***
Across London, dawn heralded a brief promise of spring as soft pink rays filtered through the window to surrender a rosy warmth to Silvia’s room. Sleepily rubbing her eyes, she slipped silently from beneath the covers, but any vestige of drowsiness left as her feet touched the cold floor.
In the corner a sturdy old carpet bag bulged with the belongings she had packed last evening. Carting a trunk to the docks without alerting Uncle Hollister to her departure would be impossible. But then she hardly had enough to fill a trunk and Mr. Wickes had said her wool clothes would be too hot for the climate on Schlange Island. He had assured her that once on the estate, fabric would be available to sew a few dresses.
Could it be true? She would leave without a confrontation? An uncomfortable impulse made her press her ear to the door. Guttural snores sounded through the house like the grating croak of a dozen bullfrogs. To date she had managed to keep her plans a secret, not daring to tell a soul lest Uncle Hollister hear of it.
The two weeks had passed with creeping slowness while Silvia counted days as anxiously as a child awaiting a visit from St. Nick. Now the day had arrived but with no joyous celebration. Instead only the ceremony of sorting through her things and discarding youthful dreams along with items she could not carry.
Tiptoeing cautiously around the room, she gathered the last of her dresses and folded them into the bag. Then with a doleful sigh slipping from her lips, she walked to the window and peered out. Her mind whirled in a maelstrom of emotions, for a moment spinning sadness, then excitement, then sorrow that she had no one to bid her goodbye.
Outside, the beginning of a fog floated in close to the ground, blanketing the streets with a thin ghostly mist and choking out the rays of sunshine with its dulling grayness. All the better, she thought pensively as she trailed a finger along the glass pane. In the cover of the fog she would be able to walk to the harbor unseen.
Her uncle had taken to leaving the house early and having his breakfast at the tavern where he no doubt washed it down with ale. When he left she could be on her way.
Since the night he had frightened Silvia in her room, she had struggled with an unnamable fear and avoided her uncle as much as possible. Doubts about leaving him, or of leaving London, had vanished during the strained days since that evening. But for having the sailing date in her mind, she could not have tolerated her plight at all.
Silvia pushed the bag beneath the bed and held her breath when she heard shuffling footsteps in the hall. Today he must not stop. She could not face him today. Surely if he saw her he would know, he would see her nervousness and know. She quickly climbed back in bed and pulled the heavy covers to her chin, hoping he would pass.
Quivering beneath the covers, her breath a mere whisper of sound, she waited to hear him leave. But the footsteps stopped and there was a thundering knock on her door.
“Missy. I heard you up.”
Her face whitened as his rough voice started a surge of panic in her veins. The door creaked open slightly as Silvia watched from half closed eyes. He poked his head inside but stood behind the threshold. There was an apologetic look in his red-veined eyes.
“Missy, don’t hold it hard against me. I meant no harm.
Was the liquor leadin’ me to do the wrongs I’ve done. An’ I’ve had the last of it. I won’t be liftin’ the cup again. Rest easy on it.” He paused and lowered his head. “You hear me, Missy?”
Silvia bit her lower lip to stop the erratic pounding of her heart. How many times had she heard him say there would be no more drinking? As many times as he had come in drunk again.
He sniffed. “You hear me, Missy?”
Silvia sighed deeply and mumbled, “I hear you Uncle Hollister. I’m glad. No more lifting the cup.”
His eyes swept to the foot of the bed where the carpet bag had been hastily stashed. Momentarily his expression hardened and he glanced at her sharply.
“I’ll be going out now. Business you know,” he declared with an ineffectual ring of kindness to his voice.
“Goodbye, Uncle Hollister,” she said gently as he closed the door and trudged nosily down the stairs.
When the front door closed, Silvia hastily pulled her bag from beneath the bed. She penned a brief message to her uncle telling him goodbye and asking that he not be concerned for her welfare.
With trembling fingers and eyes brimming full of warm tears, she propped the note on her dresser, knowing it would be evening before it was read.
