“One of the servants heard rumors in town of slave traders heading for the island looking for women to kidnap and sell to wealthy sultans in Africa. Miz Sairy, as the servant is called, knew without Monsieur Whitaker’s protection I was in danger. A nun would indeed be a prize to a rich heathen ruler. She bade me leave Charlotte Amalie before the brigands arrived. The dear woman risked her life to help me escape. She made inquiries in town and heard you were a fair man and an honorable one. Even so, we knew no ship’s captain would welcome a solitary female on board, even one dedicated to the Lord.
“I managed to slip unseen into a longboat while your crew was haggling with Miz Sairy over the price of her produce. She’d cautioned me to stay hidden till you were well out to sea. The sweet old woman assured me I’d be safe then. She said no proper Englishman would make a nun walk the plank, no matter how she came to be on his ship.”
James stared at her. Seldom was he at a loss for words. But this lengthy, improbable tale put forth in such a matter-of-fact tone by the bedraggled creature standing before him had the ring of truth about it. He’d read the sorrow in her eyes when she spoke of the deaths of her fellow sister and the occupants of Whitaker Hall. And he, too, had heard slavers had begun taking female captives to double their profits on the return ocean crossing.
She was right about another thing. Taking the virginity of a nun would truly be an exotic addition to the many pleasures found in the harem of a rich sultan.
“Well, Sister, since I can’t toss you overboard without putting my immortal soul in peril, it looks as though I’m burdened with you, at least till we make port in a place where I can hand you over to be the thorn in another man’s side. In the meantime, you’ll be confined to my quarters. I’ll not have you roaming about, harassing and preaching to my crew, threatening them with eternal damnation as they swig their daily ration of rum.
“Follow me.”
***
He turned without another word, and strode toward the stern, leaving Mercy to stumble along in his wake, clutching her leather satchel. During the night, she’d lashed it securely to her with the ropes binding her to the rail. Though she had yet to examine the contents, she was sure whatever Sairy had packed with such care must be of vital importance.
The captain shoved the heavy wooden door to his quarters open and motioned her inside. The chamber was surprisingly spacious for sleeping quarters on a ship, with a large bunk attached to the wall on one side, an array of cabinets in varying sizes built into the walls all around, and a square wooden table with two chairs.
Floor, ceiling, and walls had the mellow glow of wood that had seen countless hours of laborious hand polishing over the years to protect it from constant exposure to damp, salty air. A wide multi-paned window at the stern brought in welcome rays of sunlight that danced across the shiny surfaces and framed a view of endless miles of open ocean in their wake.
The contents of the built-in cabinets had been secured by stout latches. but the table and chairs lay in a heap against the far wall, heaved there by the storm’s fury. The captain reached down with one hand, set the heavy chairs upright then pulled the table into the center of the room. Then he headed toward the door, never looking at her.
Mercy blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “But, Capitaine, where will you sleep?”
He stopped with his hand on the iron door latch and turned back, giving her a frank head-to-toe appraisal. She was suddenly conscious of the fabric clinging to her wet body like a second skin. Mercy felt as though she’d been stripped naked by his insolent gaze.
“Under the stars, with my men. Unless you’d prefer I sleep in here with you?”
Mercy looked away, embarrassed, as her mind conjured up the image of the arrogant stranger invading her bed, then slowly undressing her with those powerful hands. She fought to regain her composure.
“I’m sure I would only disturb your rest with my lengthy morning and evening devotions,” she replied. “Now I will pray you be forgiven for the sins you have no doubt committed and ask Le Bon Dieu to reward you instead for your kindness to His lowly servant.”
She turned her back, dismissing him, and knelt alongside the bed.
With a muffled curse, the captain slammed the door behind him. Mercy heard the solid thunk of a timber dropping into place. She dashed to the entryway, lifted the latch and pulled. Sure enough, he’d barred the door from the outside, in case she attempted to defy his order to stay out of sight. Peering through a crack in the wide wooden boards, she watched him stride across the deck, stopping here and there to offer a word of encouragement to his bedraggled crew as they labored to repair the damage done to the Queen Anne’s Redemption.
