The Captain's Caress (40 page)

The longboat was lowered and he reached the shore quickly, but still the wide expanse of lawn was as empty as the great sea he had just left. It’s just my luck to arrive when everybody’s away, he thought. I hope someone’s around to tell me where to find them. But the house seemed shrouded in an unnatural quiet and a premonition of disaster began to nip at Smith as he started the long climb up to the house.

When he found the front door locked and his summons went unanswered, he could no longer deny his anxiety. He entered through the demolished doors, quickly passed through the salon, missing no detail of its disarray, and entered the hall.

“Hello!” he shouted, his call carrying to the back of the house.

“Mr. Smith, is that you?” a teary Juanita responded from the balcony above.

“What happened here?” Smith took the stairs two at a time. “Where is everybody?”

“We didn’t know what to do,” Juanita sobbed uncontrollably, “being left here by ourselves and no one to tell us how to care for the poor man.”

“Will you stop blubbering and tell me what is wrong?” said Smith roughly. “Where is the captain? Where’s his wife?”

“The mistress is gone,” the heavy woman wailed, “and the captain is in his bed, dying.”

Smith, so stunned he hardly knew what to think, lurched toward the bedroom without waiting for Juanita, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he stepped through the doorway. Brent lay as still as death in the middle of the huge bed, naked except for a pair of drawers. His entire chest was covered by a huge bandage stained with blood. Pedro sat by him, mechanically bathing his forehead, while another man, a stranger to Smith, checked his pulse.

“How is he?” Smith asked softly as he drew near the bed.

“I doubt he will live out the day.” The stranger replaced Brent’s hand on the bed. “I can’t understand how he has lived this long.”

“Who did this? Why?”

“No one is sure. Ask that man,” he said, pointing to Pedro. “Maybe you can get more from him than I could.”

“What happened Pedro?” Smith said evenly. “Where’s the mistress?”

“The
señora
is gone.” Pedro’s voice had the quality peculiar to the mentally incompetent who are beyond the reach of their keepers. “Some man showed up with a lot of soldiers and took her away.-”

“What was his name?”

Pedro shrugged.

“I don’t rightly know, but he kept saying that he was the
señora’s
husband. He said she had to go with him.”

“What happened to the captain?”

“You would not credit it unless you had seen it with your own eyes.” Pedro was beginning to emerge from his stupor.

“Don’t gab, man. Tell me what happened.”

“The stranger had us tied up, and soldiers were all around. The captain crashed the doors like a cannon-ball and rolled right over everybody. Before anyone could get to his feet, he had scooped up the
señora
and run out the door.” He stopped.

“Go on,” Smith said impatiently.

“I don’t know what happened next. We heard some shots, but it was a long time before anyone found us. They had already brought the captain up here. There was no sign of the
señora.
Carlos said he saw a ship sail away from the island not long before.”

“She’s alive then.” Smith stood deep in thought for a moment. “So be it.”

“What are you talking about?” The doctor thought he was surrounded by lunatics.

“Nothing that need concern you.” Smith was coolly efficient once more. “All you have to do is see that the captain gets well.”

“He’s so weak now I can hardly find his pulse.”

“You’ve got to bring him through,” Smith ordered fiercely. “I’ll see that you have anything you need, but you aren’t to leave his side until he’s out of danger.”

“You must face the fact that it’s highly unlikely he will survive,” the doctor reiterated.

“You don’t know the captain,” said Smith. “He’ll survive. He
has
to. The earl is not the countess’s husband. The captain is, and neither of them knows it.”

“I think this shock has unsettled your reason,” the doctor stated. “Why don’t you have a brandy?”

“My reason is quite sound,” Smith declared vehemently. “Apply yourself to seeing that the captain doesn’t slip his anchor; or you’ll have cause to regret it. Now give me a list of everything you need. I can’t be tending to things twice over, so make sure you don’t leave anything out.”

