Unclaimed Heart by Kim Wilkins Page B

him for twenty years. Since my leg worked proper.”
    â€œHas he always been so? A good man, I mean?”
    To Constance’s horror, Harry’s eyes flickered. He took a moment—it seemed an eternity—to answer her. And in that moment she knew, she knew . The Irishman had been telling the truth.
    â€œHe has always been as he is, miss,” Harry said firmly. “The best captain I could have wished for.”
    â€œOf course.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. Harry wouldn’t meet her eye; he left the room quietly. And from then on he told her nothing more about their journey, but delivered her meals wordlessly.
    His silence told her everything she needed to know.

    A week later, they caught their first glimpse of the Cape of Good Hope. It was midday, the sun hung vertical in the sky, and the clouds were nowhere in sight. Slowly, they made their way towards Table Bay. It was two in the morning when Constance woke to hear voices cheering; they had cast anchor. She kneeled up to her window and saw Table Mountain, its long flat peak ghostly in the clear moonlight.
    â€œAfrica,” she murmured. And the incredible thought that she would soon set her feet on that mysterious continent caused a thrill to her heart. She drifted in and out of sleep, restless, eager for morning to come.
    She was dressed in her cabin, her letter to Daphne folded and sealed on the writing desk, when Father opened the door.
    She tried not to flinch. He lowered dark eyebrows at her, his customary expression in the last few weeks as she had become more and more withdrawn from him.
    â€œConstance,” he said, “we have arrived in Table Bay. The crew are going ashore for two days. Do you have anything for the post?”
    She offered up her letter, her heart sinking. “Father?” she ventured. “Could I . . . would it be possible for me to accompany you ashore?”
    â€œI’m not going ashore. You’re staying here, and somebody will have to watch you.”
    Ordinarily she might have protested how unfair this was, but she was utterly intimidated by him. “Very well,” she said, and returned to her bed to gaze out the window at the mountain and the bay. Trying not to think how much she felt like one of Old Harry’s doomed chickens in its coop.

    Good Bess quit the Cape of Good Hope with a brisk gale after eight long days waiting for favorable winds. Henry was growing anxious, though he didn’t know why. Sixteen years had passed since Faith’s disappearance; the matter of a few days would hardly make a difference to the outcome of the journey. And yet anxious he was, keen to move, keen for the wind to blow.
    Within a week, he was keen for it to stop blowing. North-westerly gales plagued them. One particularly violent storm plunged him deep into fear. The swell was high, but kept down by the violence of the wind itself, which ripped the white tops off the waves and sent them hailing across the decks. He couldn’t stay upright without holding the rail, and his roared commands were carried away from the ears they were meant for. “Hand the mainsail!” he shouted, hoarse. “Take another reef in the mizzen topsail! For God’s sake, keep Bess before the wind!”
    He had been at sea nearly all his adult life, had steeled himself through storms twice the measure of this one. Why was he so fearful? Then it came to him: prior to this day, the only cargo he had carried was for trade. But today, Constance was aboard. His precious child. For all that she couldn’t meet his eye, that she quavered when he approached as though he might eat her, he loved her and couldn’t bear the thought of her coming to any harm.

    They soon met with the south-east trade winds, blowing fresh and scented with the tropics. Good Bess was head-up for the Gulf of Mannar. Their journey was nearly complete.

    â€œCaptain?”
    Henry turned from his navigation