Seger, Maura (23 page)

"I don't see what there is to postpone. I will not marry you simply to give my child a name."

"Our child."

Reluctantly she conceded that point, but added, "When I get back to the States, I will present myself as a widow. If people don't believe me, too bad."

"You aren't going back to the States. At least, not without me."

"Are you about to tell me again that I can't get away from you?"

"No," Storm conceded. "That will only make you angry, which is the last thing I want to do. But it's still true."

His frankness won a reluctant smile from her. She studied him for a moment. "Do you really intend to stay here in the cabin?"

Storm nodded, bracing himself for another demand that he remove himself. But Erin surprised him. She merely sighed tiredly and snuggled further into the mattress. "Then would you please pull up the covers? I'm cold."

He complied instantly, too relieved to question why she was willing to put up with his presence. Despite the generous width of the bunk, it was impossible for them to keep from touching, especially since Storm insisted on sprawling out in all directions. Erin finally gave up trying to evade his arms and settled into them with poor grace.

Did she imagine the gentle brush of his lips against her hair? Perhaps not, for his voice was undeniably tender as he asked, "Will you be able to eat the breakfast Odetsu is getting?"

"Let's not talk about food."

"Just a little. Surely you could manage that."

"If I do, will you leave me alone?"

"No, but at least I won't nag you for an hour or two."

Erin shook her head in bewilderment. "For a man who yesterday didn't want a child, you certainly are full of surprises. How can I be sure you won't change your mind again?"

"Because I tell you I won't. Yesterday I was shocked and guilt-ridden. So I behaved badly. If you will forgive me, I assure you it will never happen again."

He glanced down at her hopefully, but Erin wasn't about to be so easily cajoled. Dubiously she asked, "Why should you feel guilty?"

"For getting you pregnant, of course."

"Didn't I have anything to do with that?"

"Yes, but it was up to me to prevent it."

Propping herself up on an elbow, she gazed down at him with what looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a teasing smile. "What makes you think you're the only one who knows how to avoid pregnancy?"

Storm's eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to tell me—?"

"I'm much better informed than you think."

"Oh, really? Then suppose you describe to me exactly how one prevents conception."

"That's easy," Erin announced smugly. "There's a magical incantation I learned long ago."

As Storm chuckled, she recited, " 'Unhand me, you brute. I am not that sort of woman.'"

"Works, does it?"

"It must. After all, look what happened when I forgot to use it."

The tension eased out of his big body as he gathered her closer. A burnished hand traced the petal-soft curve of her cheek with infinite gentleness. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being so much more sensible than me."

"Is that why you say you love me, because I'm sensible?"

"Of course. You didn't think it was because you're ravishingly beautiful, delectably responsive, marvelously intelligent and a good businesswoman to boot, did you?"

"I'm not."

"Which?"

"A good businesswoman. If you hadn't agreed to help me, I'd never have gotten the
Emerald Isle
and
Nantucket Moon
outfitted."

"Putting aside for the moment the matter of your overwhelming modesty, I wondered if you were ever going to admit that."

"I just did."

Storm yawned. He was worn out from his rum-sodden night and drained by the realization that she was willing to forgive him. Later he would be more than happy to properly celebrate their reconciliation. But for the moment he was in desperate need of sleep.

"Let's consider it a wedding present," he suggested.

"I'm still not sure we should get married."

"We'll discuss it later."

"When?"

"After we're wed."

Erin sighed. He was the most stubborn man. But then, she really wouldn't want him any other way. A satisfied grin curved her mouth as she nestled closer to him. Storm grunted contentedly, one big hand lying over her abdomen with the other tangled in the silken skeins of her hair.

They were almost asleep when shouts from the deck brought them suddenly upright. As the meaning of the words sank in, Storm flung himself from the bunk. He was reaching for his swords as Takamori burst into the cabin with the news that their sanctuary had at last been discovered. The shogun's fleet was rounding the point near them, under full sail, with gun portals opened.

