Island Flame

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “I asked you what you think you’re doing?” he snarled, his eyes snapping at her like a wild beast’s.

  “Your hair needs washing,” Cathy said coolly, masking her apprehension beneath a surface calm. She was gambling all on the notion that he wouldn’t hurt her, at least not as long as she carried his child. If she were wrong, the consequences could be disastrous. But if she were right— Well, her touch had been the key that freed his softer emotions once. Perhaps it would be again.

  “Are you proposing to wash it for me?” he asked, his voice very soft as he jeered at her. “You really think you can touch me with those little white hands and erase everything you’ve done, don’t you? Well, wife, it won’t work, so you may as well not bother. I’ve found out about you the hard way, and I’m not likely to forget.”

  “I don’t want you to forget, Jon,” she said in a calm voice, freeing her hands from his grasp. She wet the rag and squeezed it over his black head. The water trickled down to his scalp, and he didn’t move away. Cathy repeated the manuever, then bent and scooped more water in her cupped hands, wetting his hair thoroughly. When he still didn’t protest, she soaped the thick strands, letting her fingers run deeply through them. His hair and scalp were thick with grime; Cathy should have felt repulsed but she didn’t. Her fingers massaged his scalp, softly working out the dirt. Jon tensed at first under her ministration, then at last began to relax.

  “Hell, why not?” she heard him mutter, more to himself than her. “I’ve got your measure now, bitch, and you won’t find me so easily taken in a second time.”

  Wisely, Cathy continued as if he hadn’t spoken. After a while she took up the bucket of hot water that Petersham had left and tipped its contents in a steady stream over Jon’s head. The grimy soap rinsed away, and Jon swivelled around to look at her. Whatever words he had planned to utter froze on his lips as his eyes narrowed ferociously on the large wooden bucket that was still half full of water and that she still held in her hands.

  “Put that down!” he roared, his teeth snapping together furiously.

  Cathy was so startled that she lost her grip on the bucket. It fell with a crash to the floor, cascading water all over her nightdress. She was wet to the waist. Her eyes were huge as she stared at him incomprehendingly, one hand clasping her throat. Jon surged to his feet, cursing fiendishly, stepping from the tub and snatching up the towel to rub himself dry. All the while he rained oaths on her while she cowered dumbly away from him. What had she done to make him so angry this time? She couldn’t understand it, and her blue eyes mutely pleaded with him to explain. Jon met those eyes, his own growing savage.

  “So you think to seduce me again, bitch?” he ground out. “You think to make me solicitous of your condition, is that it? Are you perhaps hoping to be spared the punishment that awaits you after the child is born? I’ll see you in hell first! Thinking of it, planning it—it was the only thing that kept me alive, and you’re not going to weasel your way out of it. Your insidious little ways are wasted on me!”

  While Cathy still struggled to make sense of his words, he threw on clean clothes and stormed out. The door banged behind him, and she was left staring blankly at the wall. The horrifying truth crashed over her head like a tidal wave. No matter how violent his rejection of her, or how fierce his hatred, her love for him remained unchanged.

  Jon didn’t return to the cabin at all that day. Martha came in and bullied her into bed, and Petersham stiffly carried in their midday meal. But Jon didn’t come. Cathy brushed aside Martha’s care of her impatiently, and felt like screaming when Petersham turned a deaf ear to her questions. If she were going to be able to understand what motivated Jon’s savage resentment, she must know what had happened to him, and why he blamed her. Besides Jon himself, who would undoubtedly meet her questions with furious invective, Petersham was the only one she could turn to.

  Darkness fell at last, and the ship gradually quieted. Cathy waited with nervous expectation for Jon to retire to bed. It must have been around midnight when she at last faced the truth: he wasn’t coming. He must really despise her if he couldn’t even bear to stay in the same cabin with her, she thought forlornly. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she disconsolately blew out the bedside candle and settled down in the bunk. She felt lost and alone beneath the covers. Sobs tore from her throat, and, mindful of Martha’s contentedly snoring form tucked up in a pallet at the side of the bunk, she muffled the sounds in her pillow. Come tomorrow, she comforted herself, she would get some answers to her questions. If not from Jon, or Petersham, then from the crew. Someone would tell her, she felt sure.

