Rafe stiffened. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Last I saw her she was leaning on the rail like she might be sick or something. Shall I go look for her?”
“It’s not necessary. I’ll be here.” Rafe stepped aside so Belinda could pass.
She started to, then paused and laid her hand on his arm. “Is it true you’re a doctor, Captain?”
“Aye, I was. I trained with my father and attended the University of Edinburgh. But I have not practiced for years.”
“Aboard a ship that goes into battle?” She arched her winged brows.
He gave her a grudging half smile. “Aye, weel, you have me there. But I’ve done naught aboard this privateer that would not have been performed by a mere surgeon aboard a naval vessel or East Indiaman.”
“But you can save Mel?” Her grip tightened, her eyes reflected eagerness. “A physician can help her, yes?”
“Perhaps. ’Tis a dangerous procedure.” He held up his hand. “Do not ask. You do not wish to ken the details.”
“But I want to help.”
“You already have.” He patted her hand and removed it from his arm. “Good night then, Mrs. Chapman.”
“Good night, Captain. I will pray for Mel.” She stepped over the coaming and turned back. “And for the day you call the Lord your rock and your salvation.”
Rafe held off his snort until she closed the door behind herself. The only rock he was likely to receive from the Lord was the stone that marked his grave. As for salvation, he’d turned his back on that nine years earlier.
And was now paying for it with his daughter’s life?
Not even God could be that cruel. Surely.
At the moment, he was the cruel one, the man to blame for Mel’s condition. He should have climbed the shrouds. The slice was meant for him, not her. A traitor in his midst.
“Who are you?” he asked the plain teakwood bulkhead behind the bunk. “Which one of you should I not trust?”
Sam Riggs and Tommy Jones were the obvious ones, as they had urged the men to revolt, but they had been in irons when the line had to have been cut—the middle of the night. Besides, Riggs never went up top. He’d signed aboard simply to fight, not to man the ship. He was a landlubber.
Someone else wanted rid of Rafe. So they could be free to go back fighting for French prizes, even American prizes, or just to be rid of him?
“Whoever you are, you go on the list with James Brock.”
He feared he knew who, one of the three men aboard he couldn’t destroy even if he wanted to.
He smoothed back Mel’s hair. “But I will be finding a way to bring you down. Especially if she dies.”
Curled up beside Mel, Fiona lifted her head and looked straight at him with beady black eyes as though she concurred.
“I’ll do my best to save her, you useless cur.” He stroked the dog’s head.
As he ran his fingers over Mel’s skull, his mind slipped back to his training, to the words of the instructors at university, and to his father. In cases of head injury, we have found that blood pools beneath the dura and presses on the brain . . .
Only one method released that pressure, a technique used as long as anyone knew. Ancient medical texts talked about the practice. People survived. More survived than didn’t.
“My dear, dear lass, I should have found a place that would lock you up rather than bring you aboard.”
“Would she have not managed to escape even a locked door or gate to be with you?”
Rafe started. “Phoebe, I didn’t hear you enter.”
“The door wasn’t latched.” She slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head against his arm. “Jordy said you brought up your medical instruments.”
“Aye, I did.”
“And you have a trepanning saw?”
“I do. ’Tis ready.”
“Then sleep so you are. I’ll stay with her tonight.”
“Nay, I’m staying too.” He pressed his cheek to the top of Phoebe’s head. “I will not complain about your company.”
“Then let me at least make you comfortable.”
“I do not need—”
She waved him to silence and set about producing pillows and quilts from a chest. She wedged two sea chests against the window seat so he could sit beside the bunk yet lean back against the trunks with pillows for comfort, blankets for warmth against the chill of the night.
“Now rest,” she commanded.
He looked at her, a question on his lips he wouldn’t ask—for her to curl up beside him. As though she knew, she shook her head and retreated to the window seat behind him. “Shall I read? Belinda has left behind her copy of Charlotte Temple. She declares it’s the best book she’s ever read.”
“Then is it safe to assume ’tis the worst I’ll ever hear?”
