Merline Lovelace (18 page)

“All right, I’ll stay hidden. But only if you will, too, until we know what or who we’re dealing with.”

“Don’t worry,” he replied grimly. “I’ll keep out of sight. I have no intention of ending my days chained to a bench in a pirate scow.” He thrust a small bundle at her. “Here, you’d better take this with you.”

She nodded, her stomach clenching as she fingered
the remains of her black mourning gown. The once stiff and scratchy fabric now carried the slippery feel of slime. No doubt it was covered with the same greenish mold that sprang up on every tree trunk and rock after the daily rainstorms. Shuddering, Sarah set it aside and continued the destruction of the hut where she’d come to womanhood.

Between them, she and Jamie covered up as much evidence of their presence as possible in the darkness. After that, they could only wait. Following Jamie back down to the limestone shelf that jutted into the sea, Sarah saw the ship’s light for the first time. It glowed gold against the silvered moonlight.

Her stomach hollowed. Her throat closed. Even she could see that the swaying light was headed their way.

Her shaking knees gave way, and she sank gracelessly onto the rock. Seating himself as well, Jamie gathered her into his lap. She leaned against him, her head back on his shoulder and her hands folded over his as they rested on her waist. With infinite, agonizing slowness, the hours passed.

Neither she nor Jamie spoke.

Sarah wanted to. Most desperately, she wanted to tell him that whatever happened, whatever came, she’d never regret their days together. Nor their nights.

But Jamie had already left her. She could feel it in the tension that corded his body. Sense it in the intent way he watched the distant light. He had no thought for the immediate past, only the immediate future.

One by one, the stars overhead lost their bright glitter. The sky became a lighter shade of black, discernible from the inky sea. The first, faint streaks of dawn purpled the horizon.

Jamie grew more and more rigid with each passing
moment. His chest was like a sheet of limestone rock against Sarah’s back. His arms tightened around her waist until she could scarcely breathe.

Red soon edged the purple streaks, and was slowly turning to gold when Jamie let out a long, slow hiss.

Shaking, Sarah twisted in his arms. “What is it? What do you see?”

“Square sails.”

Having spent so many years in China, Sarah knew that the great, seagoing war junks that plied these seas were powered by triangular sails. European ships used square sails. Relief rose up to choke her.

“So she’s not a pirate?”

“I don’t know.”

Jamie got to his feet, pulling her up with him. His jaw tight, he stared at the lightening horizon. Sarah’s heart leapt when at last she made out the hazy gray shapes behind the glowing lantern.

“I see the sails! And…and the shape of the hull! She’s huge. She must be a brig, or a barque.”

“She’s a frigate.”

In her excitement, Sarah didn’t notice that the man beside her had gone as taut as an anchor line holding a ship against the title.

“She’s altered course,” he said, his voice low. “She’s making straight for our island. Her lookout must have seen the surf foaming on the outer reef.”

He stared into the distance a moment longer, then abruptly bent and snatched up her wadded dress.

“It’s time to dig your burrow.”

He headed toward shore, pulling Sarah with him. She stumbled alongside, half running to keep up with his swift stride.

“Shouldn’t we wait until we see her flag? She could be British, or French, or…”

“I don’t need to see her flag. I can see her masts. Or what’s left of them. Her topgallant’s gone, Sarah, and her foremast. They’ve been shot away.”

“Shot away?” She threw a startled glance over her shoulder. “But she’s still under sail.”

“Aye, but who’s sailing her? Her own crew, or the one that attacked her? Until we know for sure, you’re going into the ground.”

In all the scenarios Sarah had imagined during her first days marooned on this island, she’d never envisioned that she would spend her last hours here buried under layers of dirt and leaves.

Trying not to shiver at the prospect, she hurried alongside Jamie. They avoided the path they had covered with a scattering of palm leaves and rotting vegetation, and plunged into the thicket of mango trees. Within moments, they reached a dark, dank spot in the densest part of the forest.

“This will do.”

Jamie dropped to his knees. Using the sharp chunk of limestone he’d brought from the shore, he gouged a hole in the damp earth. Sarah sank down beside him. Her hands shaking, she aided as best she could. By the time the first rays of dawn speared through the overhead branches, they’d clawed out a small, shallow tunnel.

“That should hold you tight and comfortable,” Jamie pronounced with a cheerfulness that grated on her fraying nerves.

Sarah rose and brushed the earth from her grubby hands. Her heart knocking against her ribs, she surveyed
her hidey-hole. It looked, she thought with a gulp, far too much like a grave for her to feel the least comfortable about occupying it.

