Marley noticed her mother and father exchanging one of their secret smiles.
These memories flashed in a moment before her now. And as the water around her warmed her and grew ever brighter, pure happiness rose within her as they appeared before her. So many years remembering the laughter, the love, the happiness. They looked just the same as all those years ago, gazing at her with loving encouragement.
Please, take me with you.
Her father reached out for her. Even as she tried to move into his embrace, her mother stopped them both. Marley stretched toward them with both arms, easily spanning the physical distance between them. Yet she couldn’t touch them.
“Hold on.”
“I’m so tired,” she cried, reaching for him again. “And I miss you so much. Please let me come with you.”
“Soon, my darling Merrilea. You’ll see how fast it all passes. For now, your place is here. Your sisters still need you.”
Merrilea. The name her father had given her, and that her grandmother had changed—why, she still didn’t understand. She had actually forgotten it until now. She’d been so young at the time, she thought she was just saying it a little differently.
But now, when she heard the forgotten name after all these years, she thought she knew. Perhaps it was simply less painful for Nan to hear. How easy it would be, to take one deep breath and relax into their embrace. She was so tired. She just needed a moment’s rest. She closed her eyes.
Hold on, Merrilea!
She opened her eyes, watching in detachment, welcoming peace—dear God, such a divine reward, against life’s constant fear and struggle! Her eyes felt no sting from the saltwater.
“Swim for the light, darling. Always for the light. And we’ll be back before you know it.”
There it was, that reminder of the last time the girls saw their parents before they left them with the babysitter—that last night.
Her parents began to fade. She cried out, but the surreal, shifting nightmare of the cold and the warmth and the light and the darkness shut out her protest.
And out of that light and darkness he appeared, just as she felt herself giving in to the sea’s mightier strength.
Was it her father? No. No. The form she saw was much stronger, much larger, much more muscular than the kindly bespectacled philosopher she’d first loved as a child.
This fair-headed hallucination must have been brought on by her lack of oxygen, and she welcomed him, so weary of her futile kicking. He grabbed her, covered her mouth with his, and exhaled deeply into her mouth, filling and soothing her burning lungs. Even as he shared his oxygen with her, he looped an arm around her and kicked toward the surface with long, strong strokes. Her last thought as she passed out was whimsical.
Like Triton rising in the sea.
Chapter Six
Sleepless for the third night in a row, the captain stood at the wheel of his Adventurer, wondering at signs and dreams and omens. No reason everyone should suffer, he’d thought, and he’d taken the wheel to give his helmsman a break. To free his mind from uneasy presentiment.
Foolish things, superstitions, but he was the son of a son of a sailor, of a man whose beliefs found wisdom in numbers and tea leaves. And so, truth to tell, Hawk was unsurprised when the cry came from the lookout. Their first night at sea, just a few hours out of St. George’s.
“Sail ho.”
The subdued call of the lookout, however—a sailor’s sotto voce—was a tone that struck fear in his heart. The threat sailed near enough to hear them.
How did I miss that? Why had they stayed so close to the island? And what fool gave me that sobriquet of mine to begin with?
Hawk raised his spyglass. Close enough for him to see the scars on the seamen, a British warship loomed out of a fog covering the south side of the island.
Raven leapt around the dazed captain, grabbing the wheel and turning the barque aside to avoid broadsiding the brigantine. “Recognize anyone in the boarding party?”
“I cannot see past those ludicrous bonnets they call hats.”
“Well, they’re not firing on us. So far, a victory.”
Hawk sighed. “’Tis early. Is everything stowed?”
“Just as you directed.” Raven watched the landing party in the boat as the barque began to turn away from the brigantine.
“Send them down.”
The captain disappeared down the hatch, grabbed a lantern, and walked inside a cabin. He inspected first with his nose. Despite the distraction of odors lingering in the air including the whale oil lantern, he’d thought as he descended that he still detected the faint scent of charcoal. It might well be his own imagination he smelled.
