Kidnapped to Freedom

Val had not expected children

Val waited in the shadow of the trees. It must be at least thirty minutes past moonrise. She wasn't coming. Again. Five years ago, he had waited the whole night and come back again the next. This time, if he couldn't carry Phoebe off tonight, he'd have to give up. It had taken all his powers of persuasion to convince his crew to make one try. They weren't privateers. The letters of marque that let them take an American ship while the United States and England were at war wouldn't cover a land raid on a plantation. If she didn't come now, the men wouldn't agree to a second attempt.

There! Someone was coming. He straightened in anticipation. Yes, it was her—twelve years older and a mature woman, rather than the girl he remembered—but even in the moonlight, he couldn't mistake her.

She wasn't alone. He couldn't take a herd of children with him! What was she thinking?

He stepped out from the sheltering trees. The mask would hide his face, and his voice had never been the same since the last time he had been close enough to Phoebe to speak, when Chan tried to strangle him for the presumption.

"Are you Phoebe?" He was twelve years older, too, and a man changed more from seventeen to twenty-nine than a woman did, but he couldn't risk being seen and recognised by anyone on the plantation.

She nodded. He noted that she gathered the children protectively behind her, but the older boy, his face grimly intent, evaded the sweep of her arm and stepped in front. Brave little bantam rooster.

"I was commissioned to take one woman to her brother in Canada, not a passel of brats," he said.

"Can't leave without ma babies, Sir." Her voice was barely a whisper, but determined.

Her children? All of them? His brother's children, then, possibly. Probably. He surveyed them quickly. Yes, the little bantam had the Blake look, and the girl rocking the baby could be a darker version of the childhood portrait of his mother that hung in the parlour.

The men wouldn't like it, but he was taking them all, and be damned.

He met the eyes of each in turn as he said, "You must be quiet. Not a sound. Do everything I say, and I will take you to your uncle in Canada."

"Perry, give the signal." He gave the command over his shoulder, not waiting to see if it was obeyed. Perry could be trusted to carry out the raid with maximum noise and minimum damage. He didn't want anyone actually killed, but he did hope many slaves would take the chance to escape in the confusion, masking the disappearance of one maid and her children.

He led the way down to the creek, where Jimson stood ready to row them back out to the coast and the waiting ship.