From the time Griffin was a boy, his father had talked as if Griffin's destiny had already been determined. He was an only child, and he and his father had been inseparable, and of one mind. By the time he was ten, he knew every facet of growing tobacco. And he also knew that every crop of tobacco harvested on the Rourke plantation was crucial to realizing the dream.
Finally, after years of planning, the ship was built, and the empire founded. They christened their first ship the Betty, after his mother, and launched the sloop on Griffin's twelfth birthday. And from that day onward, Griffin's life was promised to the sea.
He could still recall with such clarity the look of pride on his father's face as the boat slipped into the water. The Bettywas his father's life, the business of the ship sustaining him after Griffin's mother died.
And then Teach took it all away. The pirate attacked and captured the Betty off the Virginia shore while his father was on board. The brigands stole what cargo they fancied, then scuttled the ship with the rest still in the hold.
"What is the date?" he asked softly, stopping to stare at a strangely silent Ben Gunn.
"September twenty-sixth," Merrie replied.
He stroked the parrot's breast with his finger. "Nearly a year gone by," Griffin murmured. "That is when this tangle began."
"What tangle?"
"Teach and me…and my father." His voice was flat and emotionless. He barely recognized it as his own.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Merrie asked.
Griffin turned away from the parrot and began to pace again, stopping at the window to check the weather once more. "Teach killed him," he finally said. "There is nothing more to tell."
"That's strange," Merrie said.
He turned and stared at her. "And why is that?"
"Even though Blackbeard fashioned a wicked image for himself, he didn't go down in history as a bloodthirsty murderer. We know that sailors on merchant ships were superstitious and they believed him to be the devil himself. But the sources say he managed to capture most of his booty without a fight."
Griffin felt his temper rise. How could she defend such a man? Had the pirate Blackbeard merely become some romantic myth, a colorful hero whose evil deeds had faded with the passage of time? "He murdered my father," Griffin repeated, trying to keep his voice even, "as surely as if he had run him through with his own cutlass."
Merrie drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Would you like to talk about it?"
"No," Griffin said. "There is nothing more to be said."
"But maybe if you talked about it, you might-"
"No," he repeated. "Talking will not bring back my father, so what is the point to it?"
"All right," Merrie snapped. "We won't talk." She pointed to the place on the floor at her feet. "Sit!" she ordered. "And relax!"
He glared at her through narrowed eyes, then grudgingly did as he was told. She handed him a boating magazine.
"You're making me tense," she said.
He sat on the floor for a moment then sighed and tossed the magazine on the low table in front of him. "You see, I cannot relax. It is not part of my nature."
Merrie placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. With a frustrated oath, she settled behind him on the couch, pulling him against the cushions, her legs on either side of his shoulders, her bare feet braced along his thighs.
She placed her hands on his shoulders and slowly began to knead the muscles on either side of his neck. Her fingers were strong and warm and he closed his eyes, letting a tightly held breath escape his chest. He'd never been touched by a woman in this manner, but he found the casual contact wonderfully enjoyable.
"You truly are the most impatient man I've ever met," Merrie said.
Griffin smiled. "I inherited that quality from my father. He was never satisfied with tomorrow, or even today. Everything had to be done yesterday. My mother would become so angry with him that she would not speak to him until he would agree to take her for a long carriage ride."
"She sounds like a sensible woman."
"She was." He tipped his head back and sighed contentedly. "My father once owned her and she proved to be so sensible, he had to marry her."
"He owned her?" Merrie asked.
"My father came to the colonies in 1670 when he was twenty years old, straight away from the gallows where he'd been sent for petty theft. And when he arrived, his articles of indenture were auctioned off to the highest bidder. He worked on a tobacco plantation for fifteen years before he was free to start a life of his own."
Merrie's fingers stilled for a moment. "That must have been very difficult for him."
"Don't stop," Griffin murmured.
"What?"
"This thing you are doing with your fingers. Don't stop," he repeated.
Merrie continued to work magic with her fingers, lulling him into a lazy state of languor. He felt like a cat, stretched out in a spot of sunshine, completely content with his lot in life.
"Tell me more," she said.
"By the time he was free, he had learned two things," Griffin continued. "The first was how to raise tobacco and make a profit at it. The second was a deep and abiding hatred of slavery. Instead of owning slaves, he would buy only the articles of redemptioners, those who came to the colonies of their own free will, and after four years of work, he would give them new clothing, a gun and enough money to buy fifty acres of land."
"In 1665, former indentured servants constituted almost half of the membership of Virginia's House of Burgesses," Merrie said.
Griffin twisted around and looked at her in surprise. "I did not know that."
She smiled winsomely and shrugged. "I'm a history professor. I've mentioned that fact in my lectures for years, but it never really meant anything until now. Go on with your story."
"There's not much more to tell. My mother was an orphan from Bristol. As soon as she was of an age, she came to the colonies. My father saw her on the docks that day and fell in love with her, then and there. He bought her papers and she tended his house for five months before he finally convinced her to marry him."
Merrie wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her chin on the top of his head. "That's such a wonderful story," she said. "So romantic."
Griffin smoothed his palms along her arms, enjoying the warmth of her pleasant embrace. How easy it was between them, this gentle friendship that they shared. She seemed to know how to make him happy, how to turn his foul moods fair. He'd never been friends with a woman, especially with a woman he desired.
He had always considered women weaker, less able to handle the stresses of daily life and the concerns of a man's world. But Merrie was equal to a man in every way, strong and determined, independent and stubborn. He felt as if he could talk to her about anything, confide in her about his fears and his doubts, his hopes and his dreams.
"As soon as my father had enough money saved, he sold the plantation," Griffin continued, "and had his first ship built. I remember the day he took me on board. I was twelve years old. He named her the Betty, after my mother, Elizabeth, and he began to sail the coast and the rivers, taking British goods south and bringing tobacco and furs and indigo north to Norfolk for shipment to England. When I turned twenty-one, he gave me a ship of my own and I sailed the route from Norfolk to London."
"That's pretty young for such a responsibility," Merrie said. "At twenty-one, most of my undergraduate male students are more concerned with girls and partying. You were barely a man and you were sailing the ocean."
"I was captain of my own ship," Griffin said. "And I had already crossed the Atlantic more times than many men in my crew. My father put me on board a friend's ship as a cabin boy when I turned thirteen and I worked my way through the ranks. When I was seventeen, I took a year away from the sea for an education. And at eighteen, I served as a lieutenant on a brigantine that sailed between the James River and the Thames."