Chapter Fifteen

"How could we be taken by surprise like this?" Erin exclaimed as she and Odetsu hurriedly loaded rifles and handed them one after the other to the sharpshooters stationed on the deck.

Storm had tried to prevent her from taking on that task, but she had made it quite clear that it was either that or let her go below to help the men arming their dozen cannons. He had relented reluctantly, only after being assured by Odetsu that she would stay close to Erin's side.

"It was the fog that came up last night. We could not even see the ships in our own convoy. I would not be surprised if the shogun's forces were as startled as we are to discover us here."

"If they are," Erin muttered, "they're certainly making the most of the opportunity."

Although the attacking fleet was comprised solely of Japanese ships, which were slower and less maneuverable than Western counterparts, the captains clearly knew how to get the most from their craft. Already they had managed to come close enough to fire several cannon salvos, one of which had just missed taking off a chunk of the
Rising
Sun's mainmast.

"Why do they all keep firing at us?" Erin gasped. "Shouldn't they pay some attention to our other ships?"

"Not if their commanders are as smart as they seem. If they can sink or incapacitate the
Rising Sun,
they will gain an immense advantage in the battle."

Erin lifted her head slightly to get a better look at what was going on. As she did so, a grizzled seaman caught sight of her and swiftly pulled her back down. His muttered curse was accompanied by the sound of a bullet whizzing past her.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but you've got to stay out of the line of fire. This ain't no time for gawking."

Murmuring her apologies, Erin got back to work. She lost count of the number of rifles she loaded, pausing only long enough to help fill buckets of water to snuff out the flaming arrows fired onto the deck by samurai archers. Like the samurai of the Satsuma fleet, their code of Bushido made them despise guns in favor of more traditional weapons.

Though Storm's sharpshooters succeeded in picking off many of them, they continued unrelentingly. Each time a man fell, another quickly replaced him. The
Rising Sun's
Japanese forces were every bit as determined. They managed to fire the sails of several ships in the shogun's fleet and started a major blaze on one of the smaller vessels.

The frigid morning air was soon black with acrid smoke. Cries from the wounded rose on all sides. As the ships moved so closely together that the sharpshooters no longer had any advantage, the women turned their attention to caring for the casualties.

Erin mobilized a makeshift dispensary staffed by the servants brought from Storm's Yokohama house. Since they were the only people who could be spared from the fighting, they were kept busy bandaging gunshot wounds, digging out arrowheads, stanching bleeding, and offering what comfort they could to the wounded and dying.

In too many cases, the injuries were so severe that nothing could be done. The stores of laudanum were quickly depleted. Bodies covered by blankets began to line one wall of the dispensary. As a young boy grasped her hand, crying out in pain and fear, Erin shook herself dazedly.

It was as though time had rolled back and she was once more in the war hospital, surrounded by shattered men. The differences in appearance and language were insignificant. They were all part of the same humanity devouring itself in some obscenely cannibalistic rite.

The
Rising Sun's
cannons had begun to fire constantly, the force of the blasts reverberating throughout the ship. Word filtered down of several sinkings among the shogun's fleet and the disabling of more vessels. Two Satsuma war junks were crippled, but managed to make for shore after transferring to other ships all of their crews that could still fight.

Storm appeared occasionally below deck to offer a word of encouragement to the men at the cannons and check on the wounded. Despite the near-freezing temperatures, he wore only the same wrinkled shirt and trousers in which he had spent the night. His swords were buckled around his tapered waist and a pistol was stuck into his belt.

All signs of the rum's aftereffects were gone. His slate-gray eyes glittered with determination and his mouth was drawn in a hard, thin line. The burnished planes and hollows of his face were shadowed by a night's growth of beard and something more.

Erin did not doubt that he was also torn by anguished memories of other battles. Yet the mere sight of him was enough to bolster her flagging strength and renew her courage. They exchanged a quick look, full of tenderness and understanding, before hurrying on about their tasks.

