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“Th’ gun, Rusa,” he said hoarsely. “Take th’ gun.”
She hesitated, wondering if he was insisting for a reason or if this were only some feverish whim. There’d be no way she could hide one of his long-barreled pistols beneath her clothing the way he did, and she’d feel downright foolish to appear in the Swan’s galley before the cook brandishing a gun like some sort of pirate’s lady.
“Take it, Rusa,” he rasped again, fumbling beneath the coverlet for the gun. “You must, chère.”
“Rest now, Michel, and stop worrying about me,” she said softly, but he had finally drifted off to sleep, and she quickly left before he woke.
She had been aft to the galley several times with Michel, and it was easy enough to find by the fragrances from the cooking pots. But this time the kettles were empty and the fire burned low, and the only person in the galley was the towheaded ship’s boy, Israel, at the table peeling potatoes with little interest or aptitude.
“Where’s the cook?” asked Jerusa as she went to fill a battered pewter pitcher from the water barrel. “Mr. Geary’s unwell, and I wished to bring him some broth, if the cook has any, and some dry biscuits to try to settle his stomach.”
“Cook’s taken sick, ma’am,” said the boy laconically. “Him an’ his mate both, same as th’ cap’n hisself. But I warrant you can have what you pleases.”
Jerusa looked at him sharply. “Did they all eat the same fish that Captain Barker bought this morning?”
“Aye, aye, ma’am, that they did.” He jabbed his knife into another potato. “Cook an’ his mate an’ th’ cap’n. An’ now yer man, too, I warrant.”
“Then who is in charge of the ship?”
“Why, Mr. Hay, o’ course,” answered the boy promptly.
“Of course,” echoed Jerusa uneasily. Perhaps this was the reason that Michel had wanted her to take his pistol. Swiftly she gathered the pitcher and the basket with the other food. “Please tell the cook when you see him that I shall pray for his recovery.”
She hurried back toward their cabin, the heavy pitcher balanced carefully before her. She should be thankful that Mr. Hay was aboard and well. From what she’d seen he was a competent sailor, and so near were they to their destination, he could surely see them to Bridgetown safely, and that was what mattered most.
But when she climbed down the last steps to their cabin, she was stunned to see Hay himself waiting outside the door.
“So there you are, Mrs. Geary,” he said cheerfully with a bow. “I’d wondered where you were about. I’d heard your husband had been stricken, too, and I came to see how he was faring.”
“He’s resting now, or was before I went to the galley.” She tried to squeeze past him to her door, but stubbornly he blocked her way. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Hay, I’ll be able to see his condition myself.”
“Asleep, you say?” he said, still not moving. “I could have wagered I heard him answer himself when I knocked on the door not five minutes past.”
“Then perhaps my husband is awake,” she said uneasily, wondering why he insisted on staying. If he was the Swan’s master, didn’t he have more important things to do than to linger here, provoking her? “He’s been quite restless. Or perhaps you woke him.”
Though he shook his head, his smile remained. “Well, now, I’d be sorry if I’d done that. But the strangest part is this, Mrs. Geary. When I knocked on your door, do you know how your husband answered?”
“Mr. Hay, my husband isn’t well, and I—”
“He asked if I were Jerusa,” declared Hay, continuing as if she hadn’t spoken. “Jerusa! Can you fathom that? Calling me after a woman’s name, and the name of that missing Newport lady in the bargain.”
“Oh, Mr. Hay!” she scoffed. She would bluff; she had to. “Whyever would my husband do such a thing? I’d say you’ve been reading that handbill of yours a bit too far into the dogwatch and dreaming of yourself chasing after wealthy young ladies.”
“I’m not dreaming now, am I, Mrs. Geary?” He leaned closer, his smile becoming more of a leer, and Jerusa’s thoughts fearfully jumped back to what had happened with Lovell in the alley.
“Not dreaming, no,” she said as tartly as she could. She would not let herself be afraid or he would know, and everything would be over. “But from your unseasonable actions, Mr. Hay, I can only conclude that you are ill as well as the others. Now if you would let me pass—”
“Nay, Mrs. Geary, not quite so fast. I’ve yet to tell you what else I’ve heard your husband say. He speaks in French, Mrs. Geary. Did you know that? Prattles on as if he’d learned it in the cradle.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Hay, that is because my husband’s mother is French, and mothers are generally the ones to rock cradles. Not that any of this is your affair in the least.”
