The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

d you sneak away from the shack on the beach. Evidently he didn’t see you bury the diaries. You did bury them, didn’t you, Jessie?”

“Yes. We found them two days ago.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve been watching and waiting for my chance. You were very lucky that the diaries had been pushed up into that tree, very lucky indeed. But back to Red Eye. He followed you home, then tried to take you that night. You escaped him and then you forgot everything in that illness that followed. A child has amazing powers for protecting itself. It was all so horrifying for you that you simply forgot it. As for poor Red Eye, he did indeed go to jail. He escaped and came back to Baltimore, to get you. I decided to make him my partner. I hid him in my house on Powell Street. I sent my dear mother off to visit her sister in Philadelphia. All went well until Allen Belmonde wanted you dead. I, of course, had realized that you had no memory of Old Tom or Blackbeard or the diaries. I simply told Red Eye that we’d have to wait. I told him it would do him no good to kidnap you because you didn’t remember anything. I told him I would try to stimulate your memory. That’s why I gave you all those diaries to read, Jessie, all from that period of time. You recall now how I also tried to question you closely, even touching on your childhood here in Ocracoke.”

It was all so clear now, Mr. Fielding giving her various diaries during the couple of months before she fled to England, most of them at least two hundred years old, reading to her, encouraging her. He’d wanted her to remember. She said, “Yes, you always wanted me to look at your diaries. I never suspected. Why would I? I sometimes had horrible nightmares about that long-ago night, but they were vague and usually gone in the morning. I remembered everything when I was in England. I hit my head, and when I woke up I remembered.”

“I know. That beautiful Maggie Sampson told me all about it. It was her mission to help me remember any more details about the man who nearly ran you down in that wagon. A charming creature, your Maggie. It was difficult to act calm around you and James. I was so excited. I knew things would begin to happen now. I’d already killed Red Eye—I found I just couldn’t control him, the blundering fool insisted that it was a mistake, that he shouldn’t have listened to me, that he should have kidnapped you and he would have beaten you into remembering. So yet again, I saved you, Jessie. Yes, I killed him, saw no reason not to since I’d read Blackbeard’s final diary. Blackbeard wrote that the answers were in his great-grandma’s diary. He wrote, if I recall correctly, ‘Deep in a pit, my treasure lies hidden, safe for all time.’ You can’t imagine how long I thought about that, but I had no answer. I needed Blackbeard’s great-grandma’s diary, not Blackbeard’s other two diaries. Old Tom must have been a fool. Here you figured it out without Blackbeard’s lame little clue, didn’t you?”

She nodded. There was no point in lying, not now. It would gain her nothing. “There was no need for that clue. His great-grandmother’s name was Valentine. It’s true. Everything was clear in Valentine’s diary. Are you going to kill me, Mr. Fielding?”

“I don’t want to. Don’t make me.”

“I won’t. Go to James, tell him what you’ve told me, and he’ll give you a share. I know he will. Tell him how you saved me twice. He’ll be grateful. I’m sure he’ll share the treasure with you.”

“You are now, Jessie? I’ve heard everyone saying that even though you’re a regular beauty now, James doesn’t love you. He had to marry you because he seduced you.”

She swallowed. “That’s possible, but James is an honorable man. He’d give you some treasure to get me back.”

“We’ll see. I wish to think more about it. Speaking to you of all the details helps me think things out. Do you wish to know about anything else, Jessie?”

“How do you know Nelda is a student of this Sappho person who lived in ancient Greece? How do you know that she and Alice Belmonde love each other in that way?”

“I saw them,” he said simply. “I had come to pay my condolences to dear Alice—I felt nothing but pity for the girl, being married to Allen, who was a bloody rotter. It was late, and I saw that people were there with her already. I waited and waited. Finally there was only one carriage left. I couldn’t understand why the last visitor didn’t leave. Then I thought that perhaps Alice was a sly baggage and had a lover. I stole up to the window and looked in. I saw Alice and your sister embracing. They weren’t comforting each other, Jessie, they were passionate. It surprised me and I’ll admit it, it made my own passions boil. Isn’t that odd? I’ve imagined two women together now many times. Well, no matter, that’s how I knew.”

