Ashes and Ecstasy

by Catherine Hart

  “Mrs. Reed Taylor?” he asked. At her answering nod, he continued. “I’ve been sent from Washington. It is my sorrowful duty to inform you that your husband, his ship, and all aboard are missing following a storm at sea. All are assumed drowned. I reget to inform you, ma’am, that it has been concluded that Captain Taylor is dead.”

  i

  Chapter 8

  At first Kathleen stared at the lieutenant as if he were invisible, a disembodied spirit voicing her worst fears. Then, as the full impact of his words reached her stunned brain, she staggered backward, as if struck a physical blow. Never had she felt such severe pain, like a rapier driven straight through her heart. Her delicate features contorted into a wordless grimace of agony, and she doubled over from the waist, clutching her arms about her midriff. She did not feel Ted’s arms go about her to steady her as she struggled to regain her breath and fought the waves of nausea and blackness that assailed her. Her heart seemed to have lodged in her throat and was choking her, and her brain screamed an anguished denial, mentally retreating from the words she could not bear to accept.

  When at last she found her breath, it came in great sobs and long, pitiful wails torn from the depths of her shattered soul. Her cries echoed off the water, bouncing off the sandy cliffs in great anguished waves of sound like the cries of the banshees of her native land. No one on the waterfront that day would ever forget the sound of her heartrent grief.

  As the sobs tore the very heart from her body, Kathleen was dazed with pain. Her ears were closed to her own cries, as her mind screamed, “This is only a nightmare! It’s got to be a nightmare! Oh, God! Please let me wake up and find this is not real!” It was all Ted could do to prevent her from stumbling off the dock and into the river.

  The young lieutenant stood watching helplessly, in the face of the grief he had so unwillingly caused. Upon hearing her cries, Hal Finley and old Dan Shanahan came rushing from the deck of the Starbright, unable to fathom what would cause their beloved Captain Kathleen to behave in such a manner. Putting himself directly in front of her, Dan called her name several times, getting no response save her continual screams. Not knowing what else to do, he raised one calloused hand and slapped her smartly across the face.

  Kathleen’s head snapped to one side, and she sucked in her breath sharply. Her wild shrieking stopped. Tears of pain and bewilderment swam in her eyes as she slowly focused on Dan.

  “Kathleen, lass,” he coaxed gently, his own blue eyes filled with torment, “what is it?”

  Kathleen blinked twice, her mouth working in spasms to form words. “He said he is dead. He said Reed is dead.” Her words choked off as she shook her head. In a child-like gesture of seeking comfort, she took both of Dan’s gnarled old hands in hers. “That can not be, can it old friend? They say he drowned. My beloved sea would not do that to me, would she, Dan? She wouldn’t take Reed from me!”

  Kathleen was rambling now, making little sense to anyone but Dan, who had known her from childhood. Her emerald eyes were huge and glazed with shock and pain.

  Still supporting her, Ted urged gently, “Come, Kathleen. Let’s go home, where you can lie down for a while.”

  “No!” Her reply was so sharp that he feared she would resume her wild thrashing.

  Dan gave a warning shake of his head. “Teddie, lad, ken ye not thet she’s in shock? Let’s get her aboard the Starbright. She can rest in the captain’s cabin ’til the brunt o’ the blow is past. She’ll be more at home on the Starbright than anywhere else right now.”

  This made little sense to Ted, and even less to the befuddled lieutenant, but Kathleen made no objection as they led her toward the ship. Not knowing what to do, the lieutenant turned and started away from the dock. A large, beefy hand clamped down on his shoulder, staying his flight, and he looked into the frowning face of Hal Finley.

  “You’d best come with us, Lieutenant,” Finley advised. “We’ll need you to fill in the details surrounding Captain Taylor’s death. When Mrs. Taylor comes to herself, she’ll be askin’ questions and wantin’ answers. I wouldn’t want to be the one tellin’ her I didn’t know anything.”

  Dan led them to the captain’s quarters. There, instinct told him Kathleen would rebel at being forced to lie down. Instead, he seated her in the large captain’s chair behind the desk. As the others watched silently, he poured a good portion of whiskey into a mug and pressed it to her lips. Her hands automatically came up to hold the mug.