“You’re wasting your time,” the doctor repeated when he’d finished listing all he would need for the next few days. “You’d be better advised to have the carpenters start making a pine box.”

“If I order any pine boxes, I’ll order two of them.”

Chapter 34

The cabin lay in near total darkness, only a thin stream of moonlight entering through the small porthole. Summer’s restless movement could be heard above the sound of the waves slapping against the side of the ship, and as the minutes passed and her movements became more frantic, the enveloping gloom was punctured by mournful cries.

Suddenly, a piercing scream shattered the night and Summer sat up with a convulsive start. “Oh, my God, he’s dead!” she cried, her hands pulling at her hair, her face twisted in terrible anguish.

Bridgit, dragged from a deep sleep, drew on her heavy robe and fumbled with the oil lamp. “It’s all right, milady,” she said as she set the flickering light beside the bed. “It’s only a nightmare.”

“But it was so real.” Summer clutched the older woman. “There was blood everywhere.”

“There isn’t any blood. It was just a bad dream,” Bridgit repeated. “It’s all over now. You can go back to sleep.”

“It will come again,” Summer whimpered. “It comes every time I sleep, only it keeps getting worse. He looked so pale. I tried to touch him, but every time I reached out he moved farther away.”

“It’s all over now,” Bridgit crooned. “Try to put it out of your mind. You’ve got to get some sleep or you’ll never get well.”

Hurried steps in the passageway diverted Summer’s attention. She put her fingertips to Bridgit’s lips and listened. Before either of them realized that the steps were heading in their direction, the door burst open and the earl rushed into the cabin.

Gowan had taken the time to put on his dressing gown, but his stocking cap had fallen from his head and his thick gray hair stood out like the spikes of a helmet. He was a forbidding man, and Bridgit couldn’t blame Summer for becoming rigid with fear when he appeared without warning, tousled and intense, but that couldn’t account for the hysterical screams she uttered one after the other.

“She sounds like she’s being torn apart,” complained Gowan, slamming the door behind him. “Make her stop before she wakes the whole damned ship.”

“That’s enough of this foolish noise, milady,” Bridgit decreed sternly, putting her hand over Summer’s mouth to muffle the screams. “It’s only your husband.”

But Summer’s wails became more piercing, and without hesitation, Gowan crossed the room and slapped her hard across the face, stopping her in the middle of a scream. Her eyes fixed on him and she shook convulsively.

“Your lordship!” exclaimed a horrified Bridgit.

“Does she do this all the time?” Gowan demanded, cutting off Bridgit’s protest.

“It’s nightmares,” explained Bridgit as she continued to coddle and pet Summer. “She can’t seem to stop having them.”

“Can’t you do something?”

“It’s been so bad lately not even the laudanum can stop them. I’m worried, your lordship. I fear her mind may be starting to weaken.” Summer tapped nervously on Bridgit’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, but her wide staring eyes never left Gowan.

“What is it, milady?” Bridgit asked, half-distracted.

“It’s him.”

“Now what could you be meaning by that?”

“It’s him,” Summer repeated, her eyes staring before her in wild-eyed fright. “The man in my dreams.”

“Nonsense. You’re just imagining things. That’s the earl, though he doesn’t look much like himself at the moment.”

Gowan’s eyes flashed angrily. “What’s the foolish female talking about now?”

“Nothing, your lordship. She’s just confusing you with one of her nightmares.”

“It seems to me it’s about time she was taken in hand,” Gowan threatened menacingly. “Your molly-coddling hasn’t done any good.”

“If you want a wife who’s stone dead, or mad as bedlam, you go right ahead,” Bridgit declared wrathfully, “but you’ll get no help from me. I’ll have no hand in driving this poor creature to her grave.”

“I wonder if she’s the poor creature you think.” Gowan peered intently at his cowering wife. “Maybe she’s fooling you.”

“Not with me sitting by her side every blessed minute for the last month,” Bridgit stated indignantly.

