The Weight of the Journey: Book One in The Cloud Quartet

The seated clerk shot Aileen a quick glance, then nodded. Ashore when he was supposed to be at sea? The clerk straightened, stiffened. Her eyes narrowing, she stared at the back of the head of the clerk who had spoken. If you keep your eyes open, perhaps you might run into him. Ask at the Admiralty? It was half a world away! Thanking them for their help, even if sarcastically, occurred only to be dismissed. Feeling anger—the worst sort, laced with real fear—geysering inside her, she cast the clerk still facing her a stony glare, then she picked up her reticule, spun on her heel, and marched out of the office.

Her half boots rang on the thick, weathered planks of the wharf. Her intemperate strides carried her off the wharf and up the steps to the dusty street. Skirts swishing, she paced rapidly on, climbing the rise to the bustle of Water Street. Just before she reached it, she halted and forced herself to lift her head and draw in a decent breath.

Her older brothers were in the navy, too. And both, she knew, had served ashore at various times—dispatched by their superiors on what amounted to secret missions. Not that she or their parents—or even their other siblings in the navy—had known that at the time. Had Will been dispatched on some secret mission, too? She needed to make several purchases in the shops lining the street before hiring a carriage to take her back up Tower Hill to her lodgings.

Aileen turned from closing the front door of Mrs. Hoyt was a round, genial widow and a redoubtable gossip who lived vicariously through the lives of her boarders. Her arms wrapped around a pile of freshly laundered sheets, Mrs. Hoyt beamed at Aileen; with frizzy red hair and a round face, she filled the doorway to her rooms to the left of the front hall, opposite the communal parlor. Having already taken Mrs. I must write home. If you want a lad to run your letters to the post office, you just let me know. Her room was on the first floor. A pleasant corner chamber, it faced the street.

Lace curtains screened the window, lending an aura of privacy. Aileen laid her packages and reticule on the desk, then stripped off her gloves before unbuttoning her lightweight jacket and shrugging it off. Even with the window open, there was little by way of a breeze to stir the air.

She pulled out the stool and sat at the desk.

She opened her packages, set out the paper and ink, and fixed a new nib to the pen, then without allowing herself any further opportunity to procrastinate, she got down to the business of informing her parents where she was and explaining why she was there. Her parents had, unsurprisingly, been deeply distressed by that news. For her part, Aileen had considered it ludicrous. To suggest that any Hopkins would go absent without leave was ridiculous! For four generations, all the men in her family had been navy through and through. They were officers and gentlemen, and they viewed the responsibility of their rank as a sacred calling.

As the only girl in a family of four children, Aileen knew exactly how her three brothers viewed their service. To suggest that Will had thrown over his position to hie off on some giddy venture was pure nonsense. But with both her older brothers at sea with their respective fleets—one in the South Atlantic, the other in the Mediterranean—as Aileen had been in London, her parents had asked if she could make inquiries with a view to discovering what was going on. The houses of those moving in what passed for local society were located on the terraces higher up the hill.

Aileen had no time for social visits. Her sole purpose in being in the settlement was to find out what had happened to Will—and, if at all possible, rescue him. She was as capable as her brothers, and the other two were not in any position to help Will at that time. She was the girl in the family. No one expected her to contribute to anything in any way.

She was supposed to be decorative rather than effective, and the only expectation anyone seemed able to credit her with was to make a comfortable marriage and keep house for some husband—most likely another naval officer. In her heart, she knew that such a future was unlikely to ever come to pass. Aside from all else, her temperament and the odd itch beneath her skin—the same impulsive longing for adventure that had compelled her to set sail for Freetown—made her unsuitable for the position of meek and mild wife.

Even as she sent her pen scratching across the paper, she felt her lips quirk. Meek and mild was not an epithet anyone had ever applied to her. First, an army officer called Dixon, who was stationed at Fort Thornton, which squatted at the top of Tower Hill. Apparently, Will had attended several services, possibly as many as three. Of all her brothers, she knew Will the best, understood him with the greatest clarity. Instead, she concluded with a less stressful repetition of her intention to discover where Will had gone.

