Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  A sharp sound spat from the corner. Hunching as if jabbed in the ribs by a playful elbow, Liam twisted, feet awkwardly placed. He stared at his wife. With tears streaming down her face, she knelt on the bloody rug, Rouge's smoking pistol in her upraised hand. "Catherine, not. . . you! You couldn't."

  "You'll not hurt him anymore, Liam," she whispered brokenly. "You've taken too much."

  Wearily, Liam tried to focus on his brother's chest, but the gun was too heavy now. Its muzzle dropped, even as he dropped, his knees striking first. Catherine crawled toward him and Sean warned him sharply, "Kit, don't. He's still armed."

  "Liam won't hurt me," she said softly as she slipped Liam's head into her lap. "It would be like killing himself."

  Liam's blue eyes, the last familiar feature in a face dissolved by dissipation, began to fade as Catherine brushed his hair from his brow, where it always persisted in falling. "You . . . almost loved me," he whispered, "didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "If I'd only had time. If Sean hadn't . . ." His voice became urgent. "Don't. . . leave me here. They . . . hate me . . . British bastards. Don't let them have . . . my house."

  "We won't, brother," Sean promised quietly.

  "Liam," Catherine whispered, "I'm carrying a child. If you know anything of Sean's parentage, you must tell us now."

  He stared up at her. "You're . . . mine. Not his. Only. . . mine." The color went from his eyes and his head sagged.

  Half-grievihg, half-wild with frustration, she wanted to shake the inert body. "Oh, Liam, clutching and greedy for love to the last." She stroked his eyes and mouth closed and eased his head to the floor.

  "We have to leave now, Kit," Sean muttered. "We've no time to wait for Flannery to come up."

  Swiftly, she got Sean into his jacket, then threw on her cloak. With his good arm around her neck, she supported him through the hall and started down the stair, but near the bottom, his slender reserve of strength failed. He collapsed, twisting as he fell, to sprawl on his back, head down, his body partly inclined up the last steps. She screamed, clutching the rail, then skittered to him. When she cradled his head, his face was as still as Liam's. She screamed again in terror that grew when pounding feet sounded in the service passage. "Get yerself together!" Flannery gave her shoulder a jerk as he knelt to feel for Sean's pulse. "He's still alive. Come on, girl, get movin' and lock that front door. The British are on the hillside!"

  Even as Catherine slammed the open door, red coats beaded the frosted slope. She tore down the corridor after Flannery, who carried Sean in his arms. Once in the wine cellar, the giant nodded toward a fuse running in the concealed armory. "Don't kick that. There's enough loose powder from those cracked kegs in there to blast us to smithereens. Lock the cellar door and get over here." She obeyed, struggling for a moment with the heavy bar. "The door's iron-faced; they'll not come through in a hurry. Hit the fuse with that wall torch, then give this bottle a twist."

  A section of wine rack swung back, and seconds later they were descending through a long rock passage cut into the bowels of the cliff beneath Shelan. Partway down, Flannery began to wheeze, and for the first time Catherine realized how old he was, the strain he was sustaining. Head flung back over Flannery's brawny arm, shirt hanging loosely from his bandaged chest, Sean gave no sign of returning consciousness.

  "They're at the door by now. Hurry, lass, but for God's sake don't stumble!" They reached the bottom. Flannery sagged against the rock, his lips white. "The. . . lever . . . there."

  Catherine threw her weight on it, and a huge rock moved back. They staggered into the sunlight. Quickly, Catherine ran to the curragh overturned on the beach. Slipping on the sand, getting silt mixed with the blood on her petticoat, she wrestled the unwieldy hide boat to the water. Flannery lowered Sean into it and motioned her into the stern. Rowing swiftly, his face now flushed nearly the red of his great beard, he got them to the catboat and helped her maneuver Sean over the side. As Catherine unlashed the tiller, he ran up the sail, then went back over the side. "Weigh anchor, girl; head dead out. When ye're beyond sight of land, bear north to Kenlo. Hurry! The winds against ye. I can give ye only a few minutes."

  She grabbed at his hand. "Come with us! Let them have the place, Flannery! Liam's dead. Shelan isn't worth your life!"

