But they both understood that was not what he was asking.
After a long moment, North gave a nod. ‘I will fetch what is needed.’
Did she know what she was doing?
There was no time to think about it. A man’s life was at stake.
Kate moved to Gunner’s side and began to roll up her sleeves.
* * *
The night seemed very long.
Kit held the small cup to Gunner’s mouth and tried to pour a few drops of the cooled boiled water between his friend’s cracked dry lips, but most of it just spilled down the side of his face. He sat the cup down on the surface of his nearby desk.
‘A little is better than nothing,’ Kate Medhurst said from his side.
‘But not enough.’
‘Drop by drop,’ she said.
His eyes moved over the thin sheet that covered Gunner’s naked body and was already drenched with sweat although they had not long changed it.
‘I will mop his brow and sit with him, while you go get some rest,’ she said, her American twang soft and lilting in the room.
‘I am staying.’ Gunner was his friend, his shipmate and the man who had saved his life. And even if he were not, it would not matter. He held out his hand for the wrung-out rag she was holding, ready to wipe away the rivulets of sweat that ran down Gunner’s brow and cool the fever that burned beneath the pallor of his skin. ‘You rest.’
‘I do not have a ship to captain in the morning,’ she pointed out.
‘This is my responsibility.’
She stood there silent for a moment and he could feel the weight of her gaze upon him, even though he kept his focus fixed on Gunner.
She passed him the cloth. ‘You are a stubborn man, Captain North.’ The words, uttered soft as a caress, felt like a compliment rather than a criticism. She walked quietly away then, pausing when she reached his door. ‘I will be back at dawn.’
His eyes met hers across the cabin, glad of her words, and her strength and her capable practicality.
He nodded his acknowledgement and turned his attention back to Gunner.
But what neither of them knew in that moment was that by dawn hell would have come to Raven.
Kate Medhurst came back long before that hour.
Eighteen of his fifty men were struck down with the same fever that held Gunner.
* * *
Kit North had not slept. His eyes held their same steady resolve and determination, but also an unmistakable fatigue, and beneath them was the smudge of smoky shadows. He looked bone weary beneath that rigid backbone of his.
She told herself she was not doing this for North, that it was purely selfish interest. For if Raven did not complete her journey safely, how was she going to get back to her children and to Tallaholm?
‘Eighteen of your men are affected so far, not including Reverend Dr Gunner. It could go higher. You are undermanned with them down and, on top of that, the ill need nursing and you’ve still got to sail Raven. You cannot do all of that alone.’
He did not shoot her down, just let her speak. ‘I get the feeling you are about to offer me a solution.’
‘Let me take charge of nursing the ill. I’ll need six men who will do what they are told.’
She waited for him to refuse. Most men that didn’t know her always did. They judged her on the fact she was a woman, not on the strength that was inside.
But he did not refuse.
‘And Gunner?’ he asked.
‘I will nurse Reverend Dr Gunner myself.’
He gave a nod of acknowledgement.
* * *
They worked together.
Those men without symptoms were massed on the lower deck. North informed them of the situation and how it would be managed, while Kate watched on. A captain to his men, a commander, a natural leader, his men hung on his every word, their faces grim with worry, yet eyes that spoke of a deep-seated trust in him. Unlike most captains he ruled with a firm hand of fair justice rather than through undeserved or unending lashings and beatings, and the difference was clear. His leadership was instinctive, easy and unquestioned.
‘Move the hammocks of those afflicted to the aft. Those who are clear bunk to the fore. Keep a clear boundary between. We are fortunate to have Mrs Medhurst amongst us as she has much experience of nursing the ill.’ A deal less experience than North’s words implied.
The crew’s gaze turned to rest on her as he spoke and she looked at them with the confidence of a woman who had had nursed a shipload of men with Yellow Jack a hundred times before. They needed to believe in her as much as North. They needed to believe they could beat this and sail on and not panic and give up or bail for their lives.
‘Riley, Horse, Sandbatch, Gilley, Henhead and Scrobe,’ North instructed, ‘you are assigned to assist Mrs Medhurst. Do as she commands. For the rest of us it is business as usual.’
His eyes met hers fleetingly and alongside the usual complex dark feelings of attraction was respect and the knowledge that the fate of Raven rested in both their hands.
* * *
Kate Medhurst was still on her feet, wiping down Gunner’s face when Kit finally made it back to his cabin. Through the big stern windows the night sky was tinged with a beautiful deep azure. Stars big and bright and numerous as a sprinkled bag of diamonds twinkled in the sky. The ocean was dark, a deep pitch-black that made men think of the darkness of their own souls and the monsters that lay hidden in the realms beneath.
A single lantern burned on the table. Beside it Gunner lay naked on the cot that had been stripped of all sheets. Only a cloth draped across his hips preserved his modesty; his thin pale body looked so corpse-like that it made Kit fear the worst.
‘How is he?’ he asked as he came to stand by her side.
‘He was sick again earlier, hence the lack of sheets. We have no clean ones left.’
‘That, I can do something about.’ He passed her the fresh linen he had brought with him.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled a small smile.