  The weather defeated her. She rose the next morning to find that it was snowing, not in drifting fat flakes but in a driving curtain of white. From the window she could see icicles forming on the wooden overhang. The sea was gray and choppy, and if it had been possible to see the sky Cathy knew it would look the same. Common sense, and a lack of warm clothes, kept both her and Martha glued to the small area around the coal stove. Any questions she had would have to be saved for whoever entered the cabin first.

  Petersham arrived after a while bearing the midday meal. Cathy answered his curt knock, and instead of taking the tray from his hands she caught his arm and pulled him inside the cabin. Then she shut the door, leaning against it so that he would have to push her out of the way to get back outside. Knowing Petersham, she realized that his innate respect for a woman in a delicate condition would stop him from resorting to actual physical force. Unless he, as well as Jon, had suffered a severe sea change.

  Petersham set the tray down on the table, and then, with great dignity approached the door. Cathy crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against it, smiling at him determinedly. With the thick quilt around her shoulders and her hair hanging in braids down her back, she looked like an Indian squaw. Petersham paused some two feet away, uncertain of what to do.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” he said stiffly, not quite meeting her eyes. His face was rigid with disapproval.

  “I want to know what happened to Jon, Petersham,” Cathy said softly. “And I’m not moving until you tell me.”

  “You’ll have to ask the Captain that, ma’am.” Petersham’s tone was very formal, his eyes as they met hers hard with dislike. “It’s not my place to discuss his personal business.”

  Cathy tried a different tack. “Petersham, I am his wife. I have a right to know what’s wrong with him.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the Captain, so far as I know, Mistress Hale.” The emphasis on the title was scathing. Cathy’s temper, exacerbated by first Jon’s and now Petersham’s unreasonable antagonism, went up in flames. Her blue eyes snapped, and her mouth contorted furiously. She came away from the door, advancing on Petersham. The man backed before her, not knowing what else to do. Martha sprang up and ran to Cathy’s side, clutching at her arm.

  “Miss Cathy, you must remember the baby!” the woman cautioned, her voice shrill with alarm. Cathy saw the flicker in Petersham’s eyes as they went from her face to her belly, and suddenly knew the way to get him to tell her what she wanted to know.

  “Oh, Martha!” she gasped, clasping her middle and bending almost double. Martha’s face went white, and Petersham mirrored her concern. Cathy moaned, and Martha turned furiously on the valet.

  “Now see what you’ve done, you spawn of Satan!” she raged. “Upsetting Miss Cathy, and her so far gone with child! You’ll have that baby stillborn with your cruel ways, and serve your fiend of a captain exactly right!”

  “I didn’t mean …” Petersham gasped, bending over Cathy. Cathy looked up at him, still moaning.

  “Petersham, what happened to Jon?” she asked, her voice hoarse with pretended pain. Petersham’s face stiffened, but as she gave vent to another rending groan he capitulated, albeit unwillingly.

  “You know the answer to that very well, Miss Cathy,” he said severely, and Cathy stifled a triumphant smile at the familiar form of address that had slipp
ed out. “But if it amuses you to have me tell you what you already know, I will. Master Jon was imprisoned under sentence of hanging. The execution would have been carried out this morning if Mr. Harry hadn’t got word about what was going on. We rescued him, which I’m sure you’re very sorry for. Any woman who would have her husband beaten and starved deserves whatever happens to her later, as we’ve all agreed. You’ll get no help from us, Mistress Hale.”

  The freezing dislike was back in Petersham’s voice. Cathy straightened quickly, forgetting her supposed pain in the shock of Petersham’s revelations.

  “I … had him beaten and starved?” she repeated disbelievingly, staring at Petersham as if she thought he too had gone mad. “In prison? I didn’t even know he was in prison! He escaped the day the soldiers took Las Palmas! How was I to know he’d been captured again later? I tell you I didn’t know, Petersham. I didn’t know! You must believe me!”

  “It’s not me you’ll have to convince, Mistress Hale.” Again that hateful inflection was present in the last words. “It’s Master Jon. But if I may give you a piece of advice, don’t try that tale on him. He’s too canny a bird to be taken in by such an obvious lie.”

