Dawn on a Distant Shore (39 page)

"Well, then,
you'll recall as how little boys like the chase, but for little girls all fun
is in the getting caught. And she's no different at heart. Just a little girl
running away to get caught."

"Who is no
different?" asked Elizabeth, vaguely confused.

"Why," said
Annie Stoker. "The Lass in Green, of course."

Though the
Jackdaw
was not a large ship, Mac Stoker managed to keep clear of Elizabeth. She
supposed that his sudden deference had more to do with a healthy fear of the
Bonner men than with some newfound consideration, but she did not mind the isolation
from Stoker.

He sent her messages
through his crew. It was Jacques, the boy who had lured her to the ship, who
brought word that Granny Stoker was willing to have Elizabeth sleep in the
captain's quarters with her. It was a kind offer, and Elizabeth was relieved to
have recourse to the cabin throughout the day when she wanted privacy to see to
her own needs, but she could not bear the idea of long hours without Nathaniel.
Neither was she willing to share the crew's berth, as Hawkeye and Robbie were. This
left only the open deck, and hammocks.

It was not the worst
solution. Over the mizzenmast the stars turned in endless wheels, and Elizabeth
could raise her head to look for the glimmer of sails on the horizon. It was
something she did quite often, for even tightly bound the throbbing in her
breasts was bad enough to keep her from a real sleep. Nathaniel was not better
off; she could hear him constantly turning and shifting.

The hammocks were
narrow and would never hold the both of them, but what she wanted, what she
needed, was to sleep beside him, tucked into his side with his arm around her.
With the sound of Nathaniel's heartbeat in her ear she might be able to find
some peace for a few hours. But Elizabeth found that more than her children had
been taken from her: she no longer knew how to talk to her husband. How could
she speak of her own discomfort when all of this was her fault? And if she said
that to him, if she put the truth out in a line of words, one after the other,
what would he do? She tasted salt on her skin and could not tell if it was sea
spray, or her own tears.

"Boots," he
called softly.

"Yes?"

His feet thumped on
the deck, and then he was leaning over her. She could not make out his expression
in the dark, but she could feel the sweet warmth of him.

"If you don't get
some sleep you'll fall ill."

"You're not
sleeping either, Nathaniel."

"I would if I
could hold you."

What help was there
for her then? She collapsed slowly inward, sorrow raking through the last of
her self-control. The hammock shook with her sobs so that she could hardly
breathe, aware only dimly of the milk that flowed from her breasts now,
finally, as she wept. And then Nathaniel simply tipped the canvas sling toward
him and she slid into the cradle of his arms.

He took the full force
of her misery without protest, although there was a trembling in him. With her face
pressed to his neck she wept herself into a quieter, duller place, and then
Nathaniel turned and walked with her to the longboat that took up the center of
the main deck. He set her on her feet to throw back the canvas cover and then he
climbed in, and reached down to lift her over the side.

The cover made a cave
of the boat once it was pulled back over their heads. Inside it was damp and
close and it smelled of mildew and spilled ale, but it was quiet out of the
wind and there was a tarpaulin to serve as a makeshift mattress and blanket
both. There was just enough room between two benches to lie in a half-recline, side
by side. Elizabeth settled against him carefully. Her whole body felt hollow
and distant, a poor quaking thing, but Nathaniel was solid and warm and
immediately comforting. Last summer on the run in the endless forests they had
slept like this sometimes, under an outcropping of cliff.

"A year
ago," she said out loud.

"I been thinking
about that too," Nathaniel said. "Solid ground under our feet and
Richard Todd on our tails. And the day Joe died." His fingers traced the
side of her face. "On the island, do you remember?"

Elizabeth rubbed her
face on the rough linen of his shirt. "If I live to be a hundred I will
remember that island."

"I suppose a
woman likes to think of the day she gets with child for the first time."

Elizabeth jerked a
little in surprise.

