Don’t look down. Put your head up and look at your knuckles in front of you and just keep moving. You have to do this. He needs you like he’s never needed anyone before. Climb, Rhiannon. Just climb.
Because Rhiannon knew that if he chose to give up, it really wouldn’t matter whether she fell to her own death. Life, she knew with a sudden, gripping certainty, was not worth living without him. This man who had taught her that fear was not necessarily a bad thing, that life was too short not to leap, shouting with joy, out into space, that life was meant to be lived.
In her mind she saw him grinning, as he had done so often in happier times. Go ahead, Rhiannon. Live a little.
She kept climbing, fiercely determined, trembling hands pulling her upward, flattening herself against the roping as the shrouds narrowed and the deck grew smaller and smaller beneath her.
You taught me how to live, Connor. You taught me how to live, and I’m not going to let you die.
She could feel the slow rock of the ship all the more up here, the sway of the mast itself in these hard, taut ratlines that supported it. Nausea swam in her stomach and she fought against a sudden feeling of hysteria. Of fear so paralyzing she was afraid she was going to faint. Her hands were now shaking, sweating, and numb. Terror clenched her belly, and she took several deep gulps, forcing herself to continue on, her fear coming in tiny little whimpers from the back of her throat.
Courage, he’d once told her, wasn’t about doing things you weren’t afraid to do, no matter how terrifying anyone else found them. Courage was doing the things you were terrified to do, no matter how un-terrifying anyone else found them.
The whimpering in the back of her throat began to sound like an animal caught in a trap, and Rhiannon bit savagely down on her lip and continued moving ever upward. The shrouds had narrowed considerably now, making her all the more aware of the nothingness of space all around her, the distance between herself and the deck so far below, the very tenuous, perilous, aloneness of her position as she realized the height she had attained.
But every terrifying step brought her closer to her husband.
To any hope of saving him.
The whimpering in the back of her throat stopped, and wrapping both hands firmly around the rough roping, her knuckles white as bone, she looked up. There he was, just a few feet above, his bare foot dangling several inches from her eyes.
“Connor.”
He did not respond, and remained unmoving with his forehead leaning against the topmast. She did not know if he was asleep, or so far gone in grief that the world had ceased to matter to him. Her paralyzing fear as she’d ascended the mast was nothing compared to the stark terror she felt now as she realized there was nothing keeping him from tumbling to his death.
“Connor!”
This time he raised his head, though the movement seemed to cost him all of his strength, and he looked dully down at her.
“Connor, you have to come down. Please.”
“There is nothing for me to come down for, Rhiannon.” His eyes were huge wells of pain behind a forced, unhappy smile. “Y’know, I’ve always been told that hell was a place we go after we die, but now . . . now I know that that was all a lie. Hell is right here. Right now.”
“Things will get better.”
“They are only getting worse.”
“They’re getting worse because every time you relive what happened, your mind embellishes it a little more, putting in details that weren’t there originally, piling more and more guilt up on you. The decision you made was not such a bad one, Connor. You did the very thing that has made you such a successful privateer in the first place. You acted with certainty and decision. With faith in that decision, and in yourself. Making yourself feel guilty will not change what happened, it will not bring them back, and there are too many people right here, now, who love you very much, Connor. People who would be hurt for the rest of their lives if you do what I think you came up here to do.”
“You don’t know what I came up here to do.”
“I do know. I see it in your eyes.”
“You see nothing.”
“Yes, you are correct. I see nothing. Nothing at all, and that frightens me, that nothingness. I see a man who has given up. A man who has stopped believing in himself, who believes the worst of himself, because he thinks that punishing himself as harshly as possible will somehow make the pain go away or change the outcome of what happened. But I’ll tell you this, Connor. It’s not going to make the pain go away. It’s only going to make it worse.”
He turned his face away from her, laying his cheek against the mast.
“When I was a little girl, I lost my parents, Connor. I know what it feels to grieve.”
