The Lost - J. D. Robb [93]
“It’s absurd and this is just a dream.” She took the cross away from him and put it back on the shelf. “It’s my mind’s way of making sense of this.”
“Isabelle, do not let the scientist in you reject what the woman of faith believes. Look around you and see that the healer tells the truth.” Father Joubay spoke with a doggedness that belied the gentle way he patted her hand.
A cock crowed and Isabelle woke up, the image of the man disappearing along with the storm and the furious seas.
The sky was leaden today as if rain was inevitable. Taking a page from the healer’s book, Isabelle left a note under her door saying that she was taking the day off. Then she walked on to the castillo, allowing the scientist in her to rule the day.
She visited the kitchen, a massive vault of a room kept cool because it was mostly belowground. A line of windows ringed the ceiling to let in light.
All the household work was done by hand and even in the morning there were already five people busy preparing the main meal of the day. The staff was welcoming, the chef annoyed by the distraction. The mix of twenty-fi rst-century life with nineteenth-century ways was disconcerting.
There were contemporary clocks but no timers. Spoons of all kinds, except plastic, but no wire whisks or eggbeat ers. The fireplace had a baking oven to the side but there was no sign of a microwave or a conventional cooking range. Huge porcelain sinks looked contemporary but the hand pump was not.
Isabelle wandered around the castillo, finally getting a sense of the place as it was before it became one man’s prison. It must have housed hundreds of soldiers once and the construction of the time was impressive.
The Castillo de Guerreros was hundreds of years old but showed little sign of deterioration.
Isabelle found the room she had woken up in after the shipwreck. The curtained bed and candles made more sense now.
The window overlooking the harbor was open and she could hear shouting from the beach.
A group of men and older boys were playing some kind of game. But it was Sebastian who caught her attention. Stripped down to an odd undergarment, a cross between boxers and briefs, he was a magnificent contrast to the darker, shorter islanders with whom he was playing.
The game involved running and kicking, some combined version of soccer and kickball, apparently of island origin. Periodically play would stop, they would all drink something from various mugs, laugh and joke and then begin again.
Sebastian was in such good humor that Isabelle hardly recognized the man who had been so awful to her the night before. She loved watching the way he controlled his body, the ripple of muscles, the flex of his buttocks as he kicked the ball, his agility in avoiding opponents who wanted to stop his progress, the way he bent over, putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
The game grew more heated and one of the younger players broke ranks and took a punch at a boy on the opposing side.
The game stopped and Sebastian switched roles, from player to coach. With an arm around the young man’s shoulder he took him to a spot in the shade and they talked. Well, it appeared Sebastian mostly listened while the boy talked.
The others ignored the discussion, drank or found a shady spot to cool down. A few minutes later Sebastian and the boy returned to the team, the boy said something to the guy he’d punched and the game resumed, all ill will gone.
The competition ended a few minutes later with much cheering and back slapping. Then the men stripped off their clothes and ran into the water. When he was waist deep, Sebastian looked up and waved to her.
Isabelle raised her hand to him, but ducked out of sight when the others tried to figure out to whom he was waving.
Those few minutes told her as much about Sebastian Dushayne as she had learned in all their conversations. He was a natural leader, respected by his fellow islanders,