Abandoned Memories (20 page)

Shoving a hand through his hair, James faced Angeline. “Why grant mercy to such a beast?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “Everyone deserves mercy, James. Being a preacher, surely you know that.”

“Mercy is one thing. Justice another. And if Dodd isn’t taught a lesson, he’ll try to harm you again.”

Her gaze skittered across the jungle. “If you don’t mind, I should be getting back.” And without another word, another explanation, or even a thank you, she turned and headed down the trail.

James caught up to her. “I know I’ve gone and done the unthinkable and rescued you again. How will you ever forgive me?” He intended to bring some levity to the confusing situation, but her scowl only deepened.

“You didn’t, and I do.” Her tone was placid, her eyes straight ahead.

James forced down a groan of frustration. “What is it between you and Dodd?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I hardly know the man.” She brushed aside a patch of ferns, her shoes making
splat, splat
sounds in the mud.

“He’s dangerous. I see the way he looks at you.”

“As he does all the women. He’s harmless, I assure you.”

But the quaver in her tone spoke otherwise. They proceeded in silence for several minutes, James leading the way so he could move the thick foliage aside for her.

“Please do not wander off alone again.” He held back the final leaves before they emerged onto the beach. “Will you promise me that?”

“There is no need. For I won’t be here to wander.” She stepped onto the sand and hurried forward, no doubt desperate to relieve herself of his company.

Stunned as much by her words as by the slap of bright sunlight, James followed and touched her shoulder, halting her.

“What are you saying?” He didn’t want to believe her words—prayed he’d heard her wrong.

She glanced toward the waves washing ashore, a forlorn look on her face. “I’m leaving for Rio tomorrow with the others.”

Her words scattered into nonsensical phrases in his mind. He’d accepted that she didn’t want a courtship. That she found him repugnant. But he could not accept never seeing her again.

“If it’s because of me, I have received your message loud and clear. I understand your sentiments, and I won’t be pursuing you.”

Wind tussled her fiery hair. “It’s not you.” A glint of affection sped across her eyes…ever so slight. Then it was gone. She started walking. “I’m tired of sleeping on the sand and eating fruit and fish. It was a mistake coming here. Our utopia has failed. I have the good sense to know when to accept that.” She didn’t sound convincing.

“But you have no one back home.”

“That’s none of your concern, Doctor.” Shielding her eyes from the sun, she gave him one final glance before she swirled about and walked away.

Leaving James feeling like one of the empty seashells lying at his feet.

Angeline couldn’t take another minute of this agony. It was bad enough she hadn’t slept all night. Bad enough she had to witness the torment carved on James’s face yesterday. Now she must endure the tears of her closest friends as they stood around her bidding her farewell. Magnolia, Sarah, and Eliza embraced her over and over, wiping tears from their eyes, begging her to stay. Another moment of such genuine affection and she might give in. Throw her past to the wind and remain with the only friends she’d ever had.

Yet how long would they be her friends once the truth was known?

The sun finally burst above the horizon, spreading its honeyed feathers over sea and land, and causing Angeline to blink. Good thing, for she didn’t know how much longer she could hold her tears at bay. Releasing Eliza’s hand, she hefted her satchel over her shoulder and glanced at Thiago, who was preparing his own sack for the journey. Only seven of the colonists dared to make the five-day trek to Rio, preferring to take their chances in the jungle rather than remain in the ill-fated colony waiting for a ship to arrive. She shouldn’t be one of them. She didn’t believe the colony was doomed. She believed they all had a chance at life and hope and new beginnings.

Her gaze landed on James in the distance. With trousers hiked to his knees, he stared at the sunrise, arms folded over his chest, waves swirling about his legs. Even now, she felt drawn to him like a plant to the sunlight. He glanced over his shoulder and their eyes met, though she couldn’t make out his expression. Had he sensed her looking at him? No matter. Turning, he hung his head and started walking in the opposite direction.

She would never see him again. Now the tears finally came.

