A Brother's Honor (7 page)

She looked at his legs, which remained half in the water. Like hers, his feet were bare. She noticed a swelling in his right ankle and did not dare to touch it. If it had been broken, she feared he might never walk again. As her fingers slid along his breeches, which were ripped and flapped at his knees, she shivered with sensations she did not want to acknowledge. Even in senselessness, his sensual power continued to exert its beguiling control over her.

Abigail shook those thoughts from her head and looked over her shoulder again. Still no one on the stones. If the English remained in the other cove, she might be able to save him.

As she reached to grab Dominic's left arm, she heard another sound. This low grumble had not been a moan, but the distant drumbeat of thunder. In horror, she saw clouds had swallowed the moon completely.

“No, not now,” she whispered. Just thinking of a storm terrified her, urging her to race into the shelter of the trees.

She must not leave Dominic here. He had saved her from the last storm. To abandon him to the waves would make her worse than a French pirate.

Stooping, Abigail put her hands under his arms. She tugged. She collapsed to the sand. Dominic was tall, past six feet, and he carried no extra flesh on his muscular body, but in spite of that, she could not budge him.

She glanced upward. The sky was laced with lightning, revealing the contortions of the storm clouds. Thunder sent fear rumbling through her, and she gripped his arm again. She braced her feet against the sand. Taking a deep breath, she took one step backward, then another. She wanted to shout with joy when his senseless body shifted.

Each excruciatingly slow step demanded all her strength. Sweat lacquered her nightdress to her back. She did not dare to stop, fearing he would sink into the sand. She might never get him moving again.

“Wake up, Dominic,” she repeated over and over. If he woke, then he could help her save him.

Although her breath seared beneath her ribs, Abigail kept moving until the grass at the edge of the strand slipped beneath her feet. She pulled Dominic beneath the trees and sat, cradling his head in her lap as she panted with exhaustion. Pressing her hand to her side, she kneaded it to ease the pain. An ache ran from her shoulders along her spine.

Dominic did not react when she lowered his head to the ground. Jumping to her feet, she plucked some ferns and ran back onto the beach. She swept away any signs that someone had been dragged off the sand.

More thunder cracked as she ran back to where he was lying. When lightning played across the sky, she pulled him toward some fallen trees that were piled atop one another. A legacy from another storm, she guessed, and hoped the trees would protect them now. With a tired groan, she wondered if he had gained weight since she had pulled him from the water. A crack of thunder spurred her.

Dragging him beneath the overhang of dead branches, she wished he would wake. All her hopes were useless. He was still senseless.

A few drops of rain struck her as she collected two pieces of wood from under the trees. She looked up, but no more rain fell. It must have been spray sent ashore by the rising wind. She bent her head and ignored it as she placed the wood along both sides of Dominic's ankle to keep it immobilized and bound them together with another strip from his shirt.

Abigail froze with renewed horror when she heard voices not far from her. Was someone searching for survivors?

“The storm will wash it all back out to sea before we get a chance to gather it.” The man's disgust was clear.

“Don't fret,” said another man. “What the sea takes away tonight, she'll wash back on the morrow.”

“But if 'twas one of the king's ships, his men will be here to lay claim to every morsel.”

“Who's going to tell the king's men about this?” The second man's laugh was swept away by thunder.

As the men's voices vanished into the distance, Abigail fought not to scratch the itchy spot on the tip of her nose. It was harder to ignore than the burning along her arm where salt had gotten into the scratches left by Dandy when she had tossed her cat out of the ship's window. She wondered where Dandy was now.

She could not look for him. She could only cower in the shadows and watch as dark forms hurried away from the strand. Their voices continued to drift to her as the men went along a path on the far side of the fallen trees. They were curious about why a ship had exploded just off their shore, but were more eager to discover what of her cargo would wash to them.

She shifted, then froze again when the branches around her rubbed together at her motion. No one slowed along the path. Shouts of excitement announced that some of the debris had reached shore and been gathered to take back to the village that must be farther inland.

