He followed her gaze to the floor where Barun was lying, his chest covered in blood, the lance sticking out of his shoulder.
“He won’t die,” she whispered, looking at him with blank eyes.
Barun’s hand lifted. His fingers curled around the hilt of the lance and he pulled. His gaze was locked on Morgan’s and there was a slight tilt to his lips, as if he were laughing at them.
All the anger, the terror, the helplessness and horror came together inside Morgan. He fell to his knees and plunged his fist into the man’s face over and over again. Blood spurted as he rained down punch after punch. All those months in a prison cell, all those beatings he took, the starvation, the abuse, everything Barun had done to him and to Juliana, all of it came to the surface and Morgan vented his rage.
He won’t die. Juliana’s words kept repeating inside his head. He wouldn’t die. The bastard wouldn’t die.
Through the thick haze of his fury he heard Juliana calling his name. She was sobbing and pulling on his shoulder.
“Stop, please,” she begged.
Morgan’s arm fell to his side. Barun looked like a stomped grape, various shades of purple and blue, his face cracked and bleeding. Blood was everywhere.
Slowly, as if he were under water, he turned to her. Tears ran down her cheeks, her bloody hands were on his arm, pulling.
“Morgan, please, stop. He’s dead. He’s dead.”
He stood and pulled her tightly against him for a brief moment, savoring the feel of his wife in his arms. Safe but not unharmed. He closed his eyes, wishing he could kill the bastard all over again.
“He’s dead,” she said quietly. “Thank God.”
Morgan pulled away, stripped out of his tattered shirt and yanked it over Juliana’s shoulders as John rushed in, a lighted torch held high in one hand, a cloth sack in another.
He stared at Barun for several moments. “Good,” he said almost to himself. He looked up at Morgan and Juliana. “A fire started in the kitchen and is spreading.” He shoved the bag at Morgan. “Hurry, you don’t have much time.”
Morgan grabbed Juliana’s hand and tugged. “Come on.”
She took a step toward John. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for helping us.”
“Go,” he tried to push her out the door but she wouldn’t move.
“Come with us,” she said. “We’ll help you find your brother.”
He shook his head. “There’s more I have to do here. You better hurry.”
Morgan pulled her through the door and down the maze of corridors, searching for the steps leading to the deck. Smoke billowed behind them as if pushing them forward. He thought of the Molly Victoria and the lives lost. He found the stairs and raced up them, Juliana at his heels. When they reached the top, they stopped and blinked against the bright sunlight.
Men were lowering the tenders, other were jumping into the water as smoke drifted through the cracks in the deck. Below the trapped animals in the manger bellowed. Morgan turned starboard and grabbed the closest available tender.
“Stop them!”
Barun limped up the steps. Clutching his bloody shoulder with one hand, he pointed to Morgan and Juliana with the other.
“Get in.” Morgan lifted Juliana up and over the side, heard her land in the bottom with an, “Oomph,” and threw the cloth bag in after her.
He grabbed the davit and began to lower the small boat to the water. Juliana scrambled to her feet and reached for him. “What are you doing?”
He ignored the look of panic on her face, ignored the hands reaching for him. “Morgan! Don’t do this! Come with me.”
“It ends here,” he said between clenched teeth.
She grabbed onto the rope. “No. Not like this. Please, Morgan!”
“Stop that man!” Barun shouted.
He was advancing. Limping, but advancing. And his men were beginning to notice although most of them were making their way to the remaining tenders. The fire was spreading quickly. Morgan unwound the crane’s winch faster but no matter how fast he went it wouldn’t be quick enough. He pulled his cutlass from its sheath and locked eyes with Juliana. “Don’t do this,” she whispered.
“I love you.” He cut the ropes. They raced through the pulley system and flew free. Juliana grabbed onto the sides of the tender and screamed his name as the boat fell to the water with a loud splash.