She ended with a promise to be in touch in due course. She set aside the letter, then glanced at the small clock on the mantelpiece.

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Lips firming, she pushed back from the desk and walked to the low chest that served as a dressing table. In the mirror above it, she considered her reflection, then grimaced and started unpinning her hair. As she did, she considered the image the clerks at the naval office had seen. A gently bred English rose with pale skin and roses in her cheeks. Her face was close to oval, her nose unremarkable, her forehead wide. Her bright hazel eyes were her best feature, large and fringed with long brown lashes and well set under finely arched brows; other ladies might have used them more, but she rarely thought of it.

Her lips were well enough—pink and softly plump—but they were usually set in a firm if not uncompromising line above her distinctly determined chin. Her hair was a pleasing but unusual and distinctive shade of copper brown. It normally fell in glossy waves, but at the moment, her tresses were frizzing almost as badly as Mrs. With her pins removed, she wielded her hairbrush with grim determination.

Eventually, she managed to rewind and refasten her hair in a passable chignon. She put down the brush, twisted side to side examining her handiwork, then she nodded to herself in the mirror. She resettled her skirts of pale bone-colored cotton, then put the matching jacket on again, but in a concession to the heat, left it open over her neat white blouse.

After sliding the cords of her reticule over her wrist, she picked up the letter and headed for the door. Hardwicke, and that Mrs. Hardwicke could be found most mornings at the rectory. Pausing with her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated. Two days later, Aileen filed out of the rustic church in which the local priest, one Obo Undoto, conducted his services. Hemmed in between two other ladies, she was carried forth on the tide of the emerging congregation, which then spread across the dusty area before the church.

After the introductions had been dealt with, the conversation had turned to events occurring in the settlement—and a Mrs. Later, Aileen had left the rectory with Mrs. Hitchcock and had asked for directions to the church, which Mrs. Hitchcock had readily given, along with a recommendation that she would find the service diverting.

People of all races and of a wide range of social classes had crammed the pews—Europeans of all nationalities primarily to the left, with local natives and others of the African nations mostly to the right. Anything to fill the boredom that many, of necessity, had to bear. None of which explained why Will had attended.

Most likely more than once. He leaned heavily on his cane; he had lost one leg and had an old-fashioned wooden peg leg. Instantly, Aileen knew who among all the congregation Will would most likely have approached. Her younger brother had always been fascinated with old tales of the sea. She changed tack and went after the old man. As she drew level, she glanced at his face and discovered he was one-eyed, too.

The old sailor glanced at her in surprise. But the instant he took in her face and her attire, he halted, politely raised his cap, and, planting his cane, half bowed. The old sailor folded both hands over the head of his cane. Rip roaring, they were. Sure and I remember him. Interesting lad—keen to hear my stories. She tipped her head, regarding him more closely. Or was he watching someone? And I sit on a stool in the back corner, so I see most things.

Whatever that mission had been. Some say to Cape Town, but others as saw them go say they left under oars at night, and the tack they took out of the estuary lay to the north. For a second, Sampson searched her eyes, then he drew himself up. Sampson glanced swiftly around, then shifted closer and lowered his voice.

You need to take that on board. The possibility that, contrary to all appearances, someone—most likely someone in authority in London—was pursuing those missing, Will included, came as a huge relief. She drew breath, hesitated, then inclined her head. No need to tell him that learning that Will had, indeed, been on some mission and had subsequently disappeared, and that others had disappeared as well, had only made her more determined than ever to find her missing brother and, if possible, rescue him, too.

On gaining the cleared area before the gates, she paused and looked back. Perched on the crown of the hill above the harbor, the fort commanded an arresting view over the settlement and the ships clustered before the docks to the wide blue sweep of the estuary beyond. She took a full minute to savor the sight.

