Perchance To Dream (2 page)

"You be cursed to see the Merfolk," he said, then he crossed himself and muttered a prayer under his breath.

"Cursed?" Andrew repeated.

The gray-grizzled old man sagely nodded. "Dey say to see a Merfolk, a man he be destined to die by the sea. Dat what dey do say, young mastah," he explained. "You best be stayin' away from dat cove if you be valuin' your life."

Which was all the more reason for him to return to the cove, for he didn't value his life.

Merfolk. Creatures of legends and fantasy. Hell, he needed a bit of fantasy in his life, he'd decided. And the Caribbean islands proved an appropriate locale.

Occasionally thereafter he caught glimpses of her in what he'd come to think of as their rocky cove. But he saw her only at dawn, and only at water's edge.

She appeared, like him, to relish her solitude. After the first time, he never attempted to intrude on her, nor she on him; though he felt certain she remained as aware of him as he was of her.

There were no more dreams of roiling black waves; however, he still occasionally dreamed of the water. But now he dreamed through alien eyes. He dreamed of sinuously swimming with dolphins and sitting amongst schools of brightly colored fish. He even saw his boat and himself as if from in the water looking up. His dreams carried a sense of freedom and playfulness such that he had never imagined possible.

Yet they also carried an air of unremitting sadness.

Strangely, the more he had these new dreams and the more he sensed this otherworldly sadness in his dreams, the more content he grew with his situation in life. He no longer pined for England or desired its feverish gaiety.

The white quill pen clinked against the inside of the glass inkwell as the Honorable Andrew Montrose, third son of the Earl of Rice dipped his pen then pulled it out. He smiled as he copied the new sugar production records into the master ledger. The scratching of the quill against the paper sounded unnaturally loud; but for all that, soothing in the afternoon stillness. Again, he dipped the pen in the ink.

He added a column of numbers to verify the amount he'd entered, then he laid down his pen and leaned back in the hard wooden chair he'd drawn up before the scared old clerk's desk that stood in the center of the plantation office. Behind him stood tall wooden cabinets filled with leather-bound account books recording over seventy years of plantation history. Along the doorway wall at his right a long, narrow table held a platter of fresh fruit, and branches of gutted candles testified to the many hours Andrew spent in this room. Wide, curtainless windows predominated the walls in front of him and to his left that afforded him views of the rolling cane fields in the distance.

Though plain and practical in its furniture arrangement, the office suited him. At some time in the last three years he'd decided he didn't miss the fancy silks and damasks of London, or any other part of that life he'd led before coming to the Caribbean island. After three years on the island, three years since he'd left London's tawdry gaiety, he'd finally found contentment with life. Not the contentment he'd once thought necessary, but another deeper contentment that filled the soul as well as the mind.

In three years the plantation sugar production and export in muscovado, the coarse brownish sugar product and in the semi-refined clayed sugar had increased fourfold. They now captured the sugar of molasses, a by-product of the milling processes, and sold that besides operating their own distillery for rum. In addition, the plantation slaves were healthy and well fed, each having a plot of land for provisioning and for them to sell the excess harvests at the Sunday free market.

A chilling breeze ruffled the pages of the ledger and stirred his mind from contemplation. The room felt suddenly cool and it was only the beginning of October. He looked out the broad row of office windows. Dark clouds gathered in the east. A storm threatened. He might need a fire laid in this evening and the shutters closed. He rose from his chair and turned to grab his serviceable brown fustian jacket from where he'd casually tossed it that morning on top of one of the tall cabinets. He slipped his arms into the sleeves and shrugged the comfortably fitted jacket across his broad shoulders, something he could not have done himself if he still wore the tightly fitted jackets he'd favored during his London days.

He sat down again, straightened his plain white shirt cuffs, then picked up the pen and leaned forward to add another column of numbers.

"Excuse me, sir."

Lemuel Tauton, the estate agent, sounded aggrieved, a normal sound coming from him when he perceived someone had thwarted him. Well accustomed to hearing the tone and understanding its implications on his time, Andrew held up his hand to stem the estate agent's interruption until he could finish adding the column.

Satisfied he'd summed the numbers correctly, he turned in his chair to look at the little estate agent. "What is it, Tauton?" he asked. He leaned back and stretched one leg out in front of him.

Tauton grasped his hands together at his waist, his torso tipping forward. "Excuse me, my lord, but the Bonnie Marie, a merchant vessel from England, docked this morning."

"What? Direct from England?" Andrew straightened. "The captain risked a hurricane season crossing? Why?"

"I cannot say, sir," Tauton replied, the aggrieved tone back in his voice. He unclasped his hands and balled them into fists. "But a cabin boy is here with a packet of papers for you. He says he must personally deliver them to you, the impertinent whelp. He refuses to recognize me as your deputy in all affairs here."

"Enough!" Andrew cut in. His hand sliced the air, halting the little man's grievances.

