Free Beloved Captive by Kathleen Y'Barbo Page B

subject away from the words he hadn’t intended the old man to hear. “A sail, is it? You’re looking fit this morning.”
    “Don’t tell your mother.” The older man stuck his pipe between his teeth. “I fear she’s taking her duties as my nurse quite seriously.”  
    “And I warrant you find nothing to complain of in her caretaking.” Caleb laughed. “Indeed, my friend, I wonder if romance is not afoot.”
    Fletcher’s face turned somber. “I’ll not have you disrespect the memory of your father, Caleb Spencer. Your mother is a friend, and a friend only.”
    “Disrespect?” Caleb thrust the letter back into its hiding place and dismounted. “What disrespect do I offer, old friend?”
    He lifted his walking stick to point it at Caleb. “Your father was a man of great accomplishment and respect. It’s unthinkable to consider Mary-Margaret might look upon me as his replacement.”
    Mary-Margaret. Caleb forced his expression to remain neutral. Indeed, the old man is smitten.
    Caleb snagged the mare’s reins and walked toward Fletcher. “My friend,” he said as he clasped his hand on the older man’s uninjured shoulder, “I have been remiss in thanking you for returning the smile to my mother’s face. She’s worn her widow’s weeds for far too long.”
    Fletcher gave Caleb the stern look once reserved for correcting youthful misbehavior. “It is your return, not mine, that has your mother smiling. I am but a pet project that fills her time.”
    “Yes, well,” he said as he nodded toward the ocean, “have you my mother’s permission to flee her care for an afternoon’s sail?”
    Fletcher’s expression sufficed as an answer.
    “Aye then. A sail it is.” He gestured to Rialto. “Perhaps you would like to ride?”
    Fletcher shook his head. “Thank you all the same, but I’ll keep to walking, lad. I fear the jostle is not something that agrees with me just yet.”
    “Then I shall walk with you.”
    A short while later, with Rialto handed over to the stable boy, Caleb stood at the rail of the Cormorant . As the wind filled the sails and the island of Santa Lucida grew smaller, Caleb turned to Fletcher. “I suspect, my friend, this is not merely an afternoon’s whim. Where, dare I ask, is this vessel headed?”
    “Havana,” he said without sparing a glance in Caleb’s direction.
    “Havana?”  
    Fletcher nodded as he steadied himself with his cane. “Your mother’s idea. She did not specifically say as much, but my guess is she felt you needed some time away from the island.”
    Caleb looked in the direction from which they’d just come. “And what purpose would this time away serve?”
    “Lad,” he said, “long ago I stopped trying to understand the logic of women.” He smiled. “When your mother asked that I take part in this mission to save you from whatever she believes ails you, what was I to say?”
    “Indeed.” Caleb leaned against the rail and watched as the vessel skimmed over the froth of waves, then parted a school of shimmering yellowfin tuna. “And how long am I to be banished from Santa Lucida?”
    “I have no specific instructions on this,” he said, “so I cannot exactly say. She did instruct me to post a packet of letters.”
    He turned his back to the ocean and braced his feet on the rolling deck. His mentor, a man who relied on a cane and wore bandages to bind him together, seemed to have less trouble remaining upright than Caleb.  
    Another reminder of Caleb’s life of academics rather than adventure.
    “Post letters?” He made to smile in order to banish the comparison. “A rather thin excuse given the fact a postal vessel sails past Santa Lucida some ten days hence.”
    Fletcher retrieved his pipe and studied it. “With Havana a day’s sail, my guess is we can see Santa Lucida again in two days, although three would likely please your mother.”
    “Perhaps.”  
    Three days to decide how to respond to the letter now pressed into his pocket.