How long had she been crouching here? Every muscle protested, and that blasted itch threatened to undo her.

Leaves rattled beside her. Just the wind or …?

“Dandy?” she whispered.

Abigail got no answer, but she saw his small prints in the mud beneath the trees. She flinched when a weak explosion tossed more debris across the water. One of the barrels of gunpowder must have washed away from the ship before detonating.

Inching back more deeply into the shadows, she could not halt her sneeze. Not moving, she waited for someone to follow the sound. Then she realized that the people were too interested in getting their prizes back to their homes before the rain fell in earnest. Now anyone else who reached shore from the ship had a chance to hide, too.

But what if you and Dominic and Dandy are the only survivors?

She sighed, wishing that thought had remained silent. Hanging her head over her knees, she stared out at the sea that was now the same black as the night sky. So many had died. She was not sure for what purpose.

The wind wheezed at Abigail, spinning the hem of her nightdress about her legs. When the wind rose to a shriek, she huddled under the branches and pulled them closer to her and Dominic. Her cat slipped in to sit behind her to escape the storm.

Dominic moaned.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

She got no answer. Tearing another strip from his shirt, she wrapped it around his head. The other one was already stained crimson. She did not know how much blood he had lost, but she doubted that he would live if it continued to seep out of him at this rate.

“Please wake up,” she whispered.

Lightning seared the sky. Abigail moaned and, hiding her face in her hands, huddled next to him.

When Dandy curled up near her chest, she put her arms around him. How she wished someone was holding her. “Please wake up, Dominic,” she whispered again, more desperately.

Why didn't he open his eyes? The thunder was loud enough to wake the dead. In horror, she stared at the shore.

Waves, which had been gentle strokes on the beach, began to crash with a vengeance. She did not know what would happen to the unburied bodies. Fearfully she prayed they would not rise to haunt her. She closed her eyes as she imagined the faceless man crossing the sand.

She flinched at a tap on the leaves overhead, but it was only rain. Her shaky laugh filled the rough shelter. The worst of the thunder's fury soon would be past.

She had survived it!

A drop striking her head cut short her celebration. When she looked upward, another fell on her nose. She glanced at Dominic. The rain was taking no pity on his helpless condition. Reaching beneath her, she grasped some green ferns. She held them over his head like an umbrella.

Drawing her knees up, she balanced her elbow on them. She frowned when her elbow struck something in the sash of her wrapper. She pulled out the pistol. Sweet heavens! She had forgotten it while rescuing Dominic and facing the tempest's fury.

“You continue to be trouble, Dominic,” she said, although he could not hear her words. “But when you wake up, it will be different. I promise you that. I am not your captive any longer.” She laughed again as she ran her finger along the pistol's barrel. “You shall be mine.”

Chapter Six

Dominic St. Clair's first thought when his senses returned after an infinite eternity of darkness was an oath that did not reach his lips. Pain cut through him. He was not sure where he was injured, because his agony was too powerful and too pervasive. Every bit of his body ached. The anguish began in his head and radiated down him. His right arm was on fire, and his right ankle throbbed.

He cursed again, although the sound never left his mind. The last time he had ached like this was when he and his then partner Evan Somerset had nearly died while smuggling an early Renaissance painting out of Florence. His only consolation as he had spent a month healing was that those who had attempted to halt them had suffered more.

Had they been jumped again? He dismissed that thought. He and Evan had parted ways several years ago when they had disagreed about accepting a commission to steal another piece of art. Evan had warned it was a trap, and it had been. Dominic had escaped with his life and his crew's, but his ship had been sunk. His despair at losing that ship had been eased when he obtained
La Chanson de la Mer
after he promised to serve Napoleon as a privateer near the English coast.

It had not been as interesting a life as smuggling art. Yet he had vowed to serve Napoleon, and he would not break that vow for anything or anyone, not even to save himself from his own boredom.

