Moonwitch (16 page)

Hardwick, who had followed her uneasy gaze, merely grinned. “Don’t concern yourself, Mrs. Ramsey. The captain was born at sea, for all that he claims to have spent his first twelve years on land.”

It seemed to be true, Selena reflected four afternoons later as she watched Kyle. A storm was swiftly approaching, and already the sky was thick and gray. The wind whipping through the rigging made the topsails flap so hard that hearing was difficult, yet Kyle looked as if he were enjoying every minute. He stood at the helm, his long legs braced against the roll and sway of the ship, his face turned to the wind.

Selena saw him shout at Hardwick over the snapping canvas and creaking tackle. And at the mate’s reply, Kyle threw back his dark head and laughed.

This was how she would remember him after they parted, Selena thought: laughing in the teeth of the wind, loving the sea in all its capricious moods, embracing life with joy. Here, he was in his element. Indeed, he was
like
the rugged elements: Free and untamed, raw, powerful.

This was where he belonged—not tied to the land. He was not a farmer. No matter how large or luxurious or comfortable a plantation, he would never be so at home as he was at sea.

And when, caught up in the exuberance of the moment, Kyle met her gaze and grinned at her, Selena was sure of it. She understood the excitement he found in the sea then, and for a heartbeat or two, she even shared the feeling. But only for a moment. During the past few days, she had come close to overcoming her dread of ships, but now the swelling waves flecked with whitecaps made her recall how she had lost two of her dearest loved ones to a hostile sea, and the increasingly choppy motion of the schooner renewed her fears.

She didn’t want to return to her cabin, where she would be trapped if the
Tagus
were to sink, but as the thunderheads grew more ominous, Kyle ordered her below. Selena went reluctantly, for it was cold and dark down there; no braziers could be lighted during a storm, or even lanterns, Hardwick had explained to her, for fear of fire.

“Awk! Come to tea!” Horatio said in greeting, fluttering his wings.

Selena didn’t have the heart to reply. There would be no tea, since the galley stoves would be cold.

As the afternoon wore on and the rain began, the conditions became worse. Bright veins of lightning briefly illuminated the cabin and the foamy, rolling seas beyond the porthole, making the intervals of darkness seem even blacker. Even the parrot provided little solace, since he grew silent except for an occasional squawk.

Shivering as she crouched in her bunk, Selena could imagine what the men were going through on the decks of the pitching ship. The pelting rain had become a downpour, and several times she was almost thrown from the bunk as a tempestuous swell lifted the schooner only to drop her with a sickening lurch. Minutes later, as the ship rode the crest of a wave, a gust of wind caught her sails and hurled her forward into the trough. When they sank so far down that Selena thought they would never come up again, she knew she couldn’t stay below any longer, not in the dark bowels of a ship that seemed like a coffin.

Her stomach knotted with fear, she staggered and groped her way along the companionway and up the stairs, gasping as she pried off the hatch cover. The rain was cold and slashing, and it drenched her before she could pull herself up on deck, making a shambles of her bonnet and plastering her pelisse against her body.

Yet she breathed easier in the open. Laboring to replace the cover, she struggled to her feet.

The clap of thunder, which sounded like a cannon’s roar, startled Selena less than the fierce fingers that suddenly gripped her arm. She looked up to see Kyle glaring down at her in the dim light, water streaming down his face in rivulets.

“Blast it, woman, what are you doing up on deck! Don’t you know you could be washed overboard?”

She could scarcely hear him for the wind howling through the shrouds, but as if to prove his point, a shower of spray burst above the gunwale as the ship pitched to starboard. She would have fallen except for the powerful arms that came around her and pulled her close.

“Please,” Selena asked, clinging to his shoulders, “I’m afraid down there in the dark.” It was scarcely lighter here, but even the wretched cold and wet was easier to face than confinement below.

A muscle flexed in Kyle’s jaw, and he looked as if he would refuse, until Hardwick, who had materialized in the teeming rain, shouted, “Maybe you should let her stay, Captain!”

“Please,” Selena repeated.

