The Indian considered it.
“Where is your master?” Sean prodded. “I must see him at once to present myself to him.”
“He is in Bombay. At his residence there. And…” his eyes narrowed craftily “…you spoke of reward?”
“First I must reach Bombay. Then you shall have your prize.”
The Indian shook his head. “All I have heard thus far are words. You do not travel impressively. What can you possibly give me?” His face turned hard. “You had best speak the truth, or your deaths will be far worse than those which the beggars in the streets would have visited upon you.”
Sean matched him, bluffing coolly. “And you had best mind your tongue, or I’ll see that it’s torn out. Your nawab expects me, and…” he reached into a pocket of his breeches and brought out a small, perfect ruby “…in confirmation of my words to you, I shall first give you this stone. You shall receive many more if you arrange our passage to Bombay.”
The Indian leaned forward and took the stone, giving it close inspection. When he looked up, his expression told Selena that they were safely to Bombay.
“I will, of course, accompany you,” the Indian said.
“Of course,” Sean agreed.
The journey was made by horse-drawn coach. Two Indians, armed with long, hooked knives, rode on the backs of the horses. The Indian official and the Europeans rode in the coach. At intervals the party halted for a change of horses, and food, little of which Davina could eat. Finally, Selena broke some of the hard, flat pieces of bread and soaked them in water, giving them to the baby bit by bit. Davina stopped her whining and fretting, and fell into a doze. As they approached Bombay, Sean asked, “Where is your master’s residence?”
“Outside the city.”
“Close to the waterfront?”
The Indian laughed. “The waterfront is ugly. Foreigners swarm about, and the worst of my race as well.”
“But I must go there. Before I see your master.”
The Indian was skeptical.
“One of my company’s ships should be in port by now,” Sean explained, “laden with goods for the nawab. I must establish its arrival.”
Once again, he readied into his pocket and brought forth another of the smaller stones he had contrived to keep on his person. The green of jade shone for the Indian, and he nodded, then called new travel orders to the guards on horseback.
The waterfront, far larger than Daman’s, was growing quiet when the coach arrived. It was twilight, and the day’s work was over. Nevertheless, dozens of ships lay at anchor in the harbor. Others were tied to the docks, some to be unloaded, others to take goods aboard.
“Is your ship here?” the Indian inquired.
“Have your men take us along the docks.”
The order was given, and the coach was drawn slowly along the line of the waterfront. Sean kept looking out, shaking his head. Selena watched him, wondering how he would get them out of this situation.
“No, that’s not it either,” Sean said, shaking his head in disappointment as they rode past yet another ship with a Portuguese flag atop her mast.
“You know,” Sean exclaimed abruptly, in the manner of one who wishes to take his companion’s mind off unpleasant business, “I’ve been admiring that turban of yours ever since we met. How are those things held together, anyway? It seems a marvel to me.”
The Indian blinked, pleased. He removed his headpiece. “Here,” he said, and with a deft flick of his fingers, the impeccably fashioned turban became a simple length of cloth.
“I find that astounding,” Sean admired, reaching out to feel the cloth.
Selena watched him, then glanced out of the window of the coach. She saw a ship directly beside them. It flew the Union Jack. She saw the letters of its name on the hull: Blue Foray. A merchant ship. A number of sailors were getting ready to raise its gangplank for the night.
Then she heard a sound that, afterward, she was never able to forget. She had heard a similar sound before, in Kinlochbervie, but this time it came more suddenly. She whirled to see Sean bending over the Indian, his face red with blood and concentration. The cloth of the turban was around the Indian’s neck. Soon his face was redder than Sean’s, and then it was blue.
“Halt,” Sean called, and the coach stopped.
“Easy now,” he said to Selena, as he alighted and helped her down with the sleeping child. Sailors at the gangplank looked up, and on deck an officer glanced over. The mounted guards were looking around, watching Sean carefully.