Mercy was shocked by her unexpected attraction to the ship’s commander. She’d had several hopeful suitors in the past, both in England and back in St. Thomas, but none of them aroused her ardor. A full-figured woman with generous curves, she found nothing appealing about the thin pale young men who filled the fashionable drawing rooms of English social circles. They were far too proper and prissy. But the rough captain stirred something in her blood.
He was huge, with powerful broad shoulders. He’d filled the cabin with his presence. Mercy felt sure his personality would have the same effect even in a much larger space. When he blatantly looked her up and down, she’d experienced for the first time the intense gaze of a virile male – and it sent a thrill of arousal coursing through her body.
Mercy peered through the crack in the doorframe, making certain he was not heading back to the cabin, then stripped off her wet garments. She breathed a sigh of relief when the sodden woolen mass fell to the floor. At home, she wore light cotton gowns with a simple sleeveless sheath underneath, refusing to cram herself into a corset topped by the endless layers of petticoats European style dictated.
Roaming naked around the cabin, she let the warm air dry her skin, as she had done so often after sneaking off for a swim on one of the deserted beaches back home. After spreading the heavy robes out to dry in a patch of sun by the window, she reached up toward the ceiling beams with both hands to stretch muscles cramped by hours spent doubled over, fighting the driving wind and rain. Then she bent at the waist, spreading out her long dark locks to dry and combing through them with her fingers.
Next, Mercy turned her attention to the heavy satchel. Undoing the leather straps holding it closed, she reached inside and began piling its contents on the wooden table. First came bundles of herbs, bright berries, and dried flowers. There was even the desiccated corpse of a black scorpion, tied up in a bit of oiled cloth. Mercy smiled, recognizing the ingredients for all manner of potions Sairy had taught her to prepare – remedies for pestilence, headache, snakebite, and more.
One of the packets was especially familiar. It contained the ingredients for Sairy’s potion to treat the deadly fever sweeping the islands. Her nanny had brewed the secret draught over and over while nursing Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker, making Mercy drink it, too, as a precaution. Though she never fell ill herself, neither potions nor spells had been able to save her parents.
She bowed her head and let the tears flow, tears for her beloved papa. Tears for Madeline, her loving mother, whose name she’d borrowed for the mythical traveling companion she invented when the captain confronted her. Until that moment, Mercy thought she had no more tears to shed. She’d mourned her parents for days even as she nursed them. Blessed – or cursed – as she was with the gift of Sight, she’d known all the while they would not survive the horrible illness. It had been easy to make her fictional tale believable when it was based on grief so real, so raw.
Pulling herself together, she continued to unpack treasures and mementoes from home. A large flat wooden hairbrush… she’d put that to use right away. Sighing with pleasure, she stroked the brush through her long dark hair, trying to bring order to the unruly waves that sprang up whenever it was loose.
Once her tresses were under control, she laid the hairbrush on the table and reached back into the bag to find a white muslin shift like the ones she wore at home and a simple lavender gown with a rounded neckline, tightly cinched waist, and full skirt. Sairy must have sewn them in secret, squirreling the garments away in the bag until the awful night when they’d be needed.
She put those aside as well. Though comfortable and familiar, it wasn’t safe to wear such clothing aboard the ship. Her drab religious disguise would have to do, hot and heavy as it was.
In the bottom, her fingers closed around a pouch sagging under its weight. Spilling out the contents, she found a pile of gold coins, enough to guarantee her food and lodgings at any island port for months, and more to cover the fare on whatever ship she chose when it was safe to come home. Mercy guessed it was her papa’s doing. Sairy would have had no way of amassing such wealth. She must have confided in the master of Whitaker Hall, bringing him into her plan to smuggle his daughter off the island if – or when – it became necessary.
Without counting them, Mercy shoved the coins back into the pouch. When she laid it in the bottom of the satchel, her hand encountered one last object, wrapped in heavy dark cloth.
Pulling the final parcel from her bag, Mercy carefully unwrapped it. Underneath the rough cloth lay a familiar bundle of yellowing linen. With a catch in her throat, Mercy unveiled Sairy’s parting gift. Her treasured scrying mirror.
Footsteps near the door made her jump up, shoving the contents hastily back into the bag. She grabbed her long robes, still damp and rank with the odor of wet wool, yanking them over her naked body.
She was adjusting the veil, trying to cram her unruly flowing locks under it, when she heard the bar being lifted outside. A heavy hand pounded on the door.