“I’m the captain now, Mrs. Geary,” he said, his smile fading, “and it’s most definitely my affair if we’re harboring a Frenchman on board a decent Yankee vessel.”
He edged closer, and Jerusa decided she’d had enough of bluffing. She swung the heavy pewter pitcher as hard as she could, catching him in the jaw and drenching him with water. He swore and stumbled back, and as he did, she wrenched open the latch and threw open the door to the cabin. But she was only halfway inside before Hay grabbed her arm to pull her back.
“Let me go at once!” she cried, struggling to hang on to the door and fight her way free of his grasp. “Let me go now!”
The basket flew from her arm, scattering biscuits in the air, and when she tried to strike him again with the pitcher, he twisted it from her fingers and tossed it down the companionway with a ringing clatter. But as he turned, she was able to jerk her arm free, and swiftly she whirled into the cabin.
“Come back here, you lying little bitch!” growled Hay as he grabbed for her again, slamming his shoulder against the door to keep it open. With a yelp, Jerusa tumbled back onto the deck as the door flew open with Hay behind it. With another oath he swept down to yank her to her feet, and as he did he caught the glint of metal from the corner of his eye, realizing a fraction too late that it was the barrel of Michel’s gun.
“You lying French thief,” he said, panting, as he slowly rose to his feet. “I should throw you and your little whore over the side where you belong.”
“Foolish words from a man in your position, Hay,” said Michel. His hair and face were slick with sweat, but as he sat against the pillows his eyes were ice-cold and his hand holding the pistol didn’t waver a fraction. “Are you unharmed, chère?”
“I’m fine, Michel,” said Jerusa breathlessly as she scrambled up from the deck. “But you—”
“I warned you, ma mie. You should have taken the gun,” he said, his gaze never leaving Hay’s face. “This ship is remarkably overrun with vermin.”
“Speak for yourself, Geary,” snarled Hay. “You’re the worst of the lot, a yellow-bellied Frenchman hiding in some chit’s bedclothes. Why, I’d wager that gun isn’t even loaded, you cowardly little French bastard!”
Jerusa gasped, seeing the change in Michel’s face. Better than Hay, she knew all too well exactly what Michel was capable of doing, and loading the pistol was the least of it.
“And you, Hay, you doubtless believe yourself to be a brave man for speaking to me like that,” he said, his musing tone deceptive. “Would you care to test yourself against me, Hay? At this range a blind man could hit you, but if you truly believe that this pistol is only a prop, then come, I invite you to take it from me.”
Jerusa flattened herself against the bulkhead and squeezed her eyes shut, terrified of what she’d see.
If he killed George Hay now, would it be her fault, too? Another death, as Michel said, another man who would live still except for her? And would it be like this when he met her father, too, insults and dares and then coldhearted death?
“It’s your choice, Hay,” Michel was saying. “You leave, and you agree never to insult this lady again, or you gamble your life on whether I’m the coward. Your choice, mon ami. Your choice.”
God in heaven, she could not look….
Chapter Sixteen
Damn you, Geary,” sputtered Hay. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, would you?”
Michel shrugged. “I’m French. You’re English. Can you be sure what I’ll do, eh? And you have a knife, don’t you? If my gun’s but a bluff, mon ami, then you can use your blade on me. Not even an English court would find you guilty.”
He watched and waited as Hay decided. Sacristi, the mate’s bland English face was so open he could read the fool’s thoughts as if they were written on his forehead. He himself had played this game so many times that it held neither risk nor excitement for him any longer. Spaniards could still surprise him on occasion, but Englishmen like this one, quivering before him, always backed down because they cared too much for their own skins.
Mordieu, but he was tired, and his head throbbed and burned like the crater of Montagne Pelée, the old volcano beyond St-Pierre. It was taking every last bit of his concentration to hold the pistol steady. Hay must be hesitating because of Jerusa. Not even an Anglais wished to be thought a coward with a woman watching.