A little gasp of sorrow sounded in her throat as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Then with a determined toss of her chin, Silvia reached for the doorknob.
Locked! He had locked her in! Her blood pounded in her temples. She was a prisoner. She pulled at the knob and pounded the door until her hands were sore then cried out in despair. The ship would sail without her.
Slumping to the floor, she smothered a sob. The windows on the street floor were barred. Tears welled in her eyes. All was lost. She had not been stealthy enough. He had guessed her plans to leave and proved it in the cruelest way. She felt a wrenching emptiness in her heart as she stood and twisted the knob again with all her might. But there was no use. There was no way out.
She gave a desperate little laugh, then swallowed hard and grabbed her bag. She would not be caught like a mouse in a trap. With energy born of defiance she climbed the stairs and quickly stripped the sheets from his mattress and hers. Knotting them together, she tied one end to her bag and the other to her bed frame.
A bump of the bag hitting the ground assured her the makeshift rope stretched far enough for climbing down. She started out the window, then stopped with a jolt at the click of a door opening and pounding footsteps on the stairs. A hard knot formed in her stomach; still she turned and raced to the bedroom door and jammed a chair against it. She felt her breath catch in her throat as the door was secured, then she shook herself into action once more and clambered out the window.
Silvia’s lips thinned with anger as she swung past the sill, half falling, half climbing to the alley below. Her breath gushed out as she dropped the last five feet, bruising her backside and not worrying about the noise. Above, the splintering sound of the door crashing in hurried Silvia to her feet.
“You’ve nowhere to go Missy! You’ll be back!” Uncle Hollister yelled contemptuously from the window.
Silvia turned and hurried away in the cover of the fog, following streets she knew as well as the back of her hand. Each footstep loosened a painful memory that burned like a scorching, silver flash in her mind. But with a spurring determination, she plunged on.
Soon the penetrating dampness came to her aid. Before walking far she was shivering with chill and concentrating on reaching her destination as quickly as possible with lessening fear her uncle could overtake her. As she approached the docks, where the activity of loading cargo had slowed or stopped as the fog grew denser, she thought only of Wilhelm Schlange and what awaited her in the colonies.
In the distance she could faintly distinguish the imposing lines of the Eastwind, a larger craft than those about her. A yellow flag emblazoned with an ogresish red serpent flapped a beckoning signal as it trailed from the main mast. Silvia sighted it through a thinning patch of fog and hastened along thankful for the foresight to have located the ship days before.
She could see the decks crowded with cargo. The hold had been left partially empty to accommodate a dozen bondservants bound for Schlange Island, she among them. The large overflow of barrels and crates were lashed topside, filling every available spot. Silvia breathed a sigh of relief to be so close, for moments earlier she had been startled by the whispered murmur of voices not far behind her.
Knowing the danger on the docks, her heels now clicked rapidly on the rough cobblestones as she hurried to board the Eastwind. Still there were bales and boxes of cargo to weave her way through before she could reach the ship.
“Do you see her?” a shrill, youthful voice pierced the fog no more
than four paces back.
Silvia drew a sharp breath and fear stabbed at her chest in a dozen places.
“Ahead by the bale!” another voice, a raspy one, answered from beyond the boxes.
Was it only her qualmish imagination or did they pursue her? Silvia darted forward, her eyes wild with fright. A sudden flux of sounds, the scrape of a box being moved, the clank of a chain against the side of a ship, joined the pounding of hurried footsteps behind her. A bitter taste of fear filled her mouth and her heart seemed to leap to her throat.
Just ahead she could make out the gangplank to the Eastwind. Safety was within sight. Shaking with fright, she thought of dropping her bag—the weight slowed her—but all she owned was within, even the crowns Mr. Wickes had advanced her. And then there was no time to think, no time to sound an alarm. Hands lurched out from the fog and caught her cloak on either side.