He handed the lantern to the sailor stationed at the door to the room. “When they enter, come as far as this, but no closer. Insist on protecting the modesty of the ladies.”
The light dimly illuminated the women, restless in the dark.
Their restlessness was nothing compared to his worries. Transporting the women was part of the trip, but it would be hell, keeping his men away from them during the voyage.
Kit, his island childhood friend, sat with the rest of the women on the edge of the gaily colored contraption they’d decorated, a light quilt folded beside her.
The huge bed looked quite like a traveling troupe’s trunks had exploded and fused over a gigantic mattress, large enough to accommodate the dozen women taking refuge in the cabin. Which was quite close to what had, in fact, happened.
“Up.”
Those nearby clambered off the platform and stood aside, watching him as he peeled back the edge of the quilting. He lifted the wooden lid on the box beneath and peered inside. Silently, he reassembled everything and gestured at the women.
“Into bed with the lot of you. Brits preparing to board. I need not tell you again to keep quiet. Tender-hearted pilgrims and maidens such as yourselves have never seen such a display. As a result, you are shocked to silence. Am I understood?”
Kit had been uncharacteristically quiet during the voyage from St. George’s. Now, she only watched him.
“The bottle.”
She dug an unwieldy bottle of perfume out of a box against the wall and handed it over. He smashed it against the deck then dug a broom out of a closet and handed it to her.
She gave him a sour look. “You have your fun and leave me to my own. We might be seventeen again.”
The captain ignored that. His inspection ended at the older woman who sat in the corner, rocking, eyes half closed. Beefier than most, gruffer than most, Mother Barbary was the guardian of this pack, and you couldn’t locate a finer heart in any church from Boston to Bombay.
“Mother Barbary, are you well?”
With a single nod, she returned to her meditation.
Up on deck came the clatter of men boarding. He climbed the ladder and joined the noise, his shoes thumping on the freshly holystoned and sanded planks.
Four Royal Navy officers stood awaiting his arrival.
“Gentlemen, your business?”
The leader, a lieutenant of perhaps 35, took a step forward. Unlike the rest of his men, he wore a powdered wig.
Hawk and Raven exchanged a quick look: Ass.
“You know quite well that we patrol for smugglers. Can you tell me your purpose in Bermuda?”
“My father, a subject to the throne and a former burgess in Williamsburg, owns an estate in St. George’s. We have supplies for the Massachusetts colony and brides for their respectable young farmers and merchants.”
“I see. We’d like to inspect, if you have no objection.”
“Not at all. However, as I said, I have young maidens aboard, and no wish to introduce them to seamen’s manners by terrorizing them.”
Certain that the officers would expect him to attempt to distract them from any evidence of wrongdoing, he led them directly to his most precious cargo, where the women had packed themselves under the covers like salted sardines. The women squealed in mock terror, in righteous offense
, when the Navy officers descended.
Hawk watched without reaction. The stage’s best, these weren’t.
“What’s that smell?”
“We’re at midway point on a long voyage. Could you be more specific?”
Kit spoke up. “I’m sorry, captain. I broke a bottle of perfume. Knocked it over in the dark.”
“Perfume, eh?”
Hawk stood aside, his arms folded across his chest in irritation. The ladies sat up, clutching their quilts to their chins.
Two of the men carried lanterns, and the captain disguised his dread, watching as one of the two bumbled about the cabin, looking for contraband. He stopped before the ladies.
“Ladies, er—that is, if you don’t mind, we would be grateful if you could—erm, perhaps, if not too much trouble, move aside.”
They sat gaping at him, agoggle. Several climbed off the bed, pulling their nightclothes to their throats. Mother Barbary watched from her chair in the corner, murmuring to herself, her fingers moving over prayer beads. One hand closed more firmly over the club plainly visible in her skirts.
Near her lay a thin, sickly looking woman who made no attempt to move.
“What about her?”
The captain watched the exchange, his breath shallow.