But to Michel’s surprise, she wasn’t watching. Instead she’d pressed herself as flat as she could against the bulkhead, as if she hoped she’d somehow squeeze through the cracks to another, happier place. Her face was pale and her eyes were closed, and Michel frowned with concern, wondering if she, too, was ill. Then he remembered the alley in Seabrook, and what in his fury he’d done to her there. Poor Rusa, no wonder she was terrified! Remorse swept over him as he saw she was trembling, and he longed to be able to tell her this would not end that way.
But his own hands were beginning to shake, too, and his shirt was plastered to his chest with sweat. That way, this way: he didn’t care which ending Hay chose, as long as he did it soon.
And to Michel’s relief, the Englishman did. “Very well, Geary, have it your way,” he said abruptly, his face red enough to be on the verge of apoplexy. “I’ve a vessel to command. I can’t tarry here until you come to your senses.”
“A wise decision,” said Michel blandly. He waved the pistol’s barrel from Hay toward Jerusa, and contemptuously he noted how that slight gesture was enough to make the mate’s eyes grow round and owlish. “Now your regrets to the lady, s’il vous plaît.”
Hay sighed with irritation as he turned to bow curtly in Jerusa’s direction. “Forgive me, ma’am, if I have offered any insult to you or your person,” he said. He glared back over his shoulder at Michel. “Does that satisfy you, Geary? Or must I bend my knee and kiss the chit’s hem?”
Michel clicked his tongue, scolding. “You can begin by not calling her a ‘chit’ or any of your other charming little endearments again in my hearing. ‘Mrs. Geary’ will be sufficient.” He leaned back against the pillows and lifted the pistol’s barrel to tap it gently once, twice across his lips. “If I hear otherwise, you will answer to me. And next time, Mr. Hay, I shall not be as understanding. Bonjour, monsieur.”
His eyes had already begun to close as the Englishman slammed the cabin’s door. He felt the gun slide from his fingers onto his chest, and though he vaguely thought he should stop it, he didn’t seem able to make his hand cooperate. He didn’t seem able to do much at all except slip further into the heat and the darkness that were drawing him down, pulling him under like velvet waves, so warm and soft and black….
“Michel?” asked Jerusa anxiously. “Michel, love, are you all right? Can you look at me, Michel? Please? It’s Jerusa, and I want to know if you’re all right.”
But if he heard her he made no sign that he did. His skin burned with fever, and he’d gone limp as a doll made of old rags. This wasn’t right, she thought frantically. How could he have been so lucid—and so menacing—only minutes before, and now be unconscious?
“Oh, please, Michel, can you hear me at all?” She brushed her fingertips across his brow, smoothing aside his hair. His forehead was dry and hot, too hot. Belatedly she thought of the water pitcher she’d thrown at Hay and knew she’d have to go back to the galley for more.
With a sigh she looked down at the pistol on the coverlet, where it had slipped from Michel’s fingers. Lord, he’d left it cocked, and with a little grimace she picked the gun up and latched the flintlock before she cradled it in the crook of her arm. She didn’t want to take the thing with her at all, but she didn’t trust the mate to keep his word, especially not with Michel ill, and with one last look at Michel, she headed back toward the galley.
The boy Israel had finished peeling the potatoes and had moved on to a wooden trencher filled with onions. With tears streaming from his eyes, he barely looked up when Jerusa returned.
“Cook’s no better, ma’am,” he said, flicking off the onion’s thick yellow skin. “Nor is th’ cap’n, they say.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” murmured Jerusa as she refilled the pitcher she’d retrieved rattling around the mainmast between the decks. “I hope they’ll all feel better soon.”
Israel tossed the peeled onion into a battered iron kettle. “Either they will or they won’t, ma’am,” he said philosophically. “Hopes an’ wishes got nothin’ to do wit’ it.”
Unhappily Jerusa thought of Michel. “But surely our prayers will help.”
“If’n you say so, ma’am.” He glanced up at the tin lantern that hung from the beam overhead. The motion of the ship had increased, and the lantern was swinging back and forth so that their shadows danced first large, then tiny, along the bulkhead. “No cookin’ tonight, anyways, ma’am. I warrant th’ order will come down most any minute t’ douse th’ cook fires. We’re in for a blow, no mistake.”