"You can't know
that. It could have happened any time, we were ... quite busy with each
other."

Nathaniel pressed his
mouth to the top of her head; she could feel him trying to smile.

"You've forgot
your words," he said. "And I went to such trouble to teach them to
you."

Elizabeth shook him
lightly. "Don't change the subject, you know I can't be distracted so
easily. Why are you so sure that I fell pregnant at that particular time?"

He shrugged.
"Because I know. Because I felt it happen. And you did too, if you'll
think about it and trust your gut."

"It is very
strange how these conversations always come down to my inner workings,"
Elizabeth said, and she heard the tone of her voice, and regretted it. She
wound her fingers in Nathaniel's shirt and squeezed his arm as hard as she
could. "I trust you, that is enough. Right now, it's all that I
have."

He whispered into her
hair, his tone solemn now and nothing of teasing in him. "The world will
be right again, Boots. Tomorrow or the day after we'll catch up with the
Isis
,
but now we'll sleep. Sleep's the thing." He shifted her slightly against
him and the pain in her overfilled breasts flared hot, so that she had to
stifle a cry against his chest.

Nathaniel jerked up,
holding her so that he could peer into her face. "You're hurting," he
said, his cool hands on her skin under the borrowed homespun shirt, full wet
with tears and lost milk. "I didn't know it was that bad. Can I help
you?"

"No," she
said, trying to turn away in the narrow space, mortified and undone.
"There are some hurts that even you cannot mend, Nathaniel."

"And some I can.
Let me help you." His voice broke, and with it her resolve. And so she let
him have his way, let him take what was meant for her children--their
children--and tried not to imagine their sweet faces at a strange woman's
breast as she wound her fingers in Nathaniel's hair hard enough to make him
gasp. In time he brought her to a place where she could offer him some comfort
in turn, and then she fell away shuddering still with his touch, and this
newest burden of relief.

They woke to the sound
of raised voices as the larboard watch came on deck, just as the first of the sun
found its way through the seams on the canvas cover. Elizabeth blinked and
rubbed her eyes, and then she heard the whisper she had missed at first:
Robbie, standing at the side of the longboat.

"Are ye
awake?"

Nathaniel stretched
and reached out to toss back the cover. "We are."

Elizabeth stood,
wobbling a little in her disorientation. Robbie sent her a sidelong glance, and
she marveled that in all the time they had spent with this man, he still
blushed furiously at the sight of her, whether she was in her finest gown or at
her worst, as she was now. Her hair was a tangled mass and her face still
swollen with weeping; Granny Stoker's borrowed shirt and breeches were too
large and hung awkwardly, cinched at the waist with a rope that served as a makeshift
belt. And she itched, so that she could barely keep from scratching.

Robbie held out his
arm and she took it, landing on deck with a thump. With both hands she swiped at
herself in an attempt to dislodge the grit of the longboat, but her gaze moved
out over the sea. It was a beautiful morning, and she had slept deeply. Nothing
could lessen the ache and anger at the heart of this journey, and she was still
in considerable --and renewed--discomfort, but she was heartened by the sun and
the hum of the winds in the sails; her resolve was still firm, but despair had
loosened its grip.

"Today," she
said to Robbie. And saw what she had not thought to notice, that he was in need
of a kind word, too.

He nodded. "It
canna be too soon."

Nathaniel clapped
Robbie on the back. "I'll bet you've already been down to the galley."

Robbie grimaced
slightly. "Aye, that I have. But I wadna recommend it for Elizabeth --it's
a wee rough. I'll bring ye what there is tae eat, but first there's word."

Elizabeth and
Nathaniel turned to him in one movement.

"Hawkeye and
Stoker are waitin' for the baith o' ye on the quarterdeck."

Elizabeth would have
started off in that direction immediately, but Nathaniel caught her by the arm.
"What's this about, Rab?"

"The
Osiris
."