“Probably. I believe the heroine dies in the end.”
“Sounds like that book Davina liked so much.” She’d been reading the seven-volume tome on the voyage to Naples—for the third time since he’d met her. “Clarissa Harlowe. Tedious and dull stuff to me.”
“Then I’ll read it so you go to sleep.” Paper rustled behind him, then her creamy, honey voice began to intone the words, gliding over his senses like a soothing balm. “For the perusal of the young and thoughtless of the fair sex, this Tale of Truth is designed; and I could wish my fair readers to consider it as not merely the effusion of Fancy . . .”
Before the preface concluded, Rafe fell asleep. He remained asleep until daylight streamed through the stern windows.
Phoebe, her eyes rimmed by dark shadows, touched his shoulder. “It’s time, Rafe. We dare not wait longer.”
One glance at his daughter and Rafe understood. Her skin was drying before his eyes, as though she were a mere husk of who she’d been merely a day ago. Her lips were cracked, and her eyes stared into nothing when he lifted the lids.
“What all do you need?” Phoebe asked.
“Some coffee, but not too much. Clean clothes. A wash.”
“Food,” Phoebe added.
“Aye, that will not go amiss.” He struggled to his feet. “Did you stay awake all the night?”
“I did. Someone had to watch over you both.”
“Thank you.” He headed to the door, then turned back. “What sustains you? What keeps you going on when you must be worn to a thread?”
“My faith.” She gripped her hands together in front of her and raised her chin, as though she were defying an argument. “I’d never have come this far without my faith.”
“I thought you might be saying that. I cannot believe ’tis true.” Before she argued with him, he left the cabin.
After changing his clothes and taking a little extra time to shave and wash, he made a circuit of the brig. Dying daughter or not, with a desperate attempt to save her in the offing, he still needed to remember that this was his brig, his responsibility along with the safety of every man and woman aboard. He inspected the course they were on, the barometer for signs of an approaching storm, the trim of the sails. He also looked into the eyes of every man he encountered, hoping for and fearing what he might see, searching for the one man who looked away.
He didn’t. Even those he suspected specifically met his gaze without a flicker. Yet one of them wanted their captain dead, or at the least injured seriously enough to keep him from running the brig.
Rounds complete, Rafe gave orders to Jordy and Derrick and returned to the stern cabin. Phoebe had tidied away his makeshift bed and found time to pin up her hair and wash her face. Though the shadows remained around her eyes, the whites looked clear, as though she’d managed to sleep.
Mel hadn’t changed.
“Jordy and Derrick are coming down to help.” Rafe gripped the back of a chair, though the sea was as smooth as glass. Too smooth, as the wind was nearly calm. “You needn’t stay.”
“Of course I must.”
“This could be gruesome at best.” He took a deep breath to ease t
he pain in his chest. “She could die before I finish.”
“I have more medical training than anyone else aboard, Rafe. I won’t faint at the sight of blood.”
“There could be a great deal.”
“Do you know what happens to some women after childbirth? They—” She stopped with her hand over her mouth.
But he knew—they hemorrhaged and died.
The same could happen to Mel if he made one error, one fraction of an inch miscalculation.
“I can’t do this to my child,” he wanted to shout.
But he wanted her to slip away from him even less. At least with the surgery he would know he’d tried. He wouldn’t betray Davina by letting her daughter go without a fight.
He took a deep breath and issued the first directions. As gently as though returning a fallen egg to its nest, Derrick lifted Mel onto a sheet of canvas with her head at the open end of the bunk. Phoebe produced a pair of silver shears and clipped Mel’s hair close to her scalp. Rafe cringed at the strands of deep red hair falling onto the carpet. He’d chided her for cutting it off. Now it would be even shorter than she wanted.
“Where should I shave her?” Phoebe asked.
“That’s always the difficulty—where to make the cut.” Rafe ran his hands over Mel’s shorn scalp again. Near the swelling on the side seemed most logical. But if the pressure lay elsewhere . . .
“Here.” He must be decisive.