“Aye, well, I’m sure you didn’t kill them. As I did, mine.”
“You didn’t kill them. Your mother was gravely ill, Connor. Probably dying. Her last wish was to go home to Newburyport, and you tried to make that happen for her. You did not cause her to get sick.”
“I went after that ship against my father’s advice.”
“Any privateer worth his salt would have done the same. It was a big, lumbering merchant ship.”
“My father knew, long before I did, that it was anything but.”
“And what makes you think that ship wouldn’t have attacked us, no matter whether you initiated it or not?”
“If we’d fled to windward, it could never have caught us. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have caught Kestrel heading to windward.”
“Liam told me her guns were heavier than Kestrel’s, and capable of much longer range. She could have fired into us long before we got as close as we did, and the outcome would have been the same.”
“You are very sweet, Rhiannon, but you are no naval tactician.”
“I’m no sailor, either. And my arms are getting very, very tired.”
He lifted his head and turned, and for the first time seemed to realize just what she had done. That she, so fearful of heights, of the things that he enjoyed and took comfort in, had climbed the shrouds and was here, high, high above the deck and terrified for her life.
“Oh, my God,” he said. “Rhiannon—”
She had been biting her lip so hard that it had gone numb.
“I love you, Connor Merrick. I love you in all your recklessness and daring and ability to live life to the fullest. I love you for the risks you have taught me to take, for giving me the courage to take those risks, and for showing me what it’s like to live, to really live.” She felt a sob building in her own throat and said fiercely, “I want to spend the rest of my life exploring all the wonderful and exciting things you have to show me, and I want to do it with you, at your side.”
Something fell on her knuckles, and looking up, she saw that the tears were running freely down his face.
“I love you, Connor.”
He wiped at his eyes.
“I love you. Please. Come down.”
He looked fully at her then, his eyes green, glassy orbs of pain, and pushed himself back from the mast.
“I love you, too, Rhiannon.”
And then, very carefully, because his own body was so weak, depleted and shaky, he moved to the starboard side and, matching his progress to hers, slowly descended, his haunted gaze holding hers all the way down.
She had said she loved him.
Pushed through the most terrifying thing she could have done in order to throw him a lifeline.
And in his heart, Connor felt the floodgates open.
Chapter 34
Her legs were trembling, her knees like custard when her feet finally touched the deck.
She had done it.
On the other side of the ship, her husband also reached the deck and sobbing, she ran to him and threw herself into his arms. He wrapped them fiercely around her, his own choking sobs buried in her hair, and clung to her as if he would never let her go.
“I love you, Rhiannon,” he said brokenly. “Oh, God, you don’t know how close I came to
giving up. . . .”
She clung to him, rocking with him, her own tears coming hard and fast because oh, dear heavens, she did know. His lips claimed hers in hard desperation, in fierce gratitude, and she melted against him, shaking with relief.
“I love you, Rhiannon. Oh, God, I love you. You are the bravest, dearest, most incredible and generous woman that I have ever met—”
She slid her hands up the sides of his rough, stubbled cheeks and cradled his face in her palms. “Let’s go below, Connor.” She looked deeply up into his eyes and touched a thumb to his upper lip. “I just want to be alone with you.”
“We are alone.”
“No . . . your brother just came up from below, and he’s pretending not to notice us.”
He nodded, and she saw the hollows beneath his cheeks and the sunken look to his eyes. The swagger and confidence that was so much a part of him was gone, and it broke her heart. She had not seen him eat since the morning that Kestrel had come up on the pirate ship. He was weak, and he’d been hurt badly, both physically and emotionally. And while she might have saved his life today, Rhiannon knew in her heart that he needed far more than what she was able to give him.
He needed forgiveness from his sister.
He needed forgiveness from his cousins, Liam, and Sir Graham.
But most of all, he needed forgiveness from himself.