When Morgan turned, Barun was behind him, the Holy Lance raised to strike. Morgan blocked the blow, the clash of metal on metal ringing in his ears as the force of the blow traveled up his arm. In the short time it took to lower the tender, the fire had advanced until the smoke was now black and licking at Barun’s boot heels.
What a pair they made—Barun with his injured arm and pummeled face and Morgan with his waning strength and healing bruises. Evenly matched, he would say.
Fire crackled close by as Barun struck again and Morgan blocked, then parried. At times, the smoke blinded him and he found himself striking out blindly. At one point, he couldn’t see anything and he stood perfectly still, listening to his own labored breaths. He lunged. His cutlass made contact and he heard Barun grunt, but the man moved and Morgan only nicked him.
Frustrated he turned in circles, listening for movement. It was difficult to hear one man when dozens were running about, yelling and jumping over the sides.
Morgan chanced a look toward the water but couldn’t pinpoint Juliana’s tender in the haze of smoke. A lone woman on the ocean with desperate men needing tenders to save their lives wasn’t safe. Yet, he wouldn’t leave, not until this was finished with Barun.
The smoke cleared. He glimpsed Barun a few feet from him before the gray haze obscured him again. He was like a ghost floating in and out of walls. Morgan attacked with the cutlass, hit nothing but air. He pulled back and waited with breath held.
The fire inched closer. Red sparks singed his skin. The heat was nearly unbearable.
From the darkness the lance struck out and nicked Morgan in the arm before he had a chance to pull away. Quickly, Morgan retaliated, connected and drove his cutlass as far as he could. Barun cried out. The deck groaned, heaved and suddenly gave way.
Morgan was airborn, falling through what had once been the upper gun deck.
Barun screamed and Morgan landed, bounced, rolled. Dazed he lay on his back and looked up through the hole he’d fallen through. Smoke billowed up, fire licked the ceiling. For a moment, he didn’t move. The breath had been knocked out of him and he feared he might have broken something. But slowly feeling returned and he glanced around. He’d landed in the magazine—where all the gunpowder was stored.
The fire would soon reach this area and when it did, the ship would blow.
Morgan scrambled to his feet, wincing at his wounded knee. Where the hell was Barun? The bastard could have landed anywhere. Could even have fallen farther down. For a moment—a wild, insane moment—Morgan thought of searching for him. One look at the barrels of gunpowder had sanity returning. He scrambled over barrels in search of the companionway, found it and climbed down, toward the heat, the fire, the smoke. He was coughing and his eyes were watering so badly he could hardly see.
With a terrible shrieking, the companionway above him collapsed. Morgan ducked, jumped onto the lower deck and watched as the wooden stairs crumbled. He was trapped, one level above the magazines and on the deck with the thirty-two pound cannons and cannon balls the size of coconuts. Helplessly he looked about and spotted the cannons sitting quietly by themselves. If he moved one, he might be able to squeeze out of the gun port and dive into the ocean.
The thirty-two-pounders were the granddaddies of the cannons, weighing in at about one-and-a-half tons. They were on wheels and while most of the time it took several men to move them into place, Morgan didn’t have a helping hand. He untied the ropes lashing the cannon in place and pushed it back. It moved a bit on well-oiled wheels. For once he was grateful Barun ran a tight ship. He put all his weight into it and pushed more, strainin
g to move the massive cannon. It slid a few inches but not enough for Morgan to squeeze through the gun port.
The fire was close, the heat scorching his back. The angry roar of it consumed everything in its path. The screams of the men had died and except for the voice of the flames and the creaks and groans of a ship in pain, it was eerily silent of human voices.
He put his weight to the cannon and pushed, using every bit of his strength and more. Whether God was looking down on him or it was just plain dumb luck, the ship rocked and the cannon rolled. Quickly Morgan climbed through the gun port. He glanced back, spared one last thought to Barun, then jumped.
He pushed to the surfaced and turned in a circle ignoring the pain in his knee. There were others in the water, but they were farther away and those who were in boats helped those who weren’t.