Tauton blinked and rocked back on his heals as if reeling from a punch.

Andrew shook his head, but let good humor color his tone, jollying the estate agent. "I'm certain the boy has merely mistook his orders. But we must commend him for his fortitude in the face of your displeasure. Send the boy in."

"But—"

Andrew cocked his head and raised one eyebrow.

"Yes, sir," Tauton said tightly.

Andrew watched, amused, as the estate agent fussily straightened his coat and cravat before walking out of the room to fetch the boy. Andrew wondered why he'd gone to the trouble to jolly the man. When had he become sensitive to the sensibilities of others?

Perhaps it was no mystery, perhaps it was merely a part of his settled contentment. And working the plantation, and discovering
Her
, had authored his contentment.

He rose from the chair and walked over to the window. He pushed the edged of his jacket aside and put his hands on his hips as he looked outside. From where he stood he could see a broad swath of green sugarcane fields and the white washed sugar-processing buildings. His eyes followed the activities of the plantation slaves as they went about their work; but his mind saw the blue Caribbean waters.

It was hard to imagine it had started with dreams.

For more than three years now, almost since he'd come to his family's Caribbean plantation, she'd invaded his dreams.

Finding her, acknowledging her reality, calmed his spirit and centered his mind. They'd never spoken directly, but they were connected and Andrew had come to treasure his glimpses of her in his world.

"Sir, here is George Hibbert from the Bonnie Marie to see you."

Andrew turned around, his hands falling loosely to his sides.

"Here, now, do you be taking me for a flat? That ain't Viscount Carrelton," said a young lad of some ten or twelve summers dressed in dirty, loose-fitting white pants and shirt topped with a navy blue jacket obviously cut down to fit his skinny frame.

"Viscount Carrelton!" Andrew laughed, leaned back against the window frame and crossed his feet at the ankles. "I should hope not. That's my eldest brother, Edward. Someone has sent you on a fool's errand, boy."

The sandy-haired lad scowled and planted one fist on his slim hip as he regarded Andrew. "You the one got kicked outta England?" he asked skeptically.

Andrew straightened, irritation drawing his brows together. "No one kicks me anywhere, boy," he said evenly. "What's in the pouch," he asked, even as understanding crashed through him.

No! his mind screamed. He clenched his fists at his sides.

"Letters for Viscount Carrelton from the Earl of Rice. Urgent the toff said wot got the captain to risk the ship this time a year. Paid well to risk it, too. We're all to get a share, the captain says."

"My brother Edward is in England," Andrew said softly.

The lad's cheeky grin revealed two missing teeth. "That one is, to be sure, and six feet under it, too, fer safe keeping."

"Watch your tongue!" Tauton ordered as he grabbed the boy's shoulder and shook him. The estate agent looked up at Andrew. "Then . . ."

Edward, dead? "Then Charles is the new heir," Andrew quickly said.

The boy dropped his long knitted cap then squirmed out from under Tauton's grip to pick it up. "No," he said, stuffing his cap in one of his coat's large patch pockets, "he got hisself kilt afore the other lopped off."

"Sir!" exclaimed Tauton. "That means. . . . My Lord Carrelton!" Tauton said, bowing.

Andrew did not spare the man a glance. A roaring sound filled his head. Edward and Charles dead! Memories of childhood sport and pranks chased one another through his mind. Edward, serious and solemn, with clever eyes. Charles ever the engaging scamp with angelic eyes. Their father had sent them to different schools to try to break the tie between them. It hadn't worked.

A searing sense of loss consumed Andrew. As adults they'd gone their different ways, but they were brothers always. Even, or especially, against the Earl of Rice.

Tears burned in the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away and he took a step forward. "Then I'll take that pouch," he said quietly, "For it seems I am Viscount Carrelton."

Andrew Montrose, now Viscount Carrelton and heir to the Earl of Rice, pushed the tiller hard to port to steer the small craft between the razor sharp coral reefs at the cove entrance, just as he had done a hundred times before. For a moment he allowed the sail to flap in the wind, then with a strong, smooth motion he hauled in the canvas. The flapping had unerringly echoed the pounding in his head, a pounding that had come yesterday afternoon in company with the leather pouch of correspondence delivered to him from off the Bonnie Marie by a cheeky cabin boy. Correspondence from his father.

While his boat glided into the sheltered cove, Andrew picked up his brass spyglass and searched for
Her
among the dark dawn shadows and the fingers of pale mist that clung to the Caribbean island shoreline. Today no sign of her lithe form appeared on the beach, the rocks, or in the shallows. Today, when he needed her reality the most, she did not exist.

His breath grew heavy in his chest. Lowering his spyglass, he sagged down onto the storage box that stretched across the stern. His head fell back, his gaze on the wide expanse of dark, blue-gray sky.

Dreams. She was just a dream. Nothing more. A wasted, fruitless dream.