The Rose Garden

by Susanna Kearsley

  The kiss began simply enough.

  Just a brush of his lips on my cheek, reassuring and warm. But then one of us – I think it might have been me – moved a fraction, a turn of the head and our mouths met in earnest, but he remained a gentleman, not rushing things, not taking it for granted that I had any experience.

  Until I kissed him back.

  The rules changed, then.

  Another minute more and he was holding me with both arms, which was just as well because I would have had a lot of trouble standing upright on my own. God knows I lost all track of time and Daniel must have done as well, because Fergal had to cough twice and swear once before either of us paid him any attention.

  And even then all Daniel did was draw back with his forehead still resting on mine as he angled his head to the doorway.

  ‘Yes?’

  Fergal folded his arms. ‘Were you coming downstairs, then? Or would you rather wait till Jack gets back so we can all sit down and talk this through together?’

  Half-amazed I had a voice, I asked them both, ‘Talk what through?’

  Fergal said, ‘He has to take the Sally out tonight, by order of His Grace the Duke of Ormonde.’

  Daniel exhaled, patient. ‘By request, not by his order. I am asked to do a favour for my kinsman, and no more than that.’

  ‘Without a proper crew …’

  ‘I will have men enough.’

  ‘And not a one of them who’s fit to raise a sword to guard your back should things go wrong.’

  ‘You are more needed here,’ said Daniel.

  This, I thought, was where I had come in – the two men arguing.

  As Daniel straightened from me I drew one long breath to calm my pulse because it was still racing from the kiss. I tried to think. And looking up at him I said, ‘You won’t let Fergal come with you because you want him to stay here at Trelowarth and look after me.’

  Daniel half-smiled, not dropping his hands from my waist. ‘I will only be gone a short while. And I’ll be in no danger.’

  ‘Then take me along.’

  He had not seen that coming. ‘What?’

  ‘Take me along,’ I repeated. ‘Then Fergal can come, too. You can tell your crew I’m there to do the cooking, or whatever, and I’ll keep out of the way, and with both you and Fergal there I’m sure that nothing will—’

  He interrupted. ‘No. It is impossible. On any other voyage I’d consider it, but not on this.’

  ‘Why not?’ I stood my ground. ‘You said yourself there’d be no danger.’

  Trapped by his own words, he looked at Fergal who was standing in the doorway fairly daring him to answer.

  He was caught, and the three of us knew it. If he admitted the dangers involved in this ‘favour’ he’d been asked to do, then Fergal wouldn’t rest until he’d found a way to go along. And if Daniel stuck to his story that there was no danger at all, then he’d have no good reason to leave me and Fergal behind.

  And frankly, the idea of being left behind with Fergal in the foul mood that I knew he’d be in if he didn’t get to go with Daniel wasn’t that appealing to me.

  Fergal, from his doorway, said, ‘It seems a fair idea, Danny, taking her along. And you can tell the crew I’m there to guard her virtue.’

  Daniel exhaled harder this time, giving in. ‘The crew will hardly need an explanation why you’re with us, I’ll not need to tell them tales.’

  ‘And who says you’d be telling tales?’ He sent a pointed glance towards the pair of us, Daniel’s hands still resting on my waist, and with a final dry look turned away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The evening brought a soft wind and a softer light that settled on the woods, where all the lilting voices of the birds and hidden creatures had been soothed to drowsy silence. Fergal, for all the heaviness of his boots, made little sound himself as he walked on ahead of me, moving in his dark clothes like a shadow through the trees. I tried to copy his stealth, but the hem of my long green gown brushed with a rustling sound over grasses and twigs and small shrubs, at one point flushing out a rabbit who leapt suddenly across my path, a startled streak of brown.

  Fergal wheeled round at the small burst of noise, and then seeing what it was, relaxed and motioned me to follow on more quietly.

  I did my best.

  This was the first time I had been along this path – the same path I had glimpsed so long ago while walking through the Wild Wood. The path that had appeared and disappeared again and which I now knew led towards the sea. The scents of salt and spray grew ever stronger as we neared the south edge of the woods, where the dimness of the tangled branches overhead gave way to sudden light.

