Five
Alicia Mereno smoothed the pink petticoat of her gown that was rouched and ruffled into delicate frills, the pleating held in place by tiny bunches of yellow roses, the colour exactly matching the over-gown. At the hem, a glimpse of lace from the under-petticoat, and protruding beneath, leather slippers and fine-knit stockings. Jesamiah knew full well those stockings would be held in place by yellow or pink ribbons halfway up her thighs.
Removing her bonnet Alicia lightly shook her head, evocatively jiggling the cascade of elaborate blonde ringlets. She had another ribbon laced into her hair. A blue one. Royal blue – Jesamiah blue.
What in the world had possessed him to give it to her last night as a keepsake? Had Tiola seen it?
Of course she bloody had!
“Your bruises are not troubling you this morning? I had no opportunity to enquire, leaving as you did before I awoke.”
Jesamiah swung away from the windows and lifted his hands in exasperated surrender; “Very well, Madam, you have succeeded in embarrassing me and outraging my woman. What is it you want? Money? An apology for my killing your husband? I assure you neither will be forthcoming.”
Again she smoothed her gown where it fitted trimly into her waist and across her stomach. “I could say I wanted to conceive your child, but as you have so eagerly obliged, I may already have done that.”
Opening his mouth to protest Jesamiah firmly shut it again. With child? From the one bedding?
Seeing his doubt she fixed her gaze on his eyes, held their dark depth with her ice-blue. “Men have this misguided notion that they cannot father a child with but the one poke. A notion that suits them admirably in order to sidestep their lack of responsibility. The fault is always the next man’s. Or the woman’s carelessness.” She inspected a broken nail, her forehead creasing into an annoyed frown. “You impregnated me before. The time you took me in my son’s nursery. In Virginia; at la Sorenta. Do you recall? You were playing the part of a Spanish gentleman. The Spanish disguise was most convincing. You could never pass as a gentleman, however.”
If the jibe was meant to sting it missed its target. Jesamiah recalled the event very well. The spending of lust with Alicia and the delight of cuckolding his brother in his own home had been a triumph at the time, but something had jogged Phillipe into recognising Jesamiah’s true identity and the hatred between the two men had burst into the clash of a sword fight. Jesamiah had never discovered how Phillipe had seen through the disguise. Alicia, the bitch, had been about to betray him anyway, so cause was irrelevant.
“I should have run the bastard through there and then,” Jesamiah said with a snarl. “You too. For some unfathomable reason my soft heart bade me spare the pair of you. I’ve hardened somewhat in the months between. If you expect me to believe I fathered a cuckoo on you, expect again, Madam. You enjoyed the encounter; you were and always will be a whore. You flutter your lashes at any fellow who can serve your purpose with loose buttons and a hard prick.”
The bluster was to mask his doubt. How soon did a woman know she was carrying? Immediately? One month, two, three? He had never asked, never bothered to find out. Such things were women’s matters, women’s business.
Moving to sit on an upright chair, Alicia crossed her feet primly at the ankles, rested one elbow on the table and balanced her chin on thumb and finger. “Your daughter died soon after birth. I trust your seed is not weak, Jesamiah Acorne.” She tossed a contemptuous glance at the bedchamber alcove, “From what I hear you and the Dutchman’s widow have not been virgin-pure together, yet I do not see her belly swelling.” She patted her flat stomach again. “The little one I may be nurturing in here as consequence of our liaison I will claim as Phillipe’s, not yours. I need his son because I want la Sorenta.”
Jesamiah laughed as he sat on the red cushions topping the lockers beneath the windows, his fingers curling into the blue shawl Tiola had left there. Her favourite. She would be sorry to have forgotten it. “A son? You already have two! One by your first husband and one of Phillipe’s. I gave the child a gold coin as a christening gift, you will recall.”