For three days she had nursed his friend and organised and run an operation of caring for the rest of his crew, who were afflicted with the pestilence, with the efficiency and expertise of a captain running his ship. And in all of those three days and nights he had not seen her sleep, not once.
Her face was shadowed with exhaustion and worry, the same worry he felt twist deep in his gut over Gunner’s fate.
‘Is he going to make it?’ He glanced at the man to whom he owed so much before looking into Kate Medhurst’s eyes for the truth that words might hide.
‘I do not know,’ she said with bare honesty. There was no attempt to deceive, whether through kindness or otherwise, nothing of that edge of conflict that was usually there between them. Fatigue had blunted it, exposing something of the woman beneath the armour. It felt like, in this at least, they were fighting on the same side.
‘When will we know?’
‘Probably by the end of this night.’ She set the linen down on table.
He swallowed down the bile that rose at the thought of Gunner dying. Turned away so that she would not see how much the prospect affected him. ‘I will stay with him. You get some sleep.’ His voice was gruff. He did not look at her.
‘We’ll both stay with him,’ she said quietly, and he heard the movement and glanced round to see her sit down in her chair.
He should have insisted. But he was too tired to argue and, in truth, he was not sure that he wanted to face the dark hours ahead alone. He sat down on the chair beside hers.
‘How long have you been friends?’ she asked.
‘Three years. It does not sound long, does it—three years out of a whole lifetime?’
‘Long enough,’ she said. ‘There is much that can happe
n in three years.’ There was something about the way she said it, something sad and reflective, that made him think that she was talking not only about him, but about herself, too.
‘Very much.’ His eyes lingered on Gunner, remembering all that they had been through together—the worst of times, and the best.
‘He means a lot to you.’ Her voice was gentle.
‘He saved my life,’ he admitted.
‘Saved you from a shark, did he?’ Like you did me.
He glanced round at her, his eyes holding hers, remembering that moment between them.
‘Threw me to them, more like,’ he said.
‘And that saved you?’
‘Without a doubt.’
She said nothing, but her silence, like her presence, seemed comforting in a way he did not understand. It seemed to reach out to him. It seemed to connect them as much as the way that she held his gaze and did not look away.
‘I would have destroyed myself otherwise.’ He smiled, but the bitterness of shame and guilt was still there. ‘Along with everyone else I cared about.’ And the anger, too, even through the tiredness.
‘The dreaded drink,’ she said, misinterpreting his abstinence from brandy and other spirits.
‘Amongst other things.’ He looked at Gunner in silence for a while, at the way the tremors still shivered through his friend’s body and the labour of his breath. Death seemed to hover close in that cabin. Even Bob the raven, sitting on his perch in the corner, was silent and brooding.
Kit felt helpless and too aware there was nothing he could do to help. He got to his feet, needing to do something, so tired he could not think straight and yet knowing he could not rest, that this was his friend, his ship, his responsibility, his duty.
‘In many cultures the raven is associated with battle and death,’ he said.
‘Is that why you captured and trained your raven—as a symbol of such?’
He gave a small soft laugh. ‘The raven I trained when I was in prison. Bob came to the bars of my cell one day. We became friends.’
‘Bob?’ she said with a teasing arch of her eyebrows that, despite everything, made him smile.
‘What is wrong with the name Bob?’
‘Nothing. I guess I was expecting something a little darker or more Gothic or mystical.’
‘I think he is more of a Bob.’
‘I think you are probably right.’ She glanced across at where Bob sat hunched and watching. ‘And your boat is named for him?’
‘My boat was a black sail, built to fly fast and to scavenge.’ Wringing out the cloth in the clean cold water, he held it to Gunner’s forehead, trying to cool the fever that raged beneath the flush on that pallid skin. ‘He is going to die, isn’t he?’ The question was not really for her, was not really a question at all, more a trying to come to terms with the hard fact himself.
He felt gentle hands take the cloth from him and place it once more in its basin.
‘Sit down, Kit North,’ she said softly. ‘There is nothing more we can do except wait. And pray.’
‘I do not pray.’
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘I have no right to pray.’
‘Everyone has a right to pray.’
‘Not everyone.’
‘You are very hard on yourself.’
‘Not hard enough,’ he said, his eyes holding hers, daring her to argue or question.
She did neither. She sat down in her chair and reached her hand to his, taking it in her own. It was a small hand, slender and soft, but a practical hand, a hand that worked rather than frittered away time in leisure. A hand that was gentle yet firm. No woman had touched him like that. Even in the old days, when he had bedded the best of whores with the worst of rakes, it had all been about selfish gratification. This felt like something very different. He knew he should remove his hand from hers, but he did not; he could not.
With his eyes on Gunner he sat down beside her.
The long hours of the night stretched ahead, the time when men’s lives were weighed in the balance and taken or given. But for the first time in such a long time, he was not alone. Kate Medhurst, with her strength and her calm practicality, was by his side. He threaded his fingers through hers, and was glad of it.
* * *
‘Why in heaven’s name am I lying here naked as the day I was born?’