  “But it’s not a lie!” Cathy wailed, starting to go after Petersham as he walked with immense dignity to the door. Martha held her back, unaware that Cathy’s physical distress had merely been assumed. By the time Cathy shook free of Martha’s restraining hands, Petersham was gone.

  “Martha, what am I going to do?” Cathy cried, turning wounded eyes on her nanny, who clucked sympathetically over her distress. The woman’s plump arms came around the girl’s shoulders, and Cathy allowed herself to be led over to the bed and tucked in beneath the quilts. Cathy thought furiously as Martha brought her meal across and set the tray on her lap. Somehow she had to convince Jon that she was completely innocent. But how was she to do that if he wouldn’t even come near her? The answer was painfully obvious: she would have to go to him.

  The storm the Margarita was caught in howled for the rest of the day. The ship was tossed around like a toy in the hands of a capricious giant, and Martha became violently seasick. Cathy, whose stomach had become accustomed to the ocean’s vagaries on her previous voyage, made her nanny as comfortable as she could, but there was really no treatment for seasickness save time or the cooperation of the sea. At last she persuaded Martha to lie down in the bunk, where the woman curled up in a fetal position. Eventually her groans quieted and she fell asleep.

  Cathy, huddled in a chair in front of the stove, pursed her lips thoughtfully as Martha’s light snores drifted to her ears. This was the chance she had been waiting for. As long as Martha was awake, there wasn’t any way she could leave the cabin. Martha would tie her to the bunk before she would permit her to venture out in such a storm. As far as Cathy was concerned, however, her need to talk with Jon was paramount. She dismissed the storm with little more than a shrug.

  Her decision made, Cathy got to her feet and slid stealthily toward the door, casting an uneasy glance back over her shoulder at Martha. The woman slept on, oblivious.

  She pulled a quilt high over her head so that it would give her some protection from the wind, and then attempted to venture outside. The force of the wind almost jerked the door from her hand, but she held on to it desperately, knowing that a crash would be sure to waken Martha. The muscles in her arms ached as she struggled to close it quietly behind her. Finally it was done, and she leaned back against it with a sigh to catch her breath.

  The boards of the deck were icy wet beneath her bare feet. Cathy curled her toes against the cold, her eyes widening as she looked about her. What she saw was a study in gray and white. The sky and the sea were both the color of lead, the former seeming so low that it would almost crush the ship, and the latter straining upward to defy the heavens with menacing, white-tipped waves. Fine, grainy particles of snow and ice mixed with the freezing salt spray to sting against her face and hands like a thousand tiny bees. The wind howled as if outraged that such a puny thing as the Margarita should dare to challenge it. Cathy thought for an instant about abandoning her mission and going back inside where it was warm and dry and safe, but then squared her shoulders resolutely, squinting up at the quarterdeck. It was so close, and she would hold on to the rail every step of the way. If she wanted to talk to Jon, the storm was something she had to face.

  Clutching the quilt about her with one hand and leaning into the force of the wind, Cathy struggled up the stairs. They were slippery with ice, and her frozen feet were so numb that she had trouble moving. Twice she fell to her knees on the shallow flight of steps, and twice she righted herself and went on while the ship heaved like a malevolent spirit beneath her. Splinters drove into her hand as it pulled her upward, but Cathy was unconscious of the pain. Only one thought was in her mind: she had to tell Jon that she had had nothing to do with his imprisonment or subsequent torture. Only then could she hope for his love.

  Finally she made it to the quarterdeck. She held on to the thin wooden rail, looking about herself disbelievingly. The quarterdeck was deserted. The wheel was lashed with rawhide thongs to hold the ship on course. Cathy turned to peer over the rest of the ship. The decks were completely bare of life. There was not a man in sight. Her heart began to pound erratically as a terrible thought occurred to her. Had everyone been washed overboard? Were she and Martha the only people left alive on the ship? Dear God, what had happened? What … ?

  “Jon!” she screamed in a paroxysm of fear. “Jon! Jon!”