Alicia shook her head, dabbed at a genuine tear. “Yellow Fever took them both. Phillipe also nearly succumbed.” Her sorrow changed rapidly to bitter venom. “He survived only for you to tip him overboard to drown.”
Jesamiah shook his head, folded his arms. “Not so. I strangled him. With one o’ those.” He pointed at the blue ribbon in her hair. “They ain’t just for prettyin’, darlin’.” He stood abruptly, walked to his desk that fitted neatly into the curved shape of the bulwarks, yanked open a small drawer and removed a pristine length of ribbon. Swiftly his fingers tied a killing knot at its centre and striding across the few yards between them he was suddenly behind her, had it looped around her elegant, ivory-pale neck. He crossed his elbows, wedging one into the other for purchase and with the ribbon ends clenched into his fists began to pull, the pressure on the silk squeezing against her windpipe.
Frantic, terrified, she clawed at the ribbon, panic storming through her; breath and spittle gurgling in her choking throat. As rapidly, he released her, opening his fists and throwing the garrotte aside. She collapsed onto her knees, hands clutching at her bruised throat, unable to speak, gasping air into her restricted lungs.
“You bastard!” were the first croaked words she managed.
“That’s me,” he said with a nod. “I’m the bastard, you’re the bitch. We’re even.”
As she scrambled back onto her feet he turned away from her, bored with the charade. Watched as the
Fortune of Virginia
dropped canvas and began to glide with the tide towards the narrow channel between the sand bars that formed the entrance to Nassau harbour. Without a telescope he could not clearly see the figures scampering on deck, but he knew they were only crew hurrying about their business to get the ship under way. Tiola would not be there, looking back at him.
Swinging round he turned his attention to Alicia. “So what is it you want? You’d best tell me now and tell me quick for I have things to do – and playing Tom Fool to your self-indulgent games is not on the list.”
“I told you; I want money. The law of inheritance is inconvenient. Without specific arrangement a woman cannot receive her husband’s estates, they may go only to the nearest male relative. The plantation and all its assets have therefore passed to you. They should be mine. La Sorenta is my home. I want you to give it to me, or pay me suitable recompense.”
Head tipping backwards, mouth open, Jesamiah roared with laughter.
Not understanding the jest, Alicia scowled. She did not like being mocked. Too many men had used, abused and humiliated her. And she needed money. Desperately.
“There are official papers waiting for you in Virginia. Your father’s lawyer holds them in Williamsburg. He will legally cede the land to me when you sign them.”
Sobering, Jesamiah wiped his left hand beneath his nose, displaying the tattooed letters of Tiola’s name arrayed across his knuckles. “Let me get this right: you want me to come to Virginia to sign some bloody papers so you can get the estate – and no doubt immediately sell it?”
Her throat was aching, she could feel the uncomfortable bruising every time she swallowed, all the same she lifted her head high and stated, “Sell it. Yes.”
Striding to the cabin door Jesamiah flung it wide; “I’ll ask you politely t’leave m’ship.” As often, when aboard or agitated, Jesamiah lapsed into a seaman’s vernacular: “You ‘ave the choice to do so under y’own sail or I’ll ‘ave Finch ‘aul you off. I ain’t p’tic’lar. You will not get one penny piece from me. Even do you put a noose roun’ me neck and ‘ang me, you will not get a penny.”
Obstinate, she plumped herself down on the chair beside his desk. Folded her arms. “I will not leave here, Jesamiah. By right of marriage la Sorenta is mine. I want it.”
Nostrils flaring, Jesamiah raised one hand and tapping each finger counted off a list of objections.
“One, I have no desire to sail to Virginia. Two, I cannot sail without approval granted by Governor Rogers’ office. Three…” He paused. Three. He strolled to her side, put both hands on the chair arms and leant forward, his face close to hers. To her credit, she did not flinch away. He smelt of rum, wet hemp, tar and masculine sweat. He needed a shave: bristles sprawling above the black hairs of the short-trimmed beard that framed his jawline, were making his moustache ragged.
