The Tide Watchers

by Lisa Chaplin

  Pulling him around so he was curled in a ball on the wet floor of the submersible, she checked him all over, but the only blood was on the back of his head, oozing from a lump, the only holes in his jacket were tears from when she’d dragged him in. Sick with relief, she grabbed the sail from under the other side of the bench where Duncan had left it, and set it up.

  The sounds of the sinking ships and screaming men made her fingers shake and fumble. The sudden descent into night, and the whistling cold wind, made it harder. But before she’d even set it, wind filled the little sail. She pulled the tiller hard right. One side of the sail pushed against her cheek as Papillon sprang forward, heading north.

  Though the fleet hadn’t moved and Papillon kept moving, the screams of the drowning men took a long time to fade.

  Holding the tiller in place with an elbow, she tied the brass compass to her rope belt, so it hung by her waist. She turned the rudder to the right angle to maintain course.

  Duncan hadn’t moved. She put her hand to his nose. Thank God, he was still breathing.

  The wind turned fickle. Checking the compass, she saw she was heading northeast, and adjusted the tiller. The craft moved around, and she drew a sigh of relief. Then she coughed; she could feel the pain begin. She took a massive slug of the medicine and wrapped herself up well.

  Time passed without meaning. There was only the whistling of the wind on the skin of her frozen ears. The tip of her nose was numb. Her face ached, her arms hurt from shoulders to fingertips, and every breath was more painful than the last, but though it grew colder as night turned deeper, the coughing subsided. She hung on by grim will, moving only to correct course.

  The wind screamed like the sounds of the men crying for help, the yells of others trying to save them.

  What was the difference between her life and those of the French soldiers? They lived, loved, wed, and had children. They wanted to save their country, had to obey their leader. The only disparity lay in where they’d been born.

  She sailed on, praying for the French soldiers’ lives, praying she was heading in the right direction. Praying for forgiveness with half-frozen windy tears dribbling down her face. Making a deal with God: I’ll never hurt another living thing if I can have Edmond, and see Mama again.

  No wonder Duncan seemed so haunted when they first met. No wonder Papa came home from every mission and slept for a day and drank too much brandy for weeks.

  Fool! Just get Duncan to British waters! Her world narrowed to tides and wind, cloud and moon and scudding mist, a compass needle, intense cold, and Duncan’s slumped body.

  “Don’t you die on me,” she muttered fiercely, sailing as fast as the wind could take her.

  Then out of the mist, a ship bore down on her. A flag flapped above the lit forecastle, and another from the flying jib: French flags.

  She jerked the tiller right, the sail moved, and Papillon bore away. The little craft swung ferociously, up and down with the waves as the ship passed. Fighting a wave of nausea, she kept going. Papillon was tiny. With luck they hadn’t seen her. But the ship moved in an arc; the port side faced her. A double row of cannon faced her, twenty-two oiled barrels blocking her path to England. The sound of pistols cocking simultaneously froze her blood. She turned the sails right again, heading east—

  “Don’t do it, ma chère. One cannonball will send your boat to the bottom of the sea.”

  Lisbeth’s hand froze on the tiller. With half her body above the hatch, there was nowhere to hide. She looked past the planks of the ship to the starboard. He was leaning far over the edge, smiling. In the light of the lantern he held she saw that beautiful face, now scarred like hers. Eyes glittering with the vengeance that no amount of killing had satisfied since he was fifteen.

  Leaning even farther over the starboard rail, Alain called in a voice tight with fury, “Elizabeth Sunderland, I place you under arrest in the name of the first consul for an unprovoked act of war: the murder of hundreds of French soldiers.”

  She closed her eyes; her hands shook with more than cold. For once it wasn’t clever torture or manipulation. Alain was a loyal Frenchman to the bone. “Where were the first consul’s ships heading, M’sieur Delacorte? Can I not protect my country as you do?”

  “I will bring you to account,” he snarled. “You’re still in French waters, and you killed a true French loyalist on your lover’s ship. Our fleet would have brought freedom to an oppressed people and ended the reign of a sad madman oppressing other nations to keep his useless soul in luxury, and self-satisfied lords taking the rights of the people.”

