Poseidon's Daughter

by Diane A. S. Stuckart

  “Thank you,” Halia stiffly replied. She took her father's arm, urging him on ahead of her. “Now, if you will excuse us, we must get back to the guest house.”

  “Not so fast, me darling.”

  His soft words lashed out like a whip, so that despite herself she let her father continue on while she turned again to face the pirate. He reached into his trouser pocket and drew out an egg-shaped stone, which he tossed onto the dock at her feet.

  ” Tis a small matter of an emerald that I'm still owed. Now, why don't ye be good enough to tell me where me brother has run off to.”

  “Run off is the correct term, Captain O'Neill,” she retorted. “He and Mr. Foote packed their belongings and left from this dock sometime earlier today. I have no idea where they have gone, nor do I care.”

  Those last words trembled a little on her lips, proving them for the lie that they were. O'Neill quirked a wry brow, momentary amusement warming his chill blue gaze.

  “So, he pulled one over on ye, too,” he softly replied. “Tis typical of him, I might have warned ye. And I suppose he had the emerald with him?”

  Halia returned him a cool smile. “As for your jewel, Captain O'Neill, I fear I have a bit of bad news for you, as well. You see, Mr. Northrup tossed it away during the storm last night.”

  “Tossed it away?” The pirate's blue eyes narrowed, any trace of earlier amusement now quenched. “Sure and I don't believe ye. Why would he do such a thing, throwing away a bloody ransom like that?”

  Proudly, she lifted her chin. “He did it to prove—that is, it makes little difference, now. But I assure you that Poseidon's Tear is gone.”

  She braced herself for some sign of anger, praying as she did so that the pirate would not vent his rage over Malcolm's outlandish behavior against her or her father. She was stunned, then, when O'Neill burst out in the first genuine laugh she had heard from him.

  “Sure, and knowing me brother, I'll wager that he went back later to find it.”

  With those words, the pirate climbed back down the ladder to where his dinghy was tied. As his seaman shoved off, however, O'Neill leaned forward.

  “I'll make ye a promise, me darling,” he called back to her. “The next time I see me scoundrel of a brother, I'll be sure to tell him what a fool he was…that he chose the wrong jewel to keep.”

  Oddly enough, O'Neill's wry compliment brought her a bit of comfort. Her heart somewhat lighter than it had been a moment before, she started back up the pier to where her father and Lally stood, hands clasped. Catching sight of her, Arvin promptly loosed his grip on the woman.

  ”I, er, was just telling Lally that I appreciated her looking out for you these past weeks,” he gruffly explained, avoiding both her and Lally's gaze as another dull flush darkened his features.

  Halia halted before him and planted her hands on her hips, giving her head an impatient shake. “Really, Papa, why don't you stop acting foolish and just give her a proper greeting, for once?”

  Arvin's mouth dropped open. Then, comprehension lit his face with an even brighter blush, and he began a wordless stammer as he groped for an explanation. Before he could manage an intelligible phrase, however, Lally grasped his arm.

  “She be right,” the woman declared as, heedless of the milling islanders, she raised her lips to his.

  ~ Chapter 24 ~

  A week had passed since the Golden Wolf had limped back to port, returning Arvin to his family. As for Malcolm, Halia had heard nothing more of his fate, save for what the manservant, Levar, had told her.

  Sitting at the supper table idly toying with a bowl of conch stew, Halia let her thoughts drift to the past few days.

  I be findin' dem a boat, and dey be climbin' aboard, the old man had related with stark simplicity. He had seen the skiff shove off into the harbor, he admitted, and he had seen that same vessel return late that day. As to its final destination, he had not asked.

  Though tempted to track down the boat and demand some more concise answers from its owner, Halia refused to play the scorned woman bent on tracking down her seducer. He knew where to find her, if he so chose…not that she would necessarily take him back now.