  Gently, he put her hand away. "Every Culhane since Conal has had a Flannery at his back, girl." His voice turned to a whisper. "Ye do yer real da proud. Thank God it's you and that boyo who'll carry on his line." He pushed off before she could kiss him.

  Flannery beached the curragh, flipped it and slashed its bottom, then ran heavily toward high ground. Fanning from the house and pounding down the cliff trail across the beach, soldiers fired at him and the catboat, which danced away on the waves as it tacked out to sea. He clambered to a protected crevice, where he emptied his pistols, picking off two marksmen firing at the boat.

  "Save yer shots, men," a puffing lieutenant cried as he waved his saber and charged the Irishman's crevice. "He has only a knife left!" Those were the last words the officer uttered as a slash ripped through his gilt-braided tunic. His sword shimmied with a clatter down the rocks.

  A sergeant was less inclined to ration lead. Efficiently, he shot Flannery through the heart, then waved his men to join their fellows reloading at the edge of the surf. As the catboat tacked further away despite their efforts, he paced, scowling. "Hurry up, ye bleedin' blind! They're nearly out of range! Jesu, if I had even a toy of a cannon, I'd blow her out of the water." As if a mischievous demon had answered his wish, the cliff erupted behind them. In a thunderous billow of smoke and debris, Shelan hurled its bowels into the sky to fall in a hurtling, deadly rain of glass, burning timber, and stone. Soldiers on the beach scattered pell-mell like scarlet beads, screaming as their uniforms ignited or they were crushed by falling wreckage. Beyond the rolling breakers, the catboat headed for the horizon.

  As the boat turned north, the sky filled with ominous, dark-rimmed clouds. To break the rising wind, Catherine handled the tiller with only her head above the funnels. Tears for Flannery were hard, icy patches on her cheeks. She wrapped Sean closely in the extra sail, pulling it high to protect his face from stinging spray; then with the tiller braced under her arm, she tried to protect her face against frostbite with the clóak.

  Even with its sail reefed, the boat heeled under the onslaught of the first gale winds. Catherine gripped the tiller with white knuckles. The boat reeled, fought itself erect, only to bend to the wind's force again. She let the main- sheet slide through numb fingers until the boat righted, then hauled in enough tension to maneuver. The waves grew into black, towering walls of water that slid under the boat just when they seemed about to engulf it. One particular brute hit their stern, slewing it around and filling the small craft with enough spray to set the bailing bucket afloat in the scuppers. Quickly, she lashed the tiller and scrambled forward for the small leather bucket as more water came over the stern. She applied it with frantic determination. The pelting rain became freezing aleet. With the cloak up to shield her head, she kept bailing with numb hands. Suddenly the boat rolled viciously and the tip of the boom caught a wave. As the boat slewed sideways again, the boom whistled over Catherine's head. The backstay parted with a pop, and with a sickening crack, the mast snapped and toppled. Sick with despair, she stared at the spilling canvas. It was over. They were done except for the dying.

  Catherine finished bailing as darkness fell, then numbly listening to the silence and subtle hiss of blowing snow, hung against the gunnel. The waves ran by them now, leaving the catboat bobbing helplessly on a sea of black glass. As a last, desperate hope for rescue, she pulled off the bloody petticoat and secured it to the bare mast stump before she crept under the old sail to lie against Sean's comparative warmth. She rubbed her hands and feet harshly until they stung, then did the same to Sean. Luckily, Flannery had padded sail thickly about him to keep him dry. With her cloak pulled over them both, she whispered a prayer and
crept against him.

  Dawn rose gray-white, hazy with fat, lazily drifting flakes of snow hissing as they met the slow roll of the waves. Catherine stirred to find Sean's arm about her, his breath warm to her face. His legs were wrapped with hers * in an effort to keep her warm. She opened her eyes to look into his, dark murky green under lowered lashes. "Soggy little cat," he murmured. "Come closer . . . I'm not strong enough to hold you close."

  Shivering, she burrowed against him. "Flannery?" he whispered.

  "Dead. Shelan went with him."

  He was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was slurred, as if coherency was an effort. "I hear flapping. Couldn't you reef the sail?"

  "There was a sudden storm . . ." Her voice gave way. "The mast snapped. We've blown out to sea. I lost your monkey, too," she finished dismally.

