LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance)

by Parris Afton Bonds

  “Jen, I didn’t know,” he said, his voice hoarse with his anguish. “You never told me you were carrying our child.”

  “Oh?” she said coolly. “Does rape exclude pregnant women?”

  He winced visibly at that barb, but she continued. “And what makes you think it was your child?”

  She knew she was behaving vilely, but she couldn’t stop the malicious words from coming. “How do you know it wasn’t Mark’s or some other man’s? You know I would do anything for the Cause.”

  There was a terrible silence with the lapping of the waves the only sound about the two stiff silhouettes. Then Cristobal’s fingers dug painfully into Jeanette’s upper arms. “You little bitch. You aren’t half the woman I thought you were.”

  “Good. Then go to Rubia when you feel like rape.”

  “I don’t have to rape her.”

  The fight went out of Jeanette. Her head drooped. Weakened by the miscarriage, she would probably have collapsed there on the sand were it not for Cristobal’s biting grip at her shoulders. “Take me home . . . back to Texas.”

  He released her and stepped back. “I can’t. Not until I’ve finished the run.”

  “I’m strong enough to finish the return run.” But even speaking seemed to require an effort.

  “I can’t trust you, Jen. You’d have the French on me in no time. I’ll send a ship back for you.”

  Her head jerked up. “What? You mean to leave me here? In Bermuda?”

  “It’ll be only a month to six weeks at the most.”

  He started back in the direction of the house. She jerked at his sleeve. “I won’t stay here—with another of your mistresses. I’m going with you.”

  He sighed. “That’s the trouble with you, Jen. You’re hell-bent on having your own way. But this time you’re going to do what someone tells you. You’re going to be the gracious lady and guest of Barbara Williams.”

  Like hell she would. Jeanette knew that Cristobal pick the first moonless night to make the run. Already the moon was waning. At most, another day or two remained for her to make preparations.

  Since she was unconscious when Cristobal brought her to Bermuda, she was able to persuade Barbara to take her on a tour of St. George’s. The tour offered her a chance to reconnoiter the harbor, to locate the Revenge, and lay her plans for hiding away.

  The next day Barbara took her out in a carriage with a fringed surrey top to see the island. The Bermudas, comprising a British Crown Colony, were the most northerly coral islands, in the world. “But unlike most coral islands, which are flat,” Barbara explained, “all the Bermuda islands are carved with hills and ridges like St. George’s.”

  She instructed the black boy to halt the carriage on one of the bluffs, rising 250 feet above sea level, that overlooked St. George’s and its harbor. Directly below the bluff madcaps dashed against the boulders. But toward the harbor the water was a peaceful blue and green. Farther out, schools of porpoises sported, and Jeanette thought she sighted a flying fish.

  A winding road lined with verdant tropical foliage descended to the whitewashed town with its wide, palm-shaded streets. Like Bagdad, St. George’s harbor was awash with ships of every nationality. “Where is the Revenge anchored?” Jeanette asked.

  “Just beyond the bend of the cove. All four warehouses are on that side. St. George’s only has one dock for each of the warehouses for loading and unloading cargo. So each ship must wait its turn.”

  So the run was to be soon. “I’ve heard so much about St. George’s warehouses—that they’re a lifeline to the Confederacy. May I visit your husband’s?”

  Barbara’s pale-blue eyes skimmed over Jeanette’s face. Was this the first time Cristobal had taken his wife on a run with him? It was not uncommon, especially during the first two years of the war when blockade running was not so risky, for Southern women and children to travel on the blockade runners, though the fares were exorbitant. But most women, unaware of the profits to be made in trade, had little interest in dirty, musty warehouses. Yet Jeanette Cavazos did. At least Jeanette and she had that in common.

  And Cristobal.

  Jeanette located the Revenge. In that British port it no longer flew the flag of France but rather Mexico’s eagle and serpent. At the Williams warehouse Barbara showed her crates piled to the ceiling. They were marked MERCHANDISE or NAILS or COMBUSTIBLES and in reality held greatcloth, shoes, blankets, and other Confederate Government commissary stores awaiting shipment.

