Destiny: A Bermuda Love Story Read online

  We got word that John Smith was wounded in a gunpowder explosion and will have to return to England. We’re due to set sail May 23 for Jamestown, and the journey should not take above two weeks.

  I’m sorry for the delay that is keeping us apart. I think of you every moment and look forward to the day we can be reunited and you are in my arms again. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to live without you. I am counting the days.

  Edward

  The second letter was short and the news devastating.

  My Dearest love,

  I have some sad news to report. Sir George Somers died on Bermuda. They buried his heart in the eastern end of Bermuda and his body is due to arrive in Dorset for burial. Before he died, he named the town he founded St. George’s, in honor of the Patron Saint of England, St. George.

  I live for the day when you will join me. If this voyage has taught me anything, it is that life is short and we must grab on to happiness wherever we can find it.

  You are always in my heart.

  Edward

  Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed her eyes shut against the threat of tears. Edward was alive.

  “There are no dates on these letters,” Elizabeth said. “Where do you suppose Edward is now, Mother?”

  “Presumably somewhere in Bermuda.”

  “These are the only letters I’ve had from him in months.” Elizabeth rubbed her stomach. “Do you suppose he’s forgotten me or found someone else in Bermuda? I have to know. I have to go to Bermuda on the next ship.”

  “Not in your condition. I won’t allow it.”

  “Then I’ll go as soon as the baby comes. My love won’t wait. I won’t be dissuaded. I refuse to live another day without him, Mother.”

  Chapter Three

  Jamestown Colony, Virginia, 1610

  “Mary, I’ve got to go back to tell her face-to-face. She is waiting for me still. I know she is.”

  “By now she’s married, with a family of her own. If she truly waited, then she’s a bigger fool than I thought.”

  “She said she would wait for me forever,” Edward insisted, rounding on his wife.

  He was sick whenever he imagined his Elizabeth with anyone else, imagined another man touching her in her secret places, loving the woman he still ached for, would always love. And he was ashamed at how he had betrayed that love, that precious gift she had bestowed on him.

  He was trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman he could barely tolerate. He despised himself, and it was no less than he deserved. The only good that had come of their union was their son. Edward adored his son but hardly recognized the boy’s mother, who had turned into a shrill fishwife.

  “If you must, then send her a letter with the next ship. You needn’t go all the way back to England. Your son and I need you.”

  “It’s the only decent thing to do,” Edward reasoned. How could he explain in a letter what he’d been through when they were separated from their sister ships and veered off course in the storm? They’d been tossed by dangerous winds for three days, and they were drained, desperate, and exhausted from bailing water when they finally spotted land. As the fates would have it, the Sea Venture, on the verge of sinking, lodged between two reefs off the eastern shore of Bermuda.

  He had been ill for weeks afterward. Half the time he was so feverish he didn’t recognize anyone around him. When he was lucid, he managed to pen two love letters to Elizabeth so she wouldn’t worry, and he turned them over to a shipmate, wresting a promise that he would deliver them to his beloved. But later, while he was still weak and disoriented, the vixen Mary Wellington had come to his bed, warm and willing and needy, taunting him with her body, and for that one night he thought she was—had so desperately wanted her to be—his own sweet Elizabeth. And she had played the part to the hilt.

  When Mary discovered she was carrying his child, her father, the ship’s captain, stepped in and insisted on marriage. Edward’s hands were tied and his heart was broken, and now he would have to break Elizabeth’s heart as well. He couldn’t find the words, didn’t have the words, to tell her. Because there were no words.

  Chapter Four

  Bermuda, 1620

  My Dearest Edward,

  I am having a Great Adventure of my own. I was among sixty settlers, men and women—and several swarms of bees—aboard the Plough, sent to the Somers Isles by the Virginia Company, with Richard Moore, our shippe’s master carpenter and the new Governor, to begin the formal settlement of Bermuda. My stomach was weak during the crossing, although it was a very smooth voyage.

  The seas were not rough, compared to your ordeal. I managed to survive.

  We’re putting down roots on St. George’s. They’ve built us houses of cedar wood and palmetto thatch.

  Where are you? Why haven’t you come for me?

  I have the most wonderful news to tell you. It cannot be said in a letter.

  It is much too important. I cannot wait to see you again.

  All My Love, Elizabeth

  July 1612

  ****

  Dearest Edward,

  We have word of 90 young women who sailed from England on the Bride Ship to Virginia as wives for deserving men. Perhaps one is destined for you. I no longer hold out hope for us. A kind shipwright who is beginning a boat-building business has asked me to marry him and I have accepted. I no longer have a choice. It is not practical for me to be alone in this world. If, by some miracle, this letter finds you, we live in the capital city of St. George’s.

  All My Love, Elizabeth

  1620

  Stepping off the ship at St. George’s in Bermuda, clutching his love’s last letters to his chest, Edward Morgan made his inquiries after Elizabeth Sutton. He could barely contain his excitement. He was here in an official capacity, but his first order of business was to see Elizabeth again after all these years. His heart beat erratically, and he was pulsing like a randy teenager. He realized he was in an impossible situation. He didn’t care about the complications. He would see her and touch her and hold her close and then, magically, his world would be back on an even keel, would right itself, finally. Somehow, together, they would work things out.