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She would never convince herself that waiting for someone else—especially someone with official authorization—to rescue Will was a viable alternative. Unfortunately, that tack had proved futile. She turned away from the vista and walked the last yards to the guardhouse and the pair of middle-aged guards taking the sun at their ease beside it.

Aileen halted before them and smiled. I would like to speak with an officer by the name of Dixon. The older refocused on her. Gone off to seek his fortune in the jungle, they say. The older guard cut his junior a chiding look. Battled to keep her expression uninformative. Nevertheless, the older guard frowned in concern. She met his shrewd eyes. This would have been some months ago—possibly three months or more. The younger guard shook his head emphatically. Dixon was already gone. Would have been a good five weeks before. I remember we told your brother that. Had quite a jaw about it, now I think back.

About what Dixon vanishing like that might mean. The older guard was regarding her closely. Should be in a week or so, I gather. Aileen met his eyes, then grimaced. Sadly, my brother has vanished, too. The older guard narrowed his eyes on his junior. A week later, late in the afternoon, Aileen threw a shawl about her shoulders and left the confines of the boardinghouse to walk in the public gardens behind the rectory.

As the sun began its final descent toward the western horizon, a cooling breeze often lifted off the harbor and estuary beyond, sweeping up the hill with gentle grace, refreshing and renewing the air after the stifling, muggy heat of the day. Pacing along the lightly graveled path, Aileen made for her favorite bench. Situated beneath the spreading branches of a tall, shady tree, the bench was unoccupied, as it usually was. She found the already familiar susurration welcoming.

She sat, letting the fine shawl fall to her elbows so she could better enjoy the coolness on her skin. She scanned the short stretch of lawn below and saw only a single couple who were already heading home. She watched them go, then she raised her gaze to the wider vista of the harbor and its ships, and the estuary beyond.

From there, she could even see the opposite shore, so distant it was nothing more than a thick band of jungle green edging the water. She told herself that. Glumness dragged at her. Instead of giving in to it, she focused on the scene before her. A ship—sleekly hulled and sporting three towering masts—was sliding gracefully up the estuary.

Even from this distance, she could make out the tiny figures of sailors scrambling high on the spars, furling a quite staggering array of sails. The sight of the ship held her transfixed.

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As she watched, it smoothly slid past the mouth of the harbor and continued up the estuary, still well out from shore. In the sleek lines of the ship nosing down the estuary, she thought she detected the telltale shape of the new ships out of the Aberdeen shipyards. Clippers, as people were starting to call them, because under full sail—which was how they were designed to be sailed—the hull rose and sped across the water, clipping the waves. She imagined how fast the ship before her might go if all the sails she could see were set before a good wind.

The best way to eradicate fear was to face it. It came in a short way, then anchored just inside a cove two bays to the east of the harbor. She wondered why the captain had chosen to avoid the harbor proper. Eschewing the sight before her, she turned her thoughts inward. She decided that was a clear enough sign. Either something happened at the services that Will had seen but that she had yet to notice, or…. Frowning, she refocused on her surroundings and realized the light was fading. In the tropics, night descended like a curtain falling on a stage—with brutal finality and quite surprising abruptness.

The temperature had started dropping with the setting of the sun. She flicked her shawl about her shoulders and set off at a brisk walk for the lane, the road, and Mrs. As she entered the lane, her senses came alert. Nevertheless, as she emerged onto the road by the rectory, she recognized that, with the falling of night, the atmosphere in the settlement changed.

She set off along the rough pavement toward the boardinghouse. Lights were already burning on the front porch, and a welcoming glow shone through the parlor curtains. Then she nearly tripped as her mind connected her recent thoughts. She halted and stared ahead as she realized…. In this place—as in any other rough and dangerous place in which predators lurked—time of day made a very real difference to what anyone watching might see.

She needed to watch him during the evening and night. Robert and Aileen are a dynamic couple, with plenty of passion and daring-do. Laurens is at her best when adventure and romance merge, keeping readers on the edge of their seats with well-paced intrigue and unexpected twists and turns that make the pages fly. Global cover of the e-book.