She took his hand and led him toward the hatch, and once below in the stern cabin, she coaxed him down into the narrow bunk, slid in beside him, and pulled the light blanket up to their waists. They did not waste time in words, but came together with a quiet, gentle sweetness borne of desperation and relief. And when it was over, she wrapped her arms around him, held him tightly to herself, and felt the little sloop moving restlessly beneath them as the wind began to pick up.
By the time she realized that a storm was building, her husband was asleep.
Moments later, Rhiannon, still holding him tightly in her arms, was too.
* * *
Kieran, polishing a bit of brasswork and casting a thoughtful eye at the darkening sky above, saw movement out of the corner of his eye and putting down the rag, looked up to see a Royal Navy boat cutting through the building chop and heading toward them.
He felt a quick surge of irritation. Couldn’t they just leave his poor brother alone?
With a heavy sigh he tossed the rag down, strode across the deserted deck, and went to the rail. There he stood and watched as the boat, oars flashing in perfect rhythm, came up against Sandpiper’s sleek black hull and crisp commands were shouted out.
There was a blue-and-white clad officer in the stern; a gust of wind came up and pushed his hat askew and impatiently, he reached up and righted it.
“Hello, Delmore,” Kieran called down to his English cousin. “I trust you’re not here on a mere social call.”
Delmore, too, was looking up at the sky. The high, patterned sheep’s wool from the morning had given way to building gray cloud, and the sun was rapidly disappearing. “May I come aboard, Kieran?”
“By all means. But if you’re here to add to Connor’s burdens, I’m afraid I must ask you to return another time.”
“I must speak with your brother.”
Kieran took a deep, resigned sigh. “Very well, then. It’s not like I have any authority or crew to deny you.”
The English captain gave a tightly reined smile, but as he came aboard the sloop a few minutes later Kieran saw that his face was taut with worry, his gray eyes almost violet.
“What is it?” Kieran asked immediately.
“The admiral’s son. Little Ned.” Delmore took off his hat against a sudden gust of wind, smoothed his unruly black curls, and replaced it. His eyes were grave as he looked at Kieran. “He’s got the fever, Kieran.”
Kieran just stared at him.
“The same one, I think, that your mother had. Sir Graham and Lady Falconer are beside themselves. I thought you should know.”
“Oh, Christ,” Kieran said, turning away. “And you came here to lay even more despair on my brother’s shoulders? For God’s sake, Del, he’s a strong man, but even he has a breaking point and he’s about reached it. He adores that boy. This will send him right over the edge. What the devil would you have me do?”
“Let Connor come back with me.”
“What?!”
“The boy is delirious with fever, Kieran. He’s calling for his uncle.”
“Oh, man,” Kieran muttered.
Another gust of wind whistled through the rigging above, and Kieran felt the little sloop begin to move uneasily on the swells.
“What do you wish to do?” Delmore persisted. “Keep the information from your brother so as to protect him from even more grief? How do you think he’ll feel if the boy, God forbid, dies, and he learns that it was he whom little Ned was calling for in his last moments but he wasn’t there for him? You think he’ll be able to live with that?”
Kieran looked away.
“Please, Kieran. Summon your brother. He needs to know.”
Kieran nodded, turned, and headed aft. Oh, Lord save them all, when would the grief ever end? Hadn’t they all been through enough? And now this?
He found the door to the stern cabin closed. Taking a deep breath, he raised a hand and knocked against it. It was a long moment before there was movement within and then Rhiannon, her eyes heavy with sleep and her beautiful hair tousled, opened the door just wide enough to peek out.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
“I need to see Connor.”
“He’s sleeping, Kieran.” She turned to look over her shoulder. “He needs to sleep. Please don’t ask me to wake him.”
“I must, Rhiannon. You know that I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t critical.”
She looked at him with a mixture of concern and impatience. “I’ll only wake him if it’s a matter of life or death.”
“It might be, Rhiannon. Please. Just do it.”
