"Not at all," I say. I fight the impulse to apologize for my spoiled bride. "Thanks, by the way, for your help with that Caribbean Charm thing."
The Latin grins. "No problem. My guys tell me the fire was one of the biggest the county's ever seen. It started during the day, killed everyone in the executive offices. Caribbean Charm's been shipping merchandise like crazy ever since."
"Good." I nod, thank him for watching the house and ask him to call Jeremy Tindall, tell him that I'll be returning his boat later in the day.
"Not that Jeremy has any desire to hear from me these days," he says, stares at the Grand Banks and grins. "I'd wash the decks if I were you. Jeremy will have a fit if you return it in this condition. He'll be complaining for weeks."
"Doesn't he usually?"
Arturo laughs and nods. "God, it'll be good to get back to work," he says. "I even miss Jeremy. Though I doubt he wants to see either of us very much." Then he looks at me. "What did you think of our boy?"
I knit my eyebrows at his question.
"Santos. What did you think of the report? Tindall faxed a copy to me."
"I haven't read it yet," I say, remembering the manila envelope I stowed in the drawer next to the lower wheel. "I haven't had time."
"No time?" Arturo says. "How busy could you have been? What were you doing, rowing back?"
Banter may be one thing, but too much familiarity is another. I give him a blank stare.
Arturo's grin disappears. He knows better than to continue in the same vein. "Well," he says, "I wish you would read it soon. The guy's a pain. He even hired some ultralight pilot to fly over the island. Damned plane buzzed me four days in a row. He's still driving Emily crazy too. He calls and asks for you every day."
I nod, frown that I have to pay attention to this annoyance so close to my homecoming.
"There's no reason you have to meet with this guy, you know," Arturo says.
I wave my hand, as if to push away his suggestion and the violence it implies. I've already promised myself to try to avoid bringing any more death to Maria's family. Besides, I wonder at the man's persistence. "I want to see what this man is like," I say. "Just tell Emily to arrange a meeting this Friday morning at ten."
Below deck, Elizabeth sits in the salon, greets me with silence, her arms folded across her chest. Through the passageway I can see our belongings piled haphazardly on top of the bed.
"He's gone," I say.
She shrugs, says nothing.
"Nice job of packing," I say, going to the drawer next to the lower helm, taking the manila envelope out of it.
"At home we have servants do such things."
"Here we don't." I go into the bedroom, start separating the pile, folding and organizing the clothes.
"We should."
"Father gave up slaves before the Civil War."
"Who does all your cleaning? Who maintains the house?"
"I do."
"I don't see why you would want to," Elizabeth says. She joins me next to the bed, stares at the clothes, picks up a pair of shorts, folds it slowly. "I'm not used to having to do these things. I don't think I'll be very good at it."
"It's okay," I say. "I am."
After Elizabeth asks three more times, I finally agree to leave our belongings on the ship and take her to the house. "We can bring everything in later," she says.
She grins as we walk down the dock, her smile widening when I unlock the iron gate and throw the switch to turn on the generators. "We have power?" she asks.
"And lights and air conditioning, TVs and stereo…" I say, smiling when she runs ahead of me, watching her climb the wide coral steps leading to the veranda, two at a time.
Elizabeth waits for me on the veranda, leaning on the parapet next to the cannon, staring at the ocean. When I join her, she says, "I'm going to love it here! Show me all of it, every room. Please."
I take her to my room first, throw open the double doors and wince at the heat and dampness, the smell of must. I open the windows and the doors to the interior and rush from room to room, opening doors and windows, letting the fresh sea air cleanse and cool the house. Elizabeth follows me, helps me open everything. Along the way she touches the windows and the doors, sits on the beds, turns the light switches on and off, runs her hands over the smooth stone walls of the interior.
"This house is much smaller than Morgan's Hole," she says. "But it's much nicer, I think."
On the third floor, in the great room, she wanders from one side to the other, taking in the panorama from each window, asking me to tell her the names of the islands she sees and point out the mainland in the distance. The sea breeze courses through the room, cooling it and comforting us, making us forget the August heat outside.
"Is it always so comfortable inside?" she asks.
"Mostly," I tell her. "But in the winter we sometimes need the fires to keep us warm."
"It's cold every night at Morgan's Hole," she says.
She walks to the wall, touches the old cutlass that has hung there as long as I can remember.
"My father's," I say. "From his pirate days."
Elizabeth nods, studies the oil paintings hanging on the walls nearby, asks me about them too. "French impressionists," I say, looking at the landscapes and portraits my mother brought with her from France and insisted on displaying throughout the house. One shows a nude young woman posed on a couch.
I point to it. "That's my mother. She lived with an artist in Paris and posed for him before Father found her. Father only told me about it just before he died. He said, after she became his bride, he brought her back to the city and bought her whatever she wished, including all the paintings she wanted. She insisted that, no matter the cost, he had to buy this one."
"And you, Peter," Elizabeth says, her voice turning coquettish as she goes from picture to picture, "can you afford to buy your bride whatever she wants?"
"You'll see," I say.
By the time we walk down the spiral staircase to the bottom floor, Elizabeth's pace has slowed, her lips have settled into a partial smile, a show of polite, if indifferent approval. She gives the cells we pass only a cursory glance and hesitates when I enter the smallest one. "Peter, I've seen cells before…"
Her eyes widen when I pull the cot up and the passageway opens.
"Where are we going?" she asks as we descend into the darkness.
I say nothing, avoid turning on the lights at the bottom until the treasure room's open. Elizabeth allows me to guide her into the small cold room, and I stand behind her and flick the switch once she's in place.
"Oh my," she says, her hands to her face, her emerald-green eyes wide as she glances from chest to chest. "My father would do anything for this."
"As I promised-he'll have some of the gold."
She picks up a handful of jewelry, holds it to the light, then turns to me. "We don't have to be too generous, do we, Peter?"
Outside, to my surprise, the garden thrills her even more than the treasure room. "Dragon's Tear," she says, examining the plants, pulling weeds as she looks. "Death's Rose. Angel Wort. Why didn't you tell me you had all of these?"
I shrug. "It was my mother's garden. Father and I mostly ignored it."
Elizabeth puts her hands on her hips. "With all this and the seeds that Mum gave me, we'll have a proper garden in no time. There's already enough Dragon's Tear here for a good few quarts of wine. I'll have some made within a few weeks."
"And then?" I ask.
She gives me a sly grin. "And then I'll teach you a few things."
I don't even think of the Santos file until late in the day, after we've returned Jeremy Tindall's boat and cruised home in my Grady White.
Tired and weary of maintaining her human form, Elizabeth insists on reverting to her natural shape before she lakes a nap. "I don't know why you like the human form so much, " she says after she changes. "I always feel better like this."