“Get dressed,” Jamie instructed briskly. “Then in you go.”

When she moved too slowly for his satisfaction, he took the gown from her hands and shook it out. A musty odor of mildew assaulted Sarah’s nostrils as she stepped into the tattered black dress and pulled it up. It hung loosely on her frame. Apparently, she thought distractedly, she’d shed a measure of her fullness with her modesty and her maidenhead. Swiftly, Jamie worked the buttons on the bodice, then grasped her upper arms.

“I’ll come for you, Sarah, or call out the instant I determine whether the crew is friend or foe.”

She flattened her palms against his chest. Beneath her shaking fingers, his heart pounded swift and hard. She knew this man too well by now to mistake the beat. Thoughts of a coming battle pumped through his veins.

“Don’t try to take them on alone, Jamie! Please! Hide here with me.”

“I can’t. I have to see who they are and what they’re about.”

“If it comes to a fight, swear that you’ll let me aid you in whatever way I can.”

“Sarah…”

“Swear it! Give me your word.”

For an instant, a single, heartrending instant that Sarah would hold in her heart forever, his blue eyes filled with laughter.

“What’s this? Do you believe at last that I will hold to my word?”

“Yes, yes! Now swear.”

He drew in a quick, impatient breath. “If it comes to a battle, I’ll call you if you can aid in any way.”

“
If
I can aid? That’s not good enough!”

“That’s all I’ll promise, sweetheart.”

“But…”

His fingers dug into her arms. “No buts, Sarah, and no heroics. No flinging yourself off a rail, or dashing into the sea to throw rocks at the enemy, do you hear me? Swear it.”

“Jamie…”

He gave her a little shake. “Swear it, sweetheart, so I may kiss you and see you tucked snug in your lair.”

From the determined expression on his face, Sarah had no doubt that he would clout her over the head, as she had threatened to do to him only a few hours ago, and knock her unconscious if she did not give her word.

“I swear,” she whispered.

The words were barely out of her mouth before he bent his head and took her mouth. Quite bruisingly. She was reeling from the force of his kiss when he raised his head.

“I’ll call you if…when…it’s safe to show yourself. Until then, stay hidden. Whatever shouts or screams you may hear, stay hidden until you hear me call your name.”

On that startling note, he kissed her again, pushed her into her hole, and covered her with mango branches, palm leaves, and rotting fruit.

Sarah lay in her shallow hole for what seemed like two lifetimes. The first passed in an agony of prayer
and straining to hear a foreign sound, any sound. The splash of an anchor. The rattle of oars on a boat’s gunwale. Most especially, the sound of Jamie calling her name.

To that agony was added the gradual rise of the sun. With it came a suffocating heat The black gown stuck to her skin. Sweat poured down her face and neck. Tiny gnats buzzed about her head, her arms, her neck. Something slithered through the palms covering the opening to her underground den, causing her stomach to lurch.

Sarah would have endured all these discomforts gladly if she could only hear something!

Anything!

She was sure hours had passed since Jamie left her. Fear wracked her. Worry over his fate gnawed at her belly.

She couldn’t stay here. She
couldn’t!
She had to go to him. She had to be with him. Her word was not the sacred mantra to her that his was to him. She pushed at the layer of leaves covering her. She had to aid him. She had to—

“Sarah!”

At first, she thought that she imagined the distant shout. That her heated brain and tortured heart had conjured it from sheer desperation. She lay half in and half out of her hole, panting, praying, listening with every nerve in her body.

“Sarah! It’s all right. It’s safe. Come out.”

Thank the Lord! Thank the angels, and the archangels! Sobbing, she thanked every heavenly spirit she’d prayed to during these desperate hours and clawed her way out.

She crawled free of the covering of leaves just as
Jamie burst through the mangoes. Sarah pushed herself to her feet and took an unsteady step toward him. The sight of another man just behind him, this one wearing the frogged blue coat and gold epaulets of the Royal Navy, halted her in her tracks.

The officer stopped as well. When he caught his first full view of Sarah, his eyes near popped from his head. Had she been concerned with such matters, she might have worried about the picture she made, appearing out of the earth like a specter rising from the grave, her face streaked with dirt and sweat, her hair an unbound tangle of debris, and her dress decorated with green slime.

As it was, Sarah could only stare at the man, as speechless as he. He represented civilization. A return to her former life. Alternating waves of relief, regret, and old, familiar worries about her family held her rooted to the spot.

Jamie stepped forward to break the charged silence. With a flourish of one hand, he executed a small, neat bow.