“Got her!” the raspy voice said and followed with a grating laugh that chilled Silvia’s blood. She screamed once and stumbled but got her footing and whirled away from the dark, angular shape at her right.
“Caught!” the shrill voice rang out at her left and echoed the harsh laughter.
Silvia knew in an instant of terror she had been stalked and hunted like a deer in the forest. In that same instant the assailants flipped the cloak over her head in a practiced move that covered her face and made her frenetic scream a muffled sound no louder than the groan of a tired dock hand. Fear flooded her brain as her breath was cut off by the suffocating cloak as they twisted it tightly, spinning her round and round until she lost her footing and crashed to the planking.
Her hands were useless, entangled helplessly in the garment. With a savage snarl, one of youths was upon her, running his hands over her body, searching for pockets and taking his pleasure in the touch as he went. She kicked and thrashed vehemently with her feet even as her strength faded, until one wild kick struck him in the groin.
“Help! ‘enry! She’s kilt me!” With a cry of pain the man fell away and began to writhe on the pavement beside her.
Silvia rolled to her knees and tried vainly to stand, but her feet were as entangled in her skirt as her arms were in the cloak. Unable to see, she scrambled away as best she could hoping to hide herself behind a box.
Henry dropped her bag and cursed as he watched her squirm for a few feet before he caught the hem of her skirt and yanked with all his might.
“She’s a live one, ain’t she,” he bellowed and then howled in laughter at the plight of his cohort. “Got you in the jewels, did she?” But he got no reply for Silvia had planted her foot soundly and it would be some time before the youth would want to molest a lady again.
Wiser than his crony, Henry knew a better way to search a flailing victim. He pressed her belly to the pavement and pinned her legs with his knees as he checked her pockets for coins or valuables. Finding none he cursed again and took a swipe at her head.
Silvia struggled, panic tearing at her insides. But with the youth resting his weight on her thighs the effort gained her little. She gasped in pain as he snatched her arms free of the cloak and twisted them behind her back. There he held them in the clamp of one hand while he ran the other up her back to claw at her neck and ears. Finding no jewelry, he turned his attention to her hands. He was not long in discovering the gold band on her hand and began wrenching it roughly from her finger.
She had used the small supply of air within the enveloping cloak with muffled screams and shouts for help and now the smothering blackness enveloped her brain like the lowering of an ebony curtain. In her fading thoughts she feared they meant to kill her. Her limbs went limp and yet she clenched her hand into a fist. She would as soon die as part with the ring. If he wanted it, he must cut it from her lifeless form.
A sudden easing of the weight on her back brought a welcome breath of air as she was able to roll to her side and brace with numb hands. She tried to rise to a sitting position but her quaking limbs would not support her. Instead she drew her arms and legs into a tight ball as she heard a new voice, one strong and angry as it uttered a violent curse.
“Up! Mangy cur!” Even in her terrified state Silvia knew the sound of flesh striking flesh and recognized that of bone crunching.
With her eyes still shielded by the soiled, damp cloak she heard the drama around her, agonizing cries of pain, the thump of bodies hitting the dock and then the scraping footsteps of men running and dragging away.
“Bloody bandits!” a voice not far from her bellowed to the departing youths and then followed the shout with a caustic curse.
Silvia gasped as another voice, very like the other, though calm and mellow, rang out. “And what have we here, Roman? Some elfin creature with legs and no head?” He spoke with a teasing rail but there was an underlying kindness in the tone.
“Aye. And shapely ones at that,” the other responded. His voice was soothing and without the anger, rich and deep and sweet to her ears. Even in her agitated state she envisioned a face to match the voice, one strong and handsome and certainly with kindness in the eyes.
A gentle movement lifted the cloak from her head and she parted the hair fallen over her eyes. Her combs had been lost in the struggle and her dark hair fell in a snarl of tangles above a face smeared with dirt and grime from the dock. Beside her knelt a man dressed in dove gray trousers and waistcoat beneath a heavy cloak of a charcoal color. A diamond pin set in gold sparkled in the white silk jabot at his throat.
