Moonwitch

Chapter One

Antigua, British West Indies 1819

The crew of the American schooner spilled from the Jolly Tar Tavern and swarmed up Long Street, a laughing, rough-and-tumble throng of seamen. Their good-natured hoots and catcalls carried on the ever-present sea breeze and drifted through the shuttered windows of the white weatherboard buildings that lined the street. The clamor even dared invade the offices of Ignatius P. Foulkes, Solicitor, where Selena Markham sat consulting the prestigious founder of the firm.

Momentarily diverted by the noise, Selena paused in mid-sentence to glance beyond the solicitor’s balding head toward the window. But since she heard no cries of “cane fire,” the warning that every sugar planter dreaded, nor a mournful proclamation of “ship down,” a lament Selena dreaded even more, she resumed her discussion of a subject she found highly distressing: the problem of her stepmother’s continued extravagances.

“I had hoped,” Selena confessed, “that you could suggest a solution. Edith became rather…abusive when I refused to raise her allowance on quarter day. Yet I had no choice. She continues to spend far more than the plantation can support. And now this! This time she has gone beyond extravagance. To put the house up for security… I must do something. I cannot allow her to lose our home to a moneylender.”

The solicitor fingered the gold timepiece that hung from a fob at his rather massive girth and eyed her thoughtfully. He was surprised by her vehemence; Selena could tell by his expression. No doubt she was lacking her normal reserve, though she knew she appeared cool and elegant as usual, dressed as she was in a sprigged muslin gown and a narrow-brimmed gypsy bonnet that hid much of her silver-blond hair.

“I understand entirely,” Ignatius replied with the familiarity of a family friend, “the difficulty of your position, my dear. I well know how…headstrong your stepmother can be.”

Headstrong was far too nice a word, Selena thought with asperity. Grasping, shrewish, perhaps even vicious. Those were all more appropriate descriptions of Edith. Since Edith’s marriage to Thomas Markham seven years before, Selena had made every effort to live in harmony with her stepmother. Through the years, she had developed a means of dealing with Edith, one which consisted primarily of ignoring the situation and not allowing herself to respond to the barbs that frequently annoyed and sometimes wounded her. She had continued the habit after her father had passed away, for she felt that respect for his memory made it her duty. This time, however, Edith had gone too far.

“It seems,” Ignatius observed in answer, “that Mrs. Markham means to force your hand.”

At that unnecessary remark, Selena felt a surge of impatience. She leaned forward, her fragile features becoming set and earnest. “Precisely. But you know as well as I that the income Papa left Edith is more than adequate to keep her in style—although it won’t begin to cover the lavish expenditures she has been indulging in lately. The emeralds alone cost nearly two thousand pounds.”

Pursing his lips in a frown, Ignatius shook his head slowly. “I’ll think on it, my dear, but I’m afraid you have no legal recourse. Your father left you the land, but Mrs. Markham has clear title to the manor house. Of course, you can purchase the mortgage from her creditors—”

“At a usurious rate, no doubt!”

“Yet the cane crop has been good this year. You could probably afford it.”

Selena clasped her gloved hands in her lap, trying to contain her frustration. “I have nearly four hundred people to provide for, Mr. Foulkes, not to mention purchasing a new set of rollers for the south mill and a cistern for the curing house. Given free rein, Edith would just as soon bankrupt the plantation! Even my father had little faith in her judgment where money was concerned.”

When Ignatius merely nodded in sympathy, Selena sighed bitterly. “Of course, I might purchase the house outright, but what would I do then? I could hardly ask Edith to leave, for she would have nowhere to live. Besides, what kind of monster would that make me?”

The solicitor’s response was interrupted by a rough voice directly outside the window.

“My blunt’s on the cap’n!”

“I say Tiny will settle the question once an’ fer all!” came the shouted reply.

The disturbance was impossible to ignore. Ignatius raised his great bulk from behind his desk and flung open the louvered shutters to look down at the street. At once, the blazing Caribbean sunlight streamed into the room, creating a glare that would have made any person not inured to the brightness and heat of the islands wince.

But Selena had grown up there so, though anxious to continue the conversation, she rose from the leather wing chair where she had been sitting and joined the solicitor. To her left, Long Street rose steeply from the docks of St. John’s Harbor. Beyond was a striking view of turquoise waters dotted with fishing ketches and feluccas. The harbor was only deep enough to accommodate drafts of five feet or less, so the hundreds of seafaring ships that docked at Antigua each year had to anchor across the island at English Harbor, the headquarters for the British naval fleet in the Caribbean.

Looking to her right, up the hill, Selena caught sight of a boisterous crowd of perhaps thirty men dressed in the blue jackets and canvas

trousers of sailors. They were loudly making their way up the street toward the courthouse, bearing two of their numbers on their shoulders.