Blatant Destiny: Adventures of a Victorian Soldier - Book 3 by M. J. Twomey

Author:M. J. Twomey [Twomey, M. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Major Hernan Valle’s hacienda was a sprawling colonial home with white walls and columns nestled between fields of cane and corn. The damp air smelled of freshly cut sugarcane, vegetation, and rain. Samuel willed the cart to go faster as the last half mile dawdled on forever. The driver who transported them from the coast had heard nothing of a disturbance at Major Hernan’s estate, but Samuel needed to know about Filipe. Was Sofia’s brother safe? And what about the Euronicas? They would find the answer here.

“Wow. How long did I sleep?” Sofia sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stretched her hands toward the brooding sky. She was beautiful, even with a dirty face and straw poking from her disheveled hair.

“Ever since we left the beach.” He checked his watch. “Over two hours. It took longer than we expected. Padraig, you all right?”

Padraig had said little since the sailors rowed them ashore. He touched the scar on his nose. “Fine, fine. Well, I’m still . . . I mean, to let Sara use me like that.”

Samuel exchanged sympathetic glances with Sofia.

“But now I’m wondering if it was smart to send her back to Panama on the lugger,” Padraig winced and adjusted his position in the cart. “I know I suggested it. I couldn’t stand it if we kept her around, even as a prisoner. I never want to see her face again.” Samuel had paid Captain Molina to take Sara back to Panama, happy to be rid of her.

“You did the right thing.” Sofia ran fingers through her tangled hair. “She’d have slowed us down. And where would we have locked her up? Here? Tio Hernan doesn’t need that headache.”

Samuel shifted the holster to stop the Colt digging into his side. “The lugger’s charter ended when Harcourt died, and the captain was heading back to Panama anyway. Paying him to take Sara along was the best plan. Now she’s no longer a threat.”

Sofia cried out and pointed to the house with a moss-speckled Spanish-tiled roof. “Look at this place, it hasn’t changed a bit. I hope Tio’s home. I’m desperate for news of Filipe.”

Perching on a trunk in the cart for two hours had aggravated Samuel’s leg wound from the Crimea War, so he massaged it. Twenty-seven going on seventy. All this action has aged me, and now I must act again to stop William Walker. “I hope Major Hernan can really help us.”

“Of course he can!” Sofia waved at a woman and child dressed in ragged clothes standing on the wild grass of the verge to let the cart pass.

“He was an officer in the Democrático army, but that no longer exists.”

“It’s hard to know who has power these days, with the government so fractured,” Padraig scratched at an angry red bite on his forehead.

Axels squeaking and wooden sides creaking, the cart jounced up a rutted road between fields of golden corn, and shirtless men and women in long faded smocks raised their heads to enjoy the distraction—anything to interrupt the monotony of their back-breaking labor.

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