Kyle relented. “Get her an oilskin and a line,” he commanded Hardwick, before leading Selena amidships and settling her in the protection of a bulkhead, where she would be partially sheltered from the rain. He had shed his own oilskin in order to move more freely, but there was a rope tied around his waist, she noticed.

When Hardwick returned, Kyle lashed the thick cord to an iron ring, then secured it around Selena’s waist. “Don’t move so much as a finger!” he ordered as he draped the oilskin over her. “Stay here, where I can find you.”

She nodded, but Kyle was already moving away, bent low against the wind and rain. If she lived through the storm, she would thank him, Selena vowed.

During the next hour, she spied him occasionally as he battled the elements; he seemed to be anywhere he was needed and to be doing the work of three men. From where she sat, she could just make out the helm, and when he was at the wheel, Selena fixed her gaze on him, drawing courage from watching him. It came as a vague surprise to her to realize how much she trusted him to keep the ship safe. She wondered if he was enjoying the battle.

He was not, in fact, for while he might relish a challenge, he took no pleasure in risking the lives of his men. Already he was calling on every ounce of skill he possessed to hold a course in the rough sea, continuously judging the sail needed to keep the
Tagus
close to the wind. Too little would have her floundering; too much would make her top-heavy and put her in danger of capsizing or shattering a mast.

Then the storm struck in its full fury, and the high waves that were battering the wooden hull threatened to swamp the ship. Having exhausted his limited options, Kyle sent two of his best tars above to reef the main topsail. When that did too little to reduce the risk of capsizing, Kyle himself went up the mainmast, along with Tiny, armed with an ax to cut away the main topmast.

Below, Selena watched the proceedings, her stomach churning, her heart in her throat. Kyle had ordered her forward, out of the way of falling timber or canvas, but she could see the small figures of the men high above her head, illuminated by shards of lightning streaking across the charcoal sky. It seemed that at any moment the wind that shrieked through the rigging would pluck them from their precarious perches, sending them plunging to the deck or into the sea to be swept away by the foaming breakers. Either way would mean death.

When the topmast finally gave way, Kyle was nearly caught in the tangle of ropes as it fell. A cry broke from Selena’s lips as he clutched at a backstay to save himself, but the sound was drowned by the creaking of the mizzen topsail as it was ripped by the wind. The ship lurched oddly, and a spar crashed to the deck, but Selena’s gaze was riveted on Kyle.

When she finally determined that Kyle wasn’t going to fall and tore her gaze away, she saw Hardwick making his way aft to aid the helmsman, who had been directly beneath the falling spar. The first mate had discarded his safety line, and just as he crossed the open forecastle deck, a huge wave broke over the port rail, spewing a foaming cascade of black water down upon the ship. Selena stared with horror as he lost his footing and went down.

As seawater ran off through the scuppers, another flash of lightning showed her that Hardwick hadn’t yet been swept over the side. He was curled against the railing, holding his ribs as if in pain.

It wasn’t a conscious decision that made Selena leave the shelter of the foremast to go to his aid. She only knew that Hardwick was in no condition to save himself, and she at least still wore a rope.

The mountainous wave caught her when she was still two yards from him, propelling her across the pitching deck and knocking the breath from her lungs. Blindly, desperately, she made a frantic lunge at the direction she had last seen Hardwick, and when her fingers closed over wool, she wrapped an arm around him and hung on for dear life.

The rope jerked taut, jarring her whole body, and something hard and blunt rammed into her ribs, making her gasp in pain. But though she was near to choking as another fierce wave washed over her, she never relinquished her hold.

It seemed an eternity before the waves diminished and she heard someone call her name. She was pinned beneath something wooden and heavy, she realized vaguely, coughing up some of the seawater she had swallowed. And it hurt to move.

“Selena! Dear God, Selena!”

She wondered why Kyle was shouting at her. She didn’t know what she had done to make him angry again, but she wanted to tell him she was sorry; there was far too much anger between them. Racked by a spasm of coughing, though, she couldn’t catch her breath to form an apology or even a protest when Hardwick was pried from her death grip.

“Selena, are you hurt? Damn it, look at me!”

She opened her eyes to find Kyle kneeling beside her, his large body shielding her from the worst of the blinding rain, his fingers cupping her face. “Are you in pain?”