No mistake, indeed, thought Jerusa uneasily as she made her way, stumbling aft to the cabin. She could hear how the wind had changed from the higher-pitched sound that shrieked through the rigging above her, and beneath her feet the deck seemed to have a new life of its own, plunging up one moment and then down the next with such unpredictable violence that before she reached the cabin she nearly spilled this second pitcher full of water, too.
In the bunk Michel hadn’t moved at all. She dipped a handkerchief into the water and wiped it across his face, and then, feeling greatly daring, she lifted back the coverlet and his shirt to draw the damp cloth across his chest and arms. He was still warm, far too warm, but there was nothing else she could do for him now, and with a sigh she rinsed the cloth one last time and laid it across his forehead. She tucked the coverlet firmly around him and beneath the mattress, hoping to keep him from rolling into the high sides of the bunk.
The deck lurched again at yet another new angle, slamming Jerusa into the bulkhead. She had thought she’d found her sea legs by now, but she wasn’t prepared for this, and, rubbing her elbow where she’d hit the latch, she decided the deck itself would be the safest place. She sat beside the bunk with her head level with Michel’s, her feet braced against his trunk, her back against the bulkhead and the pistol resting in her lap, and prepared to ride out the storm and his fever both.
She didn’t know which frightened her more. As the minutes stretched into hours, the depth of Michel’s illness terrified her. Only rarely did he shift or stir, and though she tried to cool his fever as best she could, it seemed to her that his skin only grew warmer to the touch. She could feel him slipping further and further away from her, and there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do to draw him back. She knew from her brothers’ stories that illnesses here in the Caribbean were different from those at home. Here the heat made wounds turn putrid in an hour’s time, and a single fever could kill the three hundred men of a frigate’s crew in a week.
But Michel wasn’t going to die, she told herself fiercely. He’d only eaten some fish that had turned in the sun. Surely even in the Caribbean people didn’t die from such a thing. Besides, they were less than a day from Bridgetown, and there, if he still were ill, she’d find all manner of physicians and surgeons.
Gently she traced the line of his jaw with one finger, feeling the bristles of his beard. He was a strong man, a man too proud to die like this without a fight. Any minute now his fever would break, he would roll over and smile and call her his dear Rusa, and he would be fine.
He would be fine. Right as rain.
“I love you, Michel,” she whispered sadly. “Whatever else happens, I want you to know that. I love you.”
But her words were lost in the earsplitting crack that came from the deck, like a tree splintered by lightning. The mainmast, thought Jerusa with horror, for the sound had come from midships. As wild as the brig’s movements had been before this, her motion took on a new unevenness without the largest sail and mast to steady her.
Over the roar of the wind she could hear the faint voices of the crew, shouting orders to one another, and she could picture the men working frantically against the storm to free the Swan of the wreckage of her broken mast. She’d heard stories enough of what damage that wreckage could do, trailing over the side of a ship and pulling her sideways into the deep trough of a wave until she broached to and capsized.
She was straining her ears so hard to hear the storm that she hadn’t noticed when Michel had begun to mutter, his head tossing uneasily against the pillow. Eagerly she put her ear near his lips, but all he said was fragmented and jumbled, and in French, as well. And her name: dear Lord, had she really heard it? Again he murmured it, this time clear enough for her to know she hadn’t dreamed it. Maybe somehow he knew she was here, knew she was trying to help him.
Oh, Michel, how much I love you!
Grinning foolishly with no one to see her, she tugged him up higher onto the pillow and trickled water between his lips. The fever still held him in its grip, but to her, even the garbled words were so much better than the awful stillness.
More shouts, more wind, the ringing thump of axes as the lines were hacked away. But the shouts seemed closer now, and she could hear heavy footsteps racing up and down the companionway beyond their cabin. Somehow the waves seemed louder over the creaks and groans of the ship’s timbers. Was she imagining it, or was the brig riding lower in the water now, far enough down that only the pine bulkheads and the oak timbers behind them separated her from the sea itself?
Someone ran directly past their door. Sweet Almighty, she had to know what was happening! Bracing herself in the doorway, she pulled the door open and gazed down the narrow passage to the steps. Seawater splashed over her feet and skirts, and she realized the whole deck was awash. The lantern that usually lit the passage was gone, but an eerie, otherworldly light filtered down the steps, bathing the figure of the man coming toward her now with a strange glow that she realized must be dawn.
