As she wrenched it open, she heard the ugly crackle of flame devouring canvas. From the doorway, she saw the sky above her head blaze. The wind whipped the sail into a solid sheet of flame.
The heat made her shrink back. She must get to a longboat. There were two on the Swiftsure, more than adequate to carry all on board to safety. She could see one being lowered from each side of the ship's waist. Casting a last glance toward the burning sail, she hurried for the port-side boat.
"Quick, my lady." Tom motioned to her frantically, grasped her arm without ceremony as she reached for him. All around the remaining men jumped over the side into the water to escape the spreading flame. They could climb into the boat later. The heat bore down on them, and without looking Roz knew all the sails burned. But she couldn't jump overboard. She would drown from the dead weight of her wet skirts. As quickly as possible, she hoisted up her skirts and climbed over the side.
She was the last one to quit the ship. Only Tom remained on board, and as the right topgallant broke away from the mainmast and crashed to the deck behind them, he gave a bellow of fear and leapt over the side, hitting the water with a smack.
"Hurry!" he shouted to her after bobbing to the surface. From her rope ladder against the side of the ship, Roz looked down at him, then back toward the waist of the ship.
Kit moved from the helm toward her. Only now that the others were safe would he quit the ship.
"Christopher," she screamed at him, clutching the side of the ship and bracing her feet to keep from slipping. "Hurry!"
His head came up. Even at that distance, she could see the agony in his eyes—he was losing the Swiftsure. But his life was more important. She scrambled with both feet, trying to hoist herself over the side. He must escape.
As he crossed the expanse toward her, a mass of rigging broke away from the mainmast, came crashing down in a hail of burning debris. Kit lunged to escape. It looked as if he was clear. A burning spar appeared out of nowhere, caught him squarely across the shoulders. He stumbled and went down.
A scream tore through the afternoon. As Rozalinde catapulted over the side of the ship onto the deck, she realized it was her own cry of anguish. The burning spar had rolled clear of Kit and come to rest at a right angle to his body. He lay on the deck, face down, unmoving. The smoldering length of spar sat within inches of his head.
Roz stumbled forward, then screamed and shrank back as a piece of the mainyard crashed down to her right. She had to get to Kit. Gathering her skirts tightly around her, she skirted the mast and spar until she reached him.
He stirred and groaned as she pulled at him urgently, too frightened to be gentle. "You must come," she moaned, scanning his body for damage. An ugly burn marked his shoulders where the spar had struck. Her hand tightened on him as she saw the back of his head was covered with blood.
"Go without me, Rozalinde. I cannot ..." Kit's eyes opened, and he stared into her face, his gaze blue as the Dorset sea.
"No! You must get up. Please, Kit." She tugged at him irrationally, unwilling to admit he was incapable of rising. He was too big, too strong to be felled by a spar. For the first time, she saw his left foot lay at a strange angle.
He must have broken it in the fall, she thought unemotionally. She would have to get help. Whirling about, she scanned the deck, which was littered with burning rubble. To their left, they were surrounded by an inferno.
"Save yourself."
Kit's words drifted to her as if in a dream through the crackle of fire and smothering smoke. Roz heard him as she navigated the hazards on the burning deck, making doggedly for the ship's bow.
"I'll be back!" she cried to him, putting the full force of her lungs behind the reassurance. Two cables off she spotted The Raven, heading their way to take up the men of the Swiftsure. "Courte!" she screamed, waving her arms and jumping up and down desperately. "Courte! Help!"
He had to see her. He could not fail to notice that she and Kit were not aboard the two longboats. With a savage rip, she tore off one of her two petticoats, hoisted the white linen over her head like a banner and waved.
Courte saw her. Or someone did. She didn't care who it was as long as he came to their aid. She waited just long enough to see him vault over the side of The Raven and into one of the Swiftsure's now-empty longboats. Turning, she sprinted back to Kit.
His cheek was cushioned against one arm and he lay motionless near the burning spar. His eyes were closed. He had given up.