Not much, she thought, taking stock, except for the ache in her lungs from inhaling so much water and a dull throbbing in her ribs. She had lost her sodden bonnet, too. Selena shook her head, and the next instant she found herself in Kyle’s arms, crushed against his chest. She couldn’t breathe with her face pressed against his woolen coat, but absurdly, she didn’t mind being smothered. It was far nicer than drowning.

“God, you gave me a fright,” he croaked when he finally loosened his hold, a ragged note of relief in his voice.

“Hardwick?” Selena managed to ask.

Kyle glanced beside him, where Tiny was bent over the unconscious first mate. Hardwick’s chest was dark with blood.

“He’s alive, at least,” Kyle shouted in her ear. “We’ll take him below, but he’ll have to wait till I can see to him. The worst is over, but I’m needed here, and I can’t spare any of my crew.”

Selena hesitated, turning to look at Hardwick. Even if the storm was abating, it would be some time before anyone was able to doctor the injured man. And she had tended enough wounds—from machete slashes to coral reef abrasions—to have a basic grounding in medical skills.

“I’ll go with him,” Selena said, although she knew that with the onset of nightfall the cabins would be pitch-black.

The smile Kyle bent on her was one of gratitude and approval, and it warmed her to her very soul. She would have braved the sea itself, she thought, if she could have been the recipient of another smile like that.

She caught her breath as Kyle helped her rise, wincing at the pain in her bruised ribs, but shook her head when he asked sharply if she needed medical attention herself. She was glad for his support, however, when she had to negotiate the wildly rolling deck again.

Taking care of Hardwick wasn’t as bad as she feared, however. When Tiny had carried the unconscious man to Selena’s cabin, he risked lighting a lantern, securing it to keep it from falling and setting the ship on fire. In the glowing light, she could see at once that Hardwick’s wound wasn’t fatal. Unlike hers, his ribs were probably broken, but the blood was only caused by superficial lacerations from slivers of wood.

She had Tiny strip off the wounded man’s wet clothes and tuck him beneath a warm blanket, and when she was alone with her patient, she braced herself against the violent rolling motion of the ship and went to work removing the splinters and binding his chest with clean strips of cloth. She was glad to be occupied, for it prevented her from dwelling on the fate of the schooner.

Hardwick woke shortly afterward, not remembering what had happened after the first wave had hit him, and anxious, despite his pain, to return to his duties on deck. Selena alternately soothed and threatened, until she finally convinced Hardwick that he was in no condition to do battle and wouldn’t be until his ribs healed. Then she managed to find him a bottle of rum when he asked for it, hoping it would ease the worst of his pain. He was pleasantly happy by the time Tiny came to check on him and was sleeping peacefully when Kyle entered the cabin an hour later.

Kyle listened a moment to his mate’s quiet breathing, then glanced down at Selena. She was sitting on the floor beside the bunk, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around herself.

“You saved his life,” Kyle said quietly. His tone held an odd note—of gratitude and pride and perhaps awe—that made Selena lift her face to him. Kyle drew in a breath. With her hair half escaping from its pins, she looked pale and bedraggled, even pitiful, as she huddled there, shivering. Something in his chest tightened.

“Selena,” he murmured, sinking down before her, “are you all right?” Placing a gentle finger under her chin, he compelled her to meet his gaze. “What is it?”

“Would you…” Selena whispered, her teeth chattering, “do you suppose… you could hold me?”

She was still clothed in the wet pelisse and gown, he noted, and was chilled to the bone. But it was more than the cold that was causing her body to shake so. She was only now realizing, he guessed, how close she had come to death.

Wordlessly he opened his arms, and when she came into them, he could feel her body trembling. “There’s nothing to fear now,” he said gently, stroking her damp hair. “The storm is over.”

“It wasn’t the storm. I thought…you would fall. I was afraid you would be killed.”

Kyle pressed his cheek against her hair. He had been afraid, too. Afraid that he had lost her to the sea. “Don’t ever,” he breathed, remembering that devastating moment when he had looked down to see that mountainous wave sweep over her, remembering the helplessness he had felt, “disobey me again.”