Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution

by Adair, Suzanne

  She stared down at it while Mathias approached, and it occurred to her that perhaps he hadn't wanted her out there to lecture her. The breeze felt marvelous on her sweaty arms, and she looked with longing at the water before facing him.

  He bowed. "Good evening, madam. My name is Mathias Hale. Some dolt of a fellow back there told me you wanted to see me."

  She removed her shoes and stockings, began tugging off her trousers, and quipped, "Last one in the water is a rotten egg!"

  His splash naked into the tepid, thigh-deep water wasn't but seconds behind hers. Since she'd never advanced in swimming past basic dog paddling, he was upon her in two strokes. She squealed with mock protest before wrapping her legs about his torso, anchoring herself against him, and sliding her tongue around his. "My lucky stars," she whispered a moment later, the warmth of his mouth on her throat, "Neptune is poking me with his trident."

  His lips wended around to her neck. "One of your fantasies? Tell me more."

  She unwrapped her legs and licked his chin. "Mmm. Salty on the surface. Shall I find something sweet inside?" And she trailed her tongue down, into the hollow of his throat, around both nipples, across his flinching stomach, past his navel and abdomen. Salty, yes, they were creatures of salt.

  "Sophie — Sophie —" His knees wobbled, and he rolled his head back.

  Crouching, she reached behind, grabbed his buttocks, and guided the primordial trident into her mouth. "If you don't stop — Sophie — I shall —" He gasped and shuddered. "Oh, gods, Sophie, yes, just so, oh, oh —"

  As his cry faded from the beach, he lifted her into his arms, savored the salt on her lips, and carried her back to the blanket, where he tasted her until he grew engorged enough to swim in the ocean of her body. Suspended on the verge of le petit mort, she gazed into her own vulnerability in his eyes, the obsidian depths there reflecting starlight and moonlight the way of a still midnight lake. Over and over she arrived at the brink of rapture, but the lake in his eyes guided her back, so she must hover at the edge and listen to arousal and rawness thundering in her veins, heartbeat and current of the empyrean.

  In the instant before she wept with release, her soul recognized the spirit lake in his eyes. Le petit mort was but the dénouement of the mighty and fragile ecstasy that fueled the universe. She understood then why she'd climbed out her bedroom window two weeks past and turned her back on a comfortable life in Alton and the promise of opulence in England. She'd found the adventure she'd been seeking her whole life. To her amazement, she need never have looked farther than her own heart.

  ***

  Near midnight, David and Jacques tottered up the beach belting out a ditty about three French soldiers and their commanding officer's wife. Consequently, Sophie and Mathias were fully clothed by the time the two men arrived. Arriaga's orders: everyone except sentries must spend the night aboard ship. Sophie looked with fondness at the site of their lovemaking while Mathias folded up the blanket. They hadn't but scratched the surface on her supply of fantasies. How fortuitous that the trip to Havana wasn't even half over.

  On deck late Sunday morning, she squinted north. Sentries had reported the arrival of a storm-damaged fishing sloop — alas, not the Annabelle — in the neighboring cove the previous night, hence Arriaga's caution. Abaco as a refuge must be on every sea captain's nautical charts.

  Aboard the Gloria Maria, sailors assembled the new main topmast. Sails had been hung out to dry in the light breeze. She followed their shade until noontime sun denied her cover. On the verge of ducking below to evade direct sunlight, she spotted the captain headed her way from amidships beaming his approval. He extended a folded parasol to her. "My dear wife left this aboard in March. Please, you make use of it."

  "Thank you, capitão."

  He caught her hand and kissed it. "My pleasure, senhora."

  She opened and extended the parasol and watched him amble away, his flattery flushing her cheeks. Not impervious to his charm, she considered all the Gloria Maria's ports of call and bet herself that the captain had a dear wife in every one.

  That evening, while Tomás inventoried repairs to confirm their completion, second mate Jorge accompanied the passengers ashore to bag more crabs. The dolphins put in an appearance but seemed nervous and kept their distance, so Sophie blew them a kiss of encouragement from shore. Poor creatures, having their cove turned into a shipyard.