  “You’ll want to see the shipwright Richard Smith,” said the man he was questioning, casting his eyes downward. Edward was puzzled. He had tried not to sound intimidating. He knew he sounded anxious. But the man refused to meet his gaze. Perhaps it was the way he was dressed, as a prosperous colonist.

  Edward was directed to the boatyard just outside of town. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty. He had some Hog Money in his pocket, the first Bermuda coins, so called because of the image of a wild hog stamped on one side. The Sea Venture adorned the other side. Imagine that. But he didn’t want to waste time on food or drink or sleep when he was only steps away from Elizabeth.

  Had it really been eleven years since his ship had foundered off the coast of St. George’s? So many things had changed here on the island. Once it had been a paradise overrun by wild pigs and birds. Today, the place showed burgeoning signs of prosperity.

  Tomorrow, Governor Butler would address the settlement’s first-ever House of Assembly meeting at St. Peter’s Church. Edward was scheduled to attend, as a representative of the colonies on the mainland and as one of the first to arrive in Bermuda.

  He had spent the ten months after the wreck marooned here before the Deliverance and the Patience were built to complete the six-hundred-mile journey across the seas to Jamestown. And while waiting also for the birth of his child.

  But one thing never changed, and that was his enduring love for Elizabeth. She was never out of his thoughts. He wondered how he could have waited so long to come and find her. How would she react to him? Would she want to see him? Would she forgive him for leaving her alone? Would she take him back? Did he even have the right to ask her? Was she married? If so, that was an obstacle they could overcome. He was still married but nothing was going to stand in his way.

  Ed
ward stopped when he arrived at the boatyard and addressed a man matching the description of Richard Smith. He was an ox of a man, rather coarse-looking, with a wiry red beard and meaty hands. He was not refined enough for Elizabeth’s taste, not nobly born. Surely he had been misdirected. But no matter. He would dispense with the man soon enough and rescue Elizabeth from life with this usurper.

  Edward began shaking with excitement. Perhaps Elizabeth was just around the corner. Perhaps they’d meet by chance.

  “I was told I might find a young woman by the name of Elizabeth Sutton here,” Edward inquired hopefully, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Yes,” the man answered, pausing in his work, wiping the sweat from his brow to eye the stranger suspiciously, with just a flicker of recognition.

  “Elizabeth Sutton Smith was my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Edward snarled, taking a step back at the confirmation of his fears regarding the man, railing with jealousy, sick with the thought of Elizabeth with this oaf, with any man. But that was unreasonable. What did he expect after so many years? Her letter had told him of accepting the shipwright’s proposal so why did this come as such a shock? He had betrayed her in the worst way. He didn’t deserve her love. That didn’t stop him from wanting to wrap his hands around the interloper’s thick neck and choke him or to beat him senseless for daring to touch his beloved with his filthy hands.

  “And who might you be?”

  “I’m Morgan. Edward Morgan.”

  The shipwright grimaced.

  “My God. Then you do exist.”

  The shipwright put down his tools and wiped his grimy hands with a cloth, focusing on the stranger.

  “Yes. You were the friend from home she often spoke of. She waited for you to come. For a long time. Until it was no longer possible to wait. She was a very devoted wife.”

  “Was? You speak of her as if she were no longer here. Have I just missed her then? Has she gone back to England? Or have I misunderstood?”

  “No, you haven’t misunderstood,” said Richard, hesitating, rubbing his beard.

  “And yes, you have missed her. She’s gone... She’s dead.”

  Edward swayed, and Richard steadied him. The shipwright led him to a stone bench nearby, forcing him to sit with his head down until he got his breath back.

  “Dead?” Edward whispered in disbelief. “But how can that be? She was so young.”

  “I’m still wondering that myself,” said Richard. He cleared his throat and choked back emotion. “On her deathbed, she instructed me to give you her letters, if you came looking for her. That was her final wish. I’ll get them for you. Please wait here.”

  Edward could barely move. He watched as Richard trudged into the house that stood nearby on the grounds of the boatyard. When he came out, he was accompanied by a beautiful young girl with familiar flashing blue eyes and blonde braids.

  “Papa, it’s the pirate in Mama’s paintings,” the girl said, her eyes widening. The girl clung to her father’s pant leg and twisted a handful of fabric from her skirt, wrinkling it. She pulled on the silver locket hanging from her neck and squeezed it.

  “This is my daughter, Anne.”

  Edward stepped back in shock and fought to catch his breath yet again.

  “Elizabeth’s daughter?” he whispered.

  The man nodded.

  “Forgive me for staring,” Edward said, stooping to speak to the girl. “I grew up with your mother, you see. I knew her when she was your age.” I was in love with your mother. And you look so much like her.

  He was staring into her face, Elizabeth’s face, and his own blue eyes were staring back at him. Could she possibly be his?

  “H-how old did you say your daughter was, sir?”