  "I know you tried." He caressed her until she lay quiet against him, limbs entangled with his. His lips moved against her hair. "Tiger kitten. I could die so easily making love to you. . . la petite mort, then sleep. . ." His hand slipped into the open chemise and found soft flesh.

  Catherine lay still, her heart thudding under his hand. Even if she were damned for it, she had not the will to stop him. But there was no urgency in his touch or in his cold lips. "I love you," he whispered against her mouth. "If this is the last time . . . I say it in life, it will be my litany in hell."

  Her lips parted and answered his with feverish passion. As his heart quickened against her, she breathed, "Take me now and not even Hell can separate us."

  "No, little one. Only your prayers in Heaven can beguile the ear of God. Seeing you . . . He may remember he was once a man and pity me."

  "You tease me."

  He touched her lips. "I love you, madonna. How much more must God?"

  "I love you." Her whisper was a lullaby as they drifted into the mist. "Mon cher diable. Mon ange de feu. Je t'aime toujours. Il n'y a pas de mort C'est un mirage. L'amour seulement n'est pas un mirage . . ."

  In the swaying crow's nest of the French warship La République as she made her lonely way through the icy seas of western Ireland, the lookout retreated deeper into his jacket until he resembled a turtle even unto that creature's melancholy eyes. He was chilled to the marrow and bone-pricked at the rump, but his gaze kept up its restless lizard's flick over the waves for threatening British sail. The sailor's glum demeanor abruptly enlivened. "Ship ahoy!" he howled.

  "Where away?" the deck officer demanded.

  "Two points a'larboard."

  The deck officer's telescope snapped to his eye and he wrung the tube to focus. Then wrung it again to frame a white petticoat. Slowly, he lowered the instrument, his brows puckered.

  "What is she?" called the captain. "British?"

  "Well. . . it might be, sir," his officer responded with a quirk to his lips. "I'd have to ask my wife."

  CHAPTER 23

  Tricolor

  Death seemed to come easily, a creeping coldness in the extremities, then sleep. Catherine did not know if Sean's heart had ceased to beat, only that she had grown bitterly cold and his body no longer warmed her. The mist surrounding their drifting, shattered boat crept under the sail and filled her heart. Night fell without stars, without moonlight through the winding mist, without Sean, and she was sick with disappointment and fear. The sun rose like a lantern on the horizon and she eagerly reached for it, straining for the light. A hand caught hers.

  "Don't disturb yourself, Comtesse. You're quite safe."

  "What?" Her vision cleared and she peered incredulously at a silhouetted face. "Who are you?"

  There was a chuckle. "Not God, ma chère Comtesse, I asaure you."

  "Then if you're the devil, why are you speaking French, and where is Sean?" she demanded faintly.

  "Monsieur is safe in sickbay," the stranger laughed, "and I speak French because I'm Doctor Emile Fourquet, not the devil, and this is a French warship, La République, possibly hell, I've never been sure. How do you feel?"

  She tentatively wriggled her fingers and toes, then stared at him in some amazement. "Alive."

  "Quite. Though for a time, I feared I might not have the pleasure of meeting the petticoat sailor."

  Fourquet was young, handsome, and sure of himself. As he grinned at her, Catherine recalled suddenly how she must have looked in the battered catboat. She had been wearing next to nothing then, and definitely nothing now. No wonder the man was grinning. Probably the whole crew was nothing but teeth. If Fourquet expected a blush, he did not get it. She regarded him without batting an eye. "As I seem to lack even a petticoat at the moment, may I borrow some clothes?"

  His smile became a fraction more professional. "Ah, but you must stay in bed two more days at least."

  "I'll cooperate gladly, doctor, after I see Monsieur Culhane."

  "I assure you the gentleman is doing as well as can be expected after his considerable injuries, mademoiselle; unfortunately, his chances are poor. You should be prepared for the worst."

  Then why aren't you with him? Catherine thought furiously. Instead, you hold the hand of a naked woman with a runny nose, you . . . Frenchman! Aloud, she said simply, "Doctor Fourquet, I intend to visit Monsieur Culhane whether I wear your clothes or this blanket or nothing at all. And I am not Mademoiselle, but Madame. Madame Culhane."