He spotted a solitary tender off to the side and recognized it as the one he’d thrown Juliana into by the fresh wood where it had been mended. With sure strokes, he swam to it and when he reached its side, grasped on.
“Juliana?”
“Morgan?” Her sooty face appeared over the side, red eyes swollen. She was a beautiful sight to his tired eyes.
“Morgan!” She reached over and helped pull him in. He landed at the bottom, then scrambled to the oars.
“Grab an oar,” he commanded. “Row.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No more than usual.”
“Is it over?”
He looked at the tenders fleeing the burning ship like roaches. Flames leapt from the portholes of the Bhaya. Was Barun still on the ship? Had he reached safety?
The fire made its way to the magazines and the ship blew. A fantastic ball of fire that transformed into a mushroom cloud of debris, men and sailing paraphernalia. Morgan tackled Juliana to the bottom of the tender and tucked her beneath him, covering their heads with his arms as pieces of the Bhaya rained down on them. In the concussion, the waves battered the small boat and the tender heaved.
When Morgan pulled Juliana up, the Bhaya was nothing but a huge ball of fire, the skeleton engulfed in flames. If Barun were on the ship, he was surely dead.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s over.”
He began to row, maneuvering their little boat to head in the opposite direction of the burning ship.
Dusk quickly closed in and Morgan turned the tender east. The flames from the Bhaya kept the sky bright, a beacon to other ships. Morgan hoped a beacon to Reed and Isabelle.
Juliana watched the debris burn as Morgan kept rowing, alternately searching the area for unfriendly tenders and friendly ships and watching Juliana.
When the small boats were but mere specks and the Bhaya a smoldering, sinking, hulk, Morgan pulled the oars in and rested his arms on them. Silently, Juliana searched through their store of food and held up some biscuits.
“This is all we have.”
“I’m not hungry, but you eat.”
She shook her head and put the biscuits away. “I’m not hungry either.”
Morgan stopped himself from pointing out that she needed to eat. Instead he held out his arm and she snuggled into him as he rested his chin on top of her head and looked out over the water. It was a vast ocean and Isabelle had only an idea of where to look. Several miles in either direction and she could miss them entirely. He prayed the Bhaya would keep burning through the night.
Juliana drifted off to sleep with her head in his lap. Occasionally her hands would twitch and her body would jerk. He wondered if she dreamed of Barun. Toward dawn the Bhaya’s foremast sank and the fire was extinguished. The other tenders were scattered to the four corners and Juliana and Morgan were alone on the ocean.
Thanks to John, they had enough food and ale to last several days if they were careful. One problem solved, but there were others to take its place. Weather, for one. If a storm blew up, Morgan didn’t know if their boat would survive.
Juliana stirred, blinked tired-looking green eyes up at him. He felt a tightening in his chest. A love so brilliant it outshone even the sun. He wanted to hold Juliana tight, to never let her go. He shuddered to think of everything he almost lost and could still lose if they weren’t found. His hands shook with the intensity of his emotions.
“Do you think John made it off the ship?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” And it didn’t matter. John had been a traitor. He put Juliana and their baby in harm’s way and Morgan would not forgive him.
“He set the fires, didn’t he?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“He saved our lives.”
“Yes.”
“He did what he had to in order to save his brother.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t want to talk about John.
Later in the afternoon Morgan was sitting in the stern with Juliana resting against his chest. He was stroking her hair, thinking of the silky softness of it and wondering if help would ever reach them.
“I got my first good look at you in a tender,” she said as they both stared out over the ocean. “After you fished me out of the ocean.”
“You mean after I saved your butt and hauled you up the steps.”
“You pushed me up the steps and left me.”
“I thought you were part of the crew.”
“I thought I was in your barn in Kansas.”
It was edging toward the heat of the day, that hour when the sun begins its descent and the rays were the hottest. Sweat was trickling down his back. He’d rationed the water but worried Juliana wasn’t getting enough.
“Full circle,” Juliana said. “Do you think it will end here?”