“Yes, you come join us, too,” Sean called, as if the Indian waited for them inside the coach. He took Selena’s arm and guided her toward the ship. She saw that he had the blanket.
The guards were dismounting, suspicious now. The sailors were ready to hoist the gangplank. Time seemed to stop for all of them. Then the muscles of the dead Indian in the coach were caught in a final spasm. His body, which had been slumped half on, half off the cushions, twisted and fell. It fell just a little. There was a sound. The guards reached for their deadly swords.
“We’re English,” Sean said, in response to the inquiring look of the officer on deck. “We must come on board.” He glanced back at the guards, who were gingerly approaching the coach.
“We must,” he said.
The officer looked at them, then at the coach. A guard pulled open the door. Head and shoulders of the body came into view. The officer nodded. “Stop yer gapin’ and haul away!” he ordered the sailors. Sean guided Selena up and onto the deck of the ship. Sailors heaved rope, and the gangplank rose.
“You’ll be well paid,” Sean told the officer, who proved to be captain of the vessel.
Below them, on the pier, the Indian guards let out a combined wail of outrage and lament, followed by piercing cries for help. Dozens of their countrymen began to appear, as if by magic, from buildings and alleys and nooks along the waterfront.
“It’s not what it appears to be,” Sean told the captain. “When did you plan on sailing?”
The captain looked at him for a long moment, and then at the wild, gesticulating men who were gathering on the dock.
“In a couple of days,” he said slowly, “but circumstances require that my plans be altered.”
Nirvana Deferred
Captain Flanders flew the British flag on the Blue Foray, but he was very much his own man.
“I must confess I am in this business for pecuniary reward,” he told Sean. “I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go, and I’ll get you there safely. I guarantee to deliver whatever merchandise and personnel are placed in my care. You guarantee to pay me for such delivery. And,” he added, with a glance at Sean’s disreputable attire, “I assume every man is honest until I learn differently.
“No questions asked,” he added.
The two men looked at each other. Then Captain Flanders grinned. He was a bulky man with a too-fierce scowl. He used it, obviously, to obscure his indomitable good spirits, lest someone get the better of him. He ought not to have bothered. His measure of men was as good as Sean’s, and they looked each other over now, liking what they observed, as the ship got under sail out of Bombay, heading onto the Indian ocean. Luck was with them; nightfall had delayed or discouraged pursuit by Indian vessels.
“I did what I had to do,” Sean told him anyway. “I had to kill in order to save…”
He gestured to Selena and the baby, but did not explain who they were. True to his word—“no questions asked”—Captain Flanders said nothing, although his eyes showed considerable curiosity.
“Right now,” Sean said, “we need food and clothing.”
“That can be arranged, if I do say so. How would you like a beefsteak, thick as your wrist, with red juice running hot out of her.”
Selena was astonished. “Here? Aboard ship?”
“Mayn’t be wise to reveal my machinations,” Flanders said, laughing slyly, “but every time I dock at an Indian port, I have a few good men bring me some of tho
se heifers that wander around in the streets. I don’t believe they ought to go to waste, do you?”
“No, sir,” Sean said.
He led them down to his cabin, opened a small cabinet, took out a dark green bottle, and popped the cork.
“For our health,” he said. “Made up in the Highlands near Loch Nan Clar. Best you can get…”
Sean took the bottle, tipped it, and drank thirstily, gratefully. Selena watched, smiling, but her mind reeled at the sudden mention of Royce’s sacred loch. Moreover, Davina stirred in her arms, waking up.
“Thanks,” Sean said, coughing, handing the bottle back to Flanders. “You’re a Scot.”
“That I be,” Flanders said, with just a touch of reserve, believing them to be English, as Sean had said. “I grew up in Perth. Left it, though, when I got my hunger for the sea.”
He took a swig himself and handed the bottle to Selena.
“Actually, I was born in Scotland, too,” Sean was saying.