  “Drink this, lass,” Dan instructed gruffly, “and don’t ye be spittin’ none o’ it back at me. ’Tis good Irish whiskey ye have there, and I’ll not have ye wastin’ it.”

  A ghost of a smile touched her lips, and she obediently took a huge gulp. The fire of it nearly set her coughing, but she choked back the spasm and followed it with several more swallows.

  As the powerful brew began warming her shattered system, Kathleen drew in a long breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. Her head fell back against the high back of the chair, as if too heavy for her slender neck to support. Her lids shut wearily, squeezing twin tears past her thick lashes. The others quietly started to leave the room, but Kathleen’s eyes flew open, still revealing deep anguish, but also coherent thought. The first shock was passing. “Stay,” she ordered.

  Slowly she straightened in the chair, laying her forearms on the desk for support. She spread her hands flat upon the desk to stop their trembling, and her eyes found the young man in uniform. “I'm sorry, Lieutenant, for my earlier behavior.” Her voice was a husky whisper. With effort, she pulled her dignity about her. Clearing her throat, she spoke more strongly. “I am ready to hear the details of what you have to tell me,” she said.

  “Ma’am, there is little else I can tell you. I’m deeply sorry for your loss,” the lieutenant mumbled.

  “You said there was a storm,” she persisted.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When and where?”

  “A month ago in the Gulf waters off Florida.”

  “Was Captain Taylor on a mission for the exchange of prisoners?”

  A look of surprise came over the lieutenant’s features. “You knew about that?”

  Kathleen nodded somberly. “There is little my husband does not share with me.” Unconsciously, she used the present tense. “Had the exchange been accomplished?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Captain Taylor and Captain Guthrie of the Seahorse had completed their mission and were heading for port when the storm hit. According to Captain Guthrie, the storm was violent, and he was so occupied with saving his own vessel that he was not aware of the Kat-Ann’s disappearance for some time.” Kathleen immediately grabbed at this first straw of hope held out to her. Her keen gaze leveled on the lieutenant’s face. “Then no one actually saw the Kat-Ann go under?” The man frowned and shook his head. “No, but we are sure it did. Following the storm, Captain Guthrie retraced his route. For two days he and his men searched the seas and the surrounding islands. They found no sign of life.” Something in his voice told Kathleen there were things he’d left unsaid, but she did not press him on this yet. Instead, she said eagerly, “Perhaps the Kat-Ann was sent off course by the storm. Perhaps the ship was damaged and will yet show up in port somewhere.”

  The look he gave her was filled with pity. “Ma’am, Captain Taylor was due back in Washington three weeks ago. We’ve had no word of the Kat-Ann or her crew being sighted in any other port, or anywhere on the seas.” Again Kathleen got the distinct impression he was not telling her everything. “Why is it you are so sure the Kat-Ann has sunk? What information are you withholding from me, sir?”

  He sighed deeply, obviously reluctant to continue, but her steady gaze compelled him to go on. “In the afternoon of his second day of searching. Captain Guthrie’s ship came across debris from a recent shipwreck. To our knowledge, there were no other ships in that area at the time of the storm, and he concluded the wreckage must be that of the Kat-Ann.”

  Kathleen took a deep breath and
forced herself to ask, “What manner of wreckage was found?”

  The lieutenant turned his gaze from hers, his voice low but clear. “They came across boards, barrels, spars, floating bits of wood ...”

  “Bodies?” Kathleen suggested, swallowing hard.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.

  Kathleen could barely ask, “Did they identify any of the bodies as those of men from the Kat-Ann?”

  “Ma’am,” the young man turned sympathetic eyes to hers once more, “there was no way positive identification could be made. Most of the bodies had been in the water so long ...” His voice trailed off.

  The two bright spots of color in Kathleen’s cheeks brought on by the whiskey faded to paper-white. “God, yes!” she whispered, her eyes growing even more enormous. Her voice rose in sickened panic. “Sharks would have moved in immediately!”

  The lieutenant nodded miserably.

