Free Forbidden by Julia Keaton Page B

stopped and
stared at the strange sights and sounds around them. Since the war
between the English and the Americans had begun Barbados, an island
that was used to getting its fare share of merchants and travelers,
was overflowing with an excess of people. Sailors who’s usual route
never took them anywhere near the Barbados were forced to come here
now just to settle their business and anyone from either England or
America had to come here if they wished to set up trade with one
another.
    Quietly of course.
    Damon was fond of the island. He’d been
there on occasion in his travels before he left India. In the
streets woman danced and shook their hips to the musical chimes
attached to their fingers, prostitutes plied their trade with no
shame to the men that passed them by. One woman, her breasts
swinging free over the bodice of her gown tried slipping a hand
along the front of his pants, and when he pushed her, gently but
firmly away, she turned to Ava and Jocelyn and grinned.
    Wide eyed, unable to hide their
innocence from a woman who made a living by selling her own, the
prostitute lifted one weighty breast in her hand, bent her head and
swiped a tongue across her nipple.
    Jocelyn made a noise and clapped her
hands over her eyes and Ava’s mouth dropped open, her eyes glinting
with a dangerous light that Damon believed boded ill for Clay’s
blood pressure when the little hoyden decided to go hunting for a
beau.
    Cursing Damon stopped in the middle of
the street and went back, scooping up Jocelyn around the waist with
one arm, her hands still covering her eyes and her cheeks bright
red, he gripped the back of Ava’s neck with his free hand and towed
both girl’s away.
    Behind them the woman laughed and
called out something in her native tongue.
    Damon was just happy neither of his
charges understood what she’d said.
    It wasn’t easy finding a ship that was
willing to take passengers as it headed back to English soil.
Especially a ship whose captain and crew had no particular
preference for the war.
    Almost every Englishman he came into
contact with had some sort of stake or grudge against the
Americans. With each derogatory remark Jocelyn and Ava’s faces
slowly grew darker and darker in rage. He would have let them go
off somewhere, maybe to eat or to shop so that they wouldn’t have
to hear such things, but he’d seen more than one pickpocket
scurrying around. And worse than that, more than one man had
glanced at the sisters with an interest Damon didn’t like. There
were cutthroats and rapists here laughing alongside the dancing
girls and dancing in the streets with the old wrinkled musician
that strummed on his instrument. There was danger among the multi
colored parrots that aped their voices and sent them squealing as
well as the brightly dyed silks and satins that drug at their gaze
and his purse strings.
    But they didn’t know that, and he
didn’t have the heart to tell them. So he kept them close and after
each rude Captain or sailor he made sure to pass something
interesting to take their minds off of the hurtful words they’d
heard about their country and people.
    It was while they were perusing a booth
stacked with cosmetics and decadent perfumes that he found the man
he was looking for. The captain was a short man, only a bit taller
than Ava and he was bent over the stall and staring at the perfumes
in their different colored glass casings with a look of severe
concentration. Damon knew he was a seafaring man by the way he
spoke and rolled his hips as he walked, as if still on the deck of
a ship. He knew he was a captain by the way he clasped his hands
behind his back and then snapped to attention when Damon went over
to tap him on one shoulder.
    “What’s her name?”
    He looked down at the purple vial he
held in his hand and flushed.
    “Susanna.”
    “What did you do?”
    He winced.
    “Forget to tell her I was
married.”
    Damon winced along with him and eyed
the vial. Then he shook his