Selena lifted the bottle and drank in the manner of the men. After all, she had done it before, that time on the run with Will Teviot, fleeing through the Highlands. She let the strong, heartening liquor take hold of her. The senses have memories, just as the mind does. Her taste remembered Scotland, and the ritual drink of whiskey on frosty mornings, before riding out onto the moors for the autumn hunts.
“Is she Scottish, too?” Flanders was asking as Selena put the bottle down. Sean smiled. “Sometimes I think she is Scotland,” he said.
Davina came fully awake now, and cried out in hunger and discomfort.
“Is there somewhere I can take care of her?” Selena asked, rocking the child in her arms.
“Oh, I think that can be arranged,” Captain Flanders said.
The intended, destination of the Blue Foray was Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay, but, true to his word, Flanders plotted a course for New York. It was April 1776, and he believed they could complete the trek by October, if the trades held up. “’Tis half the world we must traverse,” he said, with the quiet excitement of a born sailor, “and nothin’ t’ do it with but God’s own timber and my own sails t’ catch His wind. But it’ll be a long voyage. Do you have anything to occupy your time?”
“I believe I can think of something,” Sean said, his eyes on Selena.
She met his eyes, and saw her own desire reflected in them.
From the first, the two had assumed that they would be together. Not to accede to this second chance that fate had given them seemed almost sinful, and neither of them wished to defy this gift of destiny. To have a plan for their lives, after such a long time adrift, was a joyous thing. As they sailed across the Indian Ocean toward the Cape of Good Hope, they began to discuss what their lives would be like. They were able to do so with considerable confidence. The ship’s carpenter had constructed a cradle for little Davina, a tiny bed made of driftwood and bits of spare lumber, and in a hollow space in the driftwood, Sean had hidden the jewels. Likewise, he had plans for the future.
“If you agree,” he told her one day, “we will be partners. With the jewels, we possess an incredible capital base, which we can put to good use, building a place for ourselves in American society and trade.”
He was speaking quietly in the small cabin Captain Flanders had assigned them, lying on the deck, hands behind his head, and looking out the porthole. The moon was huge, red and warm in these southern latitudes, and the strange arrangement of the stars had grown natural to Selena. She rested on their hammock, and Davina was asleep in her cradle. It was true now. They were free of India, and nothing was going to draw them back. They had begun to relax.
“We are partners,” she said.
He waited a moment. “There is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“The political situation in America. We do not know exactly what is occurring there, and we won’t until we arrive. Captain Flanders told me that, when last he was in New York, it seemed that a gang of rebels would actually try to break away from Mother England…”
“Good for them!”
“That’s what I mean, Selena. I know how you feel, and why. But you must not only curb your passion against the British, you must hide it. You see, our success in America is predicated upon dealing with the British rulers there, the various governors-general, who are representatives of George the Third…”
“George the Third,” she spat.
“Selena, I mean it! If we are ever to see Scotland again, we must not get ourselves involved in rebel politics. You have already seen what the consequences of such a course of action can be. And I have learned my own lesson all too well. These foolish rebels, whoever they may be, will get no further than the Rob Roys did, and I want no part of them.”
He talked on, softly, logically, persuasively. Of course he was right, Selena thought. She had learned the lesson, too. Or, rather, her mind had learned it. Her heart was quite another thing. But she would steel her resolve, and this time, this time for certain, she would be as mature, as controlled, and, if necessary, as cunning as any Britisher sent to ferret out disloyalty.
“I will still be Selena MacPherson,” she said. “Perhaps someone will remember, someone will know me?”
“Possibly. But unlikely. It was your father they were after. It was only McGrover who made it a point to hound you and Brian. And now McGrover is in England, most likely, working over some poor bastard in a dungeon. And I am a sworn, loyal subject of the King, and rich besides. And so are you.
“And,” he added, looking over at her with tender expectations, “I want you to be Selena Bloodwell before too long. Before we reach America. If that is what you wish.”