  Aboard the brig, she sat back-to-back with Mathias, drank Portuguese wine, sniffed cooking crabmeat, and listened to fiddled shanties and folk songs while the remnants of vermilion sunset emptied from the west. The crew wasn't as eager to wallow in rum as they'd been the previous two nights. Excessive consumption of spirits had made several of them sluggish. Still, sentries were back aboard, the brig was seaworthy again, and everyone was in good cheer.

  She turned in after another exquisite supper, too sleepy to chat with her companions and the captain, sat on the blankets, and thought of Hernandez's final moments. Again, she heard him implore her to give the emeralds to Don Alejandro and meet at the home of his uncle in Havana.

  Since David's warning on St. Augustine wharf, something about Hernandez's last words had niggled the back of her brain. The logistics of the young Spaniard's shooting were wrong. How could El Serpiente have shot him from the front and his horse from behind? Weariness fuzzed her focus. She stretched out on the blankets.

  Jerked awake from a dream about gunfire, she heard footsteps pounding down the companionway and dragged a blanket over her torso just as Mathias burst into the cabin. "Sophie, wake up."

  "I'm awake." She heard a firearm report in the distance. "What the blazes is going on?"

  He closed the door. Moonlight through the port light illuminated him. "Someone's shooting at the ship from the beach." He knelt beside her, having scooped up his rifle, powder horn, and pouch. "Stay here in the cabin while we resolve it."

  "Of course, but —" Foreboding clawed her chest. "— but who's shooting at us? Pirates? Arriaga will weigh anchor to get away, right?"

  "No pirates. We'd have seen their ship by now. It's one person wasting shot at us from different spots on shore."

  Someone from the sloop in the northern cove, perhaps? Sophie's foreboding deepened.

  "Arriaga probably won't weigh anchor yet. The shot's falling short, and we need daylight to navigate our way out of the islands safely."

  David knocked on the door. "Is Sophie all right?"

  "I'm snug in bed, dear brother."

  "Stay there, belle Sophie." From Jacques's growl, his fingers itched for his tomahawk.

  Mathias pecked her cheek and rose. She covered her torso until he'd exited and shut the door. Then she dressed. Although she had no desire to make a target of herself up on deck, she wouldn't sleep again until the matter was resolved.

  In the moonlit cabin she listened. Sporadic shots continued every thirty seconds to two minutes from the beach, not from the island, which was closer. She envisioned a man firing at the brig, relocating to another spot on the cove, and reloading his musket for another shot. Who would do such a thing? Why? For how long would he continue? Was it someone from the sloop?

  Footsteps in the corridor outside drew her attention, and the hinges on the other cabin door squeaked. David and Jacques were up on deck with Mathias, so who was entering their cabin? She tiptoed to her door, heard the other door squeak closed, and had just enough time to squeeze into the corner at the door before her cabin door eased open.

  A man garbed all in black and smelling of seaweed crept in, light from the corridor glinting on a dagger in his hand. Horror and panic leaped through her. The person on shore had created a diversion to allow an intruder to slip aboard the Gloria Maria. Moonlight in the cabin would reveal her presence. She slid to the floor and groped, her hand closing about the parasol.

  Before she could grab anything more substantial, the man turned about. She sprang upward with a shriek.

  The second of surprise that the shriek bought enabled her to sw
ing the parasol by the fabric end. Air whooshed with its descent, curtailing when the solid mahogany handle whacked his temple. He grunted and collapsed. She dropped the parasol and bolted out.

  The first person she saw upon scrambling up the companionway was Tomás, who registered the terror on her face in an instant. "¡Un extraño — un cuchillo — en mi cabina!" she blurted in Spanish.

  The first mate stared with incredulity toward the diversionary musket fire ashore, comprehension flooding his expression. He signaled her to wait there on deck, checked his pistol, and ordered two sailors with cutlasses to accompany him below. Seconds after they disappeared, David spied her and trotted over. "We told you it's much safer below!"

  "Safer? Hah! A man entered my cabin with a dagger, so I hit him in the head with a parasol. Tomás just went down there."

  "Wait here. Keep your head down." His fowler gripped, he clambered down the companionway after the Portuguese.