  Jeanette gave the warehouse only a cursory examination while she studied the Revenge's crew of thirty-six men as they moved back and forth between the warehouse and the dock like ants. On their shoulders they toted boxes, barrels, and bags of boots, candles, tea, coffee, preserved meats, and even wire frames for hoop skirts. None of them took notice of the two women standing in the shadows of the warehouse, watching. But Jeanette marked everything. She knew that the pliant bags of green coffee would be her best hiding place.

  That evening on the terrace she managed to behave civilly to Cristobal. She would be having her way soon enough. In turn, Cristobal was giving his attention to Barbara, who wanted to know how he’d managed to become one of the few blockade runners to successfully elude the men-of-war thus far.

  “Rules,” he replied simply, his gaze lingering on Barbara’s full breasts perched high in her gown’s décolletage. “The crew wears gray clothing at night. And as you may have noticed, the ship is painted a dull gray. Smoking on deck is strictly forbidden. Even our engine-room hatchways are screened with tarpaulins. The lookout posted in the crosstrees is rewarded a dollar for every sail sighted. But if the sail was seen first from the deck, his pay is docked five dollars.”

  From there the talk drifted to the many Southern refugees who were swarming Bermuda. “Not peaceful like it used to be,” Owen declared. “Sailors, cotton brokers, rum sellers—Jews and Gentiles of high and low degree coining money and squandering it as if they owned the secret of the transmutation of metals!”

  Cristobal’s chuckle was low, so different from the assumed chortle Jeanette had known. Her hand gripped the glass of mint julep. She couldn’t get to the French soon enough.

  The house was dark, except for the light that peeked from beneath Cristobal’s door, when Jeanette slipped out of her room. Was Cristobal preparing to join his crew—or was he at that moment joined with Barbara?

  Black bile rose in Jeanette’s throat, and she spun away, stealthily making her way down the darkened stairs. A good three miles stretched between Magnolia Hill and the harbor. Forty-five minutes at a fast walk. She swung out onto the pebbled lane, keeping to the shadows of the large oleanders. Even wearing her hat and the dungaree britches and buckskin shirt that Barbara had instructed her maid to wash, Jeanette knew her fair coloring would call attention, for three-quarters of the local population was black.

  She circumvented the town and arrived at the dock to find it still bustling with last-minute loading. The tide would soon be running, and the ships wanted to be ready. Head kept low, she moved among the sailors, sidestepping the mounds of supplies waiting to be loaded. Lanterns suspended from posts lit the area, and the usual fishy smell pervaded the air.

  She found the Revenge’s crew busy hefting cargo across the gangplank from the dock to the ship. She timed their comings and goings—three to five minutes—and waited for the point where one man departed the dock and the next had yet to arrive. Quickly she untied the stout cord around a huge bag of coffee and tugged at one end to dump out a portion of the contents. Coal. Black coal instead of green coffee!

  Too late. The whistling of a sailor portended another arrival shortly. She pushed her way inside. Perhaps fifteen minutes went by, while she huddled among the jabbing chunks of coal. Then the bag was moved. “Top’s open,” a voice grumbled. It was Alejandro.

  Dear God, don’t let him look inside.

  And he wouldn’t have, had the coal dust not choked her, sending her into a paroxysm of coughing. Light shafted in her
face. “Señora!”

  She peeked up through the opening of the bag. Alejandro’s grubby face peered down at her in shock. “Please, Alejandro,” she wheezed. “Please don’t tell. I’ve got to get back to Texas.”

  Indecision played on his face, then the light disappeared as the top was secured. A moment later, she heard another voice, a gruffer one than Alejandro’s, and she felt herself hoisted and tossed over a shoulder. She had done it. She had stolen away on the Revenge.

  It seemed like she had crouched in the bag for hours before she felt the slight swaying of the ship and heard the creaking of its timbers. Unable to bear the enforced rigidity a moment longer, she pushed toward the opening. It did not give! Why hadn’t she the foresight to bring along a knife? She pushed and shoved at the bag’s top. Coals scratched her arms and face. Surely Alejandro would re-member she was down in the hold and come to let her out of the bag.