“She’s lame,” Kit said. “We can lift her aside if you like.”
They left the woman unmolested.
A man held the lantern aloft while another threw back the cover and revealed the crates. They opened three crates, found nothing except Bibles, used dinnerware, and old glassware.
Under the lame woman, the captain knew, was a different matter. No dinnerware concealed their cargo in those crates.
“Nothing here except housekeeping items, sir,” the officer said, replacing the quilt and nodding to the ladies. Then he moved back into the passageway to search the rest of the ship.
“Where is your home port, Captain?”
“Norfolk, Virginia.”
“Then I suggest you get there with all due speed.”
“She’s a ship, sir,” the captain said with a smile that stopped short of his eyes. “Her very joie de vivre is sailing.”
“We are here for your own protection, sir.”
“Then would you ask your officers to kindly stop ogling the young maidens here, if all this protecting has concluded?”
The lieutenant had the decency to struggle for words. He turned toward the door, turned back long enough to tip his hat to the ladies, and bowed.
Hawk exchanged a grim glance with Kit as he followed the officers down to the hold, where they found nothing besides salt pork and beef, lemons, limes, and water for the journey—and a good store of salt, sugar, and molasses for the colonies. And an occasional rat.
Finally, he escorted them to his own cabin, where he produced tax documentation.
“Everything looks to be in order. May your voyage be safe to the British colony of Virginia.” And he bowed—again.
“God save your king,” Hawk said with an even lower bow.
“And yours.”
As if we need any reminder of that daft lunatic.
When the officers were safely in their boat, headed back to the warship, Raven spoke. “You white folks sure know how to host the enemy. ‘I shall smite thee, sir.’ ‘Well, not before I smite thee, sir. Would you like some tea with your smiting?”
Hawk sent him a withering glance.
“I take it a stop in Norfolk is out?” Raven asked.
“I believe I should like to see New England in the autumn.”
“Straight into Boston harbor, then, with our ladies and their many crates of finery.”
“Wait.” Hawk hesitated, listening for something he thought he’d heard. “Silence.” His order echoed over the deck, and every seaman stood still. “Did you hear that?”
“Naught but the tick of the clock and the pull of the tides. The winter cold draws nigh with every moment we tarry.”
In the shards of moonlight shattered on the water he saw the glisten of a—what, fish?—flopping near the surface.
“Do you see that?”
“’Tis a marlin.”
“A marlin. I could throw you to the shore from here.”
“For identifying a fish?”
“A marlin, this close to shore? What does it look like to you?”
“You mocked my last answer. So I’ll say … a mermaid. Well. Truthfully it does resemble a mermaid.”
Stepping up to the rail, he peered in the darkness for a glimmer. If he thought he’d had trouble sleeping before, he dared not leave behind one of Kit’s women who’d managed to have fallen overboard.
But she wasn’t even calling out for help.
Good God, man, go!
He stripped off his shoes and dove over the side, swimming to the area where he’d seen her. Or it. If she were a woman, not calling for help, she was drowning.
He stopped to orient himself as pale blue flashed in the moonlight: a slender arm. Raven squawked in surprise and to alert him, and Hawk waved once then swam toward her.
Just before he dove, he filled his lungs with air. He’d seen no movement from her—just being tossed about by the waves.
He had to dive further than he expected—perhaps twenty feet. Then he felt her, and hope filled his breast as he grabbed her limp form into his arms. He supported her head and fitted his mouth over hers, exhaling fully, filling her lungs as best he could underwater. He felt a piece of jewelry, a locket or somesuch, floating away over her head, and he grabbed it. Strapping an arm around her waist, he swam to the surface, praying their lungs held out.
As he reached the surface, he took in great gulps of air, appreciating the mysteries of life. He reached the ladder on the hull and found his crew gawping, craning their necks like a yard full of chickens contemplating a worm. He shuddered to imagine their reaction if they glimpsed the form he’d held when he pulled her from the water. He would have a mutiny of randy sailors on his hands.
