The Bride of Blackbeard (4 page)

She fought her way through the blackened
snow-filled streets of Bristol.

After what seemed an eternity, they entered
the warm pub. Sitting her baby brother on the bar, she dropped her
eyes to the floor.

The bartender, an attractive woman in her
fortieth year, took one look at the shiner on her cheek. “Not
again. What is it this time, love?”

Tears welled in her eyes.

No, I will not cry. If I cry, he wins again
and I only bring shame upon myself.

Pressing her lips together, she squared her
shoulders and blinked back the tears. “The apothecary needs
payment, or we will only have the medicines from the herb garden.
Unfortunately, last year was not a productive crop and my supplies
are low.”

“
All right then. Take William upstairs,
love.”

After complying, Constanza re-entered the
bar and drew an apron tightly around her slim body, then picked up
the first night’s round of drinks. If she worked ‘til closing, she
should have enough to get through—this time.

~ * ~

Eyes fluttering open to the day, Constanza
smiled. As far as she could cipher, this grand morning was day one
hundred and twenty, and land—beautiful dry unmoving land—should be
within sight in the next twenty-four hours. The three of them had
made it through their ordeal alive, albeit each was a good fifteen
pounds lighter.

Katrina of course was the most distressed.
“Constanza? How will I ever land a husband with a body so frail?
Why, I look like you!”

Will's eyes were shadowed with dark half
moons below them, which she knew to be a mineral deficiency of some
sort. She was only able to bring a few of her medical books aboard
as they had barely enough for the reduced passage on what she’d
surmised to be a rumrunner.

A small hole had been chewed in one of the
hold’s barrels by Teredo worms. The ship must have been in tropical
climates prior to this voyage by her estimation. Tropical water
weeds were still being removed from the ship’s hull, and the
mollusks, or pileworms, had not only burrowed into some of the
barrels of the precious rum, but into the ship’s wooden hull as
well. Their tube like shell structures could be seen outside as
long as six feet in some places. She’d spied them while hanging her
head over the side during the first two weeks. Vomiting into the
sea had become her favorite way to pass the time. From years spent
with her uncle, she knew the worms could actually compromise the
stability of a ship.

Wouldn’t that be just grand if, during the
last days of the voyage, the ship sprung a leak and sent us to the
bottom for naught?

She suppressed a bitter smile. On this
subject she uttered a word to no one.

Before their departure, she’d given her
books to her uncle and had decided she would write to him and have
them sent when funds and circumstances permitted.

A loud bang rent the air. Musket fire? All
about the cabin, tired heads lifted in response to the unusual
early morning sound.

Boom! The entire hull shook with the
vibration.

Constanza saw Will place a protective arm
about Katrina's shoulders, as she filed in with the queue of men
headed topside to investigate the disturbance.

The men's upturned faces were drenched by a
deluge streaming from the topside hole. A storm, a
squall
raged in the sky above. Pushing her way through the sodden crowd,
she saw sailors quickly battening down hatches and preparing for
the storm. The captain ferociously barked orders right and left,
his huge frame working at steering the craft.

Constanza lurched as the boat's starboard
side raised high on a wave. All men topside plummeted to the deck.
An ear-splitting crack occurred as the vessel ran aground. Massive
swells, sheer walls of water, pummeled the deck. Every man tied
himself to the rigging. She wondered if this were a hurricane.

“The Diamond Shoals, Captain! We are done
for!” yelled one crewmember.

“You directionless fool!” Teache screamed at
his first mate. The captain’s hand strayed to his pistol, but then
his gaze met Stanzy's and he replaced it on the wheel.

She squinted and shielded her eyes to ward
off the driving rain, trying to assess how far from shore the
vessel had lodged itself.

Who is that? Or what is that
?

A lone figure stood on the sands of what was
presumably the Hatteras coastline waving his arms. He beckoned them
eerily to the shore. Jack, the Sheep dog, bounded from below deck
as if hearing a dog whistle and began to run back and forth beside
the rail. The first mate came over and tied a rope to Jack’s neck
and pitched the dog into the roaring waves.

