Wind and the Sea

by Marsha Canham

  Rowntree’s smile faded. “Yes, miss. Anything else?”

  “Some palm branches for shade and for fans to keep these blasted flies away. And you could start someone digging a firepit so that these men can have some hot food in their bellies.”

  “Yes, miss. I will get right on it.”

  Courtney detected a gleam of admiration in his eyes and she resented it for the way it softened her to his smile. He should hate her for what her father’s men had done to the Eagle, to his crew; just as she should hate them—every last one of them—for the losses and the complete upheaval they had wrought in her life.

  She beckoned to Dickie Little, who had been watching her with eyes as big as saucers. She gave him brief instructions and set him to work crushing the coriander seeds and the marigolds. A giant turtle shell, salvaged by an enterprising sailor, was filled with fresh water and propped over a fire of smokeless pine knots. In a short time a strong herbal broth was prepared for the wounded men, scooped into empty coconut shells, and encouraged down their feverish throats. The shell was immediately refilled, and this time the wild onions and carrots, parsley, roots, and berries went into it, along with crabs Courtney showed the men how to dig out of the sand. More scavengers returned to the campsite with figs and dates and three unlucky birds that had wandered across their path. At least there would be no shortage of food or water, and the men’s spirits were reasonably high.

  Courtney remained vigilant by Adrian’s side, although she often found herself succumbing to heavy eyelids and sagging shoulders as she sat in the heat of the sun. She might even have dozed in the early hours of twilight, when the heat left the sand and the first of the cooling breezes brought relief. But the coolness quickly increased to a chill when Rowntree ordered the fires doused, the fear still very real that they might attract the wrong attention.

  Adrian was moving restlessly. His face was drenched with sweat; the droplets slid along his jaw and glued his hair back in greasy strands. His complexion had gone grayish-white; his lips were caked with salt. His eyelids trembled convulsively; his head thrashed; and his hands spasmodically shuddered into fists. He was shivering, though the sweat poured off him, but there were no blankets, no other source of heat once the fires were banked. Courtney kept wiping his brow with a cool, damp cloth, and frequently his eyes would open, grateful for the comfort, but she knew he did not see her, did not see anything through the pain and fever. She checked his wounds often, fearful that his erratic thrashings would start them bleeding again.

  Several times through the day and into the night, she propped up his head and forced him to swallow the strong herbal tea. When he coughed and would have choked it aside, she only held his head more firmly and tilted the coconut shell between his lips until she was satisfied he had swallowed a fair quantity.

  The hours dragged by, marked by the pounding of the surf. When she was not staring at Adrian, or the moon, she watched the action of the sea, the curling waves that sparkled and foamed within the faint reflections of light. She dozed again, her chin cradled in her hands, and when she woke she was surprised to find daylight dawning upon the dusty little camp.

  “Good morning.”

  She glanced toward the source of the whisper, startled to see the gray eyes open and fastened on her face. His voice sounded clear enough but she could see by the way his mouth was pressed taut, it was taking a great deal of effort to grasp and keep hold of a rational thought.

  “I was always told women looked their worst in the mornings,” Adrian rasped. “I can see it was a lie."

  Courtney frowned and laid a fresh scrap of cotton across his brow to soak up the moisture. His eyes closed briefly, but there could not have been much relief from the dry, warm cloth.

  “I will fetch some fresh water,” she said and started to pull away, but his right hand lifted and reached for her wrist with fingers that were as hot and dry as driftwood.

  "Stay. Please. Stay and talk to me.”

  “You should not talk at all, Yankee. You need all your strength to fight the fever.”

  “The rest of the men...?”

  “They are fine,” she assured him. “Your sergeant has made camp and posted plenty of guards. There is food and fresh water in plentiful supply.”

  “Matt?”

  “He was...convinced to get some rest. He was nearly falling over from exhaustion.”

