Susan Wiggs - The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle - The Charm School

Datty was in the process of hoisting the mainsail, precariously balanced on the lee yardarm. He reached over to fasten the earring, a short length of rope used to lash the upper corners of the sail to the yardarm.

At that moment a wave struck the ship, a huge slap of water so thick and deep that Ryan felt himself start to drown as the sea gushed over him. Instinctively he hung on to the tiller, opening his eyes to slits and seeing nothing but green water rushing past.

He was under deep. Perhaps the ship had turned. His lungs nearly burst, and when he was about to surrender to the urge to let go, the water slid away like the seas before Moses.

Drawing in a frantic breath, he became aware of two things—

Timothy Datty had fallen from the yardarm.

And in defiance of orders, Isadora Peabody had appeared on deck.

Lightning blazed near the ship. Ryan swore, pounding across the deck, trying to center himself under Datty. The youth hung from the earring, suspended from the jackstay. His slender body swung like the clapper of a bell, back and forth with the violent pitch of the ship.

Ryan didn’t stop to think. He grabbed a coil of rope and a gaff hook and started to climb. As he went up the rigging, he saw Isadora pitch in like a seasoned tar, helping Izard wrestle the tiller and taking physical risks, disobeying all good caution, flouting his command.

He had no time to grow angry at her. The storm swept him up in its teeth and he felt like the prey of a wolf that shook him, trying to break his neck. He hung on, his gaze never leaving Timothy. Any moment now the boy might lose his grasp, might fall into the house-high swells, never to be seen again.

I won’t let you fall. Ryan closed the vow into his heart as he climbed. Securing himself in the footrope under the yardarm, he tossed out the rope. Time and time again the wind snatched it away. The end of the rope flashed by too quickly. Impossible to grab it. Timothy’s face, running clear with rainwater and spume, was the greenish white of a marble slab.

His eyes rolled; his lips moved in mindless, hopeless prayer.

Ryan felt himself losing the boy. He shouted encouragement, screamed at the lad to hang on, but the wind stole his words.

He suspected Timothy wasn’t listening, anyway. He could see the slender hands frozen around the earring line. The lad was weakening. If he let go to grab the thrown line, he’d fall for sure.

“Here,” said a voice near Ryan, practically in his ear.

Incredulous, he looked through the rigging and saw Isadora, passing him the end of the rope. “Secure this to the yardarm and swing out and grab him.”

It was an insane idea. Datty hung too far out toward the end of the yardarm to reach. But if Ryan did as she said, if he swung out as the ship pitched leeward, he might be able to grab the boy.

“You want to see us both die, don’t you?” he shouted, but even as he did, he grasped the rope and lashed it to the yardarm.

On the deck below, Ralph and Journey held the other end of the line to rein him in after he pulled Timothy to safety. That was all the thought he would allow. Anything more and he’d talk himself out of it.

He watched the swells and waited until the ship pitched toward Timothy. Then, with a last look at Isadora—wet face, plastered hair, wide, terrified eyes—he pushed off from the foot rope.

The sensation of soaring was, for the briefest of moments, an ecstasy and a wonderment he hadn’t expected. The next moment he felt nothing. The sea rose up at him. He’d miscalculated the distance. He was going to miss Timothy altogether. He might even sweep the boy away for good.

“Again,” Isadora screamed. “You must try again!”

He belled out and then swung back.

And Timothy dangled right in front of him.

Ryan saw his own arm as if it were a stranger’s. Out it came, wrapping around Timothy’s slender form. He felt the whoosh of lungs emptying, and he could not have said if it was he or the boy who had made the sound.

His legs and chest burned as, with a heated whir, he slid down the rope and smacked, bruised but safe, into Journey and Ralph. Timothy sprawled on the deck, flexing his hands and shuddering.

As nimble as any seaman, Isadora descended from the rigging. Ryan dragged her to a hatch and all but stuffed her down a companion ladder, too furious to speak.

Then he braced himself. Until today, the sea had been his fair-weather friend. Now, retribution was at hand, and God knew, he deserved it. He was a careless man, sometimes even cruel in his carelessness. With hardly a thought for the consequences, he had ripped Journey from his family, offering little more than a wish and a prayer of reuniting them. He had lied through his teeth to gain command of the Swan. Now they would all die because of it.

He expected the storm to destroy him and the ship and cargo and crew. But instead, as quickly as it had whipped up, the squall skirled away to the northeast, leaving high seas and a brooding sky in its aftermath.

Ryan stood with Journey on the deck. “It’s over.”

“We survived,” Journey said.

“We did better than that,” Izard pointed out, joining them at the rail. He started to laugh with pure joy. “I took a reading. We’re less than ten miles out of Rio.”

Isadora sat in the galley, a rough green blanket draped around her shoulders and a mug of tepid tea cradled between her hands. Shaken and cautious, the Doctor had allowed a small fire in the stove to heat water for tea. She took a sip, glancing over the rim at Timothy Datty. Someone had put dry trousers and a shirt on him; now he lay fast asleep upon a bench, knees drawn up and hands cradling his cheek.

He looked exhausted by his ordeal and impossibly, achingly young. In the hollow of his lap, the ship’s cat slept. Setting her mug in a holder, Isadora stood and covered Timothy with the green blanket. Some impulse compelled her to put out a hand, brush the salt-stiffened, spikey hair away from his pale brow.

In that moment, she knew this lad was more than a shipmate to her. Dear God, they’d almost lost him.

“Get into some dry clothes,” said a voice from the doorway. “I don’t want you catching a chill.”

Yanked out of the sentimental moment, she turned to scowl at Ryan Calhoun. “I’m not at all cold. We’re in the tropics, remember?”

He tossed his head, damp hair sprinkling his shirt. It, like his trousers, was dry. He came into the galley, stopping in front of her, standing so close she could feel the heat from his body. She tried to step back, but he’d cornered her against the table. “Very well,” he said. “That wet dress gives us all an intriguing view of your smallclothes, so you might as well entertain us.”

She folded her arms protectively across her chest. “Only someone like you would find a storm at sea entertaining.”

“Someone like me,” he said, running his thumb down the inside of her arm until she batted his hand away. “And exactly which someone am I like?”

“Like…like the very devil,” she blurted out.

“Do tell,” he said, touching her other arm so that she unfolded that one, too. “I’ve been called many things, but not the devil.”

She knew she should find his nearness and the impudence of his touch offensive, but God help her, she didn’t. For some reason the gentle, insistent up-and-down motion of his hand soothed her, made it difficult to think. “Like Lucifer, you have a great capacity for strength and goodness. Yet you use your power to tease and torment me.”

“Is that what this is?” he asked with a delighted chuckle. “Teasing? Tormenting?”

“Why do you find this so amusing?” she asked, starting to feel light-headed and strange.

“Because I came here to thank you for your help during the storm and you’ve completely misconstrued my intent.”