced over at the tabby lazily grooming himself in front of the fire. Then he glanced back at the little steward. “I’m not sure which of you is the more pleased with himself.”

  “Most likely Jamaica, m’lord,” Kirby responded knowledgeably. “He’s just polished off a plate of giblets. And speaking of dinner, where would you like me to serve yours this evening, m’lord?” he asked, while he began collecting the damp towels, folding them neatly across his arm as he awaited his captain’s pleasure.

  “I’ll have it in my study, Kirby. I have some charts I want to refresh my memory about.”

  “You’ll be dining alone then, m’lord?” Kirby questioned out of habit, even though he’d already set out the service for one.

  “Yes, I’ll be dining alone this evening, Kirby,” Dante answered absently, thinking back to his conversation with Bertie Mackay earlier in the evening. Already, the image of Helene Jordane was fading from his mind.

  “You’ll not be canceling the card game this evening then, m’lord?” Kirby asked.

  “No, I am still expecting the gentlemen at the regular time. Oh, you might have an extra bottle or two of port on hand. Pomeroy complained that I took unfair advantage of him last time. Claimed we ran out of his favorite spirit on purpose, and that he was forced to switch to several bottles of claret instead. I swear the man is bottomless. Never seen him tipsy yet,” Dante complained as he brushed his curls dry and plaited the hair into a queue, which he then secured with a black riband.

  Dante took the poker and pushed an unburned section of log closer to the blaze. When the hungry flames began to eat into the log, a surge of warmth was sent into the room. Dante stared unseeingly at the rivulets of rain water running down the windowpanes, his mind drifting several hundred leagues south of the Carolinas.

  “It will be good to be at sea again, Kirby,” Dante said longingly, almost feeling the movement of the sea beneath the decks of the Sea Dragon. “I long to sail her home, Kirby. Home to Merdraco.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Kirby replied. But whether or not he agreed with his captain he kept to himself.

  Dante turned away from the cold draft seeping in through the window frame and held his chilled hands out to the bright flames licking at the half-consumed log, a smile of anticipation gently curving the corners of his mouth.

  “Aye, Kirby,” he said softly, unconsciously mimicking
the little steward, “within the month the Sea Dragon will once again be sailing the seas.”

  * * *

  Rhea Claire Dominick awoke to blackness. With a determined effort she lifted her heavy-lidded eyes, but still there was no light. She perceived only a cold, dark dampness surrounding her. Shivering uncontrollably, she huddled inside the cloak wrapped loosely around her body. Still dazed from the numbing effects of the drugging, she hugged the soft velvet cape closer, rubbing her icy cheek against the warmth of the fur lining. A hazy memory came drifting back to her as she buried her face against the thick pile and breathed in the scent of roses clinging to the fur.

  A sudden lurch of the ship to port sent Rhea tumbling against a bulkhead, her cry of pain echoed over and over again by faceless voices in the dark. As she continued to lie sprawled against the partition, an unnatural stillness about her told her that she was not alone. She stared with wide, sightless eyes into the enveloping blackness, sensing the fear and desperation of the people crowded with her below deck as an almost tangible presence.

  When she realized where she was, Rhea began to feel the terror rising like bile in her throat. The pungent odor of brine and bilge water, mingling with the souring remnants of seasickness, began to fill her senses, cutting through the grogginess of her mind, which had been the last barrier against the unpleasant reality. Overhead, she could hear the heavy creaking of the masts as they withstood the slapping and filling of the sails against a freshening wind.

  Rhea tried to right herself, crawling onto her knees in an attempt to stand, but she was knocked off her feet by the heaving of the ship as it struggled through the roughening seas. Favoring her wrenched knee, Rhea withdrew into the protection of her cloak, retreating from the Cimmerian atmosphere in the bowels of the ship. Her teeth chattering from the combined effects of shock and cold, she crouched in stunned disbelief, suffering an agony of both mind and body.

  Suddenly, she became aware of warmth on her skin, and when she raised a shaking hand, her stiff fingers encountered the wetness of hot tears falling down her cheeks. With her chin trembling, she held back the deep groan of despair she could feel filling the numb void of her mind. A small whimper was all that escaped her tightly compressed lips as she began remembering fragmented, nightmarish scenes.

  She had been out riding with Francis and her cousins… No, she thought in confusion, that had been the day before. She had gone riding with Wesley and Caroline. Yes! That was it! She remembered now, for they had been on their way to Stone House-on-the-Hill. She was going to look at the pups she’d rescued, only…only they had never reached Stone House-on-the-Hill. Rhea pressed her cold fingertips against her throbbing temples as she recalled the carriage blocking the lane.

  An involuntary cry of fear escaped her lips when she remembered seeing Wesley tumbling from his mount. She’d been kneeling beside an unconscious Caroline. Yes, she could remember all of that, but then what had happened? Rhea’s breath caught in her throat as she saw again the man in the red coat coming purposefully toward her. She had tried to escape him, but she had fallen, and then… She could remember nothing but the suffocating blackness that had swept over her as a cloth soaked in something enervating had been held forcefully over her face.

  When a thundering crack sounded overhead, Rhea was reminded of the loud report of the pistol that had felled Wesley. He was dead. She was almost certain of that, for she would never forget that look of disbelief and pain that had flashed across the Earl of Rendale’s face as he fell into the mud at his horse’s feet. Suddenly, Rhea wondered about the fate of Caroline Winters. Perhaps she had been kidnapped as well, and was on board ship at this very moment. It was with mixed emotions that Rhea blindly searched the darkness, for if Caroline were indeed on board, was her friend any better off than she was?