Stanzy screamed, “What are you doing?” She
was soon joined by a wailing Will who’d just witnessed his dog
chucked overboard.

“Miss, it may be our only chance. Me last
squall, a horse was thrown over and took the rope to shore, and we
were able to make it through the waves.”

Constanza crawled up onto the deck. “No,
Will, stay down there!”

Katrina appeared as hands pulling her
brother out of sight and back into the hull’s topside hole.

Constanza struggled with the wet knot as she
tethered herself to the rigging. She held her breath as she watched
the Sheep dog’s progress through the Atlantic water. His furry ears
dipped below the waves and reappeared too many times for her to
count. All the while, the stranger at the shore kept beckoning.

After what seemed like years, the dog
reached the shore, and the man placed the rope around a huge
tree.

“Get rid of the cargo!” yelled the first
mate. He entered the hull, adding, “If ye want to live, do as I
say!”

~ Chapter Two ~

Passengers lined up on the ladder and
underneath in the hull, waiting to take the plunge into the
Atlantic water.

“Will, Kitty, come to me!” Constanza
screamed over the howling wind. They hurried to her side. “Kitty,
go first, I will watch you and keep Will with me.” Taking a rope,
she tied Will to her torso.

Kitty slowly ascended down the rope. The
ship lunged toward the water, nearly on its side, plunging her into
the water.

Constanza tried to push her uncle’s voice
from her head which echoed the sailor’s nickname for the sea off
the barrier islands—
The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

“Don’t let go!” Constanza screamed into the
gale. She began her own descent and felt Will struggling behind
her. “Pray, Will,” she yelled over the cacophonous combination of
wind, water, and wailing passengers.

She felt rather than heard him mumble, until
waves hit and forced them under. Wave after wave pushed them
beneath the salty water. Desperately clutching the rope with both
hands, she inched her way toward the shore. Fear surged through her
as she realized something was in front of her. Tentatively reaching
out, she felt her sister's hair.

Stanzy gently shoved Kitty to indicate her
presence behind her on the rope. “We are going to make it,” she
muttered optimistically.
I have to keep them safe. Please, God,
do not let them die. I am responsible—for them—for all of this.
Please, not here. Do not let us die under the waves
.

A wall of water crashed down on them,
sending them surging to the sandy floor. They had reached the
breakers. With every ounce of remaining strength, Stanzy kicked and
swam toward the surface. Then she watched with joy as Katrina
fought past the breakers.

Will was still tied to Constanza’s back, but
even with her excellent physical strength, she knew the battle was
futile. She gasped for air moments before another swell hit. She
knew Will wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, his
eleven-year-old lungs not strong enough.

Miraculously, sand scraped against the side
of her face as she hit the sandbar. Sand!
We are close to shore.
I must get to the top of the water
. She forced her legs beneath
her and flailed for the bottom, for somewhere to stand.

Unsure of what she was feeling next, she
realized hands were pulling her up—up to the water’s surface. They
breached the surface and gasped for air; she couldn’t see her
rescuer. When she glanced to the right, she saw many men in the
surf, fishing humans out from under the waves. All the while, the
storm raged. Water fell in diagonal sheets across the white tipped
waves.

Oh thank you. Thank you.

Jack stood on the shore, cowering under a
tree, loyally awaiting his master. Blackness closed her vision to a
pinprick... then all went quiet.

~ * ~

The smell of bread baking permeated her
senses. For a moment she was disoriented. Mama baked bread almost
every morning, but Mama was long gone. Stanzy bolted stark upright,
her eyes searching as she assessed her surroundings. Vaulting out
of bed—the world swooned like a night spent drinking. Vertigo
smacked her in the head, the room undulating around her. She
collapsed to her knees, disgorging seawater all over the floor.

On all fours, she crawled away from the
remnants of her last meal, forcing herself across the room. Another
bed was barely visible in the moonlight. Struggling to a stand, she
peered over its side. In the dim candlelight, she made out the
forms of her brother and sister.

