Margaret McPhee - The Lost Gentleman

In a prim angry gesture she twitched her skirt to cover them. ‘American,’ she corrected with a look of disgust that Kit could not tell whether it was due to Jenkins’s appetite or the fact he had mistaken her as English.

‘How many of you are left?’ Kit shot the question at him.

‘A handful.’

‘How many infected?’

Jenkins gave a shrug.

Gunner slid a look at him. They both knew there was nothing they could do, that it was too late.

‘Quarantine the place. Let no one new in and no one infected out. Burn the bodies of the dead,’ said Kit. It was the most he could offer. He pitied Jenkins. He wanted to help and were he alone he would have stayed, for all the difference it would make, but he was not. He had Gunner and a shipful of men to think of. And he had Kate Medhurst.

‘It is too late for that.’

Kit met Jenkins’s eyes and said nothing. Given his own past he could not condemn any man for a weakness of character, especially not under such circumstances.

‘I pity you, sir, but your attitude is despicable,’ said Kate Medhurst quietly.

‘I suppose that means a mercy shag is out of the question?’ Jenkins said.

Kate did not flinch. ‘As I said—despicable.’

‘And dead,’ said Kit as his hand tightened upon the handle of his cutlass. He controlled the urge to pull it from its scabbard and hold it against Jenkins’s throat.

Gunner was already on his feet, poised for action.

‘But not by our hand,’ finished Kit, then, to Kate Medhurst and Gunner, ‘Move. We have already spent too long in here.’ Not trusting Jenkins not to attempt some last, defiant, contemptuous action, Kit kept his eye on the man until they were out of the office and making their way back down the corridor. Moving quickly, they retraced their earlier steps across the deserted yard and through the gate.

The hired horse and gig still waited where they had left it. In silence Kit picked up the reins and began the drive back to St John’s.

* * *

‘So what happens now?’ Kate asked the question after ten minutes of driving during which no one had uttered a word. She was more shaken by what had happened at the fort than she wanted to admit. A whole garrison, wiped out by Yellow Jack.

One summer, when she was a child, Yellow Jack had come to Tallaholm. Some were taken, some were spared. Kate had been lucky enough to recover. She remembered little of it, but her mother still spoke of how terrible that time had been and how she had nursed Kate. I sat by your side and bathed your body with cold stream water all the nights through to cool the fever. It made her all the more anxious to get home. But she was very aware that there was no British navy ship here on which she could hitch a ride.

She saw the glance Gunner exchanged with North and a little sliver of apprehension slid into her blood.

‘You heard what he said. Your country is sending reinforcements and that will encompass not only the fort, but those frigates that patrol the waters near to Louisiana,’ she said.

‘No doubt.’ North did not look round at her, but just kept on driving, eyes forward, expression uncompromising.

‘Indeed, many of the British naval frigates in this area use English Harbour as their base. It’s just a matter of time before one comes into port.’

‘True. But that time might be weeks or even months.’

‘Unlikely,’ she countered.

‘Very likely, given that word of the pestilence will have passed through the fleet.’

‘I’ll wait,’ she said stubbornly.

‘But I will not. Raven leaves Antigua tomorrow, Mrs Medhurst.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I am not asking you to delay your journey.’ Indeed, the sooner he was gone the safer she would be.

He pulled gently at the leather reins wrapped around his hand and brought the horse to a stop. Only then did he look at her, his gaze meeting hers with that searing strength that always made her shiver inside. ‘You are a woman, with no money, no protection and no knowledge of the island. Are you seriously suggesting that you wait here alone?’

That was exactly what she was suggesting, but when he said it like that it made it sound like the most idiotic idea she had ever had in her life; when she knew that honour belonged to her decision to attack an unnamed ship with a raven circling its masts.

‘Next you will be telling me you are planning on staying at Fort Berkeley with Jenkins.’

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