‘Only for a little while,’ she reminded him. ‘And then you should rest again.’
‘I do nothing but rest.’
‘You can work on your scientific papers.’
‘You nursed me well, Mrs Medhurst.’
‘Captain North did more.’
He smiled.
‘I guess there is a bond between men who have saved each other’s lives.’
Gunner glanced round at her with a quizzical expression. ‘What makes you think I saved Kit’s life?’
‘He told me so. “By throwing him to the sharks,” I believe was the precise expression.’
Gunner chuckled at that.
‘What happened?’
‘So much,’ said Gunner, and looked away over the ocean again.
‘How did you meet him?’
‘In a tavern in Portsmouth three years ago. My ship was in port and I was making the most of the last of my land leave. He was not North then.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A different man altogether.’
‘In what way?’
‘In ways he would not wish me to divulge.’
She said nothing, knowing better than to persuade any man, let alone a priest, to break a confidence, no matter how much she wanted to know the answer to the question.
‘I did not trust to leave him there. So I took him with me. And threw him to the sharks.’
‘I do not understand.’
He smiled again as he glanced round at her. The wind fluttered through his short blond locks, the bright clarity of the sunlight revealing in his face the ravages of his fight with the Yellow Jack. ‘Priest, physician, pirate...’ Those same words he had said to her once before.
‘I did not think you were being serious.’
‘Entirely serious, my dear Mrs Medhurst. I was a pirate, part of a black-sailed cutthroat crew and I suppose you might say that I press-ganged Kit into joining us with the help of more than a few bottles of brandy. He did not know what he was signing up for. And by the time he realised, it was too late. We were well on our way, heading for the riches of the East. Superb plunder. A fine living for almost a year.’
‘What happened?’
‘We intercepted a jewel load belonging to the Sultan of Johor. The Sultan, quite rightly, took exception and sent his navy after us. Our captain was hanged, drawn and quartered while we watched. The rest of us were imprisoned in the Sultan’s gaol, death by labour. In this case the labour was shipbuilding for his navy.
‘Kit had changed by then, his body grown strong from the hard work on the ship. He stood up against the tyrant guards, for the older men of the crew, for the injured and the sick. And in return they punished him, with solitary confinement and more.’
She felt her stomach twist in horror at the word punished and all that it suggested.
She closed her eyes, remembering what North had told her of Bob the raven coming to him when he was in prison.
‘More than any other man could have endured. He survived. Not as he was. He became the man he is today. All those months alone, all that time to explore his own mind. He designed Raven, in that cell, and an escape plan. When they let him out eventually, we built her. Right beneath the noses of the guards, as if she was just the same as every other ship we worked upon. After she was completed and taken to the harbour, Kit broke us out of there. We took the ship. It was not stealing, you understand. We had built it. It was Kit’s.’
‘And the pirates became pirate hunters.’
‘Kit’s idea. As I said, he was a changed man. He did not drink, did not game, did not so much as look at a woman. He said we would earn our money honestly. You might take comfort in the fact that La Voile is our last job. A special commission. Once Admiralty pay the bounty on him Kit will hunt pirates no more.’
‘What will he do?’
‘I do not know. You will have to ask him that question.’
Her thoughts swirled around Kit North, what Gunner had just told her turning all of what she had believed on its head. Glancing up, she saw that the priest was studying her face.
‘I do not know your story, Kate, nor will I ask you, but I believe you suffer as much as he does, in your own way.’
‘I do not—’ she began.
But he shook his head and pressed a finger to his own lips to stop her denial.
She looked into the truth in his pale-blue eyes.
‘Now, I think you were right.’ He took a deep lungful of air. ‘I have ignored my scientific papers for too long.’
She nodded and took his arm in hers while he leaned on his walking stick with the other. Slowly they made their way across to North’s cabin.
She helped Gunner inside, settling him in his chair, before her eyes met North’s where he sat working behind his desk. Met and held.
So much that she had not known about him. Her heart seemed to swell with the newfound knowledge.
‘Mrs Medhurst.’ He got to his feet, all formal in front of Gunner, but what was between them, what had always been between them, seemed to whisper louder than ever.
‘Captain North.’
Their eyes held for that moment too long before she dipped a curtsy and departed the cabin.
* * *
Kit watched while Gunner leaned back in his chair and, fitting his spectacles on to his face, lifted the small pile of papers from the occasional table by his side.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘All the better for some fresh sea air...’ Gunner smiled. He still looked tired and thin, but the colour of his skin was healthier and his eyes were his old self. ‘And the company of Mrs Medhurst.’
Kit moved his focus back to the log book that lay open before him. ‘It seems she is good for you.’
‘Even if she is the widow of La Voile,’ said Gunner.
‘She is not the widow of La Voile.’ Kit did not look up.
‘You are sure?’