  Her voice faltered and she found she was holding her breath. His gaze was so intense, she felt seared by it. She tried to cover her discomfort by smoothing back the damp locks of his hair, but somehow the gesture was transformed into a caress.

  “Courtney—” His fingers tightened around her wrist, forcing her to lean closer. “You will not leave me, will you?”

  “Leave you?” Her heart began to throb against her ribcage, feeling like a trapped bird fighting to escape.

  “I would like a chance to prove I am not as much of a bastard as I have led you to believe.”

  Courtney caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling. She knew it was just the fever speaking. She knew a person’s thoughts and actions were distorted by delirium; what a person said or did often had no foundation in reality. Yet she could not still the rapid beating of her heart, nor could she prevent a soft pink flush from flooding her cheeks with a blatant message for his hungry eyes.

  For a brief moment she was transported back to the great cabin of the Falconer. She was lying on a mattress of scattered clothing; her body was betraying her, denying her the control she had fought so hard to maintain over the years. He had demanded an admission then, words he did not need to hear, words already spoken eloquently by her body. That same bright shine was in her eyes now and he was far too perceptive to miss it, despite the fever.

  “Sleep,” she murmured. “Sleep and we will talk later, when you have your strength back.”

  “Promise me first, that you will not leave me.”

  “Sleep,” she whispered, her vision suddenly blurred by tears. “I will not leave you. Not like this.”

  “Sleep,” he muttered, and his eyes closed. The terrible intensity relented; and although he did not relinquish his hold on her wrist, his chest heaved with a contented sigh and his head rolled gently to one side. The sweat continued to run off his face in rivers, but he was quieter. The shivering stopped. The anguished thrashing stopped. Only his thumb continued to move for some time, over and over, gently, tenderly stroking the back of her hand.

  ~~

  Matthew Rutger rejoined the main body of the camp just as the sun rose in the cloudless sky like a great golden eye. The doctor looked rumpled and grumpy. There were still shadows under his eyes but the puffiness and the redness had gone, leaving only a faint bruising on his stubbled jaw.

  “I suppose you were going to wake me eventually,” he grumbled when Courtney looked up at his approach.

  “Eventually,” she agreed smoothly. “When I thought your disposition had improved.”

  He smirked and knelt beside Adrian, his hand pressing immediately against the flushed throat. “Hmm. Fever seems to have broken somewhat. Did he wake up at all?”

  “For a few minutes. He was not really making much sense though.”

  “What about the others?” he asked, swivelling on his heels in the fine sand.

  “See for yourself. I have not poisoned any of them, nor strangled them in their sleep, though sorely tempted.”

  He glowered at her a moment then moved quickly, efficiently along the rows of wounded men, stopping beside each one to peer under bandages, check dressings, touch a forehead, or lift a man’s eyelid. Courtney remained beside Ballantine, her back propped against the rocks, wondering how many faults the doctor would find in the way she had managed things in his absence. While she waited, she watched Dickie Little scampering back and forth with armloads of wood to rebuild the fire.

  High overhead, the lookouts paced across the top of the cliff, their arms folded across their chests, muskets cradled in the crook. Back
and forth they patrolled, their eyes alert to any movement on land or at sea. Several men were gathered around the turtle shell chopping vegetables, roots, and herbs. Seagulls circled above in broad sweeps, alerted to the possibility of fresh food. Tiny spirals of sand and ash spun like dervishes in the hustling breezes that brought ashore the salty, clean smell of the golden-gray Mediterranean.

  “Much as you might be loathe to admit it,” Matthew said, returning to her side. “It appears that you have managed admirably well in my absence. The only concern I heard, from several of the men, is that you did not find time to sleep yourself.”

  Courtney flushed under the unexpected praise. “I slept for a few hours.”

  “Too few,” Matt said and raised a hand to gently brush a coarse sprinkle of sand off her cheek. The early sunlight was flirting with her skin and hair, bathing one in a warm glow, causing the other to gleam with streaks of fiery red and gold. “He probably will not even remember enough to thank you.”

