The Bride of Blackbeard (11 page)

“
I know Father is useless, Gran, but
taking Will and Kitty from their home is unacceptable. The only
pieces of Mother that remain are locked in this house. In Katrina’s
nursery, she can still picture Mama sitting in the rocking chair,
reading to her aloud, and I—” she swallowed hard—“I can see her
smiling at me from the kitchen in the morning when I woke each
day.”

“
Rubbish, you know the drunk will kill
you. He despises both you girls—he loves only the boy.”

She had no options. Her father was a drunken
lout who provided no love whatsoever. However, he had provided a
roof and food for them, and she had respectable employment.

She regarded Gran, and said, “We will not
come with you to Ireland.”

~ * ~

Her mind trembled with fear as she
remembered her grandmother seated in their parlor, staring blindly
out the window into the garden. In one of the old woman’s worst
episodes, she had sat frozen, her arm stuck up into the air
reaching for some unseen object. Her face could remain unchanged
for days on end. Upon visiting the madhouses with her father, she’d
seen the catatonic posturing of many of the patients there—like
statues frozen after staring into the face of Medusa—with no way of
freeing them from the prisons of their minds.

Shaking her head to clear the memory,
Constanza quit the papers. The letter she’d avoided reading sat on
the desk. Sarah Hopkins had delivered it to her upon their return,
saying Katrina had stayed on in Bath. She picked it up and began to
walk toward the cottage.

It amazed her how easily one could settle
into a ‘normal’ life, after so many years of an abnormal
upbringing. Each day she spent here was a balm for her soul.

As she approached the cottage, she heard the
boys outside getting one last run with their pups before absolute
blackness set in. Constanza stepped into her herb garden, which
would now have to wait as it had been started too late. She began
to run over her mental list compiled from Gerard’s plant reference
the previous year: mint, lemon balm, lavender, thyme, yarrow.

Next year.

Yes, incredibly, she was to stay here and
become a ‘Banker.’

Uncle Ellwood was right. You never could be
sure where life’s road would lead you.

With difficulty she wrenched open the heavy
barn door, stopping to let her eyes adjust to the dim light.
Picking up the feed, she placed the oat bucket under Pilot's mouth.
The back door opened and Lucian entered. His walk was slow and
deliberate—like so many things about him. At times his gaze was so
intense it made her uncomfortable, but she met it headlong. She
knew what was on his mind. It flowed through his eyes like a river
of fire.

His arms wrapped about her, and his mouth
captured hers. Breathing harder, he led her toward the house.

“Lucian...”

“I thought Bess said it would be better once
we were together!”

“No. Now I no longer have to rely on my
imagination...”

~ * ~

A middle-aged man watched as the sloop
Adventure
pulled into port in Bath and dock. He’d once
overheard someone describe his appearance as unremarkable, which
perfectly suited his occupation. His job was to observe—blend in as
just another face in the crowd.

The local villagers were all aware of the
ship’s infamous captain who now stood on deck, formidable and
haggard looking. Gone was the oil slicked hair and clean shaven
face he’d sported when he caroused the town in search of lady folk.
What had replaced it was a mane of wild, black hair and a black
beard that had grown in as thick as sheep’s wool.

Captain Teache's eyes scanned the milling
crowd, and it was obvious he searched for something, or someone.
Frustration evident on his exhausted features, he turned to bark
orders at the crew, who set to scurrying like the bilge rats they
were.

The rumors starting to circulate of the
invasion of pirates around the Ocracoke Inlet, where fast, small
ships would overtake the lumbering cargo carriers and plunder its
crew, were apparently true. Teache's commands resulted in the
unloading of countless barrels of the unmarked variety. Many of the
crews attacked had been completely obliterated, while others had
been marooned on sandbars, depending on their willingness to
cooperate with the invasion. The whispering under-current of every
pub stated the pirate marauder was possibly the devil himself, the
bloke often appeared to have his very beard on fire; these were
superstitious folk. They assumed the man, if he were not Lucifer,
had a deal with the devil, as none of his conquests had failed to
date.