“We shall see.” Gowan was unconvinced. “But I won’t put up with this once we reach Glenstal. I didn’t travel six thousand miles to bring home a deranged female who will spend her life tied to the bed.”

“The countess will get well real quick when she’s kept warm and when her food will stay down.” Bridgit looked fondly at Summer. “I remember how the roses bloomed in her cheeks when I first saw her. My, but she was a lovely thing then, all peaches and cream, and she had a proud straight bearing.”

“If I hadn’t seen her on that island I wouldn’t believe you,” said Gowan acidly. “All I’ve been privileged to regard since is a sickly, whining female with hair in her face and not an ounce of flesh on her bones.”

“She’ll do you proud once she’s well again,” Bridgit predicted. “You’ll be the envy of every man in Scotland.”

“Promises are easy to make,” the earl said, his expression lightening somewhat, “but sometimes unaccountably hard to deliver.”

“This is one your lordship won’t have to worry about. Now you’d better get dressed before
you
catch a cold and I have the both of you on my hands.”

“I’ve never been sick in my life,” Gowan said regally.

“I’m sure your lordship’s an example to us all.” Bridgit hoped he would go before Summer said something else to set him off.

“I’ll be back,” Gowan said. He scowled at the shivering Summer before turning to go. “See if you can get some rest. You look terrible,” he added as he departed.

Bridgit took a bottle from one of the dresser drawers. “I’m going to give you some more of your medicine, milady,” she said, pouring the dark liquid into a glass. “It’ll make you sleep better.”

“I don’t want it,” Summer protested fretfully. “It tastes bad.”

“I mixed it with some wine this time,” Bridgit said, coaxing her to take the glass.

“I wouldn’t mind the taste so much if it didn’t make me feel sick.”

“I’m sorry, milady, but if you don’t get some rest you’ll die before you reach the end of this blessed journey. And you know you can’t sleep a wink without your laudanum.”

“Most of me is dead already,” Summer moaned. “My
husband
saw to that.”

“Hush now. You know it’s not Christian to talk about the earl like that.”

“If you tell me one more time that I have to honor this infamous union because it’s blessed by God and his priests, I’ll throw this glass at you,” Summer said, her ferocity belying her weakened condition. “I was forced to marry that murderer. Why can’t one of these endless storms wash him overboard?”

Bridgit reproved her sternly. “You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that you have a husband ready to risk his life just to rescue you from those nasty pirates. And him rich and powerful into the bargain. Mind you, he’s a mite old for a young thing such as you, but he’s still a handsome man, or would be if it weren’t for that terrible scar. Turns my stomach at times, it does.”

“He’s horrible,” Summer argued. She took a swallow of medicine and shuddered convulsively. “Why must it taste so bitter?”

“All medicine tastes nasty. It wouldn’t work if it didn’t. Now stop complaining about what can’t be helped.”

“You’re heartless,” Summer said, gulping down the last mouthful, “but I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“To be sure things have been mortal bad,” Bridgit said gruffly, “but you would have pulled through without me. You’re a very strong young woman for all you’ve been feeling right poor lately. And though I know you don’t want me to speak of him, the earl would have seen to you himself if I hadn’t been here.”

“That would have been worse than being alone.”

“For the life of me, I can’t understand why you have taken such a dislike to the man.”

“Don’t you know what he did?” Summer nearly shouted. She fell back on the pillows, trying to fight back the tears that began to fall. “Don’t you know what he
did?”
she asked in an agonized whisper.

“I’m sure it gave you a nasty turn to see that handsome captain shot,” Bridgit commiserated, “but the earl only meant to stop him from making off with you.”

“He meant to
kill
him!”

“You don’t know that, and you don’t know that he’s dead,” Bridgit insisted stubbornly. “Though from what you’ve told me, I can’t see how he wouldn’t be. You may not have married the earl of your own free will, but married to him you are, and that young man had no business trying to run off with you. It was his own fault if he got shot. He wouldn’t have if he’d acted like a Christian.”