The imperious demand dragged Kit from deep slumber to the cabin aboard Raven once more. Kate Medhurst’s head rested on his shoulder, her soft breath warm and moist against his cheek. His arm was curled protectively about her, while her hand rested against his chest. Their legs were entwined like lovers. There was an ache in his back as though someone had kicked him with an iron-clad boot, where the wooden chair frame had pressed against his spine for hours. And, worse than any of that, he had an erection that would have dwarfed Mount Olympus.
She woke when he tried to move, her eyes soft at first, her mouth smiling, then, as reality intruded, that changed. She hastily disentangled herself, springing to her feet, her cheeks blushing red, as if caught in flagrante while he adjusted his coat to disguise his awkward predicament.
* * *
‘Gunner?’ North’s voice sounded hoarse as if he had not used it in eons. She forgot her embarrassment as she watched him. ‘Gunner!’ He smiled. A proper smile, a real smile. Full of joy and relief and gladness. It was the first time she had seen it and the man it exposed beneath. It changed his face from one of hard determination to one that she could not take her eyes from. He looked in that instant like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He looked happy. Like a man who could have swept her off her feet with laughter and made the world all right again. She watched the transformation in amazement.
‘Thank God,’ he whispered. A man that did not pray, but she remembered the soft murmur of his words in the night and felt his strength surround her.
‘I am naked before Mrs Medhurst, Kit!’ Gunner complained. ‘Grant a priest some dignity.’
‘You have been ill, old friend.’
‘Not any more.’ Gunner’s voice was weak, his face skull-like and just as pale. But the fever had passed and he was still with them. ‘My apologies, ma’am, for my state of presentation,’ he said to her. Then smiled. ‘Quid pro quo for my treatment following your encounter with the shark.’
‘We are even,’ she joked. ‘Welcome back, Reverend Dr Gunner. You had us scared for a while.’
‘I had myself scared for a while.’
She smiled. ‘We were waiting for the fever to pass before replacing your bedsheets.’ She could feel the heat flush her cheeks and did not look over at North, knowing how they had awoken together. ‘I am glad you are returned to us, sir.’
Gunner smiled weakly with dry cracked lips.
‘I will leave you in Captain North’s capable hands.’ Then, to North, ‘I must go and check on the others.’
The smile was gone, the hard, determined, emotionless pirate hunter back once more. But something had changed between them. Something small and yet important, something in the depths of those dark eyes that made the blush heat her cheeks all the more. He gave a nod and turned back to Gunner.
She slipped away and left the two friends together.
* * *
Six of Kit’s men were not as lucky as Gunner. He buried them the next day in the traditional maritime way that they would have wanted, their bodies sewn up in their hammocks. Those of the crew well enough to walk collected on the upper deck for the funeral. Men, even pirates and sinners, deserved dignity in being laid to rest, especially when there had been nothing of dignity in the manner with which the pestilence had taken their lives.
Kit stood there before the assembled crew, feeling, as did all of his men, the loss of those who had been taken. The lea
ther-bound book of prayer was alien in his hand, shaped and used to the touch of another. He could feel the slight dents worn by the press of Gunner’s fingers. This was a priest’s territory, but Gunner was still too weak to climb from his cot.
Across the deck, some little distance behind the crowd, Kate Medhurst stood. The shabby black muslin she had worn all of the past days and nights was gone. In its place she had donned a fresh dress, one of those from the wardrobe bought in Antigua. A black silk and matching bonnet with her own familiar black fichu fitted in place to cover her décolletage. The colour intended to mourn another now a mark of respect for the men she had nursed and lost.
He opened the book and the men fell silent before him, bowing their heads, hats and caps clutched in hands.
All we can do is wait and pray. Her soft words sounded again from the previous night. And his own reply, I do not pray.
Yet here he was with the prayer book. The irony was not lost on him. He wondered if she was thinking the same. She had every right to. But when his eyes met hers it was not mockery that he saw there, but understanding—that this was a captain’s duty to his men.
She gave a small nod. Of acknowledgement, of encouragement, of support. Her face was etched with fatigue, the shadows beneath her eyes blue in the brightness of the daylight—from working to help his men, from being there to help him. All those nights without sleep and yet her shoulders were squared and her head held high as ever it was, with strength and dignity and unwavering steadfastness. In all of his life, Kit had never seen a more beautiful woman.
He put aside his own discomfort and spoke the words from the prayer book.
There were tears in the eyes of some of the men as the canvas-shrouded bodies slid into the clear green ocean, sinking down to disappear beneath the waves.
When it was done and over, he looked again for Kate Medhurst, but the place on the deck where she had stood was empty.
Chapter Seven
In the few days that it had taken Gunner to regain something of his strength Raven had long left behind the balmy climes of the Caribbean. The waters of the mid-Atlantic were not aqua-green but darker, deeper, a grey-blue that did not invite swimmers. The wind was stronger, colder, biting even, but for today, at least, the sun still shone and she could understand Gunner’s insistence in coming up on deck to lean against the rail and look out over the vast endless surround of ocean.
[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman Page 10