As he’d been doing for most of the day, he scanned the horizon. “Turn your head to the right.”
A magnificent five-masted schooner crested the horizon, its sails billowing in the wind, its bow cutting through the waves at an impressive speed.
Morgan hugged Juliana tighter as they watched Isabelle’s ship approach.
Chapter Thirty
Juliana stood at the window of the study and watched Morgan, leaning heavily on his cane, make his way through the garden.
It’d been three months since Isabelle’s Eve plucked them from the ocean.
Morgan’s bruises faded. His knee was healing but not quickly enough for his peace of mind. He wanted to be whole again and was frustrated he still needed his cane.
Juliana was healing as well. A small mark in the middle of her palm was all that was left of Barun’s branding. A mark she would bear the rest of her life, a reminder of the bad times. But also a reminder of the strength she found to endure and fight back. In her opinion a tiny scar was a small price to pay for surviving.
The nightmares were slowly fading but occasionally haunted her in the deep of night. She always woke from them wrapped in Morgan’s strong arms, his soft voice whispering in her ear, and she would instantly calm down.
Life continued on. Sophia moved, along with most of the nobility of London, to the country where she would spend the summer. Isabelle and Reed were about to set sail for Boston in a week.
By all accounts everything should be perfect, but it wasn't. Each day Juliana watched Morgan distance himself from her. There was no more laughter and loving, no more arguments or quiet times. He hadn’t touched her in weeks except to hold her during her nightmares.
All because of four words. Four innocent words uttered by Isabelle not long after they returned to London from the Bhaya.
Juliana and Morgan had been alone in their townhouse when Isabelle sailed in, pulling off her gloves with a grimace and throwing them on the nearest chair. Two burly men followed, maneuvering a large package through the door.
“We found the mirror,” Isabelle said.
We found the mirror. In those four words Juliana’s idyllic life shattered.
“What mirror?” she asked through a thick throat, knowing the answer but asking anyway. She looked at Morgan but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Isabelle glanced from Juliana to Mo
rgan, her brows pulled together. “When we returned from the Bhaya Morgan began making inquiries into a large mirror. He said he wanted to give it to you as a wedding gift.”
Juliana’s heart sank to her knees. She continued to stare at Morgan, waiting for a response, an explanation, something to convince her that her heart was wrong. That Morgan wasn’t looking for the mirror to send her back. But his gaze remained solidly on Isabelle.
Ignorant of what her announcement truly meant, Isabelle went on to say that when Morgan described the mirror, she thought it sounded suspiciously like a piece of cargo the Molly Victoria had been carrying. She assumed it was lost when the ship went down, but when she and Reed finally sorted out the cargo of all three ships, they found it in the back of their warehouse.
“Isn’t it a coincidence?” she asked.
Neither Morgan nor Juliana answered.
The mirror now stood in an empty bedchamber while Juliana’s marriage crumbled.
She turned from the window and put a hand on her swelling belly. Enough was enough. They had to face the reappearance of the mirror and deal with it or soon there would be nothing left of their marriage.
She joined him in the garden. It was late August and the day was hot. The flowers bloomed in a riot of colors and the bumble bees took lazy flight as she walked past.
He smiled when she approached, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It never did anymore.
“You know, when I first met you, or rather when I first met Morgan, I didn’t like you very much.”
He looked surprised. It’d been a while since they talked, really talked about something other than his position with Parker and Parker, the weather, Isabelle and Reed and Sophia. They stopped talking about the important things weeks ago.
“Walk with me.” She waited while he reached for his cane.
They made their way toward the house in silence, holding hands. It’d been so long since they held hands that Juliana wanted to hold tight but forced herself not to cling.
“I don’t blame you for hating me back then.” He reached behind her and on the outside of her dress traced the scars on her back. He’d memorized each one. She knew because he made a habit of kissing them often and expressing his sorrow without words. Or at least he used to. Now he didn’t kiss her at all.
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