Fury seized her. "Damn you, Christopher Howard. Sit up and help me get you off this ship." She gathered her skirts close and eyed the burning spar. The flames had grown higher since she left him. Could she leap it without catching fire or must she waste precious minutes going around?
Troth, there was no time to debate the issue. Grabbing a nearby coil of rope, she beat its mass against the spar, temporarily extinguishing a portion of the blaze. A narrow path lay open for her to pass. Wrapping her skirts tightly around her body, she made the leap.
She didn't question how she got to Kit safely. Hastily she knelt over him and squeezed his arm.
His eyes opened. He stared at Rozalinde, dazed.
"I'm not going without you," she told him fiercely. "So you might as well cooperate unless you want us both to die. And I won't do it. Do you hear me? I won't, Christopher Howard." She spoke vehemently as she worked. Grasping him by the hip and shoulders, she pushed and pulled him onto his back, then she supported him into a sitting position. Anger made her strong, and she half dragged, half bullied him until he rose to a crouch on his one good foot. He leaned against her heavily, and she slung his left arm around her shoulder, insisting he move forward. Guiding him toward the starboard, she frantically hoped Courte would be there.
By now the other dry timbers of the ship had caught, but most of the deck was still clear. All those weeks of devoted swabbing by the men had kept the boards wet. They couldn't support fire, Roz noted with satisfaction. Now if they could just avoid falling masts and spars, they would make it. She urged Kit to the rail and peered over the side.
Courte Philips thought he was in hell. The three men he'd brought in the longboat tried to hold it steady. He was surrounded by ships that burned or spewed cannon fire. The shouts of men attacking, the screams of men dying, filled his ears. Before him, the earl's beloved ship, the Swiftsure, blazed.
In agony, he scanned the sheer side of the ship, wondering what had become of the countess. If she didn't hurry, the ammunition might explode. Just then, her face appeared above the wales. She waved, but realized at once she had his attention. Her face disappeared.
Christ's wounds, should he climb up? A rope ladder dangled further down the way. Tersely he directed the rowers to approach it. When they were near enough, he caught it with both hands.
A boot appeared over the side of the ship, then the rest of a leg. It was joined by its mate, and Courte could see Kit support himself with his arms, lower himself onto the rope ladder. His left leg dangled oddly. Courte gripped the rope ladder tighter to keep it steady.
With painful slowness, the two figures above inched their way down, Kit first, followed by the countess. Kit's injured foot was practically useless, and seconds ticked away as he shifted the good foot from one rung to the next.
"I can't help him from here," Rozalinde cried to Courte. "I'm afraid he'll fall."
"I'll get him." Shouting for his men to hold the longboat against the ship, Courte stepped onto the ladder and climbed, just as Kit missed a rung.
Rozalinde shrieked. Courte braced himself for the impact of Kit's fall, but it didn't come. Looking up, Courte could see Kit had caught himself. He clung to the ladder, head hanging, eyes closed. Clearly he struggled against the pain of his injuries to remain conscious. The ship rose on a wave, made them sway precariously.
Somehow, Kit climbed lower. Courte reached out to help him, then he and the others supported him into the longboat.
"My lady, sit you down. We will place his
head in your lap." Courte motioned for Rozalinde to hurry, and she hopped from the last rung of the ladder. Heedless of the muck in the bottom of the boat, she scrambled into position, sat, and held out her arms.
They lowered their master into the bottom of the boat as gently as possible, knowing he was now unconscious. That done, Courte motioned the men to the oars.
They rowed hard for the shore, their four oars making a desperate rhythm in the tide-driven water. When the water grew too shallow to row, Courte shipped his oar and leaped over the side into the calf-high water. Grasping the rope at the bow with the others, they raced for land, passing soldiers and townspeople on their way out. When he felt the boat scrape on the sandy bottom, Courte turned to look back. He wished to see the Gran Grifon captured. The soldiers should be taking prisoners by now.
