Heart's Ransom

  * * *

  “Are you close to your father, Kitty?”

  Evening had fallen, bringing an end to what Kitty had to admit was an enjoyable afternoon.

  Rafe had not touched any wine all day, even now, over supper, as had been customary for him. She had enjoyed him sober, finding him to be well-mannered, well-read and even graced with a clever sense of humor that had left her snorting in definitively unladylike fashion on more than one occasion that afternoon. She blinked at the sound of his voice, his unexpected question. They had both been minding that condition of their truce since her earlier, disastrous mention of his father. That he would broach the subject now―something that had repeatedly ended up as an argument between them―and after such a pleasant day left her surprised.

  “Yes, Rafe,” she replied carefully, seeing an opportunity to appeal to him, a chance for her to continue her plan. “I’m very close to my father.”

  “Even though he travels out to sea often?”

  Kitty nodded. “He keeps journals for me when he is away, and during his leaves in between voyages, he reads them aloud to me. He says for him, it is like having me aboard ship with him, and he writes each entry as if he was talking to me, telling me of his day aloud. And for me, it is like I get to leave the Wight for awhile each time he reads to me. I get to sail away with him.”

  Rafe was quiet for a long moment, giving no indication she could discern that he would continue the conversation. She was unwilling to let it lie, however; she had only a few precious days left if she hoped to soften his heart, get him to abandon his plans and spare her father.

  “He brings me stones from each of the places he visits,” she said. “Nothing fancy or large, just small little pebbles, usually from beaches, and worn smooth from the waves. I even have one from the colonies that he brought back for me.”

  She smiled, remembering when John Ransom had given that one to her. She had been fifteen years old, and he had presented it to her upon his return from a nearly year-long voyage overseas.

  “It is sharp at the tip, kitten. Have a care,” John had said, pressing the slender, relatively flat stone against her outstretched palm.

  She remembered the cool feel of it against her skin, the way the smooth blade of rock had been repeatedly cleaved into sharp-edged planes, shaped broadly with flared edges at the base and tapered to a crude point at the tip.

  “It is an arrow head,” her father had told her as she had cradled the stone with wide-eyed amazement. “Native savages made it. There are places in the colonies as civilized any any here in England,with storefronts and houses, rutted streets and horsedrawn carriages, where the people have manners and the gentry are well-served.”

  His voice had lowered when next he spoke, offering his words in a low, ominous tone. “But there are places beyond these―wild places, wholly untamed, where man and beast live side by side and nigh indistinguishable from one another.”

  Kitty had gasped in appropriate horror. “It is a savage country, with natives who run about unclothed and immoral,” John had told her. “Sometimes they attack colony villages or frontier forts, or they lie in wait to pounce against unsuspecting travelers. My man, Godfrey Hambleden from Boston, picked that out of a wagon slat after a venture into the wilds. He said the savages fired at him from all sides, but he managed to outpace them.”

  “Did you see any, Daddy?” she had whispered in awe. “Did you see any savages?”

  John had chuckled, brushing his hand fondly against her hair. “None outside of Boston’s social circles, I am afraid, kitten.”

  Kitty smiled at the fond recall; the arrow head was one of her most treasured possesions. “I keep them all in a box tucked beneath my bed, and whenever he is away and I get lonely for him, I take them out and I feel them, one at time. I try to imagine Daddy picking each one out for me, what he was doing, what the air smelled like, what it felt like when he found them. It is almost as if he is there, in the room with me.”

  Again, Rafe said nothing, and Kitty grew somewhat uncomfortable. It was the first time all day that it had felt awkward between them, and she was not sure what she had said or done to make it so. “And you?” she asked, forcing a smile onto her face, a note of brightness into her voice. “Are you…were you close to your father?”

  She gritted her teeth and struggled not to grimace or groan aloud at that blunder. Nicely done, Catherine, she told herself. Brilliantly played.

  “No,” Rafe said, and she heard the soft scraping of his fork tines against his plate as he pushed it about absently. He offered a quiet, decidedly humorless laugh. “As it turns out, I knew my father even less than I thought.”

  She thought he meant to end it there, and after this near-miss of yet another heated argument between them, Kitty was perfectly willing to let it lie.

  “I was always a bit of a disappointment to my father,” Rafe said, surprising her. His voice was quiet, nearly distant, filled with a sort of forlorn candor. “My mother died when Cristobal was born, and he was away at sea so often, I don’t really remember much of him from my childhood. He worked very hard. When I was a boy, there was no grand ships like this one. There were only three small fishing boats that he had scrimped and saved to purchase. He worked from sunrise to sunset, day after day, gone sometimes weeks at a time, just to pay his crew and have enough coins to keep me and Cristobal clothed and fed. I minded my brother and home while he was gone. He worked very hard.”

  Rafe said this with an almost childlike sort of pride, the way a young boy who admired and wished to emulate his father might have. She heard his fingertips pat against his empty wine glass as he took it in hand. She felt disappointed, waiting for the inevitable tinkling sound as he touched the decanter to the lip of the cup, filling it for the first of likely countless drinks. He had promised her he wouldn’t drink anymore, and even though she had not expected to hold him to his word, she had enjoyed so much of his company today when he had not been under the wine’s influence.

  “My training as a physician was not a reward, a benefit of my father’s wealth or status,” Rafe said. “He was a poor man when I left my home. He knew a man, a physician named Lucio Guevarra Silva who lived in Madrid. He did a favor for my father, and because my father could not afford to pay Lucio, he sent me away to the mainland to study with him. I was thirteen years old. He did it to punish me.”

  Kitty blinked, her breath stilled. “Punish you?” What crime could a young boy have committed that would be horrendous enough to warrant banishment?

  “Yes,” Rafe replied. “And I went without protest because I wanted to please him. All of my life, I wanted that.” He was still toying with the cup. She could hear him, even though he had yet to pour any wine into it. He wanted to; she could tell by the anxious cadence of his fingertips against the glass as he turned it this way and that. He very much wanted to drink.

  “While I was away, my father grew to be very successful,” he said. “He ventured into the shipping business just before I was sent to Madrid. That was when he began to make more than just a pittance. He became the wealthiest man in our village, Santa Ponca, in fact, and one of the richest in all of Mallorca. He was what is called hidalgo de carta in the Spanish gentry, meaning he received his title from King Philip. Hidalgo is the lowest form of peerage, but to my father, it was as great a title as any Count or Duke. Nearly every man in Santa Ponca worked for my father, either here aboard El Verdad, or aboard his other frigate, La Venganza. That meant he was responsible for the income and well-being of almost everyone in Santa Ponca. He took his responsibilities to them very seriously.”

  But what about to you, Rafe―his own son? Kitty thought. She did not understand how anyone could barter away their son, no matter how poor, and under the cruel pretense of punishment.

  After a long moment of tapping and turning the glass in his hand, she heard him set it against the table, abandoning it. “He sent money regularly to Lucio to take care of me,” he said, as if he had read Kitty’s
mind and heard her plaintive question. “And I learned a great deal from Lucio. He came from a long line of physicians. His grandfather had taught his father, and his father, in turn, had taught him. Because Lucio had no sons of his own, he taught me.”

  His voice softened, the sorrow lifting, and she thought he might have smiled. “That is his box in the wardrobe, his medicinal crate. He left it to me when he died. It is all his recipes, the poultices and elixirs, his bottles and vials. I like to think of him when I touch them―like you, with your pebbles, I suppose.”

  Kitty smiled.

  “They are his surgical tools, too,” Rafe said. “Including that scalpel you had hidden under your pillow.”

  Kitty’s smile faltered. She felt her face grow ashen as all of the blood drained in a startled, horrified rush.

  “I found it this morning,” Rafe said. “But I had noticed it missing before that. It is alright. I suppose I deserve whatever you had intended for me with it.”

  Kitty gulped for breath. “I…I did not intend anything with it,” she stammered. “I just…I was keeping it just in case. As leverage.”

  “It is alright,” Rafe said again. “I do not blame you.”

  Silence fell between them. Kitty did not know what to say. She was too aghast; she could hardly breathe. She strained to listen for any hint of movement or reaction from Rafe. No matter what he had said, surely he was angry with her for hiding the blade. Surely he would say more on the matter.

  “Your father sounds like a good man,” Rafe said at last. Of all the things she had been anticipating to come out of his mouth, this was not among them. She blinked at him, startled anew.

  “I…yes,” she said. “He is, yes. He is a very good man.”

  “Mine was, too,” Rafe said, but all at once, Kitty could not decide who he was trying more to convince―her, or himself.