She gave him a last, questioning look, then turned, leaving the door open for him to follow her into the gloom of the cabin. There in the bunk lay his brother, deeply asleep, still and unmoving.
The two of them stood looking down at him. “Life or death,” Rhiannon warned. “Nothing less.”
“Nothing less.”
She leaned down and, smoothing back a thick auburn curl, kissed his brow. “Connor, love. Wake up,” she whispered. “Kieran is here. He needs to speak with you.”
She took his hand in her own and gently rubbed at his knuckles as his eyes opened, staring blankly up at the deckhead for a moment before he realized where he was and the heavy shadows fell over his eyes once more. He turned his head on the pillow and looked dully at his brother.
“What is it, Kieran?”
Kieran felt his own gut churn. His brother was weak. Battered. Depleted. Oh, dear God.
“It’s Ned,” he said quietly. “He’s sick with the fever. Delmore came to get you.”
Connor sat up in bed and rested the heels of his hands in his eye sockets, his thick chestnut hair falling down over his knuckles. He stayed there for a long, silent moment.
“Con?”
“I’m the last person anyone in that household wants to see right now.”
“You’re the only person that little Ned wants to see.”
Connor shut his eyes. “This nightmare just won’t end, will it?”
“Delmore is waiting topside to take you ashore. I think you should go.”
Connor swung out of bed and stood up, swaying with weakness. Rhiannon exchanged worried glances with Kieran and together, they helped him to dress. All but the clothes on his back had gone down with Kestrel, but he and Kieran were of a similar height and build, and Kieran’s green, double-breasted cutaway tailcoat and biscuit-colored pantaloons fit him perfectly. Then, tight-lipped and silent, Connor quietly walked toward the door, leaning heavily on them both as a wave of dizziness hit him. At the ladder that led up to the hatch, he paused to gather h
is composure and then, feigning a strength he didn’t have, climbed wearily topside.
The weather had changed for the worse. Overhead, the clouds had built and lowered, heavy with rain and their own importance. Wind was picking up, and the beautiful turquoise hues of Carlisle Bay had turned to a deep, troubled blue-gray.
Delmore stood there waiting for him. He put a hand out to his cousin. “Thank you for coming, Connor. I know this isn’t easy for you.”
Connor said nothing, but just nodded. He felt dizzy from hunger and lack of sleep, and a deep, heavy weariness lay across his shoulders like a yoke.
“We shouldn’t delay,” Delmore said, moving to the rail.
“How bad is he?”
“Bad. Very bad.”
Oh, dear God. Connor felt pain pierce his already battered heart. I can’t take much more, he thought. None of us can.
His arms were shaking with weakness as he let himself down the side of the sloop, her black sides and white strake reminding him so much of Kestrel. He heard Kieran say something about staying behind and making preparations to anchor the sloop at both bow and stern against the incoming storm, that he would be along as soon as he could, and the rest of his brother’s words were lost to a sudden gust of wind. Connor all but fell the last few feet into the boat. There, the Royal Navy tars waited, eyes straight ahead, all of them perfectly turned out and as rigid in their details as Delmore himself.
Connor took a seat and put his head and elbows on his knees, then locked his hands around the back of his neck. He felt as though he was going to pass out.
“Thank you, I’m quite all right,” said a feminine voice beside him, and then she was there, gently offering her own strong, lithe body for him to lean against so nobody would see how weak he was, and Connor shut his eyes and gratefully accepted her quiet gift.
What a woman he had married.
She, who anticipated his every need, who sought to save his pride in front of his cousin and these Britons, who was going to go with him into the lion’s den that was his sister’s home, was right here with him.
There was nothing more that he needed.
He sat there with his elbows on his knees, his head down, aware of the silence around them as the seamen rowed hurriedly back toward shore under their coxswain’s orders. Connor could feel the chop against the bow of the boat, and opening his eyes and looking down at the bit of water that had collected in the hull at his feet, he saw that the afternoon had gone even darker.
Lord Of The Sea Page 33
