Chapter Eleven
Over the next few weeks at sea, Mercy suffered a punishment from the captain far worse than the spanking he’d delivered.
He ignored her.
After a long discussion between the captain and his unexpected passengers, it was decided the Queen Anne’s Redemption would head back to St. Thomas, where the women would be the guests of Whitaker Hall until they could make contact with family members to come for them or arrange safe passage home. Mr. Sprague would be left there to see to their safety, along with two other crew members, until such time as Mercy’s unknown cousin Daniel arrived from England.
With nowhere else to house them, all the women crowded into the captain’s cabin for the return trip, making it impossible for her to be alone with him. The few times they were in each other’s company, he barely looked her way. Her heart was broken, but as long as he refused to even speak to her, there was nothing she could do to ease the pain.
Mercy had no time to herself on the return journey, no time to call upon the scrying mirror to show her what fate had in store for her next. She became a mother hen to her companions, spending her days brewing seasickness potions and her nights comforting those who awoke crying and shaking from nightmares brought on by the all-too-real terrors they had faced.
Too soon, they were in sight of Frenchman’s Reef. As the familiar beaches and mountains of St. Thomas drew near, Mercy felt no joy. On the island, she’d be facing an empty home and an empty life. Her beloved parents were gone from Whitaker Hall.
And gone was her dream of spending endless days of adventure at sea and endless nights of passion in the arms of her lover. Once they reached port, Captain Teach would put them off his ship, and she’d be more alone than ever.
When the time came to take her leave, Mercy was determined to do so with grace. Before stepping off the ship, she approached James, who was watching their departure from the upper deck with his arms crossed.
“Captain Teach, thank you for all your kindness, both to me and to the fortunate women you rescued,” she said, holding out her hand to clasp his.
He ignored her hand. “I didn’t rescue them. You did,” he said coldly. “But once they set foot on my ship, their lives were in my hands. I could hardly let them starve.”
“Nonetheless, they are grateful. They all pray for you every day,” she added, clenching her teeth to keep from humiliating herself by begging him not to leave. She plastered on a faint smile. “I wish you well on your journeys.”
“Best of luck to you as well. I’m sure as an heiress you’ll have suitors flocking to Whitaker Hall to fight over your…hand.”
She gasped. The sly reference to her shameless behavior hit her like a slap in the face. Until that moment, she hadn’t thought he could hurt her any more than he’d already done.
But she was wrong.
Upon arriving in Charlotte Amalie, Mercy paid a lad from town to go to the manor and bid the stableboy bring the carriage to the docks. She knew Sairy would have seen her coming in a vision and likely had already prepared Whitaker Hall for the many guests they would soon be housing.
Then she turned to Mr. Sprague.
“I thank you, sir, for the sacrifice you have made in remaining here to see to the safety of these poor captives. It would be my honor if you will accept our hospitality and be our guest at the manor for as long as you are on St. Thomas. I know how much Captain Teach relies upon you. I’m certain you will be sorely missed.”
“I reckon I’m not the one he’ll be missin’,” Sprague replied. “I’ve been on many a voyage with the cap’n. I know his moods better’n a spouse would. Ye’ve taken hold of his heart, ye have. He’s just too stubborn to admit it – even to hisself.”
“You’re a good man, Mr. Sprague, and I thank you for your words. But I fear the captain’s heart is one treasure he’ll never allow anyone to capture.”
They arrived at Whitaker Hall to find a celebration underway. The kidnap victims were welcomed with open arms, everyone eager to hear the story of their dramatic rescue. Sairy hastily concocted a tale of magic and miracles to explain her mistress’s return from the grave – one including Mercy waking from a sleep that mimicked death, only to find she and the pine coffin in which she lay were being borne out to sea on the winds of the hurricane. The story included her dramatic rescue from drowning by the captain of a passing ship and a roundabout voyage home that had kept her at sea, unable to send word of her survival.
Sairy pulled her mistress aside and told her she had nothing to fear from the dreaded slavers. She’d learned in another vision the pirates whose arrival she and Mercy had foreseen were the very ones the Queen Anne’s Redemption defeated in battle – the battle that resulted in freeing their human cargo.
Between Sairy’s inventive tale of Mercy’s return from the dead and glowing accounts from the women telling how she had risked her life to rescue them, the mistress of Whitaker Hall soon found herself elevated to the ranks of a legendary hero. Everywhere she went on the island, she was greeted by praise and acclaim to her face – and rumors of sorcery and pacts with Satan himself behind her back. For the most part, she avoided leaving the plantation, choosing instead to spend her time alone.
The great hall had suffered only minor damage from the huge storm, and between them Sairy and the overseer Mr. Templeton had carried on the day-to-day operations of the plantation. Mercy slipped back into her daily routine as though she had never left, seeing to the planting and harvesting of crops, dealing with the hundreds of decisions that had to be made each day to run an enterprise as large as Whitaker Hall with all its holdings.
She buried herself in the work, welcoming it as a way to fill the endless hours stretching before her. But there was no joy in her heart, and she was so filled with sadness and grief she could scarcely stand the sight or smell of food.
Sairy watched her closely in the following days and weeks, recognizing the signs long before Mercy herself knew what was wrong. She brought up the subject as they rocked on the veranda one evening at dusk.
“Yer with child,” she announced in her usual blunt fashion. “It’ll be a boy.”
Mercy stared at her, shocked and dismayed.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “I can’t be.” She thought back to the dark cabin, the soft embraces, the passionate couplings – without the benefit of Sairy’s special herbs that had kept many an island woman from giving birth to more children than she could feed.
“Sairy, I don’t want to raise another Teach without a father to guide him, unloved by the man who sired him.”