  Her struggles brought on another convulsion of coughing, and a voice sounding suspiciously like that of Cristobal said, “What the—?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  During July and August, when the Gulfs summer heat was at its maximum, heavy thunderstorms were a daily occurrence. Cristobal counted on this natural phenomenon to make good his run into Bagdad. He could even count on the hour—about four in the afternoon—that the thunderheads would begin their buildup.

  Looking at the clear azure sky, a novice sailor would find no indication of an approaching thunderstorm. But one by one scattered masses of cirrocumulus clouds would join with marvelous rapidity and instantly darkness would prevail. Then came the mutterings of thunder. One telltale sign of this natural force was the almost unnoticeable way the breeze tugged at the wisps of Jen’s unbound hair. She stood toward the prow, overlooking the bowsprit. Cristobal did not need to see her face to know she wore an expression as brooding as the black, gathering clouds. For just a moment his own brooding gaze lightened as he recalled the black face that had confronted him down in the hold the day before. He had tried to sound stern, berating Jen for using Alejandro’s friendship to stow away, of being stubborn and willful—but he didn’t remember everything else he had said. Only that he had ended up breaking out in laughter at the little black boy glaring up at him. Oh, Jen!

  Would she give him away to the French? He’d have to take that chance now.

  The hate still flamed in her eyes. Yet desire flickered there, too. But desire was a cheap commodity. He could find it—or easily arouse it—in a number of women. Love . . . that was something else. It was something that he, used to commanding, could not command of Jen.

  As it was, he had surrendered his cabin to her, while he tossed restlessly on a slung hammock in a cabin with Solis and two others whose snores drowned out the noise of the ship’s engine. He dragged his gaze from her lissome form and made his way up toward the wheelhouse. When it came time to make the dash for an inlet, or to run before weather such as was accumulating on the horizon, he preferred to be at the helm.

  Solis was on duty and surrendered the wheel gladly enough. “Tell my wife to go to our –” Cristobal paused and grinned. “No, inform my wife of the approaching bad weather and request her to go to our cabin.”

  Already blue-black clouds boiled over the sea’s edge and raced toward them. For the first time in days Cristobal relaxed. He enjoyed vying with the elements. In their unpredictability they were predictable. Not so Jen. Dios, if he could only chart that maze of her mind, perhaps he would find her of less interest—perhaps then he could rid himself of her.

  As if his thoughts had summoned her, she was at his side. “Solis told me of the storm,” she said stiffly. “I want to watch.”

  He looked down into her upturned face and read there, beyond her anger and contempt, the same excitement he felt when faced with a challenge. That afternoon it would be the most difficult of all challenges, the powerful force of nature. Understanding that need, he nodded and turned back to the helm.

  Before them the mass of clouds foamed, dragging its braids of rain beneath it. The wind began to shriek like a thousand harpies. It seemed no time before the rain fell in torrents, accompanied by invariably peculiar discharges of electricity. Single fireballs followed each other every second, darting straight from the sky to the sea with a hiss like an enormous shell and exploding as they struck with a sharp retort.

  He heard Jen’s soft gasp of awe and looked down to see the excitement glittering in her incredible eyes. Then he turned his attention to fighting the slam of the wind. On the Gulf, the thunder came in quick, staccato concussions, distinctly separate, and of such volume as to stun the ear and make the ship quiver in every timber.

  Balls of fire perched upon the bulwarks, and Jen exclaimed, “What a magnificent electrical matinee!”

  He smiled down at her. “Jen, Jen. You’re incorrigible. When will you ever learn to be afraid? And how sad if you ever do.”

  Her blue eyes turned on him with a strange look, as if she were trying to fathom his depths for the first time. Before she could reply, another sharp retort vibrated along the ship, rocking it. Jeanette staggered against him, and he caught her and steadied her as he tried to correct the wildly spinning wheel. “Lightning struck,” she breathed, her eyes wide.

  “No! It’s a broadside hit! A blockaded ” His normally lazy voice was sharp and commanding. “Get below!”

  “No!” she echoed. “I’m staying!”