“Sarah, may I present Lieutenant Sir George Fortengay, third lieutenant of His Majesty’s Ship
Constant
and the most bothersome young midshipman it was ever my misfortune to have under my charge.”

If Jamie’s cheerful introduction left her whirling with amazement at the odd twists of fate, his next words sent her into shock. Strolling to Sarah’s side, he took her hand and raised it, dirt and all, to his lips. Then he turned to complete the introductions.

“George, may I present my wife, Sarah, Viscountess Straithe.”

“A
re you mad?”

Sarah’s furious whisper barely rose above the crunch of mango leaves and fallen branches as they forged their way through the thicket.

“Quite likely,” Jamie agreed, bending aside a branch so she could pass.

“I cannot believe you told Fortengay that I am your wife!”

“Would you rather I had introduced you as Miss Abernathy, spinster and woman of quite dubious virtue after spending weeks alone with an acknowledged rake?”

“It would be the truth,” she sputtered, keeping a wary eye on the blue-covered back just ahead of her.

“I prefer a different version of the truth,” Jamie said with a shrug.

His audacity astounded her. He would claim her as wife without asking her wishes in the matter, without the least sanction by man or God, and the rest of the world be damned. How like Straithe! How very like him!

In her agitation, Sarah tripped over a gnarled mango
root. Jamie caught her with a swift arm about her waist. She shoved out of his hold. Casting a quick look at the lieutenant, she turned a belligerent face to her supposed husband.

“We might be able to keep up such a pretense aboard this ship,” she hissed, “but not when we return to civilization! People know us! They know we were never married!”

“Our return to civilization is by no means assured,” he said with a wry smile. “You’ll understand that when you see the state of our rescue craft. Come, Sarah, I don’t have time to explain things right now. We have to get to the ship as quickly as possible.”

Taking her arm, he urged her after the lieutenant. Some moments later, they emerged from the mango grove. Sarah gasped at the sight that greeted her.

Their little island had come alive with activity. Boats plied the waters of the lagoon. Seamen in stained white trousers, frocked shirts bearing the insignia of their rank, and knotted neckerchiefs stood knee-deep in the shallows to unload casks and crates. Other seamen rolled barrels up on the shore. Several of the men, Sarah noted, wore blood-stained bandages on arms or chest or head. The boatswain who shrilled a silver whistle to keep the crews working hopped about the shallows with the aid of a crutch.

Her eyes swept the scene with dazed astonishment, but it was the frigate anchored out beyond the reef that captured her attention. Like the
Phoenix,
the
Constant
carried three masts, but there the similarities ended. Instead of rising from the decks at a sharp, raked-back angle, her masts stood foursquare to the deck. They should have reached to the sky, but in the bright light
of morning Sarah could see the battle damage Jamie had discerned earlier through the haze of dawn.

The rearmost mast, the mizzen she thought it was termed, had been shorn off halfway up its length. Rigging and tattered sails hung in disarray from its cross yards. The foremast was completely gone, with only a splintered stump showing above the deck. Great lengths of the ship’s rail were missing, and several gunports had been blown away. The gaping hole in the ship’s hull just above the waterline made Sarah gasp.

“Surely we’re not going to sail aboard that vessel,” she said faintly. “It has more rips and tears in its sides than my gown.”

“We’ll patch her up,” Jamie asserted confidently. “She’s a good ship. A mite sluggish in a heavy sea, but sound enough.”

Sarah cast him a quick, startled glance. “How do you know?”

“The
Constant
joined our squadron just before Trafalgar, and acquitted herself with honor in the battle. Come, let’s get aboard her.”

With the lieutenant leading the way, Jamie hustled Sarah to the water’s edge. At their approach, the seamen paused in their tasks. Eyes rounded, jaws dropped, and more than one tar openly gawked at the woman in their midst. Sarah could only imagine the picture she presented. Heat singeing her cheeks, she tugged at her torn sleeve in a futile attempt to cover her browned arm. She tried not to think about her bare feet, or the way her hair tumbled wildly over her shoulders.

Lieutenant Fortengay directed an empty boat to hold
for passengers, then turned to his onetime superior. “I’ll stay ashore, sir.”

Old habits died hard, Sarah thought, noting the respect with which the young officer addressed Jamie.

“I’ve sent word to the captain about your presence on this island. He’ll want to speak to you. If yet he can,” Fortengay added, shaking his head.

Sarah was still pondering that remark when Jamie lifted her into the boat. He swung aboard a moment later, and the dumbfounded sailor manning the oars gasped.