  Reconciled to the fact that he was not coming back, she had decided to wipe all thought of him from her mind. It would be a simple enough task, she assured herself, since nothing of his was left behind as a reminder of their time together. Her father, she was certain, did not suspect what had passed between her and Malcolm, so she did not have to face the prospect of his playing the outraged parent. Indeed, the only person she had taken into her confidence was Lally.

  And then Lally pointed out the one possible outcome of her failed romance with Malcolm that she conveniently had forgotten about.

  “What if there be a babe?” the woman had demanded. “What do you be doin' then?”

  With the same blunt manner, Lally had also explained that there were herbs that could be distilled into a potion that would end a pregnancy in its early stages. It was for Halia, though, to choose whether or not she wanted to solve any such possible problem that way. When Halia promptly rejected her suggestion, Lally had spoken of the subject no more.

  But one source of heartache Halia had not anticipated came of watching her father and Lally together. Now that their secret was common knowledge, they had gone from the formality Halia remembered in New York to acting much like a long-married couple. The heated looks they exchanged when they thought Halia's attention was elsewhere, however, better befitted a pair of newlyweds.

  Though her delight for her father and Lally was sincere, Halia could not suppress a twinge of envy as she watched them together. For a few brief hours, she had known a similar sort of joy, which made witnessing the pair's obvious affection all the more difficult for her than if she'd never known what it was like to love.

  As to whether or not she had been loved, she was still not sure.

  He chose the wrong jewel to keep.

  O'Neill's words of the previous week continued to echo in her mind until she feared she would go mad. Had he truly made a choice? Why had he not just taken both her and the emerald? Or maybe he had wanted her but simply had feared that she would not have him.

  “It was a foolish thing to do, I'll admit, but I can explain,” came Arvin's sheepish voice now, the words breaking in on her doleful thoughts.

  Halia straightened in her chair at the supper table and gave her father her full attention. This was the first time they'd had the opportunity to talk at any length. For the past several days, Arvin had been up at dawn to assist with setting the island back in shape again, only to return well after dark each night. As for Halia, her feet had healed sufficiently so that she was able to lend her own help to the cause, sharing food and water from the guest house with those in need.

  “I'll be leavin' you two to talk,” Lally declared and rose from her own spot. She glanced over at Arvin, then warned, “An’ we be havin' a talk of our own, later.”

  The next moment, the tiny dining room was empty save for father and daughter. Arvin, she saw, looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “You've already told me some of it,” she prompted when he continued silent. “I know that O'Neill gave you the coin, and that he helped you out of some sort of trouble. But why did you claim that you had found Atlantis, in the first place?”

  Arvin shook his head, his expression that of a man who had seen his fondest dreams crumble. “You know better than anyone else, child, that finding the lost city has always been my secret hope. And after our last trip together, I had conceived of a new theory that placed the lost continent here, in the Caribbean.”

  “That was the monograph you wrote, the one that rebutted Ignatius Donnelly's claims.”

  He nodded. “The trouble was, I had no money left with which to begin a new search. I feared that someone else would come along and take off where I had left off, make the great find that I should make, so that all my years of research would have been for naught.”

  “And
so you went in search of someone who would act as a sponsor of sorts,” Halia exclaimed as the circumstances began to come clear.

  Arvin shook his head, his lips turned down in wry memory.

  “Oddly enough, they came in search of me. Soon after our return home, a group of South American gentlemen appeared on our doorstep. One of them—Señor Gutierrez, as he called himself—had seen the monograph and was intrigued. He and his friends were willing to put up a considerable sum to finance an expedition to locate the remains of Atlantis. All they asked in return was a certain percentage of whatever I found. But first, they wanted some assurances that the site I had chosen was a likely one.”

  “And so you showed them my Poseidon coin,” she guessed, indicating the uneven gold disk that she was once more wearing about her throat.

  “I had two coins, actually,” Arvin corrected, “both of which I had procured from our good Irish captain. The one, I gave to Señor Gutierrez and his friends, and the other I saved for you.”