  The emerald eyes flicked away. “I do not want his thanks.”

  Matt’s searching gaze came away with enough of the truth to bring a faint smile to his lips. “He does tend to have that effect on people.”

  “He has absolutely no effect on me,” Courtney insisted.

  “So you do not care what happens to Adrian?”

  “No,” she said stubbornly. “I do not. And I certainly do not want him to care what happens to me.”

  “Yes, I can see that." He smiled at the valiant effort she was expending to keep her face blank. “Come. Walk with me and show me where you found those leaves. Half the wounds I thought would fester have remained remarkably clean. You can even talk, if you like. I am a good listener.”

  “There is nothing to talk about,” she said, leading him away from the beach.

  “All right. Then I will talk; you listen. You are undoubtedly worried about what will happen to you when we reach Gibraltar. As I have said before, Adrian and I are the only ones who know who you are and neither of us is going to volunteer the information. Do you honestly think we have gone through all of this just to see you thrown behind bars?”

  Courtney sighed and shrugged. “I hardly know what to think anymore. Everything has changed so quickly. I do not know if I even want to go free.” She saw the frown on his face, and her voice took on a bitter harshness. “You have taken away everything I value in this life, everything I could call my own. You have destroyed my home, my family, my friends. You have forced me to look back and admit...things.” She stopped and chewed viciously on her lip.

  “What things?” he asked gently.

  “That I cannot go back, and I cannot go forward. That I no longer belong in my father’s world, but I have no place in your world either.”

  “Good heavens, you talk as if you are an old woman of ninety, set in her ways, unable to adapt to something new. You are how old—sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “Nineteen,” she said through her teeth.

  “Hardly in your dotage.”

  “But do you not see that I have changed once already. I have given up dresses and jewels and bowing and simpering. I have replaced them with cutlasses and powder burns, sea air and wind in my hair. I doubt at this point I could change back again.”

  "Perhaps not. But by the same token," Matt lifted her slender, chafed hands in his, "there is more gentleness in these hands than you care to let the world see; more than you may even want to admit to yourself at the moment because you are trying so hard to be someone, something that deep down inside you are not."

  “I made my choice years ago,” she said quietly. “I cannot go back.”

  “The choice was made for you,” he pointed out softly. “And you do not have to go back. Just move forward.”

  Courtney pulled her hands from his and turned to face the sea, her bare toes stubbing into the wet sand and kicking it into a small hillock. Matt studied her profile in silence, noting the fine lines of her cheek and nose and throat, the tilt of her chin, and he thought he could see, with a little cleaning up, the blood of the French aristocracy that flowed through her veins.

  “Have you any family left in France?” he asked, treading lightly on the subject. “Adrian said something about your mother being guillotined. I do not mean to pry, but—”

  “They are all dead,” she said tonelessly. “My grandfather’s chateau was on the outskirts of Paris and was one of the first to be overrun by the righteous citizens of the revolution.”

  “You were the only one who escaped?”

  Courtney faced outward to the sea again and for a long moment he thought she was not going to answer.

  “Grandpère was an ugly, brusque man, and his servants loathed him. They even opened the gates of the château when the mobs came out from the city. But my mothers was sweet and gentle and she had been so dreadfully mistreated by her father that the servants hid us—Mother and me—and lied to the Citizens’ Committee by convincing them we had both gone north, to Gascony. When the danger passed, they smuggled us out and away from the château, but grandpère and grandmère, the great Count and Countess de Villiers, were dragged to Paris behind an oxcart and were offered to Madame Guillotine along with all who bore the taint of wealth and privilege. That included all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces." She turned to look at him. "Any other questions, doctor?”

  He heard the bitterness in her voice, but ventured another inquiry regardless. “Did you say de Villiers? The name sounds familiar.”