  Kathleen shook her head violently, deliberately pushing back the vision her words had called forth. “No/” she shouted forcefully. “No! I refuse to believe it was Reed’s ship! It must have been another.” Her pleading gaze begged him to agree. “Surely the navy intends to continue the search. You will be doing that, won’t you? You can’t just assume a man is dead from what little evidence you have and let it go at that!”

  He swallowed hard, his own eyes pleading with her to understand and accept. “We have searched, Mrs. Taylor. We’ve searched and we’ve waited and we’ve prayed. Captain Guthrie found not one survivor, nor any evidence of any. We’ve done all we can. Our nation is at war, and we must get on with the business at hand. I’m sincerely sorry, ma’am, but under the circumstances, we must accept that Captain Guthrie’s assumption is correct.”

  Anger made Kathleen’s eyes flash a brilliant green. Her chin rose sharply, and she sat proudly upright. “You may accept that, sir—you and the rest of the navy—but I do not have to! If I can not depend on the government, for which my husband did so much, for help, I shall search for him myself!”

  Drawing a map out of a drawer, she spread it across the desk top. “Show me the location where the Kat-Ann was last seen,” she commanded. “I want to know where she was when the storm hit, and where Guthrie came across the bodies.” As he hesitated, looking to Ted and Dan for aid, she slapped her hand sharply on the surface of the map. “Now!” she ordered.

  “She’ll give ye no peace until ye show her,” Dan said slowly.

  The lieutenant pointed out the areas on the map, designating spots off the western coast of Florida. When she was satisfied with the information he had given, he looked at Kathleen’s determined face and those of the two seamen who seemed to be in favor of her decision. Only Ted seemed unsure.

  “Surely you are not seriously considering taking Mrs. Taylor on this search for her husband?” he asked Dan and Finley incredulously.

  “Son,” Dan assured him with a wry look, “if Kathleen says she’s goin’, then goin’ she is, and we’ll be goin’ with her. An’ it won’t be so much us takin’ her as her takin’ us!”

  The lieutenant left, totally baffled by Dan’s last statement, and too emotionally drained to wonder over it for long. He was filled with pity for the lovely young widow, praying that she would soon find the strength to accept her loss. The more he considered it, the more he was certain that the sailors had simply been humoring her in her grief. He hurried along to his own ship, hoping he would not be called upon to perform similar tasks elsewhere. Of all his duties, this was the one he hated most—telling young wives and mothers that their loved ones were gone forever.

  Kathleen seemed to wilt once the lieutenant had gone. Pride and anger had bolstered her spirits momentarily, but now she sagged with the immensity of the shock.

  Ted, himself grief-stricken by the loss of his friend and brother-in-law, could only guess at the depth of her grief. “Kathy, I think we should go home now. Susan and Mary must be told.”

  Kathleen shook off the fog of grief that threatened to engulf her. “You go ahead, Ted. I know Susan will need you when she hears, and Mary will need you both.” As he started to protest, she held up a slim, trembling hand. “I’ll come along later, dear cousin. I need to be alone just now, to think and plan and come to terms with everything that has occurred today. It has all happened so quickly.”

  Ted still protested, out of concern for her. “You should not be alone right now. You need the love and support of those who care for you. Besides, what are we all to tell Andrea and Katlin?”

  At the thought of her two small children, Kathleen winced. “Have Isabel and Della keep them occupied, and delay telling them anything until I get there.” Her voice broke and she swallowed hard before turning tear-blurred eyes toward his. “Give me until morning, Ted. Dan and Finley will look after me.”

  Almost as an afterthought, she murmured, “I’ll have to stop off and tell Kate myself. She loves Reed very much. She is getting on in years, and I hope she takes the news well. I’d hate to lose Gram, too.” Kathleen’s chin trembled dangerously, and she clamped her jaws tightly shut, blinking hard.

  “You will be home in the morning?’’ Ted asked anxiously.

  Kathleen nodded. Briefly she allowed him to draw her close. “Go on now, Ted,” she choked. “Tell Susan and Mary before they hear it from anyone else. Bad news spreads like wildfire.”

