Julia Justiss - Regency High Society Vol 4

Oh, Michel, how much I love you!

Grinning foolishly with no one to see her, she tugged him up higher onto the pillow and trickled water between his lips. The fever still held him in its grip, but to her, even the garbled words were so much better than the awful stillness.

More shouts, more wind, the ringing thump of axes as the lines were hacked away. But the shouts seemed closer now, and she could hear heavy footsteps racing up and down the companionway beyond their cabin. Somehow the waves seemed louder over the creaks and groans of the ship’s timbers. Was she imagining it, or was the brig riding lower in the water now, far enough down that only the pine bulkheads and the oak timbers behind them separated her from the sea itself?

Someone ran directly past their door. Sweet Almighty, she had to know what was happening! Bracing herself in the doorway, she pulled the door open and gazed down the narrow passage to the steps. Seawater splashed over her feet and skirts, and she realized the whole deck was awash. The lantern that usually lit the passage was gone, but an eerie, otherworldly light filtered down the steps, bathing the figure of the man coming toward her now with a strange glow that she realized must be dawn.

“Please, can you tell me what is happening?” she shouted at the man. “No one has told us anything!”

The seaman shook his head with exhaustion as he peered at her. “Cap’n’s dead, ma’am,” he shouted back hoarsely to her. “Dead from th’ sickness. We’ve lost th’ mainmast whole an’ half th’ mizzen with it, an’ we’re takin’ water something awful. We’re workin’ every man at the pumps, ma’am. Every man.”

Before she could ask more, he staggered off, bound for the pumps himself. Her terror mounting by the second, Jerusa forced the door closed again and went to crouch beside Michel. She had thought he was improved, but Captain Barker had died. But not Michel; please, God, not Michel, too! She threaded her fingers through his as much to comfort herself as him, and was rewarded by him turning his face toward hers, the merest hint of a smile on his lips.

She listened to the sounds of the storm, her fingers tight around Michel’s. The night before her father or any of her brothers sailed, Mama had always made a ritual of saying special prayers for them at the supper table before grace, and the unspoken belief in the family was that that alone was the reason none of the Sparhawk men had ever been lost at sea. But what if she were the one who was drowned instead, if she were the one who never returned home, whose grave in the churchyard was empty beneath the headstone?

Accustomed as she’d become to the shrieking of the wind and sea, she still jumped and gasped when she heard the pounding on the cabin door.

“Open up, Mrs. Geary! It’s me, George Hay!” shouted the mate, his voice ragged from struggling to make his orders heard over the wind. “Open up now!”

She seized the pistol from where she’d left it on the bunk and stood close to the door. Storm or no, she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “What is it you want, Mr. Hay?”

“Damnation, woman, I want to talk to you!” he roared. “Now will you open the door, or must I break the bloody thing down?”

She took a deep breath and opened the door, and immediately Hay lunged for her. But this time she darted backward, away from him. With her legs spread wide against the ship’s pitching and her back against the bunk for support, she held the pistol level with both hands and aimed it squarely at his chest.

“For God’s sake, put that down!” he ordered. “Haven’t we trouble enough without you waving a gun in my face?”

She raised her chin, shouting herself. “You tell me, Mr. Hay.”

Hay raised his hand toward her, but she shook her head vehemently and held her aim. His hat was gone, his clothes as wet as if he’d worn them swimming, his hair without its ribbon hanging lankly to his shoulders. He swore, wearily wiping his face with the soaked sleeve of his coat, and if he hadn’t threatened her earlier she would have pitied him.

“You’re coming with us, Jerusa Sparhawk. In the boat, with me. Now.”

Still she shook her head, refusing to believe him.

“Look, the Swan’s going down,” he explained heavily. “There’s nothing we can do to save her. We’ve ordered the boats, and we’re shoving off, and you’re coming with me.”

“No!” Wildly she glanced over her shoulder at Michel. “I’m not going anywhere with you, especially not without Michel!”

“For God’s sake, woman, if he’s not dead now, he will be soon. Barker went hours ago. You’ll die yourself if you stay here.”

“I don’t care!” cried Jerusa. “I’m not leaving Michel!”

“You bloody little fool,” growled Hay. “I’m not going to leave a fortune like you behind to go to the fishes.”

He reached to take the gun away from her and instead she jabbed the barrel against his chest.

“Once before, Mr. Hay, you had to guess whether this gun was loaded and primed or not,” she said, her raised voice almost giddy. “You can guess again if it pleases you, or you can leave again. But remember that either way I have nothing to lose.”

He stared down at the gun, then at her, before he backed away. “Then damn you to hell, Miss Sparhawk. You and the Frenchman both!”

This time he didn’t bother to slam the door when he left, and Jerusa had to put all her weight behind her shoulder to force it closed against the wind and spray that were sweeping down the passage.

“Rusa, chère.”

Jerusa whipped around. Michel was sitting up in the bunk, watching her.

She ran to him, the pistol swinging clumsily in her hand as she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Michel, you’re alive! Thank God you didn’t die, and, oh, Michel, how much I love you!”

“Then put down the pistol before you kill me.” He smiled weakly as she pulled away to drop the gun onto the bed. “Now, what is happening, ma mie? What did Hay want now?”

“He wanted me to come with him in the boat,” she explained breathlessly. “He said the Swan is sinking, and he wanted me to leave you behind and go with him.”

His smile vanished, his face drawn and serious as he listened to the groans of the dying ship. “Then go to him now, ma bien-aimée. Hurry, before it’s too late.” Briefly he lifted her fingers to his lips before he returned his hand to her, gently pushing her away. “I would not have you die because of me. Au revoir, ma mie.”

“No, Michel, I won’t do it!” she cried, her eyes filling. “He couldn’t make me leave without you, and neither can you. Why do you think I had your gun?”

He stared at her with disbelief. “You threatened him?”

She grinned through her tears. “I did the same thing you did. If he’d challenged me and the pistol hadn’t fired, I suppose he could have hauled me off with him the way he wished, but otherwise—well, he didn’t choose to trust me, either.”

“Oh, Rusa.” His smile was tight, and if she hadn’t known better she would have thought that he, too, was close to tears. “Perhaps we truly do deserve each other.”

“Then maybe there’s a place in that boat for us both.” Now that he was back with her, the storm seemed less frightening. If he wasn’t ready to die, then she wasn’t, either, and together they would find a way to safety. “Do you think you can walk?”

“As well as anyone can on board a sinking ship, chère.” He shoved back the coverlet and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. With Jerusa’s help he was able to reach the steps, and by the time they had fought their way against the wind to the deck itself, by will alone he was supporting her as much as she was him as they huddled in the companionway, shielding themselves from the full force of the wind.