Virgin Star (35 page)

Shalyn, do you know what you do to me?

No. She hadn't a clue. The idea of her innocence, and the persistent thought of what he'd wanted to do to it, turned him away. He was thinking of a cold ocean swim as he shaved.

The third time he returned to check on her, he opened the door and saw that she was up. She sat on the edge of the bed, with her face in her hands. He quietly shut the door and approached saying her name. "Shalyn ..."

She looked up, her amber eyes much changed.

For she remembered.

She flew into his embrace. He hesitated the briefest moment before his arms came around her slender figure to hold her there, her arms wrapping around his neck, the sweet assault on his senses far more potent than his ocean dip.

Yet she was talking. Fast. What was she saying?

"Seanessy, Seanessy, I was just lying in your bed half-asleep and suddenly I remembered the books, the beautiful books filled with enchanting water-colors. Picture after picture of fairies and forests and quaint little elf cottages, and she painted them. My Aunt Mary. I remember her!"

He had to smile as he pulled back just a bit to look at her face; he could not help it. The clear melodic English accent became pronounced whenever she became excited. Like now. Butcher was right. Every day she seemed to remember something more. "Your Aunt Mary?"

"Yes." She nodded, rushing on to explain. "I remember she was plump and old and ever so much fun. I remember sitting on her lap for hours as she showed me these beautiful picture books she had made. She was so very clever! And sometimes I remember she let me play with her charm bracelet. She had a charm bracelet as thick as a ballast rope. 'Twas a lovely gold piece with charms she had taken from every place she traveled to, and I would hold up each charm to the light and she would tell me a story about it."

The handsome features changed with his own excitement upon this self-discovery. This was close. "Aye, your Aunt Mary—bless her soul. What else?"

"What else? Well, I don't know ..,"

"Your mother, Shalyn? Your mother must be in this picture?"

Her mother, her mother ...

With his hands on her arms, Shalyn stood perfectly still, remembering this happy scene with her Aunt Mary. Then she heard the curious sound of a woman's laughter: "Mary dear, you spoil my darling so! All I hear for weeks after you visit is 'Mama, when will Aunt Mary visit us again ...’”

The laughter echoed dizzily through her mind, resonating in some deepest part of her soul. She stiffened dramatically. "Seanessy, Seanessy..." Emotions shimmered in her eyes. Her heart pounded as memories rushed at her in a fast-moving stream of images, and in these memories she saw her mother. Like a beacon in the darkness of her mind, she saw her mother. She was so beautiful. With a crown of thick gold curls and smiling brown eyes, her mother was laughing as she moved toward her, the pretty teal silk gown swirling out behind.

Her beautiful mother, she remembered.

The whisper of Seanessy's voice drew Shalyn's eyes up. "You are crying ..."

"I remember, Seanessy. I remember how beautiful she was. My mother. I remember how very much I loved her."

Seanessy pulled her into his arms as she cried so softly, remembering. He swept her off her feet and carried her two paces to the bed. She was holding her head, her eyes wide, frightened, feverish with excitement.

"I can see our house. I remember the Tudor house we lived in in England. I remember it. 'Twas in the countryside, outside of London. I remember our maids Elsie and Barbs and my strict nanny, Mrs. Rhea. I can see the nursery so clearly. It had a huge maple tree growing outside the window. There were pretty lace curtains around it. I remember staring at the sunlight through the leaves. And ivy grew so thick along the wall that I used it as a ladder to escape Mrs. Rhea. I can see my toys and dolls, and the thick pink comforter on my bed. There were pictures of ships on the walls..."

Pictures of ships on the wall...

Seanessy listened to the soft melodic voice and felt a relief so powerful and great he almost laughed out loud for all his joy. First that she was remembering and then that she was remembering a scene so idyllic as to have been taken from a religious manual on the proper upbringing of British children. Then his mind caught up with the last. He looked down at her, his hand stroking her hair, and gently he asked. "Your father, Shalyn. Do you remember your father?"

"Aye and ... nay."

She closed her eyes, remembering a morning of blindingly bright sunlight. She sat primly in a carriage with her mother, excitement making her giddy. She kept clapping her small gloved hands. Her father was coming home! The carriage stopped at the docks. There was a huge ship there. Uniformed men rushed about everywhere she looked. Her mother lifted her up to watch the officers come down the plank, their arms waving frantically as her mother called, "Oh, Charles! Charles!"

"His name was Charles and... he was an officer." s "On a ship?"

"Aye, a huge ship. A navy ship. I don't remember anything else...."

Trying not to scare her, desperate not to lose this fragile first step: "Shalyn, his surname? Your surname?"

"I don't remember, I—" She stopped suddenly and said, "My mother's name was Hanna."

"Hanna?" Seanessy questioned. Why did that sound familiar? He tried to recall any Hanna he had known over the years, but drew a blank. "What about you? Do you remember your own name?"

Concentration marked her features. Oddly enough, it was strict Mrs. Rhea's shrill voice that supplied the answer: "Isabel," Shalyn said. "Isabel after my mother's mother, my grandmother whom I never knew."

Isabel? Seanessy looked away, testing the name in his mind. Only to realize it would never do, that the name mattered no more. "What happened, Shalyn? Do you remember anything else? Where are your parents?"

Tears washed her eyes; they sparkled like rare and precious gems, darting back and forth in search of the answer. Dozens of childhood memories rushed at her with dizzying speed, forming a swift-moving stream until—

It came at her suddenly.

She remembered being on a ship with her mother. They were so happy They were going to Malacca, the Settlement Straits, to be with her father—no doubt as part of the British effort to settle the land. Memories of the voyage poured forth: the long lazy days, being told over and over not to pester the crew when they worked; she remembered they had celebrated her sixth birthday on May twelfth with a piece of sweetened brown bread with white candles stuck in it, all her mother could muster on board a ship in the middle of the sea, and how they had laughed at the absurdity of it. She remembered settling down with her picture books and games, playing cards and crocheting with her mother. She remembered curling up against her mother in bed, listening to sweet stories told to get her to sleep.