‘When it comes to Kate Medhurst I am not sure of anything. But whoever she was wed to, I do not believe it to have been La Voile.’
There was a small silence before Gunner said, ‘I told her how we met, something of how Raven and Kit North came into being, and that La Voile is our last job.’
‘And what did she tell you?’
‘Nothing.’
Kit gave a hard smile and kept on writing.
‘You are attracted to her.’
‘Because of the other morning? You may be a priest, Gunner, but even you know better than that.’
‘And she is attracted to you, too.’
Kit’s hand paused midword, only a tiny pause, but enough for the ink to blob.
‘I may be a priest, but I have eyes in my head. And even had I not, the atmosphere between the two of you is thick enough with passion to cut a knife through it.’
‘You are imagining things, Gunner. It is the after-effects of the fever.’
Gunner laughed in his usual good-humoured way and, looking down at his scientific paper, began to read.
Kit stared at the page before him without seeing anything of it. He was thinking of Kate Medhurst by his side through the long hours of the night; a woman who refused to explain anything of herself to him, not her presence on La Voile’s ship or her acquaintance with Gator’s men, not the fact she knew Jean Lafitte, and especially not anything of the man to whom she had been married. What did he really know of her? Nothing.
But that was not entirely true. He knew that she had eyes that made a man forget the darkness in himself and lips that were the sweetest he had ever tasted. He knew that she was more courageous than most men he had met and that her mind was sharp and clear and intelligent. He knew that she had a sense of honour and had borne a child. And that something niggled in his mind about t
he very first time he had seen her, standing beneath that black awning with La Voile and the other pirate.
But most of all he knew that Gunner was right—he was attracted to her, all of her, despite everything of his situation and hers. He was attracted to her with a desire that seemed to be escalating. And she was attracted to him, too.
And that was why it was more important than ever that they stay well apart.
* * *
The wind had dropped, and Raven’s progress slowed. The last of the Yellow Jack had left the ship and all of those Kate had spent her time nursing were recovered enough to return to their normal quarters and duties. What had been her infirmary vanished into storage deck once more.
Kate sat on the edge of her cot, staring at the wood of the cabin door when she should have been readying herself for dinner. Everything had returned to normal, although not for Bowes and Ashton, Lyle and Smithy, or Rimmer and Caxley. She thought of the young men whose bodies lay somewhere at the bottom of the clear green waters near the Caribbean. Nothing would ever be normal for them again. Maybe not for herself, either.
Only now that the emergency was over, and her role in it done, did it hit her. She was so tired, so very tired. And she could not get what Gunner had told her yesterday of Kit North out of her head. He had been press-ganged to a pirate against his will. He had endured months of solitary confinement. He had designed Raven in his prison and built her. He had got his men out of there and back home against all the odds. No other man could have done such a thing. Kate knew that with all of her heart and soul.
He was not the man she had thought him, but one that had risen from conditions that would have crushed others: one with integrity, trying to do what he believed was right as much as all of those who worked in the trade with the Lafittes did. As much as Wendell had done and herself after he was gone. She had to admire that and his strength and his care for his men. She had been misled by her own prejudices. Because he was English. Because he did not understand their cause or why they were forced to go about it as they did. The plain truth was that Kit North, the pirate hunter reviled across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, was a fine man.
She rested her head in her hands; the knowledge gnawing at her because it didn’t change the fact of who they both were. Nothing was ever going to get round that one. He was a very fine man, indeed. A man she wanted as a friend...and a whole lot more than that if she were being entirely honest. But if she let down her barriers, if she let him get close, there was every chance that a man as intelligent and shrewd as Kit North would see exactly who she was. And right now, that was something she could not risk.
This was not about her. This was about her children waiting for her back in Tallaholm. This was about being there to guide and guard them into adulthood. And it did not even start to go anywhere near Wendell.
She thought of Ben and baby Bea, and her heart ached for them.
And she thought, too, of Kit North. And the ache in her heart seemed to intensify.
A knock sounded on her cabin door.
North. Her pulse leapt at the thought.
‘They are waiting for you at the dining tables, ma’am,’ came one of the crew’s voice.
‘Thank you, sir. Please tell the Captain that I’ll be right there.’
The sound of footsteps receded across the deck.
She pulled the black evening silk that he had paid for from the little wardrobe and changed, fitted the fichu carefully in place, before combing, winding and pinning her hair tight into its pins. She wrapped a long dark shawl around her shoulders against the evening chill. Then, slipping on a pair of long black evening gloves, she took a deep breath and went to dinner.
* * *
Kit tried hard to keep his eyes from where Kate Medhurst sat at the other end of the dinner table.
She was quieter than normal during the meal, probably worn out by the days that she had worked so hard to save his men, to save Gunner. Yet too often her eyes moved to meet his across that small distance.
