Chapter 1 #2
He’d made Alexander a promise to protect the child of Edward’s second wife.
Her story had played out like a tragic melodrama.
Edward had married Dulcina, but in a tangled web of love, it was his brother, Alexander, who she had fallen in love with and him with her.
Their passion was unbridled, their love obvious – even to the wronged fiancé, Edward.
But he’d loved his brother, knew him for what he was.
And anyway, this was his wife. He would honour his vows.
Joseph knew all this. On Dulcina’s death, Edward had been unable to look upon the child of his brother’s lust without a pain stabbing at his heart.
That was why he’d let his family believe the child had died.
In truth, he’d sent her away to be raised by a nurse.
He rarely saw the child. But he did allow for her in his will.
They’d never spoken of the child’s parentage or Edward’s fears about how his family would treat her once he was dead and gone.
Sometimes his old friend could be na?ve in the extreme, his Christian values that rubbed so easily alongside his physical appetites, too generous to the ways of men.
He’d never given much account to jealousy and greed, a dire failing in Joseph’s opinion.
‘I have settled enough on her to make up for her deficiencies,’ Sir Edward had said to him.
‘Her mother…’ He’d bent his head and rubbed at his temples, as though the very thought of her made his head ache as much as his heart.
‘I should not have married her mother. She was not mine to love, but for the sake of propriety… As for the child…’
That was when O’Neill had voiced his fears and made his promise to take care of the child when Sir Edward was gone.
‘They will find out and your sons are very protective of their inheritance – including that of your elder brother. He’ll never marry. Not now. I think you know that.’
Edward had finally seen the light.
‘I fear you are right, my old friend, and only regret not facing it sooner. My family will not be very forgiving. They will not wish to share. They will not relish the thought of her having the blood that she does.’
Just as O’Neill had guessed, there followed bequests to the African women who had warmed Edward’s bed over the years. Both they and the children they’d borne him were given their freedom.
‘…though only if they be baptised into the Christian faith as practised by the Church of England, or that of Methodism or Quakerism…’
The darkness hid the captain’s slow smile. No reference to the Catholic Church. Edward had always held a bias simply because his first wife had been of that persuasion. She’d also been as sardonic and cruel as her sons; an heiress but a difficult woman to get on with.
He narrowed his eyes and stiffened as he waited for what he knew had to come next.
‘To the child, Lochranza Kildare, daughter of my deceased second wife, Dulcina Kildare, I leave a yearly bequest of five hundred pounds. If said child is not alive at the time of my death, then said bequest shall be divided between the children of my marriage to my first wife, Constantia Jowell…’
No one who could do anything about it saw the look that ran from Sir Edward’s sons to his daughters except for Captain Joseph O’Neill. It was only a matter of time before they acted to right what they perceived as a wrong. He had to move fast to keep his promise.
At a nod from Peter Kildare, an overseer lately brought in by the brothers distanced himself from the gathering.
He’d been standing on the periphery, specifically waiting for this moment.
Thirty minutes and he’d be a few miles from Kingston and not far from the door of Mama Molly, the old nurse who’d been charged with the child’s upbringing.
O’Neill couldn’t allow him to leave before he did. He had to get to the child first.
The stables were a long barn, the stalls ranged on either side of a flag-stoned walkway.
O’Neill recollected that there was a set of double doors at one end.
He heard one of the doors being dragged open and saw the outline of the overseer pass through it.
O’Neill weighed up the height, weight and probable fitness of his adversary.
The man was tall and broad, although that didn’t necessarily mean he was strong.
It never paid to underestimate an opponent. He was probably carrying a knife.
Sliding quietly through the open door, he kept to the shadows, feeling his way past the first stalls to the one where a horse grunted and stomped, annoyed at being disturbed.
Sinking silently to his knees, O’Neill peered to where a lantern picked out the dirty brown boots, the smeared britches and a knee brought sharply into the horse’s side when it failed to keep still to be saddled.
With unnecessary heavy-handedness, the overseer began to lead the reluctant creature from the stall.
The horse made sounds of protestation as the man jerked at the bit, giving no care at all for the blood trickling from the tender mouth.
Filling up with anger, O’Neill stepped out in front of him and a slow sneer crossed the man’s ugly face, the pockmarked cheeks as pitted as an orange.
The man spat in contempt, the phlegm barely missing the toe of O’Neill’s boots. The overseer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Out of my way. I’ve got a job to do.’
O’Neill’s stomach churned. ‘Sir Edward wouldn’t want it.’
The man’s sneer widened. ‘Dead men got no say in this world.’
He discerned a twitching of the man’s right hand, but even before it flashed into the open, he was ready for the hard glint of the steel blade.
Rolling its eyes as it scented danger, the horse reared and backed off, its hooves flailing dangerously close to O’Neill’s head as both he and the overseer fell to the floor.
Fingers made strong by hauling ropes in his seagoing days gripped the wrist of the hand clasping the knife.
The man struggled and reached for a wooden pail, meaning to smash it over O’Neill’s head.
He warded the blow off with his free hand.
As he did, the knife flexed slightly. He corrected immediately, but in doing so the blade swerved and as he pushed it back, the overseer jerked, the knife slicing across his throat.
Panting and counteracting a wave of panic, O’Neill got to his feet and took a step back from the prone figure.
He looked down at himself and smelled death even before he saw the blood on his shirt and his hands.
He looked around him. Not a soul in sight.
He listened. Nothing, not a sound, at least not yet.
He thought quickly and went straight to the obvious. This was murder. No doubt about it. In Sir Edward’s day sitting on the bench, he would have got a fair trial, but now? The family would make sure he hanged, and the child would disappear as if she had never been born.
The man was no lightweight, but then neither was he.
Dragging the body outside, O’Neill stuffed him behind a tangle of perfumed shrubs.
Not quite thick enough. Using his sword, he sliced off more branches and pushed them in place.
With a bit of luck, the body would not be discovered for another twelve hours.
It wasn’t long but might give him time to collect the child and escape.
He reached for the horse’s reins, all the time his soft voice quelling the creature’s fear, his hand stroking the muscular neck.
The horse nickered softly as he led it out of the stable. Once clear, he sprang onto its back and urged it forward into a night of tropical storm brewing in the sky. Only once they were on the open track leading to Kingston did he dig his heels into its side with more urgency.