  “Ten years,” the girl answered brightly, suddenly less frightened now that she was latched protectively to her father, her pigtails waving in the ocean breeze. Edward was close enough to reach right out and tug one of them—if he could have moved his hand or used his brain.

  He eyed the silver heart locket and, asking for permission, reached out tentatively to check the initials on the back of the metal. Two scripted E’s were intertwined there.

  “That was her mother’s,” confirmed Richard.

  Edward nodded, recalling the moment he had gifted it to Elizabeth on the dock at Plymouth on the moment of their parting, the last time he saw her.

  “What did she mean about me being the pirate in her mother’s paintings?”

  The man hesitated, then led Edward into the house.

  “There.” He pointed. “And there. And over there.” There was a painting of him on the deck of the Sea Venture. And one of him and Elizabeth holding hands with the Sea Venture in the background. And a single one of him, a portrait. Images of the last time they had seen each other.

  “They’re all over the house. They were some of her first paintings after she arrived. There’s a strong resemblance.”

  As Richard led him back outside to the bench in the entranceway, Edward’s tears threatened to fall.

  “I really thought Elizabeth had imagined you,” Richard said. “Elizabeth was a dreamer. But she couldn’t stop painting you, even though I could tell it was difficult for her.”

  “Wh-where is your wife buried, and how did she die?” Edward finally managed, although it pained him to think of Elizabeth as another man’s wife and he couldn’t come to grips with the fact that he’d never see her again.

  “The fever took her. But I think she died of a broken heart.” The man stared at him accusingly.

  “She had a terrible crossing when she first came to Bermuda all alone and with her young child,” he explained. “She nearly died then, and the child with her. It was a miracle that either survived. That’s what she called Anne—her little miracle. But she recovered. She was never quite the same, though. The ordeal of the crossing weakened her. She wanted to go to Virginia to find you, but she could not bring herself to leave the land again and get on another boat. It surely would have killed her. And she would never have risked the life of her child. She’s buried in the graveyard of St. Peter’s Church right here on St. George’s.”

  “Anne,” the man addressed the little girl. “Why don’t you go play in the house while I converse with our guest?”

  “Shall I bring our guest something to drink or eat?” Anne asked.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Anne,” Edward said, trying out her name. “But, suddenly, I’m not thirsty, and I fear I could not eat a thing right now.”

  “Goodbye then, sir,” she said, flashing her smiling blue eyes at him. “Will I see you again?”

  Edward’s heart broke.

  “I hope so, but for now, goodbye,” he said, following the child lovingly with his own blue-eyed gaze until she entered the house.

  “What a lovely child. So polite and hospitable.”

  “She’s every inch her mother’s daughter.”

  “She’s mine, isn’t she?”

  “No, sir, she’s mine. Conception does not make a parent. If she were yours, why did you desert her and her mother? Elizabeth had a very difficult time alone here until I came along. I assure you others tried to woo her, but she was holding out for a phantom man who never came.”

  “I didn’t know about the child.”

  “Elizabeth was a treasure,” Richard continued, ignoring Edward’s remark. “I cannot imagine what possessed you to give her up, child or no child. How could you have left her behind? I knew I would never have her whole heart, but I was grateful to have her in my life. And in my bed.”

  Edward was sick. His heart constricted when he realized the implication of the shipwright’s final statement. Elizabeth had been a true wife to him. The man was being unnecessarily cruel, Edward thought, but it was no less than he deserved.

  “She was very honest with me about her past. I took care of her and her child when she first came to Bermuda. She needed someone.”

  She needed me and I was not there for her.<
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  “I asked nothing in return. I loved her to distraction and I was very patient with her. I think she came to care for me. My patience paid off. She was a very good companion and wife for the years she had to give me.”

  If only I’d loved her more. I should have sailed to hell and back to find her, Mary Wellington be damned.

  “Elizabeth was fragile, but strong-willed. It was my good fortune that you sailed off and left her alone and defenseless. You should never have let her go.”

  I should have had more faith in her, known that she would have been strong enough to sail with me to Virginia. I would have kept her safe and close. But I had to have my Great Adventure and couldn’t be swayed. His own selfishness astounded him.

  “She wrote to you often. All the letters were returned as undeliverable.” The shipwright shoved the letters into Edward’s hands and sat down on the bench next to him.

  “Letters?” he asked, puzzled. “I only received two of them...” Suddenly the reason why dawned on him. “My wife must have intercepted them.”

  Even though Elizabeth’s child was his, he was in no position to take her back to Virginia. His wife was not a very understanding woman. Mary was insanely jealous and wouldn’t be capable of loving a child from another woman, even if that child was a part of him and the woman was dead.

  “I will find a way to take her—”

  Before Edward could get the words out, Richard sprang from his seat, unfolding to the full extent of his height.

  “If you think for a minute that I’d ever give up my daughter, think again! I’d see you dead first. I’d kill you with my own hands. I raised her and I love her.”

  “Then let me pay you for her support, to see to her needs, her future...”

  Richard gestured to his house and the grounds around it. “I have a growing business, and as you can see I am quite capable of supporting my daughter. To offer me money for the child of my heart is an insult.”