“Lieutenant Kerrick! Damn my eyes, I thought you was dead!”

“Near enough, Higgins,” Jamie replied, grinning. “Near enough. And it’s Captain Kerrick these days. I’ve set my own sails since I left the
Dove.
”

The seaman, as bald as an egg and so tattooed Sarah could only gape at him in admiration, pulled at the oars. As the boat cut across the lagoon, Higgins shook his shiny pate in disgust.

“I heard about that business aboard the
Dove.
To lose a rum officer like you, sor, because of Admiral Cathwright’s wife, what spread her legs for every officer what walked the decks, and not a few of the tars what…”

“Stow it.” Jamie didn’t raise his voice, but his casual order carried the unmistakable bite of command. “I’ll have no such talk in my wife’s presence.”

“Wife?”

The seaman’s beady black eyes rounded to raisins. Sarah’s cheeks flamed as he raked her from leafy head to dirty toes.

“Put your back to it, man.” The undercurrent of amusement in Jamie’s voice told Sarah that he too had
caught the tar’s incredulous look. “I understand the captain’s in a bad way.”

“That he is, sor.” Planting his bare feet against the planking, Higgins pulled at the oars. “He took a blast of grapeshot in the gut, he did, and swelled up like a stuck pig. We disbelieve he’s lasted this long.”

“Grapeshot?” Sarah shuddered. “How did that happen?”

“According to Fortengay,” Jamie replied, his eyes on the crippled ship ahead of them, “the
Constant
was part of a convoy escorting late-sailing merchantmen from Bombay to Canton. A typhoon hit just this side of the Sunda Straits…”

“A real wind-pisser it was, too,” Higgins put in helpfully.

“The
Constant
lost her foremast…”

“Snapped like a bleedin’ matchstick, she did.”

“Would you like to finish the tale, Higgins?” Jamie inquired dryly.

“Well, since you be askin’ me.” The seaman spat over the side. “It were a filthy night, Missus. The convoy scattered. The winds near tore us apart, and sea climbed over the rails. Our upper sails was hangin’ judas, and the tops’l lay broken in its sling.”

Sarah had not the slightest idea what any of that meant, but it certainly sounded dire.

“Still,” the oarsman muttered, “we would not ’ave beached like we did ‘ceptin’ our captain’s got sharkshit for brains and nary a drop o’ seawater anywhere in his blood.”

“Higgins!”

Abashed by the sharp reprimand, the seaman lapsed into silence. Jamie took up the story once again.

“The
Constant
ran aground on a submerged reef,
and had to wait for the title to lift her off. Pirates pounded her for hours with cannon fire before they tried to board. The crew routed them, but not, I’m told, without grievous losses. They were searching for a safe anchorage to make repairs when they spotted our island early this morning.”

“And so they found us,” Sarah finished.

“And so they found us,” Jamie echoed.

“Demmed good thing we did,” Higgins muttered, shipping his oars as the boat came alongside the damaged frigate. “We’ll ’ave a chance o’ seeing home again with Lieutenant Kerrick aboard.”

“Captain,” Jamie reminded him easily, planting his feet wide to balance himself while he waited for the
Constant’s
crew to lower the sling seat.

“Aye, sor, Captain, and thank the Lord you be on this island. We sure as ’ell wouldn’t ’ave made to safe harbor with Denham callin’ the commands.”

“Denham?”

Surprised by the odd note in Jamie’s voice, Sarah glanced up at him. His face could have been carved from the same hard oak as the
Constant’s
fanciful figurehead.

“Sir Percy Denham is master of this ship?”

Grimacing, Higgins spat over the side again. “Aye, sor.”

Sarah waited for more, for something that would explain the sudden, rigid cast to Jamie’s face. When none was forthcoming, she pressed the issue. “Who is this Sir Denham?”

Locked in his private thoughts, he didn’t answer. More curious than ever, Sarah raised her voice to claim his attention. “Jamie, who is this man?”

With a visible effort, he brought himself from whatever
inner vision held him. “We once served together.”

That didn’t exactly enlighten Sarah, but the clatter of the sling chair against the hull as it descended to their level precluded further inquiry. Jamie grabbed the ropes supporting the wooden seat and held them steady for her.

“Climb aboard.”

Clinging tightly to the ropes, Sarah was winched up. A midshipman with a bloody bandage wrapped around the stump of his right hand assisted her over the shattered rail and onto the deck. She endured more gawking stares from the crew engaged in clearing away battle damage while she waited for Jamie, who chose to climb nimbly up a rope ladder instead of resorting to the sling chair.