Phoebe nodded and applied a razor to Mel’s head above and behind her temple. Then she bathed the area with vinegar.
Rafe gave her a quick glance, one eyebrow raised. “Why the vinegar?”
“Midwives are known for our cleanliness. This is part of it. When we use vinegar, strong soap, or even spirits to bathe a woman before and after childbirth, we have fewer incidents of puerperal fever.”
“Hmm. I wonder why.” He lifted the trepanning saw from its nest of silk and examined the blade yet again. “I like my instruments clean because I do not like the look of rust or blood.”
“And did you not lose many patients?” Phoebe’s gaze flicked to the saw, then darted away.
Rafe’s lips turned up in a grim smile. “Not to the infection. And we can hope this proves true with—with Mel.” He barely managed to speak her name.
“We can pray, sir,” Derrick said in his rich baritone. “I’ve been praying since I saw her come down.”
“A pity you didn’t see who made her come down,” Rafe muttered.
“Aye, sir, that it is. But that don’t stop me from praying hard for our girl.” Derrick laid a hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “Or you. May the Lord provide you with a steady hand and calm seas.”
“Amen.” Phoebe also reached out and laid her hand on him.
A shiver ran through Rafe, partly a thrill, partly revulsion. His breathing slowed. His heart beat a tattoo against his ribs, but no longer one too fast for any kind of march. He would never be more clearheaded than he was at that moment.
“Let us begin.” Rafe picked up a scalpel and cut to the bone. Blood spurted. “Forgive me, lass,” he murmured.
Phoebe stood beside him, sponging up the blood. “She will, my . . . friend. She will.”
A section of skin peeled back, Rafe picked up the circular saw and set it in position. Then he stood motionless, breath trapped in his throat, heart racing like a flock of gulls after dinner, arms paralyzed. He’d have shouted that he couldn’t go through with the operation if his voice worked.
Then Phoebe rested her hand on his cheek, a mere ghosting of fingertips across his jaw, and the tension fled. His lungs inflated, released. His heart settled to a normal rhythm, and his hands felt as steady and solid as the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. The handle moved beneath his fingers, though he remembered nothing of turning it on his own. Bone dust feathered the air. The blade bit deeper and deeper, mining toward permanent destruction or a hope of life. He could only hope, and perhaps pray a little, for the latter result. At the moment, the rest of the world could have stopped turning as the blade spun beneath his hand. He heard nothing of the sea, the wind, ordinary shipboard life. All that mattered lay beneath his hands.
A geyser of blood shot against the protective canvas. The blade caught on the guard, held. They were through. Now, only time would tell.
“If that doesn’t relieve the pressure on her brain,” Rafe said in a voice surely too calm to be his, “nothing will. Phoebe, will you help me clean up here?”
“Mrs. Lee and I can do it, sir.” Derrick removed the trepanning saw from Rafe’s hands. “You sit down and catch your breath.”
“I need to stitch the scalp.” Rafe looked at his hands. “After I wash, I expect.”
“There are two basins of water on the table,” Phoebe said. “But I can manage the stitching.”
She appeared to not be affected in the least by the quantity of blood. Her face remained calm, her hands steady. A remarkable woman.
Her training or her faith, as she claimed? Training, of course, whatever she claimed. His training had taken over there. He’d been as calm without faith.
But with the support of Phoebe and Derrick’s faith and, no doubt, Jordy’s.
Still calm, he allowed Phoebe and Derrick to take over cleaning up. As he washed his hands, he watched her stitch up the scalp, her needlework as fine as anything on an embroidered gown. She then wound a bandage around Mel’s head. Derrick removed the sodden canvas and placed a fresh sheet beneath Mel’s head. Blood would still seep through for a while, but if she lived, the skull would heal.
If she lived.
The water in the basins was red, but his hands were clean. He carried the soiled water to the stern windows and poured it into the sea. It swirled away in the ship’s wake, instantly lost in the creamy foam. Whether or not Mel lived, the memory of the surgery, of trying to save her, would live with him forever.
