Port Royal, Jamaica
******
"Seriously, Millicent! Did he look that scary?" bright eyes filled with intrigue for adventure and the unknown leaned forward anxiously waiting for her best friend to continue the tale.
" Scary me se, him wear a patch over him eye like so," Milicent covered one eye.
A brief silence passed between the two before they erupted into cackles of laughter.
Straddling a large tree branch, the two young girls sat and spoke of the seedy pirates that frequented the port.
Port Royal was a popular safe-haven for pirates and a commodity due to its location of easy access to their prey on the trade routes.
It was a fascination they held speaking about the privateers turned to debauchery and mutiny.
If her nanny or mother ever gets wind of such talk, she would surely be chastised. A young miss as she, innocent and cloistered should not know what goes on beyond the walls to her plantation home.
But, if it weren't for her friend Millicent who snuck around those parts, she would never know about such things.
They were different as night and day. Where Millicent was native to these parts, she had that rich Caribbean hue of beautiful dark caramel skin, long black tight curly hair, and deep brown eyes. Whereas Tempest was the total opposite. She grew up in these parts. Her skin was proof of many days playing in suns rays giving her a peaches and cream gold tan. She had wild chestnut brown hair and luminous dark aquamarine eyes that resembled the dangerous waters of the Sargasso Sea, therefore her father named her Tempest.
The noonday caught them happily lounging in one of the tall trees nearing the sugarcane fields her grandfather owned. Hot humid air mixed with salty tropical breeze brushed over them both as they enjoyed their day.
They soon fell into whispers and soft laughs until her name was called.
Sitting upright they peered through the branches watching her nanny search for her. They giggled as the elderly woman called to her; flushed with the midday heat, fanning her face and holding up her skirts carefully as she walked stumbling over uneven ground.
As she came closer she stopped just a few footsteps away from them.
"Tempest!" She shouted again looking high and low for the girl that held a mischievous grin in the branches above her.
When the woman bellowed again, Tempest answered her from above in the tree.
"I am up here, Nanna Josephine," she said.
Smiling at Millicent she turned to watch the woman spin around and look up then gasp.
"Young Lady! Get down from there this instant," Josephine shook her head.
Tempest shook her head playfully and giggled at the elder woman stomping and fuming in anger.
"No."
"Tempest get down this instant or I will tell your father of your boorish and unladylike behavior," she stomped again pointing to the ground.
Tempest scowled crossing her arms before her.
"You betta go," Millicent shook her head with a smile.
Giving up the standoff, she shimmied down the tree with ease until she landed on the pads of her bare feet before Josephine.
"Good Heavens! Look at you, Tempest," Josephine shook her head.
Horrified she gave Tempest a disapproving once over.
"There is not enough time in this day that we have left to get you ready," her gaze rested on Tempest's rumpled gown, wild hair, and dirty bare feet.
YOU ARE READING
Tempest's Embrace
Historical Fiction"Free me and I will save you," he promised. ~*~*~*~*~ A Pirate in peril... Pirate Justin O'Shea is finally captured by his enemy, he had no choice but to sit and wait for his men to come to his aid. But, when his captor decides to bring aboard cap...