  She’d never heard such passion from Alain. He truly believed all he said.

  “Don’t think the men that saved you before are so clean,” Alain went on in that furious tone. “I’ve been investigating them. A man of their description was responsible for killing seven children on the rue Saint-Nicaise, and another took part in the assassination of Czar Paul of Russia.” He lifted his lantern higher, smiling down at her. “Yes, I thought that would shock you. They must be turned in to the European Tribunal for trial. What are their names, Lisbeth?”

  Overwhelmed, she shook her head. It’s not Duncan. It can’t be Duncan.

  “Give me their names, and I’ll let you see Edmond,” Alain called down, voice sweet. “Isn’t that what you want, ma chére?”

  Lisbeth closed her eyes. A few months ago, she’d have—

  He’s baiting me. He has no intention of fulfilling the promise. As soon as he has Papillon, he’ll kill us both.

  It might come down to them or us, Duncan had said.

  Her mind raced. The ship could outrace and outgun Papillon, but it couldn’t change direction so fast. In the dark, beside the hull, they’d be forced to shoot blind—it might work.

  Dropping as far down inside Papillon’s hull as possible, Lisbeth released the tiller and added the propellers to the sails, heading hell-for-leather straight toward the ship, a tiny, onion-shaped boat blending into a deeper shadow of night.

  In answer red fire came from the ship’s gunwales. Being this small had its advantages. Cannonballs hit the water around her, but missed by enough not to sink her. Yanked back and forth, Lisbeth held on with all she had—but the cannonballs just kept missing.

  Then she realized. Alain didn’t want to sink Papillon. He wanted to deliver it as a gift to Napoleon—and that gave her the courage she’d almost lost.

  The ship’s bow faced full west as it turned around, men hanging over the rails to find her.

  She had only seconds. A fresh gust of wind came from the south. She jerked the tiller to follow it. Papillon sprang forward, straight into the wide curve of the ship. They wouldn’t shoot the cannons straight down or the ship would sink.

  “Come, let’s show them what we’re made of!” She patted Papillon’s brass coopering and yanked the tiller until she was almost beneath the ship. If the ship turned back north . . .

  Even in the lee of the ship the wind was strong. Papillon leaped forward, heading east, but she’d only bought a little time. When the sun rose, they’d use pistols and rifles, and those would not miss. Alain might want Papillon, and Duncan delivered alive—but it was imperative she did not survive.

  The ship’s stern turned north, coming at her.

  One minute. One chance.

  After yanking the tiller to turn away from the ship for a few moments, Lisbeth used both hands to pull the barrel bomb, tinder, and flint out of the sack. With shaking hands she pulled the cork, lit the short wick. Without time to heat wax to make a seal, she pushed it back down hard.

  Shots fired and cannonballs fell around her as she waited for the right moment to toss it.

  She turned the tiller south as fast as the wind would take her. The ship came at her, and she threw it as hard as she could. In seconds the ship sailed right over the barrel. If the cork and wick got wet—

  Papillon almost overturned in the rocking waves as four cannonballs landed around her with hard booms. A bullet em
bedded in one of the propellers, and she cried out, eyes blinded by the flash as the wet wood exploded. Papillon jerked hard forward. She counterbalanced by jumping across Duncan’s body, almost falling on him. The next shot would kill her. All she could do was keep moving. Small and dark, Papillon was hard to see and harder to hit.

  If the bomb were going to explode, it would be any moment. She had to chance it. She jerked the tiller again, heading north. Shots and cannonballs followed, churning the waves and slowing the craft. Yes, Alain wanted to bring the craft, safe and whole, to his leader.

  A boom, and startled, pain-filled screams filled her ears. She turned her face: a brilliant golden-red flash flew up from the port side of Alain’s ship, a false sunrise. A silhouette of a corner of the stern flared up in sudden clarity, men, sail, and mast. The ship rocked back.

