Whiskey Beach Part 111

"'I appeal to you, sir, not as an uncle. You have my word I will never ask for consideration for myself due to that familial connection. I appeal to you as a brother whose only sister's wish is to come home.'"

Mindful of its fragility, Abra set the letter aside. "Oh, Eli."

"She left. Wait, let me think." He straightened, began to wander the room. "There's no record of her marriage, any children, of her death-not in family records, anyway-and I've never heard of this Fitzgerald connection."

"Her father had records destroyed, didn't he?"

"That's what's been pa.s.sed down, yeah. She ran off, and he not only cut her off, he basically eliminated all records."

"He must have been a small, ugly man."

"Tall, dark and handsome in his portraits," Eli corrected, "but you mean inside. And you're probably right. So Violeta left here, estranged from the family, and went to Boston or Cambridge and they disowned her. At some point she married, had children-at least this son. Was Fitzgerald the survivor of the Calypso? An Irish name, not a Spanish one."

"He could've been impressed. Is that the term? Or just as likely she met and married him after she left home. Was there really never any attempt to reconcile, until this? Until she was dying?"

"I don't know. Some of the stories speculate she ran away with a lover, most just speculate she ran off after her lover was killed by her brother. During this research, I've come across a couple of speculations she was s.h.i.+pped off because she was pregnant, and then disowned because she wouldn't fall in line. Basically, they erased her, so there are no family records or mentions of her after the late 1770s. Now that we have this, we can do a search for James J. Fitzgerald, Cambridge, and work back from there."

"Eli, the next letter, it's written in September of the same year. Another plea. She's worse, and the debts are mounting up. He says his mother's too weak to hold a pen and write herself. He writes her words for her. Oh, it breaks my heart. 'Brother, let there be forgiveness. I do not wish to meet G.o.d with this enmity between us. I beseech you, with the love we once shared so joyfully, to allow me to come home to die. To allow my son to know my brother, the brother I cherished, and who cherished me before that horrible day. I have asked G.o.d to forgive me for my sins and for yours. Can you not forgive me, Edwin, as I forgive you? Forgive me and bring me home.'"

She wiped tears from her cheeks. "But he didn't, did he? The third letter, the last. It's dated January sixth. 'Violeta Landon Fitzgerald departed this world on this day at the hour of six. She suffered greatly in the last months of her time on this earth. This suffering, sir, is on your hands. May G.o.d forgive you for I shall not.

"'On her deathbed, she related to me all that occurred in those last days of August in the year 1774. She confessed her sins to me, the sins of a young girl, and yours, sir. She suffered and died wis.h.i.+ng for the home of her birth and her blood, and for the embrace of family refused her. I will not forget nor will any of my blood. You have your riches and hold them dearer than her life. You will not see her again, nor meet with her in Heaven. For your actions you are d.a.m.ned, as are all the Landons who spring from you.'"

She set the last letter with the others. "I agree with him."

"By all accounts Edwin Landon and his father were hard men, uncompromising."

"I'd say these letters bear that out."

"And more. We don't know if Edwin responded, or what he wrote if he did, but it's clear both he and Violeta 'sinned' in August of 1774. Five months after the Calypso wrecked on Whiskey Beach. We need to search for information on James Fitzgerald. We need a date of birth."

"You think she was pregnant when she left, or was disowned."

"I think that's the kind of sin men like Roger and Edwin Landon would condemn. And I think, given the times, their rise in society, in status, in business, a daughter pregnant with the child of someone less, someone outside the law? Untenable."

He walked back to her, studied the letter again, the signature. "James would have been a common name, a popular one. Sons are often named for fathers."

"You think her lover, the seaman from the Calypso, was James Fitzgerald?"

"No. I think her lover was Nathanial James Broome, and he survived the wreck of his s.h.i.+p, along with Esmeralda's Dowry."

"Broome's middle name was James?"

"Yeah. Whoever Fitzgerald was, I'm betting she was pregnant when she married him."

"Broome might have run off with her, changed his name."

Eli ran a hand down her hair absently, remembering how she'd given the doomed schoolteacher and long-ago Landon a happy ending.

"I don't think so. The man was a pirate, fairly notorious. I don't see him settling down quietly in Cambridge, raising a son who becomes a clerk. And he'd never have let the Landons have the dowry. Edwin killed him, that's how I see it. Killed him, took the dowry, tossed his sister out."

"For money? At the bottom of it, they cast her out, erased her, for money?"

"She took for a lover a known brigand. A killer, a thief, a man who would certainly have been hanged if caught. The Landons are acc.u.mulating wealth, social prestige and some political power. Now their daughter, whom they'd have married to the son of another wealthy family, is ruined. They may be ruined as well if it becomes known that they harbored or had knowledge of a wanted man being harbored. She, the situation, her condition needed to be dealt with."

"Dealt with? Dealt with?"

"I'm not agreeing with what was done, I'm outlining their position and probable actions."

"Lawyer Landon. No, he wouldn't be one of my favorite people."

"Lawyer Landon's just stating their case, the case of men of that era, that mind-set. Daughters were property, Abra. It wasn't right, but it's history. Now instead of being an a.s.set, she was a liability."

"I don't think I can listen to this."

"Get a grip on yourself," he suggested when she pushed to her feet. "I'm talking about the late eighteenth century."

"You sound like you're okay with it."

"It's history, and the only way I can try to get a clear picture is to think logically and not emotionally."

"I like emotion better."

"You're good at it." So, they'd use that, too, he decided. Both emotion and logic. "Okay, what does your emotion tell you happened?"

"That Roger Landon was a selfish, unfeeling b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and his son, Edwin, a heartless son of a b.i.t.c.h. They had no right to throw away a life the way they threw away Violeta's. And it's not just history. It's people."

"Abra, you realize we're arguing about someone who died nearly two hundred years ago?"

"And your point?"

He rubbed his hands over his face. "Why don't we say this? We've reached the same basic conclusion. Part of that conclusion is Roger and Edwin Landon were coldhearted, hard-minded, opportunistic b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"That's a little better." Her eyes narrowed. "Opportunistic. You really believe, not only the dowry existed, not only that it came ash.o.r.e with Broome, but that Edwin killed Broome and stole the dowry."

"Well, it was already stolen property, but yeah. I think he found it, took it."

"Then where the h.e.l.l is it?"

"Working on that. But all this is moot if the basic premise is wrong. I need to start tracing Violeta's son."

"How?"

"I can do it myself, which would take time because it's not my field, but there are plenty of tools, some good genealogy sites. Or I can save time and contact someone whose field it is. I know a guy. We were friendly once."

She understood-someone who'd turned his back on Eli. And, she realized, however logical his argument, he understood what Violeta had gone through. He knew what it was to be cast aside, condemned, ignored.

"Are you sure you want to do that?"