The injured young officer-in-training greeted him respectfully. “Lieutenant Fortengay sent word to take you straight to the captain, sir. Please come with me.”

Stepping over broken spars and tangled rigging, Sarah and Jamie followed him to the captain’s quarters.

“He’s in a bad way,” the midshipman warned as he rapped on the door. At a low, weary command to enter, he lifted the latch, shoved the door open, and quickly backed away.

Sarah took one breath and understood the reason for the young man’s hasty retreat. The foulest stench she’d ever encountered rolled at her from inside the cabin. Gasping, she put her hand over her mouth and jerked back.

Jamie caught her elbow. “Breathe short and shallow.”

“I cannot…breathe…at all!”

Ignoring her choking protests, he pulled her into the wood-paneled dining cabin. Even with the overhead hatch cover thrown back for lighting and air, the odor was overpowering. Sarah’s eyes watered, and her stomach clawed its way to her throat. She gagged repeatedly behind the hand clamped over her mouth.

At their entry, the white-haired seaman slumped in a chair dragged himself to his feet. Jamie cast a quick eye over the man.

“Are you the ship’s apothecary?”

He shook his head wearily. “No, sir. He cocked his toes last night. Thomas Berryman is my name, first apothecary assistant.”

Jamie’s gaze went to the door leading to the bedchamber beyond. “And the captain? How is he?”

“He be dead, sir, he just don’t want to admit it yet.”

“Is he conscious?”

“Aye,” an agonized voice rasped from the inner room. “I…am. Present yourself…Kerrick.”

When Jamie headed for the connecting door, Sarah dragged her heels. She dreaded the thought of what lay beyond the door. Relentless, he pulled her with him.

The captain’s sleeping chamber was twice again as large as Jamie’s quarters aboard the
Phoenix.
Richly paneled and fitted with gas lamps, it contained a desk, a washstand with porcelain bowl and chamberpot, and a hanging, box-like bed of exquisitely carved oak. The swinging bed would also serve as a coffin should the captain die at sea, Sarah knew. Judging by the foul odor emanating from the figure occupying the bed, it could only be a matter of hours until the box was put to its secondary purpose.

Despite her roiling stomach, her heart wrung with pity for a man who lay suffocating in the stench of his own rotting flesh. She had to do what she could to ease his suffering. Pulling her elbow free of Jamie’s hold, she went to the washstand and wrung out the cloth in the washbowl. Her every faculty protested, but she forced herself to approach the captain and lay the cloth across his forehead.

His lids fought their way up. Pale, cloudy gray eyes stared up at her from the ravages of what once must have been a handsome face. Pockmarks pitted his sagging cheeks. Several rotten stumps showed in his slack mouth. It took a moment or two for him to focus on her face, then his fleshy lips twisted into a sneer.

“Trust…Kerrick…to maroon him…self with a…slut.”

Sarah’s hand jerked back. Jamie barked an order at the apothecary’s assistant.

“Wait for us in the outer room!”

The captain’s sneer became a twisted snarl. “You don’t…give…orders…on my…ship, Kerrick.”

“Leave us!”

Forced to choose between his putrefying captain and the square-shouldered man who stood tall and hale before him, the seaman left. The connecting door had no sooner closed behind him than Jamie moved Sarah aside and looked down at the dying man. Not a trace of pity showed on his face.

“I see you haven’t changed, Denham. You’re still as foul of mouth as you are of body.”

“Nor…have you…changed, Kerrick. You’re…still a whoremonger.”

Stunned by the venomous exchange, Sarah stared
from one man to the other. Something passed between them. A dark shadow from their past, she guessed.

The captain’s eyes drifted to Sarah once again. Contempt shone in their pale depths. “Is she your…doxie, Kerrick, as Dorcas…was?”

Sarah started. Dorcas? Jamie’s comtesse?

Quite suddenly, Sarah remembered why the name had sounded so familiar when Jamie had first mentioned the mysterious comtesse. Sarah had seen it inscribed on the back of the painted miniature she’d found in Jamie’s sea chest.

Dorcas! The ravishingly beautiful woman with clouds of soft brown hair and an impish smile. The woman who would always,
always
hold Jamie in her heart!

As he would always hold her, apparently. Sarah’s stomach clenched at the cold fury that lit Jamie’s eyes when he responded to the captain’s vile slur.

“Your sister was no whore, Denham, nor is this woman.”

“I have…no sister.”

“You once did, and you tried to force her.”