Once Upon a Midnight Sea (12 page)

"Courageous is a better word for it," Henri said with a sideways glance. He picked up the dog and shushed it.

"It seems deeper than twenty-two feet."

"It is safe enough," Henri said. "You've got to swim again, someday."

"I shall swim," Christian said defensively. Mrs. Bailey's shriek of disapproval shrilled against his bones.

"Ga! A fine example of a man you make."

Christian turned around. The woman had an uncanny habit of materializing at the worst times. She seemed to have shed her seasickness, but not her rage. She planted both hands on her hips as she stared at him in disgust. Ollie wisely headed the other way.

"I declare, I have never seen a more inconsiderate rascal. Mr. De la Croix, you continue to astound me."

If looks could kill, Christian would be lying dead on the deck at this very moment.

"You may have noticed she dove in before anyone could stop her." He glanced over the edge again. Still no sight of Adriana. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat.

"I saw, all right, and heard. She asked if you would do it and you refused." She looked him up and down with disgust. "As if it would ruin those fine clothes you have stolen from Mr. Montague."

"I assure you, Madame, it is not because of the clothes. I don't swim."

Her mouth fell open. "I do declare, now I have heard everything. You are more foolish than I thought, Mr. De la Croix. Only an imbecile sets out on a ship not knowing how to sail
or
swim."

A splash brought his attention back to the water. He and Henri peered over in time to see Adriana disappear under the surface again.

"I didn't say I don't know
how
to swim, I merely said I
don't
swim."

"Enough," Henri growled. "I've been up all night, and this is how I'm greeted in the morning?"

Christian's guilt tripled, second only to a burning shame boiling in his gut. "I apologize, Henri."

Mrs. Bailey settled back, but didn't speak. Her lips pinched until they were as taught as a telegraph line.

"Christian, be honest with me," Henri started quietly. "Are you really still afraid of the water?"

From the corner of his eye he saw Mrs. Bailey's attention catch.

"We can talk about this another time," Christian told him.

"Oh please, do talk about it now," she challenged.

"You got to get over it, son. It was nearly fifteen years ago. It wasn't even in the ocean."

"
Oui
, Henri," Christian growled. "It was a lake, but I nearly drowned just the same." The incident was one of the last things he cared to recall. Since then, he hadn't missed swimming at all. It was a pastime for the frivolous.

Adriana splashed to the surface. "Draw anchor, Mr. Dupree."

She took hold of the rope Henri tossed over. With her wet hair pasted against her head and her green linen skirts floating behind her, she looked like some sort of ethereal sea nymph.

Standing on deck dry and unruffled, Christian felt genuinely useless. Adriana was right, he'd hardly lifted a finger, it was the others who had spent their efforts so far in rescuing his father.

Henri turned the windlass. The chain began moving as the anchor ascended. "Put the ladder over," Henri said with a flipped gesture toward the passage in the rail.

Before Christian could move to do it, Ollie shoved the ladder off the side for Adriana. She didn't look at him as she climbed on deck, dripping with seawater. Without the fluff of all her clothing, she was more slender than he'd realized. She looked as frail as a willow sprig.

"You poor dear, look at you!" Mrs. Bailey drew her close, soaking the front of her dress.

"Why Mrs. Bailey, swimming is wonderful!" Adriana said brightly. She glowed with new energy, as though the water had transformed her into another person. "Really, you should try it. We are going to sail through some of the most crystalline waters known to man. Ah, I do love the tropics! Ask Mrs. Ling prepare some eggs for me, will you? I'm going to take a bath."

She padded off, dripping a trail of water down the deck as Chauncy trotted happily along with her. Adriana didn't even know about his phobia of the water, but somehow she managed to make him look like a fool. Christian ground his teeth, refraining from quoting her own rule about bathing while at sea.

Henri secured the anchor and shuffled down the deck.

"Adriana says we will reach Hutchison's Island by this afternoon," Christian called after him. "She believes we should put up until tomorrow morning, and I agree with her."

The old man stopped and eyed him suspiciously. "You do now, do you?"

Christian nodded. "You've been pushing yourself too hard. I don't believe it will hurt to lay over for a night."

"Lord knows I could use a full night's sleep." Henri scratched his bristled chin. "And it sure does my soul good to hear you two agreeing on something, no matter how small."

Christian forced a smile. "We've become the best of friends."

Henri frowned. "Don't get smart with me, lad." He threw his arm over Christian's shoulder. When had the old man become so tiny and withered? "Join me for some of Mrs. Ling's fresh eggs, and we'll let Miss Montague know she can take the helm for the rest of the day."

"You and Ollie go ahead," Christian told him. "I'll post watch for a while. My share, you know."

Once alone on deck, he stared off at Florida's coastline. He'd never seen colors as vivid as this. A vibrant ribbon of malachite green vegetation separated the azure sky from an almost blindingly white beach.

He was in a new world and felt like a fish out of water. All this was familiar to Adriana; her ship, her sea, her tropics. Why did he feel so utterly useless? For five days he'd tramped down the cold uncertainty of his future, but no longer could he escape the truth.

He was afraid. Afraid he would fail his quest. Fail his father. Fail himself.

* * *

"How long have you been in my father's employ, Mrs. Bailey?" Adriana asked. She held Lady Luck twenty miles off the coast for safety. In the tropics, the waters were shallow and random reefs stretched for miles in some places. The far off strip of beach was hardly visible against a sky gray with overcast that, since noon, had grown increasingly darker.

"I came to America in August of fifty eight. Almost one year after your mother passed."