“See, you’re crying.” Magnolia looped her arm through Angeline’s and handed her a handkerchief. “You don’t wish to leave us after all.”

“Of course I don’t wish to leave such good friends.” Angeline dabbed her cheeks and glanced over the three ladies. “But I
must
go.”

“I still don’t understand.” Eliza tossed hair over her shoulder. “After all we’ve been through, surely it can’t get any worse.” She gave a sad smile.

“And you have been so strong.” Sarah positioned Lydia higher on her hip. “Why leave now?”

“I wish I could explain, but I can’t.”

Lydia reached chubby fingers toward Angeline, gurgling happy sounds upon a stream of drool. Despite her tears, Angeline giggled and took the baby’s hand in hers, planting a kiss upon it. “I will miss you, little one. Be good for your mother.” Turning toward her friends, she opened her arms. “I will miss you
all
terribly.” The women fell into her embrace. Over their shoulders, she spotted Blake, Hayden, and some of the colonists making their way toward them, no doubt to say good-bye. All except Dodd, who leaned against a rock cliff by the water’s edge, scowling at her, and Patrick, who was engaged in a heated discussion with Magnolia’s parents. What they argued about, Angeline could only surmise. Though the couple was anxious to leave the colony, they had opted to wait for the comfort of a ship rather than traipse through “the primordial sludge of Brazil,” as Mr. Scott had put it.

Boom!
Thunder split the sky. Releasing her friends, Angeline glanced upward. Nothing but white clouds against a cerulean background. Sarah scanned the horizon and shrieked. Eliza’s wide eyes met Angeline’s. Swinging her arms around her friends, she shoved them to the side and forced them to the ground. An eerie whine scraped Angeline’s ears. The beach erupted in a fiery volcano. The dirt beneath them trembled. Sand showered over them like hail, pelting their backs as they huddled together. No one dared speak. In the distance, a woman screamed. Men shouted. Baby Lydia sobbed. The rain of sand ceased. Angeline glanced up to see a smoking crater just a few feet from where they’d been standing.

Struggling to her feet, she helped her friends rise, her mind numb with confusion and fear. Gunpowder and smoke bit her nose. Dazed, the women stood staring at the crater. A shout sounded. All eyes fixed on the sea where the outline of a tall ship drifted like a giant sea serpent before the rising sun. Smoke curled from her charred hull.

A man on the deck held something to his mouth.

“This is pirate ship
Espoliar
. Surrender or die!”

HAPTER
17

S
weat streamed down James’s back that no amount of sea breeze could cool. Not even the continual gust swirling about the colonists as they were forced to line up at sword point before the pirate crew and their captain. Some of the men, James included, had made a valiant dash to retrieve pistols and what few supplies they had left amid a spray of grapeshot. They’d succeeded too—had even managed to gather the hysterical colonists and dive into the jungle. What they hadn’t counted on was the preplanning of the pirate captain in the form of a dozen muskets that greeted them through the leaves. Now, back on the beach, those same muskets, along with a mishmash of swords and pistols, in the hands of over thirty pirates dressed like colorful parrots, tore any remaining hope of escape to shreds.

The sun, high in the sky, set the sand aflame and sea aglitter as waves crashed on the beach with an ominous thunder that matched the pounding of James’s heart. Several yards offshore, the
Espoliar
, complete with a dozen bronze lantaka rail guns and a jolly roger sporting an hourglass and cutlass, bobbed and dipped with each incoming wave.

Captain Armando Manuel Ricu brazenly strolled before them, pantaloons and loose shirt flapping in the wind. A mane of curly black hair framed a long face with a tuft of dark whiskers crowning the chin. Every time he moved, sunlight glinted off dozens of jeweled pins scattered across his embroidered waistcoat like stars across the night sky, blinding James.

The twisted scene could match any of those pulled from a storybook espousing an age of piracy long since dead. Yet it was a scene James had witnessed not three months before in similar grueling detail when this same Captain Ricu had stolen Magnolia and brought her aboard his ship. If not for Hayden’s ingenuity and courage, they would not have rescued her in time. Even now, after nudging Magnolia behind him, Hayden stood, arms crossed, face like flint, an impenetrable fortress protecting his wife.