To his astonishment, two ships blazed on the water behind him. One had to be the Swiftsure, but the other was evidently the Gran Grifon. The wind must had shifted. The flames from the fireboat blew southwest. The Gran Grifon was lost.
Even as he watched, a blast of thunder rocked the Zuider Zee. Everyone ducked as the Swiftsure exploded into a million pieces, raining the sky and water with debris. The small longboat bobbed and rocked from the shock waves.
Anger flooded Courte's mind, and he wheeled around to look at Kit. His friend's eyelids were closed, looking like dark smudges set deeply in their sockets. He gave no sign of knowing that his prized possession had just disappeared from the face of the earth.
Rozalinde bent over him, crooning, her hair singed and dirty, her face smeared with soot. She swayed her upper body back and forth, as if in mourning. "Never mind," he heard her whisper fiercely. Tears made distinct paths down her dirty cheek. "Never mind, Christopher. Never mind."
The Dutch won a great victory that day in October. The admiral of the Spanish fleet, none other than Count von Bossu, was captured along with his flagship. Four other major ships of the Spanish fleet surrendered to the Dutch, along with a half-dozen smaller vessels. The triumph secured the safety of the Zuider Zee and established the supremacy of the Dutch in the vast realm of the North Sea.
Rozalinde heard none of this until the next day. Her first action after rescuing Christopher was to convey him to the town of Enckhuysen and to find a physician to treat his wounds. The broken foot was set, his back smeared with healing salve. The burn covered a good portion of his shoulders, but by good fortune it was not severe. Though it would pain him considerably due to its position, it would not endanger his life.
The blow to his head concerned Rozalinde more. Kit had been knocked unconscious by it, and they could not tell immediately if it had affected his wits. For the rest of the day and through the night, he drifted in and out of awareness, sometimes talking wildly, other times wrestling with the sheets. Throughout, Rozalinde remained doggedly at his side, refusing to sleep, seeing to his needs, no matter how humble.
On the morning of the next day, he opened his eyes and looked into hers. She had been leaning over him, sponging his forehead with cool water, hoping he would wake.
Suddenly his lids rose. His deep blue eyes focused on hers.
"I'm here," she whispered.
Kit stared, not sure for a minute where he was or who ministered to him. Then he realized it was Rozalinde, for she smiled that dazzling smile of hers, a smile so rich because she gave it so seldom, and he reached up to touch the never-ending, lyric curve of her lips. "You stayed behind for me," he said wonderingly. "Why?"
"Such a question." Rozalinde tossed a rough answer at him as she shifted on the bed, returning the sponge to its basin. "Because I love you. Under no circumstance could I be forced to leave you if you needed me, Kit. Didn't you understand?"
"No. Forgive me." He closed his eyes as moisture welled under his lids. He felt weak and foolish, lying here wounded in bed while others finished the battle for him. He was embarrassing himself, but it couldn't be helped. He'd found his salvation. Clasping Rozalinde's hand, he held it to his cheek, his grip fierce.
"I thought women were delicate and helpless," he managed in a strangled voice.
"Some of them are." One of Rozalinde's braids had come loose, as usual, and she pushed it over her shoulder impatiently, her face suddenly gone solemn. "But I'm not like your mother. She had the disadvantage from the beginning, being married to Henry Howard. She couldn't change that." She leaned forward to smooth an unruly lock of hair from his forehead. "Can you find it in your heart to forgive her?"
Kit moved his head in the smallest of nods, remembering the look on Rozalinde's face when he'd opened bis eyes on the burning deck of the Swiftsure. It was much like the look on his mother's face, that day when his father caught her giving him the present. The pain assaulted him again, and suddenly he remembered everything from that day. Not just how it felt when his father disciplined him. Not just his mother's tears as she watched. In his mind's eye, the scene recreated itself. His father had entered the room, seen the toy, demanded it be put away. Kit made his statement of defiance. The hated cane rose in the air, propelled by his father's powerful arm, and broke the marvelous top into a thousand pieces. Again the cane rose. It cut into Kit's thigh. And then ...... his mother launched herself at his father with a scream that tore the air. She hit him squarely on the right arm, sent him reeling across the room while the cane flew from his hand and he lost his grip on Kit.
