Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) by Angela Hunt, Angela Elwell Hunt Read Free Book Online Page A

they done?” she cried, angry tears scalding her fingers. “Audrey, why did you let them do this to me?”
    “Nobody’s done a thing to ye, so I can’t imagine what you are thinking,” Audrey protested, lifting her chin at Jocelyn’s accusation. “Your father is dying, Miss, and he wanted ye to leave him in peace. Your uncle sent his carriage, and he carried ye aboard himself early this afternoon. You’ve been sleeping like a baby, with no one to bother ye. We’re going to Virginia, we are, with Mistress Eleanor and a fine group of folk, and I’ve been sitting right here by your side though I’m perishing with hunger and dying for a little company, if ye take me meaning.”
    Jocelyn listened in amazement to Audrey ’s speech, then fell back on the mattress as her thoughts raced. Maybe they had succeeded in bringing her aboard, but they couldn’t keep her drugged until they reached Virginia! If the ship put in at any other port, or if any other passengers were to come aboard, then surely she could find a way to leave!
    She sat up abruptly and smoothed her dress. “Have you a brush, Audrey?” she asked, coiling her unruly long hair with her hands. “Help me look presentable, will you? I ’m sure you don’t want to stay in this tiny cabin any longer than you have to.”
    “Well, now, I knew you ’d come around, didn’t I say so to your uncle?” Audrey answered, leaping up. “Sorry, Miss, I don’t have a brush, but I’d be glad to braid your hair or something—”
    “Beshrew my hair, let it hang,” Jocelyn snapped, moving past her maid toward the door. There had to be a way to leave this ship, and she intended to find it. Just because she was a girl, and only seventeen, did not mean she could be shipped to Virginia like a bundle of excess baggage.
     
     
    When she and Audrey made their way from John White’s cabin to the main deck, Jocelyn was surprised to find the ship under full sail. A crew of able seamen worked the sails and climbed the rigging, and the ship slipped easily through the blue green waters of the English Channel. The blinding dazzle of the sun’s path on the quiet sea held many of her fellow passengers enthralled on the deck, but Jocelyn slipped carefully among the collected knots of strangers as she searched for her uncle. She would demand to be set ashore at the first opportunity. He had to see her point of view.
    A seaman finally told her John White was “aft, on the poopdeck,” and she found her uncle on an elevated deck at the stern of the ship. He did not acknowledge her when she and Audrey climbed to meet him, for he was engaged in a heated argument with a small, dark-haired man with an unmistakable Portuguese accent. Deliberately ignoring all she had been taught about respect for her elders (for how had stowing her aboard this ship shown respect for her ?), Jocelyn marched boldly between the two men and turned to face her uncle.
    “Uncle John, I would speak with you,” she said, steeling her voice with resolution. Her uncle gave her a distracted, “not now” look and pointed a finger in the small man ’s direction, but Jocelyn would not be ignored. “Uncle John, I demand to know where we are going. If we are making a stop, I insist that you put me ashore. I want to return home. You had no right to bring me here without my leave.”
    She heard the Portuguese snicker behind her as her uncle ’s face clouded in anger. In that moment she realized how she appeared to him—a mere upstart of a girl, a penniless niece who had dared to swagger into the midst of an argument and command his attention—but then familial affection gleamed in his eyes and he patted her shoulder. “Jocelyn, my dear, go find Eleanor and keep her company. I’ll talk to you later.”
    “But Uncle John,” she felt silly stamping her foot, but she did it anyway, “I must go home!”
    From the corner of her eye she saw the Portuguese lean forward to glance at her face, then he turned away to