Silvia’s lower lip trembled as she looked into the face that regarded her curiously. His eyes were like blue flames and the kindness was only a flicker subject to come and go at will. His flaxen hair was long and tied at the back of his neck with a black ribbon. The face was fetchingly handsome, the nose straight with nostrils still wide from anger, the cheekbones high and the chin squared and strong. He had a sensuous twist to his mouth and there she could detect a small vestige of arrogance.
“Are you hurt?” he asked softly, a frown creasing his brow. His fingers gently caressed a bruise on her chin. In a moment she could have melted into the fire in his eyes, forgotten why he was there, how they had come to be so close she could feel his breath brushing her cheek. A half smile crossed his lips, then changed to a brooding scowl. “Madame, you should choose your customers with more care,” he said curtly, taking her arms and helping her to her feet. “That one could do with better manners.”
Silvia’s jaw dropped. She jerked her arms free. “I beg your pardon, sir!” she sputtered with churning anger. Shaking out her cloak with a haughty flourish, she swung it about her shoulders. “The swains set on me to rob and kill.” Her eyes blazed with fury. She might have stung his handsome face with a slap, but her strength was spent. “Grateful as I am for your intervention, I’ll thank you not to tarnish my good name.” With an angry stamp of her foot, she continued indignantly, “Good sir, a lady might land on her back and not make a living that way.”
“Forgive my brother, Madame. ‘Tis the company he keeps. Doesn’t know a ‘lady’ when he sees one.”
There was a bandinage of laughter in the face Silvia saw when she whirled to confront the man behind her, but the jesting look was directed at his companion. The man was about the same height and build as the other and for a moment she thought she was seeing double. But he was dressed in brown, in garments as rich as those worn by the other. His cream shirt was trimmed with lacy ruffles at the sleeves and at his neck. His cloak was a dark shade of brown and fastened with a leather tie. The greatest difference in the two was in the eyes; his were a milder blue, that of a summer sky, softer and less serious, less mocking.
He smiled and made a slight bow. “My brother has not learned his manners.” His eyes were consoling and she blushed faintly as Morgan Toller took her smudged hand and raised it to his lips.
“I apologize, miss. One doesn’t expect to find a ‘lady’on the docks.” Her first rescuer’s derisive tone seared her nerves as he made a gallantly mocking bow. Kneeling again, h
e retrieved his hat from the pavement and collected her bag from where it had fallen a few feet away. “Allow us to escort you to your destination. A ‘lady’ isn’t safe alone.”
Silvia whirled and jauntily placed her hands on her hips. She knew she did not appear the least bit ladylike. Her hair still streamed over her dirt stained face. Her skirts and cloak, she could see, were covered in filth from the docks and reeked of something foul she dared not think about. Still, the man before her in all his finery, was insufferable and persisted in adding one insult to another.
With a temperate smile hiding her anger, she replied coolly, “Sir, you have most kindly rescued me but I will trouble you no further. I have only a little way to go and I am certain those two will not return.” A kick to her rescuers shin would have satisfied her better, but she deliberately held her tone soft, as she added, “In truth sir, I fear I would be no safer in your company.”
“A pity, Miss.” He tilted his head to one side and his blazing eyes seemed to strip her garments away. “I thought perhaps we might share a few pleasant hours.” The low chuckle of his laughter stung her ears as she hoisted her bag and spun away.
Was this side of the ocean filled with boors and villains? She could not remember a single man since her father who had shown her lasting kindness and consideration. All others had wanted something they were not entitled to in return. Her frown did her face no favors but she did not care for her appearance or how it was received. She had but a few feet and a few hours to put an ocean between her and those who had roughly used her in this land, her uncle, those ruffians, and the two men with their costly clothes and pretentious manner.
“Good riddance,’ she whispered to them all. She could at least content herself she would see none of them again.
Chapter 3