The irritable weather brought with it a warm breeze but left the sea amiable. They would reach Hutchison's Island by late afternoon, ahead of schedule. Adriana could have set the wheel and sat beside her on the stern bench, but she was more comfortable with the distance between them to ask her difficult question.

"Did you ever notice anything out of the ordinary about him?"

"As in what, exactly?" Mrs. Bailey's voice held thin disquiet.

"Illicit behavior. Unseemly associations." Adriana sighed. The words were hard to form, but no longer so hard to believe.

"Absolutely not. Do not tell me you trust anything that thieving itinerant has to say. Why, do you know he can't even swim?"

Adriana turned around. "How do you know?"

"When you were dislodging the anchor, Mr. Dupree questioned him about some long ago swimming accident, and he admitted it. He's afraid of the water."

No wonder Christian looked as though she'd asked him to cut off two fingers when she proposed he go in after the anchor.

Mrs. Bailey's expression softened. "No, I never discovered your father in illicit behavior."

Adriana turned back to the wide-open sea ahead of them. Calm and almost without waves, it looked like a vast tundra of ice under the pale sky. "Are you certain? Because I believe I did. Things I didn't understand then, which now seem to make sense."

Mrs. Bailey rose and stood by her side at the wheel. "Child, faith is believing what you know is right, even though you can't see it. You have to learn to trust."

Those words stung. "I do trust."

"You don't," Mrs. Bailey argued gently. "You said so yourself. You don't trust Cecelia, you don't trust Mr. Dupree, and you don't trust Mr. De la Croix, albeit with good reason." The matronly woman tossed a grimace in the direction of the hatch. "Now you don't trust your father, and he's not even here to defend himself. I wonder what it would take for you to lose your trust in me."

Adriana met her eyes. Mrs. Bailey's held a dark shadow of pain. Adriana had long suspected her guardian kept something unpleasant hidden in her past, but she had never spoken of it.

"Mrs. Bailey, I don't care what may have happened in your life before you came to us. As long as you have never done anything to hurt me or my father, I could never lose my trust in you."

The woman's gaze slipped away, but she quickly forced cheerfulness back into her eyes. "Your wellbeing is my foremost interest, as it is your father's. You know he would never do anything to hurt you."

Adriana nodded.

"Then you have no reason to lose your trust in him."

She turned her gaze back to the sea. "That is different."

Mrs. Bailey placed a hand on her arm. "How is it different, child?"

The words caught in her throat as she tried to speak them. "I've always believed my father to be a good man to others. It is the reason I am so proud of him." Hot tears welled in her eyes. Annoyed with herself, Adriana blinked them away.

"But if what Christian says about him is true, if he could actually turn on another man and abandon him to such a horrible fate, then he is not the man I have always believed him to be."

Agonizing hurt burned in her throat. She glanced into the sky.
Dear Lord in heaven, I cannot bear to lose that man
.

Chapter Nine

She walked down the aisle alone toward an empty pulpit. The priest, her father, Preston Weiss, and Henri sat around a card table off to the side. Instead of chips or coins, they threw tiny figurines into the pot to represent items from her inherited estate. Molded replicas of the ships in her father's fleet. Toy buildings representing the mansion in Baltimore, the hunting cabin in Nova Scotia, and the winter house in Port Arthur. Prancing horse statuettes symbolized her father's stable of prized Arabians.

She stopped at the end of the aisle and watched them play. The shouted out their desires, bargaining for her property while completely unaware of her in her flowing, beautiful dress.

She struggled to turn as though neck deep in slushy ice water. In the shadows at the rear of the church Christian stood idly, hands in his pockets, watching her with a cold expression.

Adriana woke gasping for breath. She was still in her cabin aboard Lady Luck. Twelve days had passed since Christian seized the ship in Chesapeake Bay. She was twelve days closer to her impending marriage.

Anchored off the coast of Grand Turk, Lady Luck rolled lazily as the current in Turk's Passage tugged at her hull. On deck, the soft thud of a loose rope on deck repeated in a slow staccato. Adriana sat up. There could be nothing wrong with merely going topside to make sure everything was in order.

She rose and pulled her silk robe over her shoulders, leaving her feet bare.
Just a quick peek, and I'll return to my cabin
.

The moon cast a glittering path across the water leading directly to Lady Luck. Silvery-blue light illuminated her gleaming deck. Christian was sitting on the low roof on the forecastle, staring across the water as if he could see his destination through the darkness.

Hearing her approach, he glanced over his shoulder with an expectant expression. When he saw her, his alarm faded and he turned back toward the sea. "You thought I was asleep at my post."

"I...the main spencer line was flopping," she said hesitantly, suddenly feeling wretched for expecting the worst of him. She glanced at her bare toes. "Yes."

She stepped closer, causing her heart to race with the daring of it. If Mrs. Bailey were to catch her out here, she'd have hell to pay.

She saw he held a worn piece of paper. "That is the letter from your father?"

He didn't answer, only refolded it and tucked it into his breast pocket. A woeful breeze brushed past them, lifting the longish ends of his hair away from his face. Adriana glimpsed it then, the misery creasing his brow.

"May I see it?"

He whirled around and the anger in his face made her cringe. She expected him to explode with her as the target of his fury. Instead he let out a long sigh and the tension left his shoulders.

"You needn't fear I will toss it overboard," she said defensively.

Christian's eyes met hers again. He watched her for a painful minute, as if weighing her trustworthiness. Almost reluctantly, he drew it from his pocket and handed it to her.

Adriana sat near him on the edge of the fore cabin and unfolded it. The date at the top read September 17, 1872. It was almost two years old. The paper was crumpled and well worn, as if it had been read a million times. Written in French, Adriana had to hold it close to make out the faded words in the moonlight.