REMEMBER OUR LOVE (Pirate Series - Book 2) (BOOKS 1, 2, 3 COMPLETE)

Remember Our Love Chapter 1

I was dreaming I was with Thomas and we were taking our wedding vows. It was a replay of our wedding, the look on his face as he pledged his eternal love to me, and I to him. I woke sobbing, I was heartbroken. I couldn't breathe as tears spilt down my cheeks and I looked over at the empty side of the bed where my husband should be.

"Ella?" Virginia said as she stood in the light of the doorway. "Oh Ella," she said as she rushed to cuddle up beside me on the bed, wrapping her arms around me as I broke down. "You dreamt about him again didn't you?" she said.

I nodded as my body shook, racked with grief. "Wed...ding," I managed to stutter out between sobs.

"It was a beautiful wedding," she said. "You were a beautiful bride and he was so happy the day he married you. What a wonderful dream, to be able to relive that again." She was right, but I couldn't stop crying as the grief hit me again.

"I just want him back. I need him back," I cried. Her nightgown now totally soaked with my tears, sticking to her skin as she held me. We had been in this position more than once over the past few years. I comforted her and she comforted me. Sometimes we comforted each other.

We both agreed on one thing though, we didn't think of ourselves as widows, our husbands were not dead or lost at sea. We could feel them. Tom had been adamant when I was missing that I wasn't dead as he could feel me and said he would know if I had died. It was true, I could feel him and I know he is not dead... I KNOW IT!

Since their disappearance Virginia and I had become experts in trade and inherited all our husbands' assets. As their father Robert Senior and Brothers Robert Junior, John and Willie were out looking for them we also got left in charge of his twin sisters Ruby and Pearl who were fast approaching their 16th birthdays. They were both working here with us in the bar along with Lottie their eldest sister. She had moved here with her husband and children as she wanted to be near her family in a time of crisis. Virginia suspects that she has been forced to come here as the family is under threat.

Bessie the middle one and 'apple of her fathers eye' had gone to stay with my parents as she wanted to train to be a nurse with my father and found being on the Island without her mother and brothers too upsetting. She visited often and vice versa. Pearl and Ruby began to spend more time at my parents with their sister and as such were treated as my fathers 'wards' when they went to stay. They both loved high society and it would be fair to say that they spent 80% of the last year living with my parents and even had their own room. One had even been punished by my father for bad behaviour and spent a week hating him and crying as I used to when I was a child but Robert had thanked my father for pulling her back in line in his absence.

Robert Juniors wife Adele had eventually came to stay with us which confirmed Virginia's theory of us being 'marked' but Adele joining in trading with Lottie, Virginia and I, we were doing well. We had even managed to get other houses made on our land to accommodate everyone, giving them their independence and privacy but keeping them close.

Adele was a school teacher so we built a small school. We figured we would need it for our children and the local children attended too.

My sister Josephine is 21 now and is also a teacher so she decided to come to stay for a while and help with the school but we think Willie, Tom's brother is the real reason. The way those two steal looks at each other is enough to make me blush redder than my sister who dare not be in a room alone together with him. Robert, Virginia and I all smile at each other as it is so nice to see love bloom, even though ours loved ones are lost to us for now.

However love is never easy, they had one problem. Josephine has been terrified of men since hearing of my attack. She had to be told a few years back as Andrew had threatened her when he raped me. She didn't understand why going to meet Andrew was a problem as she didn't know what had happened to me. She loved to attend parties and functions and as such she was bound to fall into his clutches at one of them. She had snuck out to a party and was very nearly taken by men they suspect were carrying out Andrews orders. Willie had fought them off with some of his mothers' crew. Dragging her back to my parents' house where my father had nearly beat my sister for her insolence but was held back by Willie and the crew. My father shook with anger at the fear of nearly losing another daughter. Virginia heard stories that Robert had taken my father to the docks where my sisters' attackers were being held and let him take his anger out on them instead but I dare not ask my father if this was the truth. My father told Josephine that if she ever went out again without permission or an escort he would have Robert take her away on his ship. Rosie had spoke to my parents to tell them of my attack and it was obvious to her that my sister was not taking it seriously as she didn't understand the true horror. She asked that Josephine had been brought into the parlor where Rosie had spoken to her alone and told her the truth that I was attacked, left for dead on a ship and was missing having jumped from a window.