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Flight
Atlantic Ocean 1825
Heidi Jakobsen gripped the sloop’s stern rail with both hands and peered into the sunrise as theHeklasliced through Atlantic waters on its westerly journey to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The shores of Sankt Thomas were still visible on the dawn horizon. She was leaving behind the optimistic Danish girl who’d begun a new life on the sun-drenched colonial island five years ago. “It’s ironic,” she murmured. “I never wanted to come to Sankt Thomas in the first place.”
“Your pardon,” a gentleman standing beside her said in English. “Jeg taler ikke dansk. I don’t speak Danish.”
Mortified she’d spoken out loud and momentarily blinded by staring into the rising sun, she squinted to see the ruddy face of her elderly fellow traveler. He was well-dressed and had an air of wealth about him. Probably a British sugar magnate, or… “You are American?” she asked.
“You guessed right, young lady,” he replied with a clipped bow. “Roland Stephenson the Third, at your service. You’re going home to Denmark, I suppose.”
He’d rightly assumed most of the Danes aboard theHeklawere fleeing the second British takeover of Sankt Thomas. She supposed Denmark would be her final destination since she’d been forced to leave the place where dreams of a happy married life lay in disillusioned ruins. “Eventually,” she allowed. “I hope to visit New York first. I have atante, an aunt, who lives there.”
“I’m a Baltimore man myself,” he replied. “Though I’ve spent many years in the sweltering heat of Florida since it became part of the United States.”
“Sugar?” she asked in her limited English.
“Right again!”
He turned, leaned back against the railing and pointed with his ornately carved cane. “Culebra dead ahead,” he declared. “We’ll be in Caribbean waters soon.”
She followed his gaze. Beyond the sparsely populated island of Culebra lay Puerto Rico. She and her new husband had sailed from the eastern shores of the Spanish colony on the last leg of the exhausting journey from København to Sankt Thomas.
“Don’t worry,” Torsten had assured her. “After we make our fortune with the Danish West India Company, we’ll go home, buy land and build a big house.”
“You seem lost in thought,” the American said. “Will you miss Saint Thomas? Very different from Denmark.”
“My husband died there,” she replied, not sure ifmisswas the right word.
“My condolences,” he said, taking out a brilliantly white kerchief to mop his beet red face. “Was he killed in the invasion?”
It seemed ridiculous to explain all that had befallen her to this elderly foreigner who was clearly uncomfortable in the heat, but the words tumbled out of her mouth. “We knew the prosperity of the island depended on slave labor,” she said, realizing now how naive they’d been. “But the notion meant nothing to either of us until we saw first-hand how cruelly slaves are treated by the plantation owners and even company directors.”
“Yes,” Stephenson sighed, leaning heavily on his cane. “No better than animals.”
She nodded, but the lack of conviction in his voice had her wondering how many slaves the American owned. “Their plight didn’t sit well with my Lutheran upbringing. My ineffective calls for an improvement of their working conditions raised the ire of my husband’s superiors.”
“Which led to arguments, I shouldn’t wonder.”
She swallowed the bitter memory of the hurtful insults they’d hurled at each other. “When I refused to stay quiet, he was demoted to clerking for the Brandenburg African Company.”
Stephenson grimaced. “The unscrupulous Germans who lease a trading post from the Danes. They trade exclusively in slaves. It’s rumored they conduct the biggest slave markets in the world in Saint Thomas.”
“My husband told me,” she murmured, unable to bring herself to describe the effect his demotion had on Torsten. Equally disgusted and disillusioned by the inhumanity of the slave trade and resentful of the fate that had befallen him, he turned to drink, blaming Heidi for his troubles. He was always remorseful about the beatings and violent sexual encounters when he was sober. Her Christian faith taught she must forgive him, but her broken heart and bruised body came to despise and fear him.
She sought a safer topic. “Despite the difficulties, the tropics seduced me. When other European women complained of the heat, my Scandinavian blood drank it in. When humidity drove others to higher ground, I savored the salty taste on my lips. I filled my lungs with the thousand and one perfumes of wild tropical blooms while others pined for tamed roses and privet hedges.”
She inhaled deeply, as if to fill her nostrils with a last trace of the tropical aromas.
The American chuckled. “So you will miss the island, and you’ve had to leave the place where your husband is buried.”
“Yes,” she replied, reluctant to explain Torsten had accidentally shot himself in a rum-induced haze with the company-issue pistol that was supposed to protect them both. The weapon now nestled in the hidden recesses of her portmanteau, but she wasn’t about to reveal she was armed.
Piracy on the Spanish Main had been all but eradicated these days, but a woman alone had to be prepared to defend herself. She almost sniggered at the thought, doubtful she’d have the strength or fortitude to fire the heavy pistol in any event.
* * *
TheJuana’sfirst mate peered through the telescope. “What say you, Lázaro?” Gatito purred. “One last prize?”