  Dan ushered Finley and Ted out of the cabin, then stationed himself outside Kathleen’s door while the others went up on deck. He would stay nearby in case she summoned him, but he knew she needed time to herself now to vent her grief in private. Tears coursed down the old sailor’s weather-roughened cheeks when, a few minutes later, he heard heartrending sobs from the other side of the door. He’d have given his life to spare her this pain, and he would do anything he could for her in the months to come. This he vowed silently to himself, to God, and to Kathleen.

  Kathleen stood in the center of the cabin and stared dumbly at the door for long minutes after it had closed. Hot tears slid down her face, and a terrible trembling was shaking her entire body. An ever-tightening band seemed to be squeezing her chest, creating unbearable pain in the empty cavity where her heart had been before the lieutenant’s words had ripped it from her body. An awful nausea invaded her stomach, and she wondered vaguely if she were going to be sick. The pain that was rending her chest and stomach was echoed by a tingling ache in both her palms, causing her fingers to curl slightly. Slowly, as if in a trance, she raised her trembling hands and stared mutely at them. A part of her mind, oddly detached, wondered at this. “What a strange place to hurt,” she thought. Then she shook her head. No, perhaps not so strange. “These hands have held Reed long into many nights,” she said aloud. “These are the hands that have stroked his face and body countless times, learning every contour, each muscle, the very texture of his skin. They have held his children and soothed the worry from his furrowed brow.” The first wrenching sob echoed loudly in the empty room. “And now, perhaps these hands will be forever empty. Why should it be strange that they would ache at the possibility of never touching his beloved face again, never tracing the laugh lines around his firm mouth and twinkling blue eyes?”

  It was more than Kathleen could bear. Suddenly her knees folded under her, and she sank to the floor beside the bunk. As deep, choking sobs racked her body, she cradled her face in her arms, leaning against the mattress to cushion the bone-jarring spasms that continued uncontrollably now, wracking her with a pain more intense than that of childbirth. Her sobs soon became wails, each heartaching breath carrying Reed’s name over and over again, as if to call him back. Thoughts of him flooded her mind. She longed to hold him near, to see his dazzling smile and hear his hearty laughter. Her anguish intensified as she recalled his firm, warm lips on hers and how his eyes would darken with desire when he made love to her. To think that he was gone forever was unbearable.

  Gradually the jarring sobs eased, and without thought she crawled onto the bunk, pulling the rough blanket over her tre
mbling body. “So cold,” she murmured incoherently, her teeth chattering. “I’m so cold!” In spite of the warm night air wafting through the open porthole, she huddled under the blanket. Finally she drifted into a weary, uneasy sleep, her knees drawn up to her chest. But even as she slept, hot tears escaped her closed eyelids, slipping silently across her temple to wet her cold cheeks and tangled copper curls.

  Kathleen woke to the full darkness of the night-filled cabin. She felt no disorientation, no wonder at the aching pain within her breast. Immediately she recalled the source of her anguish; every word, every gesture, each thought came clearly to mind. A sob-laden sigh shuddered through her aching body, and she lay staring into the night, letting her thoughts come as they would.

  Memories assaulted her from every corner of her mind. She recalled the first time she’s set eyes on the man who was to become her husband and the very center of her life. She relived her wedding; how outrageously handsome Reed had been that day! Her traitorous thoughts turned to the night Reed first possessed her, so gently teaching her the ways of love . . .

  Tears ran in torrents and she sobbed softly into her pillow as her precious memories tortured her, piercing her very soul. Mental images of Reed rocking Andrea to sleep in his arms, and the proud look of his face when he’d first seen his son, now brought agony instead of joy. Even remembering their battles brought tears of longing. The times when they had fought, when Reed had hurt or angered her, were trivial compared to what she was feeling now.

  “I’d trade my soul to have him with me now,” she vowed fervently. “I would pay any price. I would spend a lifetime worshipping at his feet if that would bring him back to me!”

  Just when her sobs seemed to subside, new thoughts would cause renewed pain, and her tears would freshen again. Crying, praying and reliving bittersweet memories was all she seemed capable of.