  Though she was on the other side of the blast, Papillon bucked like a horse being broken in. Less than twenty feet from the ship, Lisbeth held on for dear life, keeping Papillon on a grim nor’westerly course, wishing she could take her hands from the tiller and sail to block the creaking of breaking wood and the panicked screams of the sailors that filled her ears.

  As if compelled, she turned to the carnage she’d wreaked.

  The ship was listing badly to port side. Fire covered the corner of the stern. The ship would be at the bottom of the Channel in less than ten minutes.

  Again she turned Papillon back toward true north, tacking around the hapless ship.

  “What the hell’s going on up there?”

  The voice wasn’t steady, but it was loud enough to hear over the wind. Her knees sagged, and she fell forward over the tiller in relief and joy. “I just bombed Alain’s ship. It’s sinking.”

  “You did what?”

  “We’re close to British waters.” She felt him scrambling to move. “Hold still. It’s hard enough maintaining balance with a sinking ship nearby and my feet stuck either side of you.”

  He stilled. “I can’t move my left arm. What happened?”

  The irritable demand would have made her smile in any other circumstances. “I broke your arm or shoulder to get you back inside. I had to get you to British waters.”

  After a few moments, he said, “I can’t manage the sail. Can you get us there?”

  “We’re close,” she replied in grim determination, though in truth she felt frozen stiff and as shaky as an autumn leaf; she was coughing again. “Can you manage the lower rudder?” she yelled, coughing again. She took the last swig of medicine.

  She felt him move up to the bench. “Take these.”

  It was her leather gloves; he’d fallen on them. She fumbled into them, warm from his body. For the first time in hours she felt her fingers.

  She’d tacked around the fiery carnage that had been Alain’s ship. A few rowboats were in the water, all heading southeast to the closest part of the French shore.

  Setting her face, she turned north. “Turn the rudder west, toward the closest point in Britain. I think we might be near Dungeness.”

  “My ship should have joined Nelson’s blockade by now, at a point southeast of Lydd—the big promontory. Can you see any lights?”

  She looked around. “Yes! There are lights about a mile due west!” Her voice cracked on the final word, and the coughing fit wouldn’t stop.

  “We’re in British waters,” he yelled over it. “Go!”

  Tears streaming down her face from coughing, she turned to England.

  She couldn’t believe she was home, not even when they reached a ship of the line. Dozens of cannons turned on them, and a cold voice demanded to know who the hell they were. Duncan yelled at her to sit, for God’s sake, and she dropped down. Duncan struggled through the opening, gave the required code and showed the captain a curious little shape painted onto the dark sail to prove they were British spies.

  It all felt like a strange dream.

  Clapping, cheering sailors surrounded them as they were lifted by the bosun and helped to embark, then given brandy and blankets. The ship’s doctor examined Duncan’s head and strapped up his arm. The one-armed ship’s captain introduced himself in beautifully clipped English and bowed to Lisbeth, but the unfamiliar face blurred before her eyes. Uncertain, she put out her hand, and coughed again. Duncan murmured a few words. The doctor hurried to her, and snapped orders to fetch the herbal medicine.

  The captain said something about meeting the admirals in Portsmouth.

  “My lord, we must transfer to my ship. My wife needs to get to Norfolk. Her mother’s ill,” she heard Duncan saying, but as if through water; a rushing sound overtook it. Duncan put his good arm around her.

  She looked at Duncan. “I want my mother,” she whispered, and coughed again.

  “A damned little heroine” were the last words she heard as she fell asleep standing up.

  Lord Nelson is . . . patrolling English waters. Was that the national hero Admiral Lord Nelson she’d met? Was she really home at last?

  CHAPTER 52

  Norfolk, England

  March 12, 1803

  IN THE HIRED CHAISE Lisbeth and Duncan sat tense and still, watching the gently rolling hillside roads into the village of Sunderland, north of the greater town of Sandringham.