We are all alive, but where are we? How
did we get here
?

Silently slumping to the floor, her face in
her hands, she muffled uncontrollable sobs. Not often did she
permit herself the luxury of crying. At an early age she’d learned
that weeping in her household was a useless emotion, and never made
any of her problems disappear. Ever since Mama died eleven years
ago at the time of Will’s birth, Stanzy, at sixteen, had started
living the life of an adult. Katrina and Will’s reliance on her
used to frighten her. But now she had little time to worry, her
daily thoughts consumed with the responsibility of trying to keep
all of them alive and out of harm’s way.

Tears stung her sand chafed cheeks like
acid. Once she opened the floodgates, it became almost impossible
to halt. All the closed Pandora’s boxes of her mind, filled with
hateful memories, sprung open. Her mama had once said, ‘Once the
door to a closed soul is opened, it is not easily shut.’
How
right she was!

Mama, why did you have to leave me to care
for them alone? I do not think I can live one more day in this
soul. We are destitute, and I don’t know if I will even be able to
feed them tonight. What was I thinking...to leave all I have known
behind? I do not know the land, the customs, or where to begin. I
am not strong enough to bear this much longer.

For just a moment, she allowed herself the
luxury of imagining what it would be like to have someone hold
her
and tell her everything would be all right. She hadn’t
been comforted in such a way since the age of sixteen.

A low moan arose from the bed as Will
thrashed against the blankets wrapped about him. A small column of
light shone across the bed. Framed in the doorway, a man was in
silhouette. At five feet nine inches, Stanzy was considered tall
for a woman, and she guessed the stranger to be about six feet.

His voice whispered into the darkness, “Miss
Smythe, are you all right?”

Startled, she responded, “How do you know my
name?”

“Come out here, let the others sleep.
Especially the boy, he was almost overcome.” His shadowy hand
beckoned to her in the darkness.

She walked toward him into the faint
candlelight. She stopped in her tracks dumbfounded.

He is beautiful.

The man’s hair and eyes were dark and
somber, his face housed a small half moon scar by the corner of his
mouth.

Is he blushing because I am staring at him?
Stop staring! I am an imbecile!

One hand fidgeted, twirling his hat round
and round. The other he thrust out. “I am Lucian Blackwell. I was
sent to Hattaras by my employer to collect you and your family to
bring you all back to StoneWater.”

“Oh, I see.” A raucous laugh shifted her
staring at the man. Looking down over a banister, she deduced the
accommodations to be a pub. Morning patrons shuffled about, intent
on breakfast.

“As you surmised, I am Constanza Smythe, and
in the bed are my sister, Katrina, and my brother, William. I am
the one who has been hired to be the governess to the Hopkins’
children.”

“Yea, I figured you were the governess as
you are the older one...” He blushed scarlet, apparently realizing
too late the faux pas. He added hastily, “I mean older is fine. I
am older...” With that final pronouncement, he turned a shade of
puce she’d never witnessed in all of her days.

“Pa!” called a boy from behind the man. “Is
the boy around yet?”

Lucian held up a hand to quiet the lad.
“That’s my boy. His name is Benjamin. Ever since he heard you were
arriving he has been very anxious to meet your brother. StoneWater
has few boys and many girls, so he insisted I bring him despite the
‘cane. Besides, I was born and raised here; we Bankers see canes
each and every year.”

Constanza smiled at him.

His countenance is so open. I wonder if he
is always this way. Not that I care—the child sitting at the bar is
proof he is not available. Even if I were interested—which I am
not.

“Who pulled me from the water?” she asked,
trying not to think about his handsome appearance; trying to ignore
how close he stood and how wonderful he smelled—a decidedly
masculine scent of soap and leather.

“I did.” He smiled and it took her breath
away. “I saw you with the boy tied to your back, so I knew you
would not last long in that surf. The swells must have been fifteen
feet. You were very brave to come here with them in tow.”

“Not too brave, but practical. We do what we
must to get along.”