She was in his mind, with the strength of the passion that, tonight, seemed stronger than ever between them, despite that she was allied in some way with Lafitte and La Voile and the rest of the Baratarian pirates. Despite the fact she was keeping her dark secrets as much as he was keeping his.
‘How is your scientific paper coming along, Reverend Dr Gunner?’ she asked. And Gunner was only too happy to tell them all. It relieved something of the slight tension that seemed to hover about the table.
Young Tom was playing footman, bringing a dish of sweet potatoes to the table when the dish slipped from the boy’s hands, and crashed to the floor. The china smashed into pieces, its mashed orange contents splattering far and wide.
‘Daft lad!’ Wilson, who was also serving table, uttered without malice.
But Tom being Tom froze, a look of terror on his face, cringing before Wilson. ‘Please don’t beat me, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Come here, Tom,’ Kit commanded.
The boy crept to stand before him.
‘You forget where you are, boy,’ he said.
The lad nodded.
‘Remember, as I told you the last time.’
Tom took a breath and looked around him. ‘I am on Raven and I am one of her crew.’
‘And what do you know of Raven?’
‘That no one is beaten without just cause here. That it is safe.’
‘It is safe,’ confirmed Kit. ‘So hear what else it is that Mr Wilson has to say to you.’
‘Yes, Captain.’ Tom nodded and went dutifully to stand before Wilson.
‘Best get a shovel and a cloth, and clear it up, lad,’ said Wilson.
The boy bobbed his head, ‘Yes, sir, Mr Wilson, sir.’ Flashing Kit a toothy grin, he rushed off to do as he was bid.
Kate Medhurst seemed frozen at the other end of the table, her face filled with compassion for the boy.
‘The boy requires uncommon gentle treatment on account of his rather traumatic past. We found him being cruelly treated in the Johor prison—the lone survivor from his family, all of which had been killed. North rescued him and is equipping him with the means to survive. I have it on good authority he will make a fine sailor one day,’ he heard Gunner say.
The men round the table all grinned and raised their glasses with murmurs of, ‘Aye, sir, he will that.’ But Kate Medhurst just made a choking sound. Her eyes were filled with tears when they met his across the table.
‘Please excuse me, gentlemen,’ she managed in a strangled voice and, with her face averted so that it could not be seen, she fled the dining room.
The men all glanced around, awkward, uncomfortable, tough, strong, leathered men who had sailed through the worst of storms and could cleave a man in two and think nothing of it, helpless before the tears of a woman. They wanted to aid her, but did not know what to do. They all looked at him. Gunner’s eyes, too, met his down the length of the table.
A single nod of his head and he went after her.
* * *
Kate was mortified. She didn’t even know why she was crying, just that the tears would not stop. She needed to pull herself together, up by her bootstraps as her mama always said. She had never shown weakness in front of her own crew. Now here she was making a fool of herself before those against whom she should remain strongest and keep up all her defences.
A knock sounded against her door and she knew it was North even before he spoke.
‘Mrs Medhurst.’
‘Go away.’ She did not even glance at the door, just scrubbed the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her like this—weak and vulnerable. She could not let him see her like this—not when her guard was down and when she couldn’t think straight, let alone protect her secrets.
But he did not go away. The door opened and
Kit North stepped into her cabin, his eyes taking in her and her damnable tears. She turned her back to him that he wouldn’t see them.
‘Kate.’ His voice was quiet.
She sniffed, tried to get a rein on herself. ‘I will be all right in a minute. Go back to your dinner, Captain North.’ Her voice was husky and on the verge of breaking. She wanted him just to turn around and leave. The only sound was the quiet click of the door being closed. But he had not left. She could sense his presence standing there.
His hands were gentle as they turned her to him, so that she could not hide from him any more.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said, although he had not asked the question. She did not meet his eyes.
‘It would take a great deal more than nothing to make a woman like you cry.’
She kept her gaze on the wood of the door behind him, willing herself to be strong.
‘Something of the boy, Tom, upset you,’ he said, as perceptive as ever.
She swallowed. ‘Was what Gunner said of him true?’
He nodded. ‘Unfortunately so. He was a passenger aboard one of the ships the Sultan of Johor’s men captured.’
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the tears, but they welled and leaked to roll down her cheeks just the same.
‘Do not let it distress you. Tom will always have a place with me. He is safe and well cared for. And always will be. I promise you.’
And she believed him. She truly did. The sob escaped her.
‘Kate,’ he said softly, He pulled her against him, wrapping her in his embrace.
He passed her his handkerchief while she cried in earnest, for the boy Tom, and for her own little Ben and Bea, and for the man before her.
He held her, just held her, in his warmth and support and strength. Held her until the tears were all cried and the shudder of the sobs echoed though her body, and the terrible twisting, gnawing tension that had been tight in her all these days since that morning of Coyote’s capture had loosened its grip upon her. Until she felt empty. And calm.
[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman Page 11