Jessie knew then, deep down, that he couldn’t afford to let her live. He’d murdered two men. He wouldn’t have told her if he’d intended to let her leave alive. What about James? Oh God, she had to protect James, for surely Mr. Fielding would have no compunction about killing him, or killing any of them, for that matter. And she had to protect her unborn child. Her hands went to her belly and lightly pressed.

“Do you need to relieve yourself? I know that pregnancy makes a woman need the convenience more often. I overheard two ladies speaking of it. I must go with you, Jessie. I can’t take the chance of letting you out of my sight. I won’t watch, I promise.”

She did have to relieve herself. She forced herself to get it done, knowing he was but three feet behind her. He didn’t look—at least she didn’t think he did. When she was done, he led her back to the small bower he’d fashioned.

The silence between them stretched out endlessly. She was afraid, more afraid than she’d ever been in her life. It was a slow fear, not one of great urgency, which made it all the more frightening because it numbed her, it helped her hide herself from what she knew had to be the truth. Time stretched out, every minute longer than it should be, surely. But eventually there would be no more time, and then he would kill her. He would kill her baby. What to do? She said, “You’re a scholar. I know what happened to the lost colonists of Roanoke Island.”

His pale gray eyes glistened, he moistened his lips, then he seemed to catch himself. He laughed. “God, that’s been a mystery for two hundred years. No one knows the answer, though many men have speculated about it.” He laughed. “There’s no way at all you could know anything about that.”

“Oh, yes I do. You see, Blackbeard’s great-grandmother—Valentine—wasn’t just anybody. She was one of the colonists on Roanoke Island. She recorded everything in her diary, and I’ve read that diary.”

“A colonist of Roanoke Island spawned Blackbeard’s ancestors? My God, that’s amazing. Her name was Valentine? Strange name for a girl born in England.”

“I know what happened to her, what happened to the colonists. You would like to know—I can see it in your eyes.”

He laughed again. “Oh, Jessie, you’re such a smart girl. Of course I’d like to know. But listen to me. Once I’m rich, then I doubt I’ll give a good damn about any more of that nonsense, and that’s what it is, nonsense. It’s a way for poor men who are very smart to justify themselves to the world, to justify themselves to themselves, really, to convince themselves that it gives them some sort of worth. It’s pathetic, really, but soon I won’t be one of those men. I’ll be rich.” He sighed deeply, sat back against the gnarled trunk of a live-oak tree, and clasped his hands over his waist.

Jessie said, “The colonists were starving, and there was rampant disease. They weren’t going to survive.”

She saw the fascination in his eyes as they narrowed on her face. She didn’t say anything more.

He said, “In the packet just beside you is some food. I’m hungry. You must be as well. Soon James will wonder where you are. Soon he will go to the village to ask about you. Then he will know you’re gone. Make me some food, Jessie.”

“All right,” she said as she wrapped her fingers around the handle of a dull knife.

“Don’t even consider trying to stab me. I’ll punch you in your round little belly, and we’ll see what happens to you and that get of yours.”

She couldn’t bring herself to eat anything, even the cold slices of pinfish, fried and well spiced, placed between slices of dark oat bread. She’d prayed he’d be willing to compromise with her if she told him about Roanoke Island. She’d certainly whetted his interest. She’d just have to think of something else. She was surprised when he said some time later, “I know what happened to the colonists. Most educated men do. It was duly noted by many that there’s a group of Indians who live in the far west of Virginia. They’re known to have blue eyes and fair skin.”

“You’re dead wrong,” she said.

“Well, yes, I suppose I am, particularly if this Valentine truly was Blackbeard’s great-grandmother as she does appear to have been. He came from England. Well, it’s a puzzle then.”