Melody laughed, Pedro stirred, went on sleeping.
“There are other ways of getting pregnant,” she observed, still a little giggly, like the naughty schoolgirl she often longed to be again.
“Urgh,” Henrietta retorted. “How do you tell a kid they were conceived with a turkey baster or a pipette or something?”
Again, Melody sniggered.
“You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?” Although it was meant jokily, she was immediately aware that she might have inadvertently touched a raw nerve. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so…”
“No, I think about it a lot, actually. I always have. I have met nice men. Men I could bear to do ‘it’ with, I just don’t want to do the boy-girl marriage thing, till death us do part. I know I’d be unhappy. Sure, I could bump into the right man. Somebody who’d be a perfect social companion and not want much more; but how many men like that are there out there? So, yes, I’ve thought about the other ways I could be a mother.”
Melody kissed her cheek.
“You could have affairs?”
“I’m a De L’Isle,” Henrietta replied primly. “Just being with you, risks a huge scandal back home. I know Mummy knows about you, for all I know, Daddy does too. but I couldn’t bear it if there was a scandal…”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“But you still slept with Alonso?”
Belatedly, Melody realised she was being teased.
“Yes, it was lovely. For the record, I’m completely unrepentant about it!” She sighed. “Like I am for every time we’ve been… intimate together.”
Henrietta moved onto her knees and the women kissed, long and unhurriedly in the gloom.
They were only disturbed when there was a loud cough and the lights suddenly blazed into life, dazzling the women.
“Sorry to interrupt you two ladies,” Paul Nash chortled, viewing the women through the rusty iron bars of the cell door, “we have to be on our way!”
The cell door clanked open.
“Men!” Melody complained, briefly nuzzling her lover’s brow: “their timing really sucks sometimes!” She and Henrietta struggled to their feet. “Well, apart from Alonso, obviously,” she sighed wistfully.
“Where is Albert?” Henrietta asked as the man led the way down the alley outside the lock-up.
“I had to leave him behind to guard the boat. It’s five or six miles downstream.”
Melody was carrying Pedro.
“You left him on his own with strangers? Out here? After what we’ve already been through?”
“Yes,” the man shrugged, as if to say: “Get real. You know as well as I do, that I am here to rescue Henrietta; you and Stanton are just along for the ride!”
Henrietta stepped forward.
“I’ll drive if you want,” she offered brightly, with just a hint of genteel sarcasm. “Just so your hands are free if you need to shoot somebody.”
“Hen can drive,” Melody confirmed, remembering that first time she had visited the Governor’s Residence at Williamsburg. Henrietta had been waiting for her with her battered Land Rover.
“I know,” the man re-joined. “You can’t. Or don’t, nobody knows why.”
“I never got around to learning,” Melody countered more waspishly than she intended. She changed the subject: “How did you find a boat?”
“It was just floating there.”
“Seriously?”
“No. I offered the owner this car in exchange for it.”
“I thought we were going to have to hide the car?”
“Change of plan. I know how sensitive you ladies are about me killing people. I could have just shot the fellow and stolen his boat. It’s not too late to switch to that plan…”
“No, no…”
The man dropped into the passenger seat as Henrietta fired up the motor.
“Seriously,” he said, turning to ensure that Melody and Pedro were safely ensconced on the back seat. “This actually works better than us trying to hide the car. This way the locals will do a much better job hiding it, and even if the authorities stumble across it, it will take forever for them to work if the locals or somebody else killed those Inquisitors outside Pelayos. Yes, sooner or later, they’d put the pieces together but we’ll be long gone by then.”
“Can I turn the headlights on?” Henrietta sked.
“No,” the man said.
“Okay,” the Governor of New England’s youngest daughter acknowledged, not remotely troubled as the Blohm and Mertz rumbled down the road by the light of the stars. “Just don’t blame me if I scratch the paintwork!”
“That’s a deal,” the man grunted. “Melody, you and the kid get down low. Things will get nasty if the locals have thrown Albert’s body in the river while I’ve been away.”
Melody started doing what she was told.
“Is that likely?” Henrietta inquired, horrified.
“In this country, anything is possible,” the women’s guardian angel observed laconically.
Melody hugged Pedro to herself in the footwell behind the front seats.
The World has gone mad!
Chapter 20
Monday 10th April
Little Inagua, West Indies
Overnight, Ted Forest had started to run a fever, and slept fitfully. At first light Abe had abandoned any thought of moving to the first of the three pre-scouted shooting positions along the quarter mile of scrubby dunes nearest to the ships anchored off shore. His friend had cavilled – a little angrily – about the delay, like any Englishmen, he was mortified to be the cause of delaying his King’s enemies their just deserts for a single second.
“It’s a little hazy still,” Abe had consoled him. This was only a tiny white lie, in a few minutes the ‘sighting conditions’ would be perfect. However, from their experience thus far on the island the light would be just as ideal three hours from now as it would be in the next few minutes, and besides, he was not going to be doing his best shooting if he was worried sick about his friend. In that, at least, he was not his father’s son. In tribal legend the Hunter had been able to shut out the troubles of the world, all doubts, even his love for and devotion to Abe’s mother, when he had his prey in the cross hairs.
No, he would never be capable of shutting thoughts of Kate, or their son or of life friends, like Ted, out of his thoughts. He and Ted were like brothers, blood brothers now.
“There will be plenty of Spaniards to kill when the dance begins.”
He checked the partially healing through-and-through wound in Ted Forest’s side. The flesh about it felt hot to the touch but that might just be the natural healing process. Abe’s own shoulder wound had closed up, crusted over; although not healed in any way and was still horribly hurtful if he forgot it for a moment. He had no real idea how the jolt of the Mauser rifle would transmit itself through his torso from his right to his left side, or if the pain would be so bad it made a nonsense of his aim.
The bad water had turned both men’s bowels watery last night. That was to be expected, dirty water was what it was, and it was either drink it or die of thirst; a thing a man, especially an injured man, might easily do in a matter of hours in this harsh environment.
Despite his broken leg, Ted was manfully insistent on trying to keep himself ‘clean’, although in practice this was beyond him. However, even in indignity, a man’s pride could be his salvation so Abe let his friend do what he could for himself.
Abe scrambled into the brush to re-fill their original canteen, and one he had recovered from the gory spread where a Dominican Marine had been blown to pieces yesterday. He had found more cartridges, crawling through the debris field in the darkness. He still had no idea how so little explosive material had caused such a devastating explosion and killed so many men, and coincidentally, eradicated all trace of his and Ted’s survival or his concussed attempts at butchering prey and setting up a nearby campsite.