The man put away his spyglass and closed the
window on the harbor scene. He sat and began in a tidy hand, “Dear
Governor Spottswood.” He considered how to word the letter. He knew
following the pirate would be easy—at least for the next few hours.
Teache was a good paying patron of the local brothels and bordellos
in and around Bath. If the man slipped his sight, he felt confident
he would know where to find him after writing the
correspondence.

~ * ~

Stanzy smiled over the pot, stirring the
leftover portions from dinner. The boys had gone to bed. As was his
custom each night, Lucian was out walking the grounds of
StoneWater. He would visit the slave quarters and check on the ill
and older ones. He walked a large perimeter of the land around the
main house, ‘for ease of mind’ as he always put it.

She picked up her teacup from the table.
Lucian's hasty footfalls echoed on the porch, and the wind forced
the door from his hand, banging open. Stanzy leapt, flinging the
cup from her grasp. It shattered on the floor in front of her.

His face etched with anxiety, chest heaving,
he spit out, “Stanzy, come quickly. It’s Meg.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth
she caught snippets of crying on the howling wind outside. The
screaming could be heard across the whole of StoneWater. Wails
whipped in and out of earshot as the North Carolina wind threatened
another fall storm.

Running flat out across the courtyard, the
rain began to fall hard and fast. By the time they reached the
servants’ entrance in the kitchen, the childish howling was
perfectly clear, and they were completely deluged.

Constanza slipped on the water she’d dripped
onto the back servants’ staircase and fell hard onto one knee.
Several steps ahead of her, Lucian turned and ran back to help
her.

Frantically she waved him on. “Go. Go to
her!” The intensity of pain let her know she'd sprained if not
broken her ankle. Hobbling up the stairs in desperation, she
gritted her teeth against the throb.

The pup she’d recently entrusted to Meg lay
dead on the top step. She stepped over its pathetic corpse and
headed toward the sound of the screams. Astounded at the sight
before her, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Meg thrashed about just as she had that
first day Constanza had laid eyes on her. The girl’s screams were
accented by throaty growling. Tied to an examining table, leeches
littered her tiny body. A man leaned over to peer into her eyes.
Meg violently bit his arm with all of her might and blood
immediately leaked from his torn flesh onto the table.

Lucian's hands flexed and opened in a
frenzied sort of way, while Bess restrained him—her massive form
quaking with sobs as she stared at Megan.

“What is going on here?” Stanzy said with a
calm she didn’t feel.

“I am the patient’s attending physician. And
who are you?”

“I am her governess and caretaker.”

“Well, we have everything under control
here.” He mopped his forearm which was now bleeding so badly, the
soaked cloth dripped crimson.

“You are going to need that sewn. My father
was a physician and I was trained as one as well. My mother was a
healer. I can stitch it for you. Why is Meg restrained? What have
you given her?”

“I have reinstituted the belladonna and
added wormwood in small doses, of course, to attempt to calm her
animal-like behavior. I need her immobile to administer the
bleeding for impurities.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, we have had her
off the belladonna for several months and she has not been bled
since your last visit. She has been doing very well.”

“Impossible. Look at her. She is a beast, a
creature at best.”

Heat flushed Stanzy’s neck and face as she
bellowed, “She is a child. A girl, in case you have not noticed. A
sick-little-girl
!”

Lucian made another lunge in the physician’s
direction, and still restrained by Bess, he yelled over Meg’s
wails, “She has begun to speak! You have no idea what you are
talking about! She looked practically normal ‘til you started all
this again!”

“Are you, farmer, attempting to tell me how
to treat my patient? This wretch is not capable of speech, nor does
she understand it. I have recommended she be taken to the asylum in
Bath.”

“Over my dead body will she go to one of
those places! I know her, maybe better than anyone. I have taken
care of her since she was a year old, and I have never seen her so
well, and now to see her lose her senses again...take off those
bloody leeches!” At last wrenching away from Bess, he ran to the
table and started ripping the creatures off her tiny legs—one by
one.