The thought had been so inevitable that neither of them had mentioned it before. Now that he had, they looked at each other for a long moment. They did not speak. All the past, each day, each year, had brought them to this moment. Together. It was as if their union had been willed from the very beginning. Then time itself seem to blur, and all things were intermingled. Did she say “Yes,” giving her promise as he was coming toward her in the cabin, or was she already naked in his arms when she said it? And did he say, “I love you, Selena,” before or after he stripped her for loving, and kissed her breasts as once he had on the banks of the Teviot River? And did she answer then, or was it later, as she embraced him with her body, wrapping herself about him, clinging to him, never to leave. The melding came upon them so naturally that Selena had no time to imagine what it would be like, but within moments her body knew it was going to be far better than she could have anticipated. Sean kissed her deeply, again and again, where her body was hungry to be kissed. Lingering over her, he aroused her with kisses and caresses, loved her with a sensual skill that left her light-headed, gasping with a desire for more and more. He bade her body arch like a bow for his love, and then he gave her that love, strongly, deeply, skillfully, taking her to the heights more times than her pleasure-riven mind could number, until at last he shuddered in her arms and called her name.
They lay together for a long time, suffused in the afterglow, and slowly floated back down to the world, where waited the bits and pieces of their lives and cares.
“I want you to know something,” she whispered, after a time.
“No. No confessions.”
“This is not a confession. Something else. A promise. A vow to which you have a right, knowing how I have…knowing things I have done in the past.”
“Don’t. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yes, it does. You have a right. Sean, I vow this. I will always be loyal to you, and faithful. There is nothing and no one left in this world that I value, or love, or respect more than you. And I am going to be worthy of so great a gift…”
“Selena, I know you will, but you don’t have to…”
“Yes, I do. Because now I have made it a vow, you see. A sacred promise. When you make a vow it goes beyond yourself, and, I swear, if I ever break it…”
“Selena, Selena. Stop this. We are o
ne now, in all ways, and so we shall be. Partners in everything.”
He did not explain, just then, all the plans that were on his mind. Another, sweeter kind of desire flared again in their bodies, and they gave way to it joyfully, and, once again, took a just measure of the delights for which the flesh has been created.
Captain Flanders performed the ceremony on deck of the Blue Foray, September 5, 1776. It had been Selena’s wish to wait until they were north of the equator, in the Northern Hemisphere once again, and at 1 degree north latitude, 32 degrees, 2 minutes west longitude, she and Sean met and embraced and took each other’s hands, facing each other beneath the full and open sky. That sky was brilliant, cloudless, swept clean by the trade winds, royal blue to the north, shimmering where the sun was. The waters of the Atlantic were alternately blue as sapphire, green as jade.
She had no wedding gown. The white, billowing sails were her wedding gown. Innocence and truth were in her heart, as they had been when she was a little girl. The crew itself was there, to a man, rough men like all those who go to sea, but men gentled a little by Captain Flanders’ unremitting civility and the aura of a ceremony in which man and woman pledge life and love and heart. No one spoke as the two met before Captain Flanders, remembering their own pasts, thinking of their lives and their own young dreams. Wind surged, filling the sails, lifting the ship, and they moved forward into the future, locked together for a moment by a destiny greater than all of them, and just as unknown.
Captain Flanders cleared his throat. “I haven’t had much occasion to use this authority,” he began, “but I’m glad I can use it today. Would the…would the couple face me, please?”
Sean and Selena took their eyes off each other and faced Captain Flanders. Over the rail of the Blue Foray, Selena saw the ocean rolling on forever. The same ocean that had taken Royce Campbell had also led her to India, and to Sean: love given and love taken away. But, in love with Sean though she was, convinced as she was of the rightness of this impending union, yet she sensed a delicate imbalance in the course of her life. It was as if something were being kept from her, some element which, when she possessed it, would restore perfect equilibrium.
Flames of Desire Page 43