  “But why lie?” she wanted to know. “Why not wait until you had some genuine find to show them.”

  “But that was the trouble. Without their backing, I could not make any extensive explorations, and unless I produced some sort of artifacts from the site, they would not advance me the money.”

  “But I was certain of my theory,” he went on, “so much so that I was willing to take any risk. And so I concocted my journal entries and turned over the coin to Gutierrez, who proceeded to advance me my financing. Unfortunately, it was not until I accepted the money that I learned the sort of brutal men that he and his friends truly were.”

  Halia frowned, trying to sort this through. “But I don't understand. If you had the money, why did you not simply begin the search?”

  “Because, child, our good friend O'Neill informed the South Americans that they had been duped.”

  She dropped her fork with a clatter. “O'Neill did this? But why?”

  “He was after Poseidon's Tear, which your Mr. Northrup had stolen from him, and he needed a way to lure his half-brother someplace where he could hold him captive awhile, if necessary. And since Northrup just happened to be involved in a swindling scheme involving Atlantis, O'Neill decided to throw the lot of us together. You—with my unseen help—would be the bait to lure in the Englishman. But first, O'Neill had to remove me from Gutierrez's clutches, so he helped me to contrive my own death.”

  Halia shook her head, mentally trying to unravel the threads of this bizarre tale and then weave them back again into something that made sense.

  “But I truly thought you were dead,” she told him, remembered pain adding a catch to her voice. “You could have confided in me. I would have kept your secret and helped you.”

  “I know that, child,” Arvin replied and reached out to pat her hand. “But it was to keep you safe that I did what I did. If the South Americans had suspected something was amiss, they might have harmed you to get back at me.”

  Halia conceded the truth of that last, recalling the struggle between Malcolm and O'Neill that had ended with her in the middle. How much more terrifying would it have been for her to have found herself in those other men's grasp, instead?

  “I wrote those anonymous letters,” Arvin went on, “the ones that revealed Northrup for the fraud that he was. I knew that you would not let the matter rest... though I did not expect you to kidnap the man.”

  “It was the best plan that I could settle on,” she protested, feeling herself blush.

  Arvin gave her a fond smile. “And you know the rest, how I followed you in disguise. It all went quite well,” he conceded, “save that your Mr. Northrup saw fit to complicate matters at every step.”

  “Well, you can hardly blame Malcolm,” Halia rushed to defend him. “How was he to know that all of this was nothing more than a fraud?”

  The question sent a spark of indignation through her, so that she shoved back her chair and stood. She was the one who had been poorly used here...first by her father, then by O'Neill and, finally, by Malcolm. Suddenly, it was all quite more than she could bear.

  “I need a bit of fresh air. If anyone wants me, I shall be out in the courtyard,” she told him and, waving off her father’s protests, left him alone and made her way out the French doors.

  She settled on the familiar stone bench beneath the sprawling fig whose immense, ragged shadow dappled the silver moonlight streaming from above. The air tonight was cooler than usual in the wake of the storm, and she welcomed the mild breeze on her heated cheeks.

  What she was doing out here, she was not certain, she decided after a few minutes of simply soaking in moonlight. To be sure, this courtyard held only unsettling memories of another night. She shut her eyes, recalling how Malcolm first had snared her in a sensual trap from which she had yet to escape. But honesty compelled her to admit that, given another chance, she would not have done anything different, even knowing how it must end.

  She swallowed hard, determined not to give into angry self-pity. Besides, it could have been far worse, she reminded herself as her fingers crept reflexively to the coin dangling over her breast. The rogue might have married her before leaving her behind.

  The faint, shuffling sound of shod foot against stone interrupted her thoughts. Cautiously, she opened her eyes again. No doubt her father or Lally had come in search of her. Why she should be alarmed, she was not certain, save there had been something almost furtive about that sound.