"What of the
Osiris
?"
asked Elizabeth, seeing how Nathaniel's expression darkened. He seemed as angry
about Moncrieff's arrangements for them to be chaperoned to Scotland on the
Osiris
as he was about the kidnapping itself.

"She's been
sighted, five miles off," said Robbie. He looked toward the western horizon,
where Elizabeth could see only a smudge of haze. She thought of climbing the rigging,
and put the idea reluctantly aside, as light-headed as she was.

"The
Osiris
is following us?"

Nathaniel grunted
softly. "Her captain can't much like the idea of explaining to Carryck why
we aren't on board."

Her disquiet growing
rapidly, Elizabeth said, "The
Osiris
must outgun us."

"Aye, that she
does," said Robbie. "I saw her in Québec. Thirty-two guns, and near
two hundred men. The equal o' the
Isis
, I'd say."

Elizabeth took in this
information in silence. Throughout her girlhood she had been fed facts about
the Royal Navy with her breakfast, for her uncle Merriweather had always wanted
to go to sea, and lived the life vicariously--and volubly--with the aid of
newspaper reports. She knew very well what it meant for the
Osiris
to
carry thirty-two guns. With four twelve-pounder carronades to a side, the
Jackdaw
was better armed than most schooners of her size, but she was undercrewed and
in a battle she would never prevail. She wasn't made to fight, but to run:
that's what smugglers did.

She squared her
shoulders and met Nathaniel's eyes. "Moncrieff wants you and Hawkeye,
after all. The
Osiris
wouldn't take the risk of firing on us."

"I suppose that's
true enough, Boots," said Nathaniel quietly.

"What is it that
you fear, then? Do you think she might try to board us?"

The men exchanged
glances over her head.

"It wadna be easy
for her tae get alangside a schooner," said Rob. "But I expect she'll
try, and then she'll see us come on board, at the end of a muzzle, if necessary."

With a glance around
them to make sure that they could not be overheard, Elizabeth said, "Does
it not strike you as odd that the Earl of Carryck should risk two valuable
merchantmen in this pursuit? To have them cross the Atlantic without the protection
of a convoy--it is remarkable to the extreme. I think we are missing something
in all of this, and it may be quite important."

In a disgusted tone,
Robbie said, "Carryck's naucht but a bluidy stubborn man, wha' will ha'
his way, and gin it means he must strangle the heavens for it."

"No," said
Elizabeth, her gaze still focused on Nathaniel. "It is more than tenacity.
It is desperation."

All day they ran
before the wind, with the
Osiris
behind them like a knot in the tail of
a kite. Elizabeth borrowed a spyglass to have a look at her now and then, but
she could make out nothing but the fact that the ship seemed to have a great
many sails unfurled. Too many, according to Connor, Stoker's first mate, who
stood at the wheel muttering loudly. "And they call us reckless. She'll snap
a mast and then we'll laugh, won't we."

"Not if they
catch us up first," Elizabeth said. It was a mistake, for he refused to
lend her the spyglass again.

With each passing hour
the tension on deck grew. Stoker alternated between climbing the rigging to
hang there for long periods, conferring with Connor about speed and sails, and
pacing the deck. He would not be drawn inffconversation with his passengers,
although Robbie tried more than once.

Finally Robbie gave up
and settled down near the longboat where the Bonners had claimed a spot for
themselves out of the crew's way. For a while they watched a pod of whales that
was running along with them in great leaping dives, as sleek and fast and mysterious
as lightning in a darkening sky. But none of them could concentrate on the
sight for long, as beautiful as it was.

The Bonners had too
little experience on board a ship the size of the
Jackdaw
to be of any real
help, and so they found other things to occupy themselves. Nathaniel cleaned
the muskets and the rifle while Hawkeye sharpened their knives with a whetstone
borrowed from the galley. Robbie had found the sailmaker's kit and set himself to
mending a rent in his shirt, while Elizabeth sorted through the few belongings
that the men had had with them when they came so unexpectedly on board.