  Courtney looked back down at the sand. “Mother was very guarded when she spoke about grandpère. One never knew who was listening, who was a friend, and who would turn us in for a crust of bread. Duncan hated him too much to talk about him. I gather he was quite important, though. An advisor or confidant to the king. I know he had something to do with the French merchant fleet. Indeed, that was how he and Duncan Farrow met, and in turn, how Duncan and my mother met. It all seems so far away; another lifetime, another me.”

  "And yet you are still here, still strong. My God, Courtney, I do not know all that many men who could have survived a revolution and a pirate war."

  She smiled sardonically. “The wicked always manage to survive, did you not know that?”

  “I would hardly call you wicked.”

  “Oh? You would call me chaste and innocent? These hands, remember. They are not only familiar with muskets and knives, they have used them. How many of your noble, genteel peers would care to keep company with a woman who knew more about killing than brewing tea? Would you, Doctor Rutger? Would he?”

  Matt followed her glance to where Adrian lay on the sand. “I cannot answer for him.”

  “Then answer for yourself. What kind of woman are you going home to? You are going home to someone, are you not? Someone soft and sweet and pure as a lily? Never mind, no need to answer me: it is written all over your face. I only hope she knows how lucky she is.”

  Matt was startled by the compliment. “It might surprise you to know what I am going home to, but we are not talking about me and my future endeavors. We are discussing yours. You have no family, no money. How do you expect to live on your own? How will you get by? Gibraltar is a British port, and none too receptive to the Farrow name.”

  “But French names and titles hold a lingering fascination. I also have this—” she dug into the pocket of her breeches and produced the emerald ring. Matt’s brows lifted appreciatively, and his lips puckered around a low whistle.

  “Nice trinket. I thought I had only dreamed seeing it on your finger last night.”

  “Garrett stuck it on me when he proposed marriage. I was only just able to work it free this morning.” She met the surprised hazel eyes and grinned wryly. “Is it so hard to believe I could win a proposal of marriage? Or does it surprise you more that I won it from a man like Garrett Shaw?”

  “Why no. No, not at all.”

  The lie was unconvincing. “Then again, maybe he is no better than I deserve.”

  “You deserve a dam
n-sight better,” Matt argued. “And I wish you would stop insisting otherwise.”

  Courtney turned the ring over in her palm, watching the sun’s rays strike the many surfaces of the diamonds and refract into hundreds of dazzling sparks. “At any rate, it will come in handy, if only to save me from having to beg in the streets. It might even pay my passage to America.”

  “America?” Matt’s train of thought was slewed off balance again. “You plan to go to America?”

  Courtney was not listening; she was gazing out over the bright slash of sea and sky. “I believe our herb-gathering will have to wait.”

  “What?” Matt followed her gaze, and even though she pointed, he could see nothing but sea and sky.

  "A ship," she said. "A light frigate."

  Rutger heard other shouts from the cliff top and the sound of running feet coming toward them.

  “A ship!” Rowntree gasped eagerly, and slid to a halt beside them. He held a hand, like a visor, over his eyes and squinted in the direction of the tiny speck of white on the horizon. “She is one of ours. I will wager my stripes, she is one of ours!”

  Hoots and cheers went up along the beach as the word spread. The sergeant dashed off again and ordered wood to be set near the fire in readiness. He sent men to call in the scouts and foraging parties. Extra lookouts were posted, and the men with the keenest eyesight were challenged to give the earliest identification. Within ten minutes of the sighting, three pairs of hands cupped around three mouths and shouted a simultaneous recognition of an American light frigate, one man even going so far as to name her.

  “She is the Argus, sir! Eighteen guns! Lieutenant Allen commanding!”

  Rowntree waited an additional thirty minutes to satisfy his own sense of caution, then ordered the signal fire stoked with every scrap of wood they could lay a hand to. Dozens of anxious, sweating faces looked seaward, marking the swift progress of the pyramid of sails that seemed bent on sailing obliviously past. But, with a puff of smoke from her bows and the rolling echo of a cannon shot, she took a sharp tack toward shore, toward the eruption of laughing, leaping, wildly cheering men.