Dreaming (25 page)

“Is something wrong?” She frowned, not knowing how to respond to his intensity. The surf echoed in the distance, but it was calm compared to the way her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

“No,” he said, his face like stone, nary a thing to be read there. He pulled his gaze away and closed the distance between them. He knelt, letting the wood fall from his arms, then he began to stack the wood for a fire. He used some flint and lit the wood, fanning it until they truly had a small fire.

“Here,” she said and held out one of the blankets, feeling awkward and out of place.

He straightened to his full height and turned, looking down at her. In his wind-ruffled hair, droplets of water caught the glimmer of firelight and misty fog that was behind him, seeming to almost glow. A halo for an angel who had fallen from grace.

She shivered again—not exactly from the cold air, but the coldness she saw in his eyes. They say the eyes are the mirror to one’s soul, but she’d never believe that Richard was the lost soul he thought he was. He had to work too hard at it.

He was staring now at the blanket in her outstretched hand. His look shifted to her shivering shoulders and slightly chattering teeth. He shook his head. “You use it.”

“But—”

“Don’t argue with me, dammit!”

She stiffened, caught off guard by the sharpness in his voice. “What have I done?”

He wouldn’t look at her. Instead he stared at the fire. After an eternity he said, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

“Can’t I help?”

He looked at her and his eyes grew cynical, then he laughed. “If you knew what was bothering me, you wouldn’t ask.” He seemed so distant. He stared at nothing, at everything, then he looked at her and said, “Go to sleep.”

She wanted to help, but she couldn’t if he refused to tell her what was wrong. Huddling down into the blankets, she lay down on her side facing the fire and rested her head on one bent arm. She watched the flames lick the air, wishing she were warmer.

The fog drifted inside and mixed with the smoke to make the air glow in an eerie, misty light that looked unreal. She closed her eyes and tried to get warm, to think warm. Even pulling the blankets tighter didn’t stop her teeth from chattering, and her knees and shoulders from shivering. She was so cold, and lying on the bare ground made it seem even colder.

She knew the moment he looked at her. She felt him watch her for the longest time, felt it when he shifted and moved. His boots crunched across the pebbled floor of the cave. A second later he stood over her. She held her breath, then released it when he knelt beside her.

The next thing she knew he was laying alongside her, his larger and longer body providing a shield of human warmth. He pulