The next morning

It was early the next morning when Randy awoke. His sleep had been troubled by dreams of water sprites who rose from pools of sparkling water. Lithesome beauties with perfect curves and teasing smiles even more beautiful than the uninhibited damsels of the south pacific islands. They’d beckon to him with long pale arms but then when he tried to catch them they disolved into clear columns of water and splashed at his feet only to reappear from a different shimmering eddy. The meaning of the dream was as clear and easy to read as his first teacher’s handwriting – Forget her! Charlotte was as unlikely a target for his attention as the fabled water nymphs of legend.

Despite the troubling dreams Randy ate his breakfast of oatmeal and cold rabbit in good spirits, he’d get to Saint Theresa’s early and find a good spot to and see who came looking for him. If it was Marlton’s gamekeeper with his helpers armed with heavy cudgels he’d know where he stood with the young lady, but if it was her…

Humming a jaunty sea chant he shaved and dressed in his newly washed clothes. The closest thing he had to a mirror in the cave was the polished brass of the ship’s lantern, but he satisfied himself with the results of his shave by rubbing his hand over his cheek. I need to buy a mirror - and new clothes too - he reminded himself as he hefted the bag heavy with coin that he had taken from Marlton’s agents. He had put off the nearly twenty-five miles walk to Salisbury several times already, choosing to do without rather than run the risk of being recognized, however it might do him good to get a few necessities. But not today. Today he merely had to wait and see if fortune would blow fair winds two days in a row.

He was at St. Teresa’s by midmorning surveying the old chapel from several vantage points before approaching slowly along a small game trail. He found the large fir tree just where he remembered in what at one time must have been the open gardens to the side of the chapel. Climbing the thick tree with its many smooth branches was easy after years of scaling ship’s rigging and he made a nest of green boughs wedged between a pair of nearly level branches providing him a comfortable seat as well as a screen to conceal his location. From this high perch he could see over the ivy covered walls into the interior of the old Papist church as well as the approaching road and open fields to the rear of the chapel. If discovered, he would be in dire straits, but the advantage of being well hidden and having clear lines of sight outweighed the dangers of being trapped like a wildcat with no way to escape.

And so he waited. He hadn’t expected her before noon, he reminded himself as the sun climbed high overhead, probably not until after she had eaten her midday meal and excused herself from her guests. Usually he was a patient man, one of his first jobs on the whaler was to scan the waves looking for any signs of the great leviathans, sometimes the lookouts would go all day without sighting a single whale but he never minded the duty. Today though he found it hard to settle down, his mind raced as he replayed how good Lady Marlton had felt in his arms. He compared the softness of her lips and the swell of her white breast under his stubbled chin to the most renown Madam in Santiago, Charlotte was both softer and sweeter smelling.

The Madam, (it was rumored had once been a Spanish princess captured by pirates when she was only sixteen years old and sold to the brothel for ten casks of rum) had risen through the ranks of whores until she owned her own establishment and slept with only those she chose to. She had the fine skin of a noblewoman and when she spoke (unfortunately in only broken English) she had the elegant tonality of a princess, but when Randy had asked her about the rumor, she merely laughed.

“For you” she had chuckled as she pressed his face to her bosom “I would be a teenage princess, and let you chase me to my chambers and tear off my dress like a pirate.” She eyed him curiously as his shipmates laughed “It would cost only 20 pounds sterling.”

Randy smiled at the memory, his friends had mocked him when he gently turned down her request, even offering to pitch in a shilling or two if he promised to tell them about it in the morning, but he had simply kissed her hand like he thought a gentleman might and politely declared that he couldn’t possibly risk damaging the prettiest blossom in all the Americas. The madam was a very attractive woman even at her age, in her youth she might have rivaled Charlotte, but Randy wasn't even sure about that.

Suddenly returning to the present he saw movement on the old path that lead to Saint Teresa’s ruined walls. Leaning forward eagerly he gazed through the branches trying to determine who was approaching the old chapel.