  He hit her then, a sharp slap that caught her on the temple more than the cheek. He saw the tears that flooded her eyes. “I command this ship, and at least here you will obey me. Now do—”

  But there was no time to argue. Shell after shell screamed across the decks of the fleeing Revenge. Now the real excitement was beginning. Nothing Cristobal had ever experienced could compare with it. Hunting, pig-sticking, big-game shooting, polo—he had done a little of each. All had their thrilling moments, but none approached running a blockade.

  Suddenly the Revenge's foremast exploded in a shower of splinters and fell drunkenly to port as one of the Federal cruiser’s shots found its target. Cristobal’s hand shot out to grab the back of Jen’s neck and push her down on the deck.

  His long legs braced against the jarring, he shouted, “I’m going to run her in ashore—before we’re all blown to eternity.”

  “The Revenge?” Jen asked, her body stretched prone, her face raised to peer up at him. He knew what she really wanted to know—was he risking his ship for her? Was he?

  She scrambled to her knees. Black smoke smudged one cheekbone, and her hair looked like a bird’s nest. He thought she had never been lovelier. Where some natures were crushed by overwhelming difficulties, others, like hers, were stimulated by them. “What about you?” she demanded.

  “I plan to run like a jackrabbit, my dear.”

  “A coward through and through! I was right about you all along!”

  Alejandro appeared in the doorway. Even the grime could not conceal his pallor. The cigarette stub between his lips bobbed uncontrollably. “The port paddle box— Senor Solis says to tell you the Yanquis gave a hit.” Cristobal cursed in mixed French and Spanish. Then in a cold, cutting voice: “Alejandro—escort . . . Senora Cavazos to my cabin.”

  She tugged at Alejandro’s grip. “And what am I to do, Captain Cavazos?” she demanded sarcastically. “Sit and knit?”

  “Your insolence is charming. When the hull scrapes bottom, you can come on deck. Tell the boarding officers the truth—you were abducted. At the worst you’ll be detained as a witness at the prize court proceedings.”

  If he and the crew were caught, the vessel’s French registry could only compromise them further. At the most he could hope that they would be taken to New Orleans instead of Key West for trial. Key West was little better than a sandbank penal colony. If they were found guilty, they faced at least five years hard labor in the Dry Tortugas.

  Without another glance in her direction, he ordered, “Get my wife below, Alejandro.”

  He h
ooked his hand over one of the helm’s spokes and spun it like it was a roulette wheel. The Revenge tacked sharply. Suddenly the steamer lurched, her hull grinding against a shoal. He was thrown against the wheel. At that same moment a torpedo plowed across the deck, and he heard Jen’s strangled scream.

  He took the bridge’s steps two at a time. Below him he sighted Jen and Alejandro—both of them sprawled on the planks, Jen’s body draped over the boy. Dios, no! He reached them just as Jen lifted her head. The rain plastered her hair to her forehead and cheeks. He grabbed her shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

  She blinked, shook her head slowly. “No . . . Alejandro, I think he . .

  He knelt over the boy. Blood splattered the back of Alejandro’s shirt. The boy wasn’t moving. He rolled him over, and one arm flopped against the planks. Cristobal looked up into Jeanette’s ashen face. Rain streamed down his jaws like tears. “He’s dead,” he said tonelessly. “And it’s your fault, Jen. Your determination to have your own way—at every bend in the road—has cost Alejandro his life.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t know this would happen, Cristobal. I couldn’t have foreseen it. I didn’t think—”

  “You never do—except of what you want.” He rose to his feet. His eyes were hard, his lips flat with anger that had been long building. “You’re free of me now,” he said in an empty breath and pivoted away.

  He made his way below decks to destroy the cargo. The hole he planned to blast in the hull would flood the place and damage the silks, the sugar, the gunpowder—rendering them useless to the Yankees. In the dark of the hold he threaded his way through the kegs and crates and clambered over boxes stacked end over end. The storm raging outside still battered at the beached ship, and a keg was sent toppling from its perch to crash against Cristobal’s temple.

  Waves of colors washed over him. Then utter blackness. Next he realized he was on his knees in the dank hole. A sticky fluid coated his hands. No time to feel around for damage. He had to sabotage the cargo. He lurched to his feet, and the contents of the hold seemed to tilt precariously about him.