  “Shit!” The enraged response whirled down on the wind. Cathy looked up, still frightened, unable to see a worldly source of speech, but at the same time registering dimly that a heavenly being would scarcely resort to such language. Her eyes widened and her mouth went dry as she saw men clinging like blurred gray shadows to the rigging as they hacked desperately away at the ropes that held the canvas at full sail. One man had left the work and was lowering himself toward the deck at a furious pace. His face and the clear outline of his body were obscured by the driving snow, but Cathy knew with an inexplicable certainty that it was Jon.

  There was a dull roaring in her ears as he reached the deck. She could just make out the leaping fear in his eyes as he came toward the quarterdeck at a dead run. She shook her head to clear it of the buzz, holding tightly to the rail with one hand and feeling a smile quiver at the way he was forced to zig-zag across the deck in time to the pitching of the ship. The roar seemed louder as he reached the base of the steps, and Cathy glanced reflexively over her shoulder.

  What she saw stopped her heart. Rushing toward her like hell itself was a huge wave, dark and terrifying as death. Cathy threw her hand up over her face in an absurd effort to ward it off, knowing that she could never reach safety in time.

  Suddenly she was thrown to the deck and a heavy body crashed down on top of her. Hard arms came around her, holding her tightly against the railing.

  “Hold your breath!” The words were screamed in her ear.

  Automatically Cathy did as she was told. No sooner had she closed her mouth than tons of icy water came hurtling down on top of her, threatening to crush her, trying to pull her away from the strong arms that held her penned to the deck. She could feel the force of the water dragging at her, doing its best to suck her into the depths. Alone, she would have been no match for its force; with Jon, she stood a chance.

  It was over in a matter of seconds. The Margarita bucked wildly, then righted itself, shaking off the deluge like a shaggy dog. Cathy felt herself being hauled to her feet, then the arms that had kept her safe shook her until her teeth were rattling in her head.

  “You goddamned stupid little fool!” Jon raged, too angry to realize that the wind was carrying away his bellows or that Cathy could barely hear him above the sounds of the storm. “You damn near got yourself killed!”

  “I had to talk to you.…” Cathy tried to explain, cringing in his rough embrace. With a feeling of frustration she realized that
he could no more hear her than she could him. Still, she had to try.

  “You have to listen to me!” she screeched, shaking his arm. He glared down at her murderously, his hands moving from her shoulders to meet around the base of her throat.

  “Shut up or I’ll throttle you here and now!” he yelled, his hands tightening around her slender neck. Cathy jerked free, her eyes widening as a stabbing pain tore through her belly. She screamed, its force bending her double.

  “What the hell … !”

  Cathy dropped to her knees on the quarterdeck, her arms clutching her middle protectively. Another pain tore through her. Oh, God, she was losing the baby! Jon bent over her, then divining what was wrong he scooped her up in his arms, cradling her against him as he battled his way to the stairs. The swirling wind carried away the curses that were falling in a steady stream from his mouth. Cathy stared up at his lean face, her eyes glazing over as pain ripped through her belly with increasing intensity. She moaned, trying to hold her baby safely inside her with both hands pressed frantically to the convulsing mound. Jon’s eyes met hers, and she saw in them leaping flames of panic. Why, he’s frightened, too, she thought with vague surprise. Then all thoughts vanished under another sweeping onslaught of pain. She screamed, then merciful blackness descended like a curtain. Jon swore profanely as she went limp in his arms, leaping down the stairs two at a time to carry her unconscious form to the shelter of his cabin.

  Fourteen

  The only thing that kept Cathy from losing her baby there and then was Martha’s skilled nursing. Routed from the bunk by Jon’s frantic bellow and ignoring her seasickness, Martha pressed cold cloths between Cathy’s legs and packed them tightly around the heaving mound of her belly, hoping to stop the hemorrhaging before it was too late. Jon hovered helplessly until Martha turned on him like a ruffled hen, driving him from the cabin. Such things, she sniffed, were not suitable viewing for gentlemen. Her disparaging glance at Jon seemed to doubt whether in fact he belonged in such a category, but still she insisted that he leave. Knowing that there was nothing he could do to aid Cathy and their child, other than seeing to it that the Margarita was not sunk by the force of the storm, he complied with a meekness that did much for him in Martha’s eyes. As a compromise, he sent Petersham along to help the woman in any way she needed it. Once the immediate danger was past, Martha gloried in using Petersham as an errand boy. She was in her element presiding over a sickroom.