Kit had scrambled away, crawled under a table to watch from safety while his mother defied his father. With all the wiles she possessed, she confronted him. She argued with him, challenged him, berated his manner of bringing up their children. For an interminable stretch of time Kit watched and listened to their verbal battle. For a fleeting second, he thought his mother might win.
Ultimately, she hadn't. His father lost patience and rang for the servants. They came running at the uproar, and his father bid them restrain her while he administered the appropriate punishment to his disobedient son. Kit had been hauled out from under the table and struck with the cane five times. It was always the cane for defiance, one blow for each of his years. Forever he had remembered those wounding cuts, but somehow he'd forgotten his mother, begging her husband to stop.
Her words, the raging fury in her voice, floated to the surface of remembrance, and Kit winced sharply. She had fought valiantly for him that day, but his father was the master—firm in his belief that fear of God must be taught. The coldest man alive. The servants held his struggling mother while his father beat him, and Kit had blocked her futile defense from his mind, recalling only his hatred and pain. A small moan escaped him. She had fought for him many times before that. Now he remembered. But her husband held the power. Easily he removed the children from her jurisdiction. Rozalinde was right. She had no way to fight back.
"Thank you for that."
The sound of Rozalinde's voice burned through Kit's memories, bringing him back to the present. He blinked, focusing on her. "For what?"
Rozalinde's face had grown soft with tenderness. She touched his cheek with one hand. "For giving me the chance to convince you. For the sake of your mother's memory, I'll try never to let you down."
"No," he said, remembering again the courage and love in her face when he'd opened his eyes on the burning deck of the Swiftsure. "I don't think you could."
Kit's recovery was rapid after that. Within a day he was up and about, hobbling with a crutch on his one good foot
Rozalinde stayed beside him without ceasing, and where once he would have complained and sent her away so he could be alone, now he kept her near and let her do what she would. It felt astonishingly good to be coddled, knowing she had no greedy motive behind it. This woman served him out of affection, not out of desire for what he could give her. For the first time in his life, he believed it.
The day he was able to go out, he requested a coach to drive them. But first he did what was long overdue—he dispatched a special messenger to Rozalinde's family in England to inform
them of her safety and their marriage. She had been too busy caring for him to see about obtaining the money or a man to deliver such a message. After receiving her grateful thanks, he assisted her into the coach and directed the driver to the quay.
"Rozalinde, there is The Chalice." He indicated the ship with his crutch when they arrived. "I want you to see to its unloading and the sale of the cargo. I agree to accompany you. But I warn you, you must decide everything for yourself."
Rozalinde had beamed at him, then gone to work, realizing this was his way of saying he would not usurp her position as head of her father's business. He gave her permission to be herself, let her know he would support her. He would be present if she wanted him, but he would not deprive her of her power.
By nightfall, Kit was sorry for his promise to accompany her. She'd led him on an exhausting day, dragging him through one warehouse after another, then to the marketplace where the merchants haggled. She was such a clever bargain maker, by the time they returned to their quarters, she'd made a comfortable profit for her father's business. The wool broadcloths on The Chalice were all promised to buyers and she had a goodly stock of items selected for sale in England. They would be loaded as soon as The Chalice was unloaded and made ready for the return trip.
That night, in their rooms at the merchant's establishment, they made love for the first time since before the battle. Kit's broken foot and the burns on his back made things difficult, but Rozalinde slipped into bed beside him where he lay on his side and made love so gently, so sweetly to him, he groaned with pleasure before, during, and after. Especially after, when she lay against him beneath the coverlet and continued to tantalize him with her body.
"I'm a wounded man," he protested as he felt himself harden for a second time that night. "Leave off, or you'll injure me further."
Pirate's Rose Page 39