  A glance about the courtyard, however, showed it empty except for herself. She realized at the same moment that the noise she heard had not come from the direction of the house. Rather, it emanated from one of the outer walls—or had it? Sternly, she told herself that she was imagining things, that all she had heard was a branch scraping against the guest house.

  Then the sound repeated itself, and she realized that someone was attempting to climb inside.

  She swallowed back a cry, images flashing through her mind of the unknown Señor Gutierrez seeking vengeance against her father...or else, Seamus O'Neill returning to kidnap her again. Whoever was out there did not belong here, that was certain, else why had they chosen to sneak in over the back wall?

  She remained where she sat, hardly daring to breathe as she stared at the spot from where the sound had come. Chances were that this intruder did not even know she was there, hidden as she was in the fig tree's broad shadow. Once in the courtyard, he might even pass by without seeing her. But even if he did not, better that she manage a glimpse of whoever was out there, first. If she gave way to fear now, and tried to flee to the safety of the house, she risked being struck down from behind without ever seeing her assailant.

  A sudden movement along the top of the wall sent her heart lunging into her throat. Next moment, some unknown person was crouched atop the wide wall, looming menacingly in the dim light.

  Halia's fingers flew to her mouth to hold back a reflexive cry. Dear Lord, surely he must hear her heart beating, the way it was slamming against her ribs. Her nerves stretched almost to the breaking point now, she waited for what must come next.

  And then, one of the numerous conch shells lining that stone perimeter tumbled from its perch to shatter on the flagstone below.

  “Bloody hell,” a familiar voice muttered in disgust as the shadowy figure leaped down.

  She realized it was Malcolm at the same instant that he stepped out into the moonlight. It was the moment for which a single hopeful corner of her heart had prayed…and it was a moment that had come far too late to suit her.

  Joy and anger simultaneously welled up in her as she leaped to her feet, those emotions building until they exploded from her lips in a single accusing word.

  “You!”

  ~ Chapter 25 ~

  Malcolm halted in mid-step, and she sensed that he was quite as shocked by her presence as she was to see him. His words when he answered, however, reflected a cool nonchalance that only fueled her outrage.

  “Here now, luv, you ruined my
little surprise,” he remarked as he started for her. “I thought to slip inside and then out again without anyone seeing me.”

  “And what were your plans—to rob us quite blind?”

  He shook his head as he halted before her. “Surely you don't think quite so ill of me as all that? It simply happens that I forgot something of mine and wished to have it back.”

  Even as she guessed his meaning, he reached out and lightly caught the dangling coin between his fingers. She gasped in outrage and reached up her own hand to pull the necklace free.

  She promptly realized her mistake, for he clamped his other hand across hers. Now, the chain and her fingers were entangled between both his hands, effectively binding her to him.

  “Here now, luv, you gave it to me,” he murmured, his lips mere inches from hers.

  She stubbornly lifted her chin, determined not to let herself be distracted by his nearness or the familiar warmth of his touch.

  “But you left it behind. Besides which, it was meant to replace the emerald that you cast away, and since I suspect you already have recovered that gem, it seems a pointless gesture now.”

  “You know me a bit too well, luv,” came his rueful reply as his fingers tightened over hers. “As a matter of fact, I did go out that morning after the storm to look for Poseidon's Tear. I'd just found it and was coming back inside when you appeared in the doorway. I very nearly came clean and confessed what I'd done, but then, you gave me this”—he glanced down at their clasped hands, where moonlight illuminated the gold coin showing between their fingers—“and I found I could not.”

  “Was that why you acted so strangely then?” she cried. “It was but a small token, I know, but I thought somehow that you might be pleased with it.”

  “It was quite the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” he softly answered, “save for the gift that you had given me the night before.”

  Knowing that he referred to their lovemaking, she felt herself blush. Oddly, though, her anger had drained away now, leaving confusion in its wake.