Stanzy limped to his side and removed the
disgusting blood-filled creatures from her arm. “We truly have made
some wonderful progress with her. We—”

Abruptly snapping his bag shut and gathering
his implements, he said scathingly over his shoulder, “Yes I can
see that. I will inform Mr. Hopkins that my services are no longer
required here. I can see you have everything under control.”

~ * ~

After bathing the areas the leeches had been
attached, Megan finally quit screaming. Stanzy cradled her on her
lap in the rocking chair by the fire.

“Meg. Megan. Look at me.”

The little girl’s eyes were blank, unseeing.
She’d retreated to the place in her mind that was far more safe and
happy than the world she lived in.

Lucian sat at the window, his head in his
hands.

“Megan, come back to us...oh, Megan.”
Constanza’s voice cracked and she began to cry.

But she continued to rock and sing to her.
“Baby sleeps in her room, she looks out and sees the moon...”

~ * ~

The baby was cradled in her arms when she
heard her father’s footsteps as he entered the house. Bleary-eyed
she looked outside and realized it must be close to three in the
morning. Quietly as possible, she stood anchored to one spot, not
daring to move a muscle. Often when Father returned from the pub
his mood was argumentative, and on one occasion he had knocked her
unconscious. All in the name of Mother’s untimely death. From time
to time, Stanzy heard weeping from his room, usually on nights such
as this, after a long evening of indulgence.

She silently prayed Will wouldn’t awaken and
begin to cry, for she knew it would start a situation she couldn’t
stop. She held her breath until she heard his door click and
lock.

~ * ~

Dazed by the dream, Stanzy started where she
slept by the fire. She looked around until place and time returned
to her foggy mind.

Meg had moved from her arms to the hearth
rug by the dying fire. Picking her up, she placed her shivering
form in her bed. She searched the room for Lucian, but he was gone.
She couldn’t think of leaving Meg tonight. Quietly she moved the
rocker by Meg’s bed and gently, but tightly, held her little hand
until she dozed off again.

~ * ~

The sun rose as Stanzy opened the door to
the cottage, and plopped herself down at the kitchen table.

“Stanzy, I have to go and lie down for just
a few hours, or I will be of no use to anyone. Hopkins is due home
today from the ports. I will go to see him as soon as he arrives,”
Lucian said groggily, automatically stoking the fire over and
over.

“Go ahead. I may join you shortly.”

He nodded his acquiescence.

Constanza stared at the letter she’d been
loath to open for what seemed like days on end. A certain dread had
come over her when she’d received it.

Finally, she broke the seal. The aroma of
Katrina’s fragrance permeated the kitchen from the perfume-soaked
parchment. Her sister’s perfect handwriting, so opposite from
Stanzy’s own chicken scratch, came into full view as she removed
the letter from its envelope.

“Dear Stanzy,

“All is well with my governess position at
the Hawthorne’s. The children are insufferable, but most children
are to me as you know.

“I do not think I will have to be a
governess for long, however. I have many suitors in Bath and am
sure within the next few months will have made a smart match; then
I will no longer have to be a governess.

“One of my suitors is Dear Edward. He has
returned from sea, and we have dined at Hammock House many times
over the past fortnight. To be honest, Stanzy, I know that Lucian
is handsome, but to pass up such an exciting fellow as Edward must
have been difficult. Not to mention he has so many more investments
than Lucian.”

“Oh yes. Very difficult,” Stanzy said
sarcastically, at Katrina's colossal inability to discern
character. She continued reading.

“I do hope he does not want children though.
I have decided that would definitely not be the right course for
me.

“Come to Bath soon and stop laboring so
hard. And bring Will, I miss him.

“Warmest Regards,

“Katrina”

Stanzy put her forehead on the table and
managed to shake it back and forth only twice before she fell dead
asleep.

~ * ~

Stanzy heard it before she felt it. The bone
saw had ripped through the tibia and fibula and had just finished
its way through the gastrocnemial muscle when she shuddered. Just a
tiny burning sensation...then nothing.