“I did my best to save our little girl, Davina,” he murmured to the vista of sea and sky before him. “Wherever you are, I hope you know that.”
He suspected Davina was in heaven. She had cried out to God to take her, and one of the pirates had slit her throat to shut her up.
“I think she’ll live, Rafe.” Phoebe stood close beside him. “You might not have noticed, but the blood that came out—much of it was old, clotted, like under a bruise. If the brain hasn’t been damaged from the pressure, or not too much . . . You were amazing.”
“Nay, ’tis only the training. I had a fine instructor in my father and others at university.”
“But you were teachable and more. You were willing to perform this operation, and I’ve never seen steadier hands.”
They weren’t steady now. Rafe glanced down to find his hands trembling like those of an old man with palsy.
“I need to sit.” He sank onto the window seat and covered his face with his hands. “One slip. One fraction of an inch too far. If the brig had rolled. My lass. She should not be here.”
“You shouldn’t be here. You should be back in Edinburgh with patients to visit and your daughter in school.”
“Aye, and a wife by my side. If that had been so, I wouldn’t be here.” The surge of energy brought by thoughts of James Brock’s betrayal sent him to his feet, steadying him, hardening his resolve.
If Mel died, he would hold Brock responsible for that too.
He dropped into a crouch beside the bunk and pressed two fingers to Mel’s neck to test her pulse. Her heartbeats seemed stronger, more regular. Wishful thinking or reality? He leaned over the bunk and pressed his ear to her chest. Definitely stronger.
He wanted to shout for joy, for this flicker of hope. He remained silent, guarding hope close to him before it eluded him. He crouched again and took Mel’s hand in his. “Does your head pain you, lass?” He touched her hairline, wincing at the shorn locks. He glanced up at silent, solid-as-a-mast Derrick, then at Phoebe. “Let us try to get some water into her. She’s as dry as a desert island.”
“I have some leftover tea here.”
Phoebe fetched a cup from the table.
“I’ll fetch some freshwater.” Derrick departed.
“I’ll hold her up.” Rafe lifted Mel to a half-sitting position as though she would break with the lightest touch. Phoebe held the cup to the girl’s lips and dribbled tepid tea into her slack mouth, then rubbed her throat.
And Mel swallowed.
“Praise God!” Phoebe flung her arms around Rafe’s neck, sending the teacup spinning across the carpet and causing him to reel off balance.
He closed his arms around her to right himself, to join in this tiny victory. He couldn’t speak. He pressed his cheek to hers and felt the dampness of tears. He raised his hand to her face. “Do not fash yourself, lass. ’Tis not a weeping matter.”
“I’m not crying.” She drew back and gazed at him from clear, dry eyes.
The tears were his.
15
Moisture dripped from the shrouds and limp sails like tears, the ceaseless patter nearly the sole sound aboard the brig. Everyone lay under the pall of the fog, the stillness, the orders to maintain as much quiet as possible. Belowdecks, men and women spoke in murmurs, dined on dried fruit, cheese, and stale bread so no smoke of fires drifted from the vessel. To move, they padded barefoot over the sanded planks. Sound traveled too well through the clouds that crushed the surface of the ocean into glassy calm. Many a vessel had been taken because betraying noise gave them away to an enemy who hovered close, then swept down upon the unsuspecting crew the minute the wind kicked up again.
Thus far, after two days, the wind showed no sign of honoring the Davina with its presence. Too restless to remain in the cabin at Mel’s side a moment longer, so intent on the tiny signs of returning life that his body felt as taut as a backstay, Rafe prowled beneath the limp sails, the hulking gun barrels, the unwavering compass. Oh, they were drifting. With his years of experience, he felt the minute vibration of the movement, caught the infinitesimal sound of water rippling against the hull. Too many currents ran through the Atlantic for a ship to remain truly motionless. But the direction remained the same—east by northeast. Not northeast enough. On their current trajectory, they would end up too close to the Bay of Biscay, prey to any Frenchman and likely one or two Americans along the way.
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