Chapter 10

Sophia is happier than she has ever been in her whole life. She has cleaned Captain Morgan's cabin, she had his boots cleaned by one of the cabin boys who seemed bedazzled by her genteel attitude. When he closed the door behind him, she immediately would jump into his arms and offer him her lips and anything else he wanted to remove the stress of being a dangerous scourge of the seas.

The villa of Captain Morgan on the island of Tortuga was spacious and well-appointed. She wandered the maze of hallways and sampled the stacks of female gowns and jewels. He came home every night to bed her in many different ways and with deep-felt passion. She was like a butterfly in his spider's trap but she began to think it was the other way around. All thoughts of Jeffrey left her head and she laughed when the ship's officers were all sold to a banana plantation owner for labor on his desolate farm at the other end of the island. When Captain Morgan discovered the truth of her condition, he told her that they would raise the child as if it was his own and he would be the heir to his estates and ships. The bankers in London informed them that the bankruptcy of a large number of English banks forced most of the landowners to sell their estates and forfeit their inheritances. The senior officer remembered the Carstairs Estates were mentioned quite often as the biggest losers and both the senior Sir Lionel and his son Jeffrey lost both their estates and their family fortune. Jeffry's wife Priscilla left him for a wealthy Member of Parliament and had him evicted from her family estate. Sophia felt closure on her naïve love affair with her first love and showered her mentor and soul-mate Captain Morgan. The birth of her son, Edward, made her closer than ever to her new partner. They were well suited to each other and she made sure he never needed to look for other greener pastures in the taking of pleasure.

When Edward was old enough, they all traveled back to England where Captain Morgan purchased both her old family estate and the estate of Jeffrey Carstairs. Poor Jeffrey was now a permanent resident of the debtor's prison and used his talents at writing to earn his bread and keep. Captain Morgan's new name was Alexander Tremayne and he was reputed to be a rich plantation owner from Indies looking to raise his family and tend to his estates in peace and quiet in the English countryside. His wife seemed well acquainted with the area but her origins were quite shrouded in secrecy.

The voyage home went quite well. Sophia was much attuned to standing on the deck and watching the blue sky meet the darker sea on the horizon. They met nary a single vessel on the journey home. During the trip, Sophia recalled how she had labored and sweated under the terrible advances of the five horny ship's officer and now she gave her body to her beloved Captain Morgan with sweet and joyful grace. They were not as yet married but she had no doubt that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and that he considered them to be a family tried and true. When the ship was only a short distance from the shores of England, he asked the Captain of the ship to perform a marriage ceremony to seal their bond and Sophia cried tears of joy and hope at the proposal. It was a simple ceremony with only a few of the passengers from their dining table in attendance and the Captain made only standard references to wedded bliss in the most generic of terms. Still, it was official and Sophie felt none of the shame that had plagued her ever since her first inkling that she was with Jeffrey's child and that she had betrayed her gentle upbringing with the seeds of her own lust and loneliness. The boy, Edward, slept through the entire ceremony much to Sophia's delight because she would much embarrassed to feed the child in front of her wedding witnesses.