“Three,” he repeated slowly. “Phillipe was never my brother. He was a bastard foisted on my father by the woman who spawned him. He has never had legal claim to that tobacco plantation.” He paused, whispered, “And therefore, darlin’, nor do you.”
Alicia was a survivor. A Port Royal whore who had dragged herself from the gutter to become wife, and widow, to two men in succession. The husbands and children she could manage without. Her home, or more accurately, the wealth its sale would generate, she could not.
Clamping her nails into his wrist she removed one of his arms from the chair and with her other hand pushed him aside. “One,” she retaliated as she stood up, “you will not be permitting your little bedmate to scamper around Bath Town unprotected because, as you are well aware, Bath Town is where Edward Teach has decided to anchor his flatulent backside. He does not treat women well and is attracted to a pretty-faced wench. For all I dislike her, if your doxie steps within range of his pizzle she will be used and dumped dead into the sea faster than you can get a hard cock. So you will be wanting to go after her. Two.” She reached into the linen poke she had left with her bonnet, handed Jesamiah a folded and sealed parchment. “I took the liberty of asking Captain Jennings to write you a Letter of Marque. He was more than willing to grant it when I told him you were planning on going pirate hunting.”
Before Jesamiah could protest that he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, she raised a hand for his silence. “Three. Among those papers concerning the estate and waiting in Williamsburg to be signed over to me, is a sealed letter from your father addressed to you. It reads:
‘To be given to my son, Jesamiah Mereno, upon the death of Phillipe Mereno.’
Your birth name was Mereno, I therefore take it that this intriguing document is for you. I wonder if the contents have aught to do with that scandalous statement you have just made about Phillipe?”
“If it is for me,” Jesamiah snapped irritably, “why did you not bring the damn thing with you?”
To his annoyance, despite thinking he did not want to have anything to do with this, he suddenly realised he desperately did want to know what was written in that letter. What his father had to say to him from beyond the grave. It had to be about Phillipe. Had to be.
Alicia walked to the door, her hips swaying provocatively, and paused a half pace over the threshold. “The letter is sealed and addressed to you. The lawyer would not give it to me. As for Phillipe, he was recognised by his father as his firstborn son. So whatever you claim, until you can prove otherwise, la Sorenta was legally his and therefore mine. Shall I have Finch bring my baggage in here, or have you another suitable cabin? I expect comfort on a sea voyage.”
“You’re not bloody sailing on this ship!”
She laughed coyly and sashayed back to him, sensuously kissed his mouth.
“Oh but I am. You are going to run like a lovesick boy after your black-eyed, black-haired mistress. And you want that letter as much as I want the estate.”
Six
Tiola Oldstagh. A name chosen by herself, for rearranged it spelt
all that is good
. Created at the dawn of time with other entities of power, she was adept at hiding her feelings and at showing a bland mask of indifference to the world. She’d had eternity in which to practise.
Most of those of Power were gone, either forgotten and faded into non-existence or destroyed, for their abilities had not been so immense after all. A few remained, among them the Gods of Belief and Faith, their names used in wondrous variety, and the Old Ones of Wisdom – the Immortals of Light. Their purpose: to defend human life against the cruelties and hatreds of the Dark Power; to protect against the Malevolence that sought to destroy without qualm or pity.
Her ability of Craft enabled the full control of her body; she could govern every muscle, every nerve. The flow of blood, the pace of her heart and the breath in her lungs. She chose to repress her fertility, and although her present form was not immortal she could, in certain instances, cheat death. She was able to stand as still as stone for hours, or run for miles with the stamina of an ox and the speed of a gazelle. Had the strength of iron tempered by the delicacy of a cobweb. What was to be seen she could see, what was said, she heard. The wind obeyed her command and she could make the earth be stilled or quake. She had the Craft, a wisdom that bound and united the elements of nature – air, earth, fire and water. But not the salt seas. She had no jurisdiction over the ocean worlds where one of the few surviving Elementals from that early Time, Tethys, ruled with selfish indifference.