As his eyes creaked open, Dominic stared at the green and brown blur over his head.
Trees
, his slow mind suggested, but trees at a very odd angle. Then he realized the tree trunks must be lying on their sides with their branches spread across the earth. But how had he gotten from
La Chanson
to whatever this place was?

Not
La Chanson
, he reminded himself grimly, but the American merchant ship. Memory burst into his mind with renewed agony, and he cursed. Only a dull croak sounded in his ears. Damn, crazy Americans! When they learned that they had no choice but jail or a noose, they tried to destroy the ship and themselves. Apparently, they had succeeded in achieving the martyrdom they wanted.

Dominic St. Clair was no saint ready to die so worthlessly for his country. No one loved France more than he did, but he would have served Napoleon poorly by getting himself killed by a crew of American zealots. If he had suspected that Fitzgerald had left such orders behind him, he would have slain every man on the ship. If …

There was no time to think of “ifs.” He had to discover what this place was and how he had gotten here. It must be the English shore, because they had not sailed far enough toward France before the mutiny began for him to reach landfall there.

He tried to focus his eyes to ease the blur into something that would give him a clue to what had happened since his last memory. Even that memory was uncertain, but it was clear that someone had brought him to this place. As resourceful as his enemies considered him, he knew his own limitations. In his obviously pitiful condition, he could not have dragged himself from the beach without help.

Hands appeared out of the fog surrounding him. Compassionate hands which made every effort not to hurt him as they gently placed a cool cloth on his head. He moaned as a swift pulse of pain almost stripped away his senses again.

“Who is it?” To his ears, his voice sounded as wobbly as an old man walking along a cobbled street with his cane.

When he received no answer, he wondered which one of his enemies had survived the ship's sinking. But why would any of his enemies keep him alive? Mayhap he had been rescued by one of the English. Again he dismissed that thought instantly. They were as much his enemies as the Americans and would have killed him before he could regain his senses. Then who was tending to him? He repeated his question.

“Hush, Dominic. You should not strain yourself.”

In disbelief, he listened to the softly husky voice which was undeniably feminine. Only one woman had been aboard the
Republic
. “Abigail?”

“You are exerting yourself when you should be resting. Please stay calm.”

Frustration fired him, giving him strength he had not expected he could find. He pushed against the sand as he struggled to sit, although it was an effort simply to keep his unfocused eyes open. “I demand that you tell me—”

“Stay still. You have a head wound, and you should remain quiet for as long as you can,” she ordered.

When her slender hands on his shoulder kept him pinned to the ground, he realized that he did not have the strength to fight her. Moving slightly, she reached for something just beyond the range of his vision.

Dominic stared at her profile. Why was she tending to him? She had cursed him when he had tried to persuade her that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had guessed she would be happy to see him dead. But, she was caring for him instead of leaving him to die on the beach.

He did not realize he had spoken her name aloud until she turned and asked in a whisper, “What is it, Dominic? You must be quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“The English are not far from here.”

An oath reached his lips. He snarled it again, but nothing eased his fury. “How many others?”

“From the ship?”

“Yes!”

In the gray of what he was beginning to realize was a rainy dawn, he saw her glance away. Toward the sea, he guessed when she murmured, “As far as I can tell, you and I and Dandy are the only ones who survived the explosion on the
Republic.
”

Dominic collapsed back against the ground. Just the two of them and the cat?
Incroyable!
Was she jesting with him? No—her face was serious in the dim light. “No one else?”

“Not that I have seen. Your enemies outnumber you, Dominic.”

“They always have.”

“You like long odds?”

“Always.”

Arranging her wrapper around her, she said, “Then you have your wish, Dominic. As far as I can tell, we and the cat are the lone survivors of the
Republic
. No one who might rescue us knows where we are. You have several bad burns, a useless right arm, and possibly a broken ankle. If those odds are not long enough for you, I am sure I can think of other reasons why our situation is appalling.”