Free Beloved Castaway by Kathleen Y'Barbo Page B

her vision.
    “Before God, I promise you shall be paid for this voyage,” she said quickly, grasping her knees tighter, “whether it is in coins recovered from my trunks or in bank vouchers delivered upon our arrival in England.”
    The money she’d just promised was meant to give her food to eat and to provide her with a start on a new life. Now that she had acquired additional traveling companions, the funds would be stretched even further. Still, offering them up in payment for passage seemed preferable to any other solution.  
    “Promises of payment will do me no good,” he said slowly, obvious contempt moderating a voice much deeper in timbre than Isabelle had previously noticed.  
    “But I assure you—”
    Captain Carter swept away her answer with a wave of his hand. “Before dawn, I’ve a debt to pay, and your pledge will not satisfy it.” He paused and seemed to take note of the thunder’s roar. “Nor, I fear, will it ransom my skin when the holder of that lien seeks restitution.”
    Fear not. . .
    Strangely, she did not hold this emotion. Resignation took hold, tempered with the strength of her beliefs, and she rose to stand before him.
    The Lord thy God, it is He that doth go with thee. . . .
    Isabelle squared her shoulders and stilled her quaking knees, busying her hands with the removal of a particularly troublesome wrinkle in her cloak rather than show them unable to remain still. Words bounded forth and demanded she speak them while her heart fluttered and threatened to forsake her.
    He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.  
    Indeed. With God there would be a solution; He set her on this path, and He would not let her fail. Surely He had a plan, for she did not.
    “Captain Carter,” she said slowly, testing the sound of her voice against the battering of the rain outside, “you and I are at odds, yet I fear we must work as allies.”
    He gave her a sideways look. “Aye,” he finally said, “sadly, it seems this is true.”
    “Then perhaps there is a solution.”
    ---

    A solution.
    Josiah stifled a laugh. How in the name of all creation could this slip of a girl find a solution to a predicament that seemed to have none?
    The situation lay before them plain and simple. Payment for the Jude would be required on the morrow, and this woman held nothing with which she could satisfy the note. Even if he could manage to buy extra time from the Spaniard, say in the form of a deed to an English house in one of the more pious sections of the countryside, the delay could well cost him his refuge.
    For all Josiah knew, Hezekiah Carter’s minions were nipping at his heels, as well. A day. That’s all he’d been granted by his advance scouts. More than that and he risked being caught and returned to Virginia, a fate worse than death.
    A fate not even worth considering.  
    Worse, he would not be hauled back to Virginia alone. For the boy and for himself, he could not let this happen.
    Isabelle Gayarre made a discreet coughing sound, drawing his attention. Josiah looked her up and down. A fancy sort, this one, most likely with a home and servants and. . .
    A solution most simple yet ingenious dawned bright. Someone somewhere would be looking for her—a father, a mother, maybe even a husband—and that someone most certainly would possess the means to secure her return.
    No more than the mortgage on the Jude would be required. Of criminals and extortionists, Josiah had no tolerance. After all, he’d been born of the lineage and carried the pedigree.  
    Business transactions, however, were another matter entirely.
    He gave the fair-haired Isabelle a quick look of consideration. Given less-taxing time constraints, perhaps the two of them could have been more than erstwhile business partners—he the receiver of the funds and she the means of procurement—but alas, this was not to be.
    Another crack of lightning split the darkness beyond the windowpane and crashed dangerously close. A roar much louder