Tiola’s inherited skills and wisdom had passed down through the alternate female generations, her limits were an inability to observe the future and to commit any action of intentional harm or hatred unless she was in mortal peril. There were few who possessed the old gifts of Craft now, for although the soul was immortal, the body was not, and too many of her sisters had failed to survive the predations of the Dark.
The Dark Power had always been strong and it so easily manipulated the frail and vulnerable human emotions of jealousy, hatred, spite and greed. So easily manipulated superstition and the fanatical beliefs of religion. All her sisters had died in the name of a God – along with the many innocents condemned wrongly as witches. Poor wretches who had no gift, beyond a knowledge of the healing herbs or of Sight, or were merely old, their only crime to live alone with a cat or a goat as a companion. So much suffering and misery caused by those corrupted by the unseen influence of the Dark.
Sitting in the lamp-lit gloom of a below-deck cabin, Tiola fought to repress her anger against that blonde-haired, blue-eyed cunny who had bewitched the man she loved. Bewitched him!
Ais
, yes! Did the Dark not empower its own witches and warlocks who lusted for the giving of pain and grief? Who sold their souls to the Dark for the promise of immortality? A false promise, for the negative energy of the Dark never fulfilled promises or set truth among the whispered lies.
She slammed her fists on the hard wooden cot, no more than a two-foot wide plank slung from ropes and covered by a thin mattress stuffed with straw. This was stupid jealousy, the green-eyed Malevolent which wormed into the heart, consuming to the core.
Alicia Mereno was nothing more than an ambitious woman who held the acquirement of material wealth as her ultimate goal. She was no Dark Witch. Her assets were her bosoms and the allure of the slit between her legs. To be sexually attractive was not the work of the Dark. The act of love when given with pleasure – or even indifference – was a natural thing. Rape, sexual violence and sadism,
ais
, that fed the Dark Energy, but Jesamiah took pride in his ability to make love. There was never anything brutal about his passionate couplings.
Smiling at the thought, at the memories, the rise of anger left Tiola. Jesamiah was a man who had a weakness for enjoying a woman’s body. His attention to the ladies made no less of his love for her. Or did it? Was he already becoming tired of her? He had, when all was said and done, once admired Alicia. Even loved her?
One arm across her eyes Tiola lay back on the bed. Her deep love for a human ought not to have happened; she had control of her body, her existence, but not her soul’s adoration for a damned pirate! That it was perhaps meant, that possibly her unity with Jesamiah Acorne was for some as yet unrevealed purpose may well be, but at this moment as the wind filled the sails of the
Fortune of Virginia
she could not give a bent penny for meanings, explanations or predictions. For the Good of All with Harm to None. The mantra of the Old Ones, the Immortals of Light. She loved him. Loved him with every fibre of her being. But did he love her? Had he ever loved her?
Oh this was nonsense! Less than two hours at sea and already the headache and the doubts were invading her senses and exaggerating her weaknesses, making her think foolish thoughts!
It was the sea causing it, she was sure, the mere presence of the sea. Tiola was a creature of the land, surrounded by salt water she was vulnerable to the pull of the tides that were draining her of energy and rational, sensible thinking. She had to learn how to master this debilitation! Had to!
But what if they were not so foolish? What if he wanted Alicia?
A solitary tear trailed down her cheek. Jesamiah did not understand that she had her duties to attend, that she was honour-bound to put others before herself. Her Craft, her knowledge and her wisdom, would all be for naught if she turned aside from what she was, a healer and a midwife, a Wise Woman of the Old Ones of Wisdom – a witch. To be nothing except Jesamiah’s wife would be to give everything away. And she could not do that. Or could she?
Tiola felt so safe when she was with Jesamiah; safe and protected, for he was strong and brave. Invincible. Almost!
And she did so love him.