“Throw down a covering, quickly—”
“What do you want? A blanket? A nice monogrammed towel?” This from Raven.
“I don’t care if you send your breeches. No, don’t send—”
A remnant of an old, salvaged sail was already on its way down and splashed on the water beside them, and he bundled her into it. Tossing his lumpy bundle over his shoulder, he grabbed the ladder and headed up. As he neared the gunwale, Rashall reached over to grab the bundle.
“My cabin. Put the boy there and leave him.”
To the men standing there gawking, he said, “Back to your posts! It’s merely a cabin boy fallen off the British warship.”
Deming, the boatswain, gave him a suspicious side-glance. “That was no—”
Hawk silenced him with a look. He grabbed his shoes from the deck and descended to the women’s cabin. The seaman at the door, fighting fatigue, rose and stepped back.
Hawk tapped briefly on the door, and it opened just wide enough to reveal Kit, relieved to see him.
“Are all present and well?”
“Yes. Why?”
He had no interest in attempting to explain someone who defied explanation. That the woman was a stranger was not good news.
“Just making sure. I trust no Englishman. Good night.”
He made his way to his cabin and barred the door behind him. Raven already knelt over her on the deck. He’d folded back the duck only enough to free her head and shoulders, and he’d tipped her onto her side to let the water spill out.
Hawk knelt on her other side as Raven worked, as Raven’s mother had taught them both years ago—as soon as they grew old enough to get into trouble. That woman had more home-grown lifesaving tricks than any doctor he’d ever known.
“Compressions. There’s no heartbeat.”
Hawk obeyed. The two traded off performing compressions and breathing for her until Raven raised his head. “She’s breathing.”
Relief flooded him. They’d used this technique more
than once, and as rare and magical as it had seemed when they learned it, there was no certainty to it. The times it had worked were few.
“Why isn’t she …” Hawk gestured toward her.
“Moving at all? She’s got that Sleeping Beauty thing going on, doesn’t she? Maybe just needs some rest.”
Hawk frowned. The color in her face, at least a bit of it, seemed to be returning.
“What do we do with her now?”
For that, he had no answer.
“Where could she have come from?” Hawk asked.
“You know where.”
“Perhaps she came out from shore on a smaller boat and it capsized, or another ship was wrecked, or …”
“Yes. Enough time passed for a ship to sink, but she was still out there floating around.” Raven gave a nod. “Or maybe she lives out there with her two sisters on a rocky island, singing the poor sailors to their deaths. Or maybe—”
“Very well. Leave us. Have Jem sleep with the crew. And make sure we get safely away from that blasted British brig.”
Raven skipped up the narrow ladder, then stopped short and descended again, pulling the door close. “And you will not pass her off as a boy. Trust me.”
Hawk glared after him; that much, they’d both figured out during the compressions.
He only laughed as he raced up the ladder, calling out to the seamen: “To Boston!”
When they were alone, he sighed. Found a clean shirt and breeches in his wardrobe. Steeled himself for the next few minutes. Lit another candelabra to enjoy it.
He stepped out of his wet clothes, slung them in the corner, and slipped into the breeches. Dropping the shirt over the foot of the bed, he turned back the covers.
He knelt beside the girl, faced with the daunting task of clothing her. It wasn’t the idea of covering her nakedness, but the idea of confronting it. He should have had one of the women do it, but Hawk trusted none of them enough to select from among them.
She had a pleasant enough face, framed by hair still damp with seawater. He couldn’t quite tell the color, but in the candle’s flame he thought saw a tinge of copper, and a texture of springy curls.
Even in distressed repose, she seemed to be on the verge of smiling. He found something about the shape of her lips provocative, as if a tiny dimple were placed at each corner of her full mouth. She inhaled deeply, coughed twice, turned her head toward him as if in instinct, then opened her eyes, gazing at him peacefully, as if he were a friend she’d always known.
Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2) Page 6