As Robert neared, Wolverstone nodded. Smiling, Declan strode forward. Robert arched a brow back. Edwina arched a brow at Wolverstone. His expression impassive, he inclined his head. Between them, Declan and Edwina related a tale that kept Robert transfixed. The hours slid by unnoticed by any of them. To his surprise, impatience rode him. He wanted this mission done and squared away. Put simply, he envied what Declan had found and wanted the same for himself. Regardless, all plans in that regard had been put on hold. This mission came first.

Which, of course, was why he was so keen to have it over and done.

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With a flourish, he set a final period to the entry. The record of his life. Not in the greater scheme of things—on the wider plane of life. He was quick with his tongue, while they were quick with their swords and fists. A fresh and different challenge, before he faced a larger one.

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And this time, his way was crystal clear. The heat closed around her, muffling in its cloying sultriness. The beginnings of a headache pulsed in her temples. The Earth cannot be managed for monetary profit only. To survive, biological health must come first, real wealth counted in human creativity and solar dollars. Is this a natural part of species diminution? The mass balance of every glacier and ice cap has shifted. Two inches of snow falls every hour. In the Arctic I heard the ululating mating songs of bearded seals and the roar of pack ice being pushed by strong winds into land-fast ice; saw it rise into a wall, and I wonder, how will the new wilderness of a world without humans sound, and to whose ear?

Snow falls from the roof in soft thuds. How much has been crushed? How much gone missing? Currently, there are 3, critically endangered species in the world.

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Snow stops as abruptly as it started. Climate change teaches us speed. Summer A long plume of cold smoke bridges two mountains, then dips into the valley between.

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At the end of the last ice age ten thousand years ago, Rocky Mountain glaciers began to retreat, grinding, scraping, and polishing fortresses of rock as they receded. Accumulation and ablation were held in balance by a static interglacial climate. Now massive melting is the dominant key.

Glaciers are bursting, rivers are running fast uphill. Here, in Wyoming, fire has replaced snow. The night is red. In the morning black and broken pine needles cover my outdoor writing table. They are dark pins that have burned, that no longer hold things together. A bull moose moans for a cow in heat, antelope run skittishly toward the trees where a wolf sits waiting, then away into dappled sunlight. The ground gives little grass.

There are no wildflowers. The aspens that leafed out early later froze. The wolf, having eaten no calves, no lambs, no antelope, is shot dead. I live on a glacial moraine surrounded by kettle ponds. At one time each was a water hole for elk, deer, antelope, coyote, grizzly, black bear, wolverine, and wolf. Each was home to nesting ducks — teal, bufflehead, goldeneye, mallards. Some were nesting places for tundra swans and sandhill cranes.

Now, only the largest ponds have any water at all. Four pairs of American widgeons and their hatchlings swim in ever-smaller circles as the volume of pond water shrinks. Then one morning they are gone. I follow their tracks: That afternoon, four cow elk, four calves, and a yearling moose — animals that should be grazing the pocket meadows of the high country — join them.

July comes on with a sudden, ferocious downpour followed by unrelenting heat. Ninety-degree days were once unheard of at eight or nine thousand feet. Now they are the norm. Alpine fescue — the bluest, finest, most delicate bunchgrass of the alpine ecosystem — is brittle and breaks under my feet. As ponds drink themselves dry, I plant seedlings, capture rain, harvest sun in solar panels, but carelessness — mine included — is the driving, drying force of our world. A glacial erratic in the middle of a dry pond bears the marks of high water — three feet deep.

To the west another wildfire breaks out. I watch a plume of black smoke unfurl into a red wall of flame. But that same canyon burned last year — how can it burn again? Climate change—inspired drought pushes into redundancies: The oil companies and others like them are perpetrators of greed — hungry ghosts, or pretas — who never get enough.

They are eternally obsessed.