  “Caroline?” Rhea whispered, her hopes of hearing a familiar voice winning out over her reluctance to discover Caroline in the same predicament as herself. “Caroline?”

  “Are you all right?” a female voice asked from the gloom.

  Rhea sucked in her breath, surprised, for she hadn’t really been expecting a response. “Caroline? Is that you?” she asked, her voice husky from disuse.

  “No.” The timid denial crushed Rhea’s hopes. “My name is Alys. Alys Meredith,” the disembodied voice confided. “I was hopin’ ye’d be wakin’ up real soon. I was afeared ye was dead,” the young girl’s voice informed her rather matter-of-factly.

  Suddenly Rhea laughed, but the sound jarred strangely against her ears, as if she were listening to a person who was losing her mind. “No!” Rhea cried out as she heard a shuffling on the floor beside her. “Please, don’t leave me. I’m not crazed, truly I’m not.”

  “I’m not leavin’,” said the voice that had identified itself as Alys Meredith. “I was just movin’ closer. ’Tis so dark and cold down here. ’Tis like bein’ in a grave, I s’pose, but not near so comfortable,” she said, and Rhea could plainly hear the fear in the girl’s voice.

  Rhea reached out a hesitant hand, unsure of what she would encounter. She struck a bony shoulder shaking with cold; the thin cloth of the cape the girl was wearing offered little comfort against the biting chill of the ship’s hold. “Would you like to share my cape with me? ’Tis lined in fur and very full. There is plenty of room for us both,” Rhea invited, feeling genuinely sorry for the young girl, but also anxious not to lose contact with that human voice. The moans of the suffering passengers, combined with the eerie whistling of the wind through the sails, created an inhuman wailing that assaulted the senses relentlessly.

  “I never could stand bein’ in the dark. I’ve always been afeared of it,” Alys Meredith said suddenly. “Me father, he was a fine man, he was. He always let me have a candle burning until I’d fallen asleep. Sometimes there was hardly enough money to keep food on the table, but still he’d let me have me candle. He was like that, always doin’ a kindness fer someone and deprivin’ himself of things he should’ve had. The only things he ever bought fer himself was books. Loved books, he did. Should’ve bought himself a greatcoat, I told him that. But he never listened to sensible advice. He caught a chill, then got feverish, and then he was gone,” Alys said, so softly that Rhea could barely catch her words over the roar of the ship and the sea and the suffering.

  “He was all that you had?” Rhea asked.

  “Aye, ’twas just me father and me. Me mum died years ago. We lived over the shop. ’Twas nice and cozy, ’twas. He was a tobacconist. We sold all types of fine tobacco and snuff to the best gentlemen in London. We had the prettiest boxes for their tobacco and delicate silver ones for the snuff. And we had pipes and lighting spills and all sorts of wonderful things. The shop smelled so good. I used to just stand there and sniff. But, ’twas a problem gettin’ them fancy gents to pay, and me father, well, he wasn’t a man to be pounding on another man’s door demanding payment. Reckon he should’ve though,” Alys said sadly, thinking of the new owner of her father’s shop.

  “Father had powerful debts, he did. Took all the money for the sale of the shop to pay them off, and then the solicitor said that I still owed him fer handling me father’s affairs, as well as a few outstanding debts. He said I’d better sign, or I could end up in debtors’ prison,” Alys said, her voice quivering with unhappiness.

  “What was it you signed?” Rhea demanded, her own problems temporarily forgotten while she listened in dismay to this girl’s tale of misfortune.

  “The indenture papers,” Alys answered. “I-I didn’t want to be signin’ it, but what was I to do? He had been one of father’s best customers. Always paid his bills, he did. He took me up before the magistrate to sign it proper, and I-I was so scared,” she cried, sniffing with the memory of the bewigged gentleman in black, whose harsh voice had asked her if she were willing to journey to the colonies. With uncompromising sternness, he’d told her she’d be giving up her freedom for four years and that
she must serve her master uncomplainingly.

  “Said ’twas a legal and binding contract that I’d signed, and ’twas no way out of it unless I bought me freedom from the master. Mr. Phelps told me ’twas the only thing to do, and so I signed. Then the captain signed, ’cause he’s the one who bought me. Agreed to pay me fare to the colonies, and to feed and clothe me. They tore the paper in two, and I got half, and the captain t’other half. Got it tucked away safe right here,” she confided as she thumped her chest. “When we get to the colonies, I s’pose the captain’ll sell me to someone else. Maybe it’ll be a merchant, since I’ve worked in trade, or maybe to a family who needs a good scullery. Although,” she added wistfully, “’twould be nice to be takin’ care of the wee ones. Always wanted brothers and sisters, I did, but ’twasn’t meant to be. Reckon it can’t be no worse than in London. The captain’ll find a nice place fer me,” she said, her hopeful words lingering in the silence.

  “And make a fine profit, no doubt,” Rhea muttered beneath her breath, for she had often heard her parents speak of this system of indenture, which was at times little better than slavery. Unfortunately, not every indentured servant found a generous and kind master, and ofttimes found himself worse off than before.

  Rhea frowned, thinking about what Alys had just told her. She had intended to confront the captain of this ship with her predicament; however, if the captain were in league with the man who’d kidnapped her, which meant he was involved in the illegal trafficking of bonded servants, then she could hardly expect to receive sympathy from him. She might very well find herself in grave danger, for he wouldn’t care to face the criminal charges levied against him by the powerful Duke of Camareigh. And while at sea, Rhea suddenly realized, she was in his power, and safely out of reach of her father’s great influence. She could very easily come to grief, and no one would be the wiser about her disappearance. She had no idea how many of the crew were implicated in her kidnapping. Also, the man in the red coat could very easily be on board right now.