  The path angled downwards here, sharp to the right, winding down the black rocks at the edge of the cliff – a wider and less treacherous descent than the one to the shore at the foot of the Cripplehorn, but I still had to be cautious and watch where I put my feet. The flimsy slippers made my steps less confident, and the swing of the heavy gown tested my balance so that I was grateful for Fergal’s strong steadying hand as he helped me along.

  I was vaguely aware of tall masts and the shape of a ship, but it wasn’t till we’d nearly reached the bottom of the path and I could raise my head and take a proper look that I first really saw the Sally riding at anchor, not far out from shore.

  I’d only ever seen her that one time before, when Jack set off for Brittany, and then I had been watching from the hillside at Trelowarth and I hadn’t seen her clearly, just her graceful lines retreating as she’d headed out to sea.

  Now, from closer up, I saw that she was not a very large ship, maybe fifty feet or so from bow to stern, with four square gunports set along her curved side high above the water level, and two soaring masts thick-laced with rigging and collapsed sails that flapped hopefully at every breath of wind.

  Moored in the lee of the sheltering headland, her hull painted black like the high cliffs behind her, she shone like a lady, her trim gleaming white.

  ‘Ay, she’s beautiful,’ Fergal agreed when I said so myself. ‘Built at Deptford, she was, and there’s few that can equal her speed.’

  I’d sailed a bit with friends in California so I knew my starboard from my port, but I didn’t know much about ships of this age. Didn’t know what the names of the sails were, or how to tell one class of ship from another, and yet from simply standing here and looking at the Sally I could tell exactly why both Jack and Daniel were so keen to have her solely for themselves. She was too lovely to be shared.

  Fergal gave a wave and though I hadn’t seen a man on deck before, I saw one now, who waved in answer. And another man appeared. And then another.

  I stood on the pebbled shore watching them lower a boat that one man rowed across to us. Fergal lifted me over the wet of the waves at the shoreline and settled me on the hard seat without giving any explanation to the other man of who I was or what I might be doing there. The fact that I was there with Fergal seemed to be enough to mark me out of bounds.

  Still, when the dinghy scraped hulls with the Sally and I was helped up to the ship’s main deck, Fergal came after me, facing the men down and setting things out in plain terms. ‘This is Eva, my sister. She’s coming along. She’s no voice of her own, but if any of you gives her trouble I’ll hear of it, see?’ He didn’t threaten them with what he’d do if they did give me trouble, but I gathered that they knew him well enough to fill those blanks in for themselves.

  The youngest of the men looked like a teenager, the oldest seemed to be approaching sixty, and they all had that rough look of men who ended their hard days at sea by drinking late into the night at quayside taverns. But to my relief, not one of them looked hard enough to get the best of Fergal in a fight.

  That helped me feel less nervous as they scattered to their duties.

  Fergal squinted skyward as though judging the position of the sun. ‘There’ll be two men to come yet,’ he told me, ‘and Danny. We might as well wait for them in comfort.’
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  I didn’t really want to leave the deck. I’d never been on an old ship, and I liked how the canvas and rigging above me was creaking and fluttering, and how the deck itself shifted in time with the rise of the waves, and how the wind and the sinking sun felt on my uplifted face. But arguing with Fergal was a lost cause at the best of times, and all the more impossible out here because I couldn’t use my voice, so I gave in and let him lead me down below.

  There was a single deck down here, with a grated trapdoor that I guessed would lead further down into the hold. What cargo might lie down there I could only imagine, but here on this deck I could count eight brass cannon, their wheeled mounts fastened to the inner hull with ropes to curb the recoil when they fired, their muzzles resting at the gun ports to each side. Towards the rear of this main space the sleeping quarters for the crew announced its purpose with its hammocks hanging off to either side, slung from the beams overhead so they ran in the same line, from bow to stern. Behind them was a separate space enclosing Fergal’s galley and a table where the men could eat, and at the back of that there was a heavy door.