James hoped it would be enough to deter the flamboyant captain. Though Eliza eased beside Blake and met the pirate’s gaze with valor, the remaining women stood behind the line of men, hugging the children close. Mr. Keen, the poor farmer on James’s right, couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. Down the line, another man kept muttering to himself. Dodd stared straight ahead as if he’d gone numb. Yet, Patrick Gale fingered his goatee and kept glancing toward the jungle as if devising a plan of escape. Only for him, no doubt.

Mrs. Scott’s whimper brought James’s gaze around to see the lady swooning in her husband’s arms. Moses stood beside Mable, while his sister and her children cowered behind his massive frame. James’s eyes met Angeline’s. He’d assumed she was with the other women, but instead she’d moved behind him. Though the corners of her mouth tightened and her chest rose and fell like a billowing sea, she gave no other indication of fear. He smiled and nodded, hoping to offer her a reassurance he didn’t feel before he faced forward again.

Captain Ricu stopped before Hayden, studied him intently, then drew a knife longer than his arm and pointed it at his chest. Hayden didn’t blink.

“I remember you. You striked me in my cabin. And you…” He dipped his head, first to one side of Hayden—and when Hayden moved to block his view—to the other side, before he reached to pull Magnolia forward. “You be the pretty thing I took to bed.”

One of the women gasped.

Despite the terror screaming from her blue eyes, Magnolia lifted her chin. “
I
was the one who struck you, not this man.” In a valiant effort to protect Hayden, she placed a finger on the pirate’s blade and moved it aside.

But Hayden was having none of it. Eyes like slits and jaw bunching, he shoved between them, tugging Magnolia from the pirate’s grip. “Almost,” he ground out. “You
almost
took her to bed. But she’s my wife now, and you’ll not be taking her anywhere.”

Captain Ricu chuckled, turned, and said something in Portuguese to his men, which caused an outburst of laughter among the slovenly band. He faced Hayden again. “One thing to learn”—raising his voice, he shifted his gaze over all the colonists—“all must learn. I am Captain Ricu and I take what I want when I want.”

Hayden clenched fists at his sides. Not a good sign. James must do something before he slugged the pirate captain and mayhem ensued, no doubt ending in an early death for them all. Stepping forward, James opened his mouth to speak when Blake beat him to it.

“What is it you want, Captain?” The colonel’s annoyance rang louder than his fear. “As you can see, we have lost everything in a recent flood. We have nothing of value. So, take what you want and be gone with you.”

Captain Ricu sauntered toward him. “You are leader, yes?” He sized Blake up with eyes as dark as coal, waiting for Blake’s nod of affirmation. “You remember me?”

“Of course.” Blake frowned.

“Then you know why I come.” He flung hair over his shoulder in a feminine gesture that defied his fearsome appearance.

Dodd, standing on James’s left, took a step back, trying to hide himself in James’s shadow.

“We have no gold,” Hayden shouted over the wind. “We didn’t have any the last time you came and we don’t have any now.”

The captain’s eyes snapped his way but halted upon Eliza. He curled a finger around a loose strand of her hair. “What say you,
bela
?” Stiffening, Blake flung an arm in front of her. She pushed it down. “I know of no gold, Captain.”

“Search our things and see for yourself,” James said.

“I no need your permit,
idiota
!” Captain Ricu barked at James then suddenly swung around and snapped his jeweled fingers. One of his men came running with a surprisingly white handkerchief, which the pirate took and swiped over his face and neck before he flung it back at the man. With a sigh, he faced the colonists again and took up a pace before them, eyeing them up and down as if they were slices of meat hung to cure. In defiance of his ominous presence, the jeweled pins on his waistcoat made a delicate jingling sound. Or was it the bells he wore on his boots? He halted before Mr. Keen who stood beside James. “What be this?” His lip curled as he raised his knife toward the poor man.