She remembered all of it.

She remembered finally reaching the aqua-blue bay of the port. This memory was vague. She could almost see it. She stood at the rail as the ship pulled closer and closer to the dark emerald-green of the land. She remembered the expression on her mother's face, 'twas filled with shock and disappointment.

"Mama, what's wrong? Is it not a pretty place?"

Her child's voice faded in her mind and only now as she recalled it through an adult’s understanding could she see it was a British lady's reaction to a heathen exotic land made of thick jungles and crystal-clear blue waters. Wooden huts dotted the hillside alongside the white stucco of a dozen British homes, all connected by muddied paths. A place populated with dark-skinned Oriental people and coarse sailors.

"I don't know what I was expecting!" her mother had cried. "I don't! I can't live here. I'll die. Didn't he know or couldn't he guess..."

"Shalyn, what are you remembering?"

"My mother. My father sent us to Malacca. 'Tis why I want to return so much. I remember the voyage, and I remember the ship sailing into port and my mother's shock at it all." Her voice changed, lowering to a frightened whisper. "She wanted to go back immediately. My father was not there, though. There was only a servant waiting to lead us to our new house. My mother was so upset, she didn't understand. What was happening. It was as if she knew. She did know. I can tell. I see her face so clearly—"

"Know what, Shalyn?"

The amber eyes looked up and filled with an infinite pain. "She died there. She died, Seanessy... I—oh, God, Seanessy, I remember..."

They had to stay until her father joined them. He would make arrangements for their return to England. Everything would be as it was, she remembered her mother telling her happily. "Your father will just have to accept that this... place is not a place I can live, let alone raise my daughter in. And honestly, Isabel, I don't know what he was thinking, giving us this house some twenty miles away from the nearest neighbor, out in this wretched jungle. All his secrecy! And just look at you! If you get one more insect bite, I fear you'll explode."

"They do not bother me, Mama. I love our new house! “Tis so beautiful here. And, why, Mrs. Rhea never let me go barefoot in England, or out without a proper hat."

"I promise you, darling, if bare feet is all it takes to make you happy, I shall let you march down the corridors of Westminster Abbey with them. Oh, how I'd trade the sight of this wretched jungle in an instant for one look at Westminster Abbey. Well, he'll understand; I know he will, and soon, perhaps he can get another commission. My father will help, though we shan't tell him that."

She remembered these musings as they walked along the white sand beach. There was someone behind them. A manservant who never spoke and always followed them. Like a shadow he was, as he trailed them. She was trying not to think of him. She thought instead of the wonderful seashells they found. England did not have anything like them!

She remembered holding the perfect white conch in her hand, the best find. The ocean sang so loudly in it. She was begging her mother to let her keep it when they started up the cliff.

Shalyn rubbed her forehead, the cliff appearing so clearly in her mind. 'Twas so steep. Straight up almost. A narrow path had been carved into the side of the cliff, made by unknown people over hundreds of years. She loved going up, an adventure in itself. She went up much faster than her mother, as her mother's long skirts greatly encumbered her progress.

The perfect white shell fell out of her bucket as she tipped it, clinging to the rocks above her. She turned to see it roll down, stopping a few feet from her mother. She saw the strange Oriental man at the bottom. He raised his arms and shouted in the Oriental tongue to take care with her step as her mother turned to fetch it back.

Her mother's foot slipped.

Shalyn closed her eyes as a young girl's scream echoed dizzily through her mind. There came a burst of white light in her head, an unbearable pain as if it had been she falling down that treacherous slope, and from somewhere far away she heard Seanessy shouting her name ...

Seanessy caught the girl up in his arms.

He never left her side that day. She woke just past noon with tears in her eyes, immediately reaching for the comfort of his embrace. For the space of that day she relived the painful death over and over in her mind. For she and Seanessy both understood that it was her mother's death that somehow threw her into a dark future, a future that ended one cold night with a hard blow to her head and a beating, the only address in all of England where she might be safe clutched tightly in her hand.

If only she could remember more ...

The cannon fire exploded fifty paces from starboard, a futile warning. The Wind Muse closed, swinging around the slaver's stern, circling its victim like a hungry predator. Shalyn watched with wide-eyed fascination as Seanessy shouted quick loud orders from the quarterdeck above. He looked magnificent and frightening both, as his shouts made men run and all around them the sea exploded with cannon fire. First officers stood on deck, Butcher with the gunners and Ham with the sails, Edward at the bow, and every man in his place; every man welcoming the thrilling drive of battle.

Seanessy had a theory that they could make better speed by catching the West Indian current five hundred miles north of the cape. Just south of Madagascar's tip, Preston in the lookout caught sight of the slaver. Butcher explained that by the looks of the hull weighted down so in the water, the ship would be full of black bodies just snatched from that dark place, that it was always the crew's greatest pleasure to capture such ships, ride them back to the island, and let the poor sods free again. "That is just after they set the ship ablaze."

"With the captain and crew on board?!"

Butcher had looked quite shocked. "Do you think Seanessy is a barbarian? For heaven's sake, he lets the blackguards go. Sometimes. Of course, sometimes, if we can spare a couple o' days, he sells them to this dark-skinned king who rules the land west of the big Congo. You are shocked, lass? Well, we get a rich bounty for our trouble, ye see,” and he laughed. "Aye! A bunch of colorful feathers, a handful o' poisoned arrows, and if the King likes the looks of his new slaves, sometimes even these very pretty painted bowls stuffed full of dried lizard..."