“Please, can you tell me what is happening?” she shouted at the man. “No one has told us anything!”
The seaman shook his head with exhaustion as he peered at her. “Cap’n’s dead, ma’am,” he shouted back hoarsely to her. “Dead from th’ sickness. We’ve lost th’ mainmast whole an’ half th’ mizzen with it, an’ we’re takin’ water something awful. We’re workin’ every man at the pumps, ma’am. Every man.”
Before she could ask more, he staggered off, bound for the pumps himself. Her terror mounting by the second, Jerusa forced the door closed again and went to crouch beside Michel. She had thought he was improved, but Captain Barker had died. But not Michel; please, God, not Michel, too! She threaded her fingers through his as much to comfort herself as him, and was rewarded by him turning his face toward hers, the merest hint of a smile on his lips.
She listened to the sounds of the storm, her fingers tight around Michel’s. The night before her father or any of her brothers sailed, Mama had always made a ritual of saying special prayers for them at the supper table before grace, and the unspoken belief in the family was that that alone was the reason none of the Sparhawk men had ever been lost at sea. But what if she were the one who was drowned instead, if she were the one who never returned home, whose grave in the churchyard was empty beneath the headstone?
Accustomed as she’d become to the shrieking of the wind and sea, she still jumped and gasped when she heard the pounding on the cabin door.
“Open up, Mrs. Geary! It’s me, George Hay!” shouted the mate, his voice ragged from struggling to make his orders heard over the wind. “Open up now!”
She seized the pistol from where she’d left it on the bunk and stood close to the door. Storm or no, she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “What is it you want, Mr. Hay?”
“Damnation, woman, I want to talk to you!” he roared. “Now will you open the door, or must I break the bloody thing down?”
She took a deep breath and opened the door, and immediately Hay lunged for her. But this time she darted backward, away from him. With her legs spread wide against the ship’s pitching and her back against the bunk for support, she held the pistol level with both hands and aimed it squarely at his chest.
“For God’s sake, put that down!” he ordered. “Haven’t we trouble enough without you waving a gun in my face?”
She raised her chin, shouting herself. “You tell me, Mr. Hay.”
Hay raised his hand toward her, but she shook her head vehemently and held her aim. His hat was gone, his clothes as wet as if he’d worn them swimming, his hair without its ribbon hanging lankly to his shoulders. He swore, wearily wiping his face with the soaked sleeve of his coat, and if he hadn’t threatened her earlier she would have pitied him.
“You’re coming with us, Jerusa Sparhawk. In the boat, with me. Now.”
Still she shook her head, refusing to believe him.
“Look, the Swan’s going down,” he explained heavily. “There’s nothing we can do to save her. We’ve ordered the boats, and we’re shoving off, and you’re coming with me.”
“No!” Wildly she glanced over her shoulder at Michel. “I’m not going anywhere with you, especially not without Michel!”
“For God’s sake, woman, if he’s not dead now, he will be soon. Barker went hours ago. You’ll die yourself if you stay here.”
“I don’t care!” cried Jerusa. “I’m not leaving Michel!”
“You bloody little fool,” growled Hay. “I’m not going to leave a fortune like you behind to go to the fishes.”
He reached to take the gun away from her and instead she jabbed the barrel against his chest.
“Once before, Mr. Hay, you had to guess whether this gun was loaded and primed or not,” she said, her raised voice almost giddy. “You can guess again if it pleases you, or you can leave again. But remember that either way I have nothing to lose.”
He stared down at the gun, then at her, before he backed away. “Then damn you to hell, Miss Sparhawk. You and the Frenchman both!”
This time he didn’t bother to slam the door when he left, and Jerusa had to put all her weight behind her shoulder to force it closed against the wind and spray that were sweeping down the passage.
“Rusa, chère.”
Jerusa whipped around. Michel was sitting up in the bunk, watching her.
She ran to him, the pistol swinging clumsily in her hand as she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Michel, you’re alive! Thank God you didn’t die, and, oh, Michel, how much I love you!”
“Then put down the pistol before you kill me.” He smiled weakly as she pulled away to drop the gun onto the bed. “Now, what is happening, ma mie? What did Hay want now?”