As the battle raged on into midday, the shogun's forces resorted to a desperate gamble. With courage and skill that had to be admired even in an enemy, they brought several of their war junks close enough to the
Rising Sun
to fire a cannon salvo that took down her mizzenmast. It crashed to the deck, trapping several seamen beneath.

"All but one of them's dead, ma'am," a white-faced cabin boy reported to Erin. "We can't get the poor sod who's still alive out from under. He's caught fast and screaming something horrible."

Pulling a blanket over the samurai who had just died in her arms, Erin hastily gathered medical supplies and followed the boy on deck. As she stuck her head through the hatchway, she froze momentarily, unable to credit the scene before her.

The
Rising Sun
was completely surrounded by the shogun's war fleet and Satsuma vessels fighting to help her hold them off. The ships were so close together that their sides thumped and scraped against each other repeatedly. Storm was at the wheel, using the boom as a battering ram to smash through the prow of an enemy junk.

The ploy worked, but only just. He had barely a moment to turn at a precariously steep angle to avoid a cannon blast that would have taken out their midsection. The clipper pitched low on its side toward the water's edge, and for a sickening moment came close to capsizing. But the ship's superb construction and Storm's magnificent handling prevented it. They righted quickly, in time to see water flowing through the smashed prow as the junk began to founder.

"That'll show them bastards," a crewman muttered. "The way they build those ships, they're damn near watertight. But they didn't figure on the captain, here. He can sail or sink anything afloat."

Erin prayed the man was right. They were still surrounded by enemy vessels, several of which were now close enough to hurl boarding lines toward them. As she made her way across the deck, she was dimly aware of others scrambling to cut through the lines and at the same time throw their own. The battle was reaching its peak even as all her attention focused on the sailors trapped under the fallen mast.

Quickly confirming that only one was still alive, she knelt down beside the seaman who was writhing in pain from his shattered leg. The laudanum she poured down his throat helped somewhat. By the time the mast was heaved out of the way by straining men, he was mercifully unconscious.

Erin's hand trembled slightly as she examined him. She took a deep breath, forcing her emotions back under control. One of the steel bits that held the rigging in place had cut almost all the way through his leg. There was no possibility that she could save the limb. Blood pumped from severed arteries. He was bleeding to death before her eyes.

Turning to the cabin boy, she ordered, "Bring me water and towels, then get a torch and stand by until I need to use it."

He nodded and raced away, returning moments later with another young boy he had enlisted to help and the supplies she needed. Erin almost wished they had taken longer. She was not at all prepared for what she had to do, but time was running out and she had no choice but to act at once.

The white apron covering her blouse and skirt was soaked through with blood as she knelt beside the man again. Checking to make sure he was still completely unconscious, she removed a razor-sharp surgical blade from her satchel. Mercifully, the steel bit had already done almost all the work for her. Only a few quick cuts were needed to finish severing the leg.

Blood flowed over her hands to pool on the deck at her feet. There was but one way she knew to stop such a hemorrhage. Taking the torch from the boy, who turned away to retch, she applied it to the stump. The putrid stench of burning flesh filled the air.

If the man did not succumb to shock or infection, he had a chance of surviving. Erin was well aware he might not thank her for that. Her face was ashen as she watched him being carried below to the dispensary. For long moments she could not move or think. Overwhelmed by the horror all around her, she drew inward, trying frantically to find some safe place for her spirit to hide.

But there was no such sanctuary, as she realized an instant later when a fierce roar alerted her to the fact that despite the heroic efforts of her crew, the
Rising Sun
was being boarded. Within seconds Erin was surrounded by men fighting in hand-to-hand combat. She turned to flee, only to be stopped by the sight of Odetsu, her kimono caught up into impromptu pantaloons and a sword grasped firmly in her hand, clearing a path toward her.