  Another musket report sounded from shore. She crouched on deck steadying her nerves, considering with irony that she'd complied with Arriaga's request to make use of the parasol. The musket ashore fired once more before David emerged from below, followed by Tomás. She stood, her knees shaky. Behind the first mate, the two sailors carried a sea-dampened, semi-conscious man. They dumped him on deck, and he groaned. Tomás trotted off to find the captain. The sailors stood guard.

  Tension and incredulity gripped David's face. "Damnation. I don't believe it!"

  "Especially after we came through the storm," she murmured, by then all too familiar with the man's dark features. The prisoner of the Portuguese was none other than El Serpiente.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CAPITÃO ARRIAGA CLOSED El Serpiente's grappling hooks into a sack along with the assassin's daggers and rope and addressed David. "The American rebels do not like you. The redcoats do not like you." He handed the sack to Tomás and glanced at the bound, silent assassin on the deck. "And the Spaniards do not like you. Does anyone like you, senhor?"

  "I told you we were caught in the middle of this. Had I known that tracking my father's murderer would make me a target of assassins, I'd have stayed in Williamsburg playing cards."

  Hands clasped behind him, Arriaga paced around El Serpiente. "I have not heard of Casa de la Sangre Legítima." Another shot fired from shore. Still operating the diversion, El Escorpión had no idea his partner was in custody. El Serpiente maintained silence and a face devoid of expression. A smile carved through Arriaga's features. "But if these assassins are the menace you believe, there must be a handsome bounty awaiting those who release them into custody of the governor of Cuba."

  Jacques's scowl exploded. "You do not mean to take him with us? These are assassins, not altar boys! They butcher innocent people. They tried to kill us, believing we stood in their way. They will kill you without compunction. Execute this man without delay, or you will regret it."

  "Need I point out that I have had occasion to regret taking you aboard? The Spaniard is my prisoner. You will not lay a finger on him unless he becomes aggressive. Those are my orders. Am I understood?"

  All for money. Disgust permeated the assent of Sophie and her companions.

  El Escorpión fired another shot. Sophie gestured to shore. "And just how much longer must we listen to that?"

  Arriaga flapped his hand toward shore. "The assassin frequently announces his location. We are hardly at a disadvantage."

  "But who can sleep for all the noise? Do you want your crew exhausted on the morrow?"

  "Ah, so you suggest I send men out there to capture him?"

  Arriaga had the attitude of someone who was trying to educate a fool. On the verge of retorting that she detested being treated in such a manner, she swallowed her words. Showing her to be a fool just might amuse Arriaga to no end.

  Instead, she frosted him with a glare. "An intriguing idea. Since bounty money warms your blood, there's a second source of it out there on Great Abaco." She heard her traveling companions suck in breaths. Arriaga's eyes hardened with her rebuke, but she held her glare. "Your four passengers cannot sleep. Resolve the problem."

  No one spoke for several seconds. In the background, El Escorpión got off another shot. Then the cackle of El Serpiente scratched the air like the sound of ice on winter-brown branches. "Sí, capitán, go ahead and try to capture my colleague — but I suggest you send at least five men so your dead may be buried properly. For two years, agents for the French, British, Dutch, American rebels, and Spanish government have failed to apprehend us. Fortune continues to favor the Rightful Blood, for the storm blew our ship right to you." He cackled again. "But who knows? Perhaps a Portuguese pig of a ship captain can succeed where everyone else has failed, eh?"

  "Miguel!" Tomás stepped toward the assassin, a dagger clenched in his fist.

  Jacques's upper lip curled. "What did I tell you, capitão? Kill the Spaniard now, and be rid of the menace."

  In Portuguese, Arriaga ordered the first mate to sheath his dagger and instructed Jorge and three sailors to secure the assassin. Hoisted to his feet, El Serpiente glowered at everyone. Arriaga's men shoved the assassin on to the hold.

  A shot sounded from shore. Arriaga returned his attention to Sophie. "Tell me how you would resolve the problem with the other assassin."

  He hadn't given up trifling with her. "Fire a cannonball into the jungle. If the assassin survives, you will have communicated your message for him to begone."

  Arriaga's nod verified that her suggestion had been the action he'd intended all along. While he and Tomás supervised a three-man gun crew readying a cannon with powder, wads, a ball, and a cord dipped in saltpeter, El Escorpión fired again.

