Windswept

Windswept

Chapter One

Nora Seabrook stowed the last of her garments in her steamer trunk just as an insistent rapping sounded on her cabin door. She looked at her second cousin, Fanny, who was lounging on her bunk with a cup of tea in her hand. “I do hope that’s Mama,” Nora said. “Perhaps she’s finally over her seasickness.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,
cherie
,” Fanny advised with a wave of her elegant fingers. “If I know Sid, she wouldn’t admit to good health even if her cheeks blushed like roses with proof of it.”

Nora shrugged a resigned agreement and took three short steps to the door. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Captain Murdock, miss. Sorry for the intrusion, but I thought you ladies would like to know that we’ve sighted land.”

Nora felt the surge of excitement she’d been anticipating for seven long days. “Oh, Fanny, we’re finally here!”

Fanny Cosette smiled at her young relation. “
Oui, cherie
, so it seems.”

Nora flung open the door and resisted an impulsive but irrational urge to hug the portly Murdock. “How much longer, Captain?”

“We should be at harbor in just over an hour, miss. We have a steady westerly breeze, and the seas are only gentle swells, so I don’t anticipate any problems.” He peered around Nora to get a clear view of Fanny. “I wouldn’t want you ladies to worry,” he said. “It’s a fine day for sailing, and we won’t have any difficulties with the reefs.”

Fanny stood up from the bunk and set her cup on the small desk next to it. “I assure you, Captain, I feel quite safe with you at the wheel.”

Was it Nora’s imagination, or did Captain Murdock suddenly seem to grow two inches in height? She smiled to herself. Fanny had that effect on men, and it was perfectly understandable. Despite her age, which no one really knew for certain, her gorgeous red hair showed no signs of gray, and her seductively rounded figure drew appreciative glances wherever she went.

Besides, Fanny was French, born and raised, not just second generation, American born, as Nora was. And, well, everyone knew about the French, most of them anyway, the free-spirited, liberated, joyous French. Fanny Cosette, unlike her staid cousin, Nora's mother, could very well be their ambassador. Poor Nora had never been fifty miles away from Richmond until this trip, and she despaired of ever seeing her mother’s homeland.

Captain Murdock’s leathery cheeks blazed red above his thick mutton-chop sideburns, an obvious reaction to Fanny’s compliment. “May I say, ladies, that it has been a particular pleasure having you aboard the
Southern Star
for this voyage. It’s a blasted shame that I have to sail again tomorrow; otherwise I would look forward to seeing you in Key West.”

Fanny could say more with her eyes than many novelists could in an entire passage, and she did so now by batting her long lashes at the smitten captain. “The pleasure has indeed been ours, hasn’t it, Nora?”

“Yes, truly,” she answered, suppressing a giggle.

Captain Murdock threaded his hands over his broad chest as if to steady his heartbeat and stepped away from the door. “I’ll see you on deck, then. By the way, Miss Seabrook, your father is already there. Shall I inform Mrs. Seabrook that we will be arriving shortly?”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said, “but I’ll tell Mama myself. You’ve been most kind.”

As Nora shut the cabin door, she caught a glimpse of Fanny’s coquettish wave. “Really, Fanny, you are an impossible flirt! That befuddled man won’t be able to find his way back to the ship’s wheel, and we’ll crash upon those dreadful reefs after all!”

Fanny grasped Nora’s hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Ah, my petite sheltered darling. A little innocent flirting is all part of the
joie de vivre
. Thank heavens I’ve arrived in time to see to your proper education. Your misguided Mama, my own dear cousin, would have you think that all there is to life is a boring succession of musical soirees and fussy needlework. When truly,
cherie
, there is so much more.”

As if Nora Seabrook didn’t already know that! Even before Fanny arrived in Richmond, Nora had known her life was missing something, and her heart ached to find out just what it was. Certainly Fanny fed the spark of adventure in Nora’s soul, but it had been Nora’s own longing that had ignited it in the first place.

Refusing to be bound by the limits of her physical environment, Nora had started a journal four years ago when she was seventeen. Because of it, her imagination had taken flight, and with pen and ink she’d eliminated the boundaries of her world.

Now she would soon arrive at a new, mysterious, and challenging destination where nothing would be as it was in Richmond. And as each mind-expanding adventure occurred, Nora would record her impressions and reactions with the hope that she could one day send her entries to the Baltimore Sun. Maybe someday she would even write a book and have it published, though that was a secret desire her mother would never understand. Sidonia Seabrook could not condone an activity so crass that it actually merited financial compensation.

Nora put aside her fantasies and regarded her cousin. “Speaking of Mama,” she said. “I’ll go to her cabin and give her the good news. Surely her humor will improve when she learns we are nearing land.”

“Perhaps so,” Fanny acknowledged. “Nevertheless,
cherie, bon chance!
”

Good luck, indeed!

The sun was well above the ocean when Nora joined her father on the deck of the
Southern Star
several minutes after Captain Murdock’s visit. When she stood beside him against the rail, Thurston Seabrook put his hand on his daughter’s arm and stared into the western horizon.

“There it is, Nora," he said. " Key West, Florida. I must confess I am most anxious to learn just exactly what makes this interesting little island the subject of so much speculation in Washington.”

The southernmost key in the chain extending along the Florida Straits from the state’s mainland shimmered on the horizon like a bracelet of pearls on aquamarine satin. “It’s as different from Richmond as any place could be,” Nora said, noting the low profile of the island. There was an obvious absence of tall buildings and other trappings of a city.

“Truly,” Thurston agreed with a decisive nod. “It’s a most unassuming spit of land to have earned its unequaled reputation for greed and rivalry.”

“It looks beautiful to me, Father,” Nora said. “Can’t you even for one day forget you’re a judge and just enjoy yourself?”

He turned to look at his daughter. “Our government is paying me handsomely to do a job, Nora, and…”

“…and by golly, I’ll see to it they get their money’s worth!” she imitated in her best impression of her father’s voice. She took the sting out of her teasing by smiling up at his stern face.

An answering grin raised one neatly trimmed curve of his handlebar moustache. “I realize you’re joking, Nora, though there is truth in what you say. But tell me, what of your mother? Did you inform her we’re close to the harbor?”

“Yes. She’s coming on deck soon. Fanny stayed behind to help her with the boys.”

At that precise moment, a commotion occurred on the companionway behind them that temporarily caused Nora to forget their destination. She whirled away from the rail to see what was happening. A panel of silk burgundy, representing only a fraction of Sidonia Seabrook’s voluminous skirt, appeared around the corner of the nearest cabin. Her voice, high-pitched from anxiety, preceded her actual appearance.

“Fanny, are you holding Armand tightly?” she cried. “Oh, this retched boat is pitching and tossing so I can barely keep my footing!”

“Yes, of course, Sid, I have the little beast,” came Fanny’s response. “He’s safe in my arms.”

Sidonia approached her husband and daughter near the bow of the ship by grabbing on to any object mounted to the cabin walls that offered assistance. Her progress was slow and further impeded by a bundle of wiry gray fur protruding from the bend in her elbow. Poor Hubert’s eyes nearly bulged from his head, he was held so firmly in Sidonia’s grasp.

Nora met her mother half way and offered to take the dog from her arm.

“No, no, dear, he’s already so frightened,” Sidonia protested. “If I relinquish him now, he’ll positively swoon from fear.”

Thurston Seabrook looked over his shoulder and grimaced. “It’s a dog, Sidonia. For heaven’s sake, dogs don’t swoon from anything except perhaps hunger.”

After much effort, Sidonia finally reached the railing and stood next to her husband. From her expression, she did not seem in the least amused by Thurston’s cavalier attitude. “And that’s another thing. The boys have hardly eaten a tidbit since we left Richmond.”

“Only mutton and beef and roasted potatoes,” Thurston corrected. Then to Nora he added in a whisper, “I’m surprised Mama can still carry the portly pooch at all.”

“Now, Father…”

Minding his manners, Thurston attempted to interest his wife in the panorama that was their destination. “Look dear, the island is just ahead. Isn’t it fascinating?”

In the last minutes, the key had begun to take shape and definition. One and two-story buildings were now recognizable. Trees unlike those found in Virginia displayed their long, elegant leaves bending in the wind like feathers on a pen.

“It’s horrible,” Sidonia moaned. “There’s not a tall building in sight. Where are the hotels and offices, and where in heaven’s name could there even be an opera or theater? It looks as if it’s all been cut off at the knees!”

“Mama, you can’t compare it to Richmond,” Nora said. “It’s completely different, and that’s what makes it so exciting. If you’d read Father’s literature about this place you’d know that.”

“I know enough, Eleanor,” Sidonia insisted, drawing out Nora’s proper name in a way that discouraged further discussion. “It’s a land of barbarians.”

“Not so, dear,” Thurston cut in. “Key West has a doctor, and ministers, and many gentleman of fine lineage from proper southern families. There is a hospital…”

“Thank goodness for that at least. I would refuse to even leave this ship if we weren’t assured proper medical assistance.” She looked at her daughter for support. “Eleanor, you’re prone to respiratory infections.”

Nora sighed with frustration. “Mama, please, I haven’t had any problems for at least six years.”

“…and Thurston, there’s your stomach. And I…well, goodness knows I don’t have to tell you…”

“…and several churches,” Thurston interrupted, obviously reluctant to listen to the same complaints he was besieged with in Virginia.

Sidonia snorted. “As if heathens need churches.”

Turning away from Sidonia’s watchful gaze, Fanny clamped her hand over Armand’s muzzle to stop the animal from yapping. “Heathens need them most of all, Sid, darling.”

Sidonia grasped on to what appeared to be a sympathetic comment from her cousin. “Ah, you see, Fanny agrees with me. We’re about to embroil ourselves in a caldron of ignorance and perhaps even tribalism…if we’re lucky enough to even encounter human beings!”

“Mama,” Nora said, “Father’s papers reported that last year, in the census of 1857, there were three thousand residents here.”

Sidonia quaked. “And only three of us!” She buried her face in Hubert’s fur. “God help us.”

Jacob Proctor dipped the nib of his pen into the ink bottle for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning and entered more figures into the giant ledger on his oak desk. This weekly chore was the most ponderous aspect of owning his own business…this blasted bookkeeping which he didn’t trust to anyone else. It was especially tiresome on a beautiful February morning when the temperature was a balmy seventy-two degrees and the breeze off the Atlantic was calm and steady, perfect for a leisurely sail.