  She didn’t remember boarding Duncan’s ship, only waking in a hammock in his quarters, by a fire. She remembered being woken to take the new medicine Nelson’s doctor gave her two or three times. The next thing she knew Duncan entered the quarters, his right arm in the same kind of double sling she’d worn a few months ago, and gave her more medicine.

  They’d docked near King’s Lynn. A sailor carried a bath in. Others brought in jugs of hot water, soap, and lavender water, and for twenty minutes she luxuriated in being clean.

  Afterward, Duncan brought in a bandbox with a new cinnamon-colored walking dress, a pretty bonnet, satin slippers, and a lovely redingote—even the required three petticoats. He ushered in a woman whom he introduced as Mrs. Margot Bailey, a local dressmaker, honored to help the future Baroness Annersley into her new outfit and dress her hair.

  When she was fit to be seen, he’d led Lisbeth out to a near-new post-chaise, well sprung and perfectly comfortable. “We’ll be there in an hour and a half. I’ll write to my valet and tell him to bring a maid for you when he comes.”

  Home. Unable to speak, she’d nodded, tried to smile. Mama . . .

  Ninety minutes later the chaise turned the final corner, past the gates and around the great sweeping curve. For the first time in almost two years, the beloved, eclectic jumble of buildings came into view. The original house was a Plantagenet-era abbey ruined during Henry VIII’s dissolution. Every successive owner had made improvements or additions, so the manor was a sprawling jumble of Tudor, Jacobean, Charles, and Queen Anne. When the last scion of the family died, it was sold to Lisbeth’s great-great-grandfather. The messy pile of stone and wood, bricks and mortar amid half-wild rambling gardens.

  Never had she seen anything more beautiful. Barton Lynch. Home.

  She drank in every sight and scent as the carriage drove down the drive, with old-growth pines, juniper, and the hedgerows at each side. They stopped outside the front entrance. Footmen emerged from the house and let the stairs down on the chaise. Duncan exited, helping her out with his good hand.

  “Miss Lizzy!”

  Lisbeth wheeled around. The family butler, Conway, stood in the open doorway, his dear old face ablaze with emotion he couldn’t hide. Then, covering his trembling hands, he bowed deeply to her. “Miss Lizzy, I mean Mrs. Aylsham, if I might be so bold to congratulate you on your recent marriage, it’s good to see you home.” He turned to Duncan and bowed again. “Commander Aylsham, thank you for bringing Miss Lizzy home to us, sir.”

  Duncan bowed his head. “I take it my letter arrived, announcing our marriage.”

  “Yes, sir, as did all your other letters. If I might be so bold as to wish you happiness?”

  Duncan smiled and clapped a hand on the old r
etainer’s shoulder.

  Turning aside, Conway gave orders to a footman before leading the way up the stairs.

  “Thank you, Conway. Is my mother well?”

  Conway jerked to a stop halfway up a step. Then he turned to her, his eyes holding deep sorrow. “Miss Lizzy . . . Lady Sunderland . . .”

  Too late, she noticed the black riband around his arm. Slowly she looked around, saw the black curtains on the windows. She looked at Duncan, the sadness and knowledge in his eyes.

  Her father came down the stairs, attired all in black, his face ravaged. “Lizzy . . .”

  She swayed. “No. No.” Duncan moved to her, but she put an unsteady hand on the stair rail, in a blind need for distance.

  Sir Edward sighed. “Your mother held on as long as she could, waiting for you, Lizzy. If she’d known you were coming . . .”

  Whirling around, she stared wild-eyed at Duncan. “What did you do with my letters?”

  He whitened, reached for her again, but she held herself so stiff he let go. “I sent them, Lizzy, I swear to God I did. If you mentioned anything you shouldn’t, the Alien Office—”

  “They opened my letters? Did you?” she demanded. He was wise enough to remain silent. “You did know she was ill when you recruited me, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  His face filled with grief and regret. “I’d hoped it wasn’t as serious as I feared—” He closed his eyes as she made a mewing sound. “Ah, Lizzy . . .” he muttered, his voice thick.

  A rush of sourness filled her throat; with another sound of distress she pushed past Duncan and ran back out through the door.