  The crew waited. El Escorpión's next shot allowed the team to get a bearing on the musket flash. A sailor ignited the match through the touchhole. Sophie covered her ears.

  The cannon vomited a yard-long tongue of flame, and the Gloria Maria quivered with the force of it. Out in the jungle, the ball smacked trees and chewed into branches and bushes. The echo of the blast faded from the cove, and Sophie fanned away the sulfurous stench of burning powder.

  A minute of quiet elapsed, then another. Five minutes went by, and they still heard nothing from shore. El Escorpión had understood Arriaga's message.

  The captain strolled back to the four, his expression and bearing dignified. "Boa noite, my passengers, and may your sleep be restful at last." He inclined his head and returned forward.

  Sentries took up posts around the deck, pistols and cutlasses in their sashes and belts. Jacques lowered his voice. "A pity we have not the money to pay Arriaga to hang El Serpiente. I will sleep tonight with my gear blocking the door and all my firearms loaded."

  "I won't argue that." David jerked his head toward the companionway. "Let's talk." They clambered down, and in the cramped corridor, he turned a grim face to Sophie. "I thought you'd get us all abandoned ashore."

  She regarded him with a cool eye. "Why?"

  "Catholic women don't enjoy the liberties of American Colonial women, and they don't challenge Catholic men."

  She cocked an eyebrow. "To the contrary, it appears that Catholic men indulge women who stand up to them."

  "Only when it amuses them. Watch your tongue with Arriaga — and in Havana."

  Jacques shifted from one foot to the other. "Enough of the cultural lesson. We have a Spanish demon in the hold. Let us hope the captain and crew take adequate precautions."

  David massaged his temple. "Those assassins must have chartered that fishing sloop in the cove to the north of us and headed out around the same time as the Zealot. The rotten luck of it all — that the storm blew them our way."

  Jacques's face torqued. "Who else did the storm blow here?"

  David swatted the Frenchman's shoulder. "Sophie was right yesterday. Cease tempting the Fates. Imagine the frigate and ship-of-the-line on the bottom of the Atlantic, and thank the gods we're leaving Abaco on the morrow."

  ***

&n
bsp; Predawn on Monday, the report of a pistol awakened Sophie. Shouts and running on deck pumped disorientation through her head. She found the empty blanket beside her still warm and heard Mathias sliding on his trousers. A man on deck screamed in agony. She groped for her clothing.

  "Stay put, Sophie!"

  In the corridor outside, Jacques pounded to the companionway with a war whoop. David's voice roared after him. "You damned old fool, get back here!"

  "Uncle! Damn his eyes —"

  "Mathias, you stay put, too!"

  A second man on deck hollered with pain. Sophie, hopping into her trousers, heard a body-sized splash out in the cove, followed by pistol shots from deck. Barefoot, she leaned against the bulkhead, trying to steady her breathing.

  Mathias found her in the darkness and stilled her in his arms. "Listen." The gunshots tapered off. Harsh voices faded into murmurs. "Whatever happened is over."

  An occasional murmur of Portuguese punctuated the pacing footsteps overhead. She envisioned El Escorpión swimming across the cove, climbing aboard to rescue his fellow, and slitting sailors' throats before the rest of the crew chased him, empty-handed, back into the cove. The sky paled. She heard commands, more footsteps on deck, the splash of the lowered gig, and the creak of blocks. The brig was underway. Mathias released her. They finished dressing.

  Footsteps down the companionway preceded David's voice. "Jacques le Coeuvre, what in hell did you think you were doing by running up there into all that?"

  "Had my old bones been a few seconds quicker, David, one sailor might still be alive."

  Mathias shoved aside their gear and opened the door. "Come in and give us your account, Uncle."

  His thumb hooked in his belt near his tomahawk, Jacques strutted in. David stood in the open door with an occasional glance toward the companionway, his fowler in hand. Backlit by the lantern in the corridor, the Frenchman swung his beady gaze about the cabin. "El Serpiente killed two sailors and escaped. Right over the rail into the water I saw him fly, and he but ten feet from me." His fist gripped the head of the tomahawk.