  Ten minutes later, Fourquet pulled back the curtain of the tiny sickbay to admit a small, unsteady figure in oversized shirt and breeches, then he headed up to the quarterdeck. Catherine knelt by the bunk where Sean lay. She kissed his fingers and the pulse of life in his throat, her tears wetting his haggard face. Alive. He was alive. Like a mother cat going over her cub, she touched him, touched his hair, his face, reveled in his rough, prickly beard. He had been bathed and efficiently rebandaged. Perhaps Fourquet wasn't completely remiss. Food and warmth: that was what Sean needed. A place to heal, to be left alone.

  Her scattered thoughts fused together when Fourquet flipped open the sickbay curtain and Raoul d'Amauri ducked his head under the bulkhead. "Fourquet says our petticoat sailor is obstinate," he chided her with a comical scowl that broke into his familiar, endearing grin. "I told him he must get used to it."

  He opened his arms, and with a cry of relief, Catherine flung herself into them. "Oh, Raoul, thank heaven you're safe! I had heard the Killala expedition was a disaster, that you were all captured."

  Hugging her, he laughed ruefully. "A disaster definitely, but many of us survived. We were exchanged after a year." He held her back to study her pale face. "It's you who are endangered now. You must behave and go back to bed." His fingers brushed her cracked lips. "You're suffering from exposure and have a touch of fever." Then he added slowly, "Culhane will be well taken care of; I'll see to it myself." He cocked his head. "You had me fooled, chérie. When did you marry him?"

  With a fading smile, Catherine uneasily slipped her hands from his. "I'm Liam Culhane's wife—his widow. He was killed . . . what day is this?" she asked distractedly, feeling overwarm. Perhaps Raoul was right about the fever.

  "Your January twenty-first."

  "Two days ago he was killed . . . with the others." She fought off a wave of dizziness.

  "Ma pauvre petite. You've had a bad time." He cuddled her again, eyeing the flaring emerald on her finger. "Go back to bed like a good girl. Culhane will be all right, I promise."

  Somehow afraid now, Catherine shook her head. "No, I . . . must stay with hiiri." She swayed and clutched the Frenchman's arm to fight the ship's roll. "Please . . ."

  "Of course, chérie. Sleep now."

  As if hearing a hypnotic command, she collapsed in his arms.

  After he had reinstated the countess in his own cabin bunk, Fourquet felt her forehead. "She'll be fine in a day or so. Just overdid a bit. What about Culhane?"

  Amauri shrugged. "Keep trying. We can use good mercenaries."

  "And Madame Culhane?"

  "She has carte blanche."

  By the next night, Catherine, much im
proved, was able to sit up with Sean, who had been transferred to Amauri's vacated cabin. Dozing over one of Fourquet's medical books, she was instantly alerted by a slight pressure of the Irishman's hand in her palm. Her fingers tightened and she looked down. Green eyes flecked with golden lights from the candle reflection held hers. He said nothing, only reached up to touch her face, then slept, long and deeply.

  She was giving her patient a light breakfast the next morning when Amauri slipped into the cabin. "Alors, Monsieur Culhane, Doctor Fourquet tells me you're back among the living!" He grinned. "You must have the constitution of Attila."

  "No, just Kit. Thanks for the use of your cabin, Colonel."

  Amauri shrugged. "Pas de quoi The officer who was next door left us in Brest, which leaves a cabin free for ma- dame. I don't mind bunking with Fourquet. It's fortunate your boat drifted so far south. We might easily have missed you. As it was, the République nearly ran you down. Must have been quite a storm."

  Catherine's well-timed spoon saved Sean an immediate reply. The storm had come up from the south. The République must have been surreptitiously cruising off the Irish coast. He swallowed the spoonful. "Bring me a cigar tonight, Colonel, and I'll tell you the whole story."

  The spoon hit the cup. "You'll do no such thing. You know what Doctor O'Donnell said."

  "Nag." He grinned weakly at her and she fiercely wanted to kiss him.

  The look between Catherine and the Irishman was like a small crack of lightning, instantly shielded, but sulphur still hung in the air. Amauri was unable to see the countess's eyes but he derived the distinct impression Culhane was as intent as himself on consoling the bereaved widow. It might be well to loosen the Irishman's tongue. "Is the patient permitted wine with his dinner, madame?" he murmured solicitously.