  ‘The captain’s cabin,’ Fergal said. ‘You’ll sleep in here.’ He didn’t add the word ‘alone’ but then he didn’t need to – I already knew he’d be keeping a watch on my door to see I wasn’t bothered by the crew. Or by their captain.

  I hid my smile and felt a twinge of sympathy for Daniel, especially after I’d entered his cabin and seen the comforts he’d be forced to do without.

  There were windows here, for one thing – a broad row of them that ran across the squared wall of the stern, and two of them stood open on their casements to the fresh salt air. A definite relief from the close staleness of the cabin where the crew slept. Candle-holders had been fitted to the walls with brackets, and a small carved desk of heavy wood stood off to one side underneath a shelf of charts and papers. Near the farther wall there swung a hammock that looked comfortable and wide and had been fitted with a pillow for the sleeper’s head.

  I’d never slept the whole night in a hammock. With my luck, I thought, I’d tip out on the floor and break my neck. I was crossing to inspect it when I heard the splash and pull of oars outside the open window as the boat went out again.

  ‘That’ll be somebody coming,’ said Fergal. ‘Wait here.’

  He left me and went up, and in a while I heard the boat come back, the creak and bump of wood on wood as it drew up against the Sally, and the thump of booted feet that landed on the deck above me in a cheerful rise of voices, Daniel’s own among them. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the heavy wood deck and the walls of the cabin effectively muffled his words, but his laugh carried easily in through the window.

  And then he was coming downstairs.

  Fergal came with him into the cabin. He didn’t look pleased. ‘William’s cousin be damned. William’s ill, sure enough, but that lad you’ve brought with you is never his cousin.’

  Daniel gave a smiling nod to me and answered Fergal, ‘No, I did not think he was.’

  ‘Then why the devil did you let him come on board?’

  ‘Because he told the story well enough, when he did meet myself and Michael on the shore. He had the password right and all. It seemed a shame not to reward such effort. And,’ he said, more serious, ‘because we have an hour or so to wait yet for the tide, and if I’d left the lad on shore he would have run straight off to tell the one that sent him.’

  ‘Creed.’

  ‘I should imagine so, yes.’

  ‘Creed,’ said Fergal, ‘cannot stop you sailing.’

  ‘He can make a nuisance of himself, or send another vessel in our wake to watch and follow us. For now, he thinks he has his spy on board in safety. Let us keep him thinking so.’ With all that settled, Daniel turned to me. ‘How do you like my Sally?’

  I replied the ship was lovely. ‘But I have my doubts about the hammock.’

  ‘Do you?’ He considered it. ‘It holds my own weight well enough, and I have seen a bed like that sleep more than one man on a crowded voyage, so you need not worry.’

  Fergal said, ‘She needn’t, ay, considering that neither your own weight nor that of any other man will be in there tonight with her.’

  His tone was dry, but Daniel matched it with the glance he gave his friend. ‘It may be I should toss you back on shore as well, together with Creed’s spy.’

  ‘You go and try it.’ Fergal, unconcerned, half-shrugged to stretch his shoulders. ‘What’s the plan, then?’

  Above me I could hear the steps and voices of the men. Hard footsteps tramped towards the stern, in my direction, and although I knew the angle of the ship’s hull meant that nobody could see me from above, I still drew back a pace from caution. The footsteps stopped directly overhead.

  ‘There he is,’ Daniel’s voice drifted down.

  Other steps shuffled forwards to join him at the rail, and a younger man’s voice complained, ‘I can see no one.’

  ‘Our passenger,’ said Daniel, ‘is a man much wanted in these parts. He does well to be careful and keep to the shadows until you can collect him.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Ay. Rowing would be William’s job if he were here to do it, and you did say you had come to do his work.’

  A doubtful pause. ‘But I see no one there.’

  ‘Nor will you, till you land the boat and call the password. Now away with you, and fetch him back so that we can be off. The tide has turned.’

  I heard the scraping of the boat against the Sally’s side again, and as the rhythm of its splashing oars moved off, I heard another sound – a laboured clanking, unfamiliar. It wasn’t until the Sally began to turn slightly as though she were drifting, that I realised what I’d heard had been the anchor being raised. From above came the creaking of ropes and the sound of the great sails unfurling to gather the wind.

  The Sally gave a forward surge of joy. As her stern came round, my windows gave a clear view of Creed’s spy, who’d nearly reached the beach. Even if the luckless lad had strength enough to turn his craft and row on back to catch us, he would have surely known there was no point to it. He’d never be allowed on board again now that his game had been discovered. Instead, as I watched, he drove the boat on to the shingle and leapt out, knee-deep in water and wading ashore with the wide, flailing motions of somebody in a great hurry.

  The last glimpse I had of him as we slipped out of the shadows of the headland, he was scrabbling up the rocky path towards the clifftop. Not an easy climb for someone wet and tired from rowing. Still, he could count himself fortunate, I thought, that he’d been sent off in the boat and not simply dumped over the Sally’s side.

  Fergal said much the same thing minutes later when, taking his role as my chaperone seriously, he came down below decks with Daniel. The two of them joined me at the windows in the stern.

  Fergal told Daniel, ‘You’ve only made him angry now. You should have cooled his temper with a swim.’

  ‘And if he could not swim?’

  A shrug. ‘We would have one less fool to waste our time with.’

  Daniel smiled. ‘You are a hard man, Fergal, and I do fear what would happen to me should I ever fall from your good graces.’

  ‘Then take care that you do not,’ was the advice returned, although I caught the fleeting play of light in Fergal’s eye that spoilt the sternness of his warning. He was leaning to the window, looking back at the retreating shore. ‘He’ll be running straight to Creed.’

  This time the shrug was Daniel’s. ‘Let him go. There will be nothing Creed can do. There is no vessel in Polgelly harbour that can catch the Sally when she runs before the wind.’

  I believed him. I could feel the pull and power of the ship’s sails as we altered course a second time and set Polgelly squarely at our back.

  Beside me Daniel straightened from the window, the top of his head nearly brushing the beams of the cabin. ‘Are you troubled by sea travel?’

  ‘Pardon?’ I asked.

>   ‘Do you feel any sickness?’

  ‘Oh. No, I’m all right.’

  ‘Good. You will find the comforts greater here,’ he told me, ‘in the cabin, but I should think that you would find the journey more diverting from the quarterdeck.’

  It was an invitation, and I willingly accepted it.

  Above, the air smelt cleaner and the sunlight from the west had taken on that warmly golden glow that marked the final hours of the evening. We were headed south, and opposite the sinking sun the purple of the coming night had started creeping up into the wide bowl of the sky above, where soon I knew the evening star would make its first appearance.

  Watching the men work the sails and the ropes with experienced ease, I gave myself up to the sinuous rising and roll of the ship’s deck beneath my feet, leaning at times to the will of the wind at an angle that tested my balance.

  But I didn’t mind. I was looking at Daniel for most of the time, because seeing him here on the Sally was proving a small revelation. It occurred to me that, though I’d seen him smile and even laugh before, I’d never seen him totally content until this moment. He looked the same person, but … different. He looked so at home here, the voyager, eyes to the distant horizon, relaxed at the helm.

  The same thing that made me so nervous, this whole thought of venturing into the unknown, seemed to cause him no bother. In fact, it appeared to be one of the forces that drove him. Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, with his plans to bravely sail beyond the sunset, Daniel had the look of someone who would not be bound by lines on maps or dragons that were drawn there, but would set his own course to discover what lay at the end of it.

  I watched him till the cooling night breeze chased me down below decks once again, where Fergal set me to helping him parcel out hard bread and ale to the men with a stew made of fish that he’d somehow prepared in a cauldron secured on a firebox of bricks in the galley.

  The food was simply made and roughly eaten, but I gladly ate my share and then retired to my private cabin where, with Fergal stationed like a sentry in his galley just outside my door, I braved the swinging hammock. It embraced me like a lover’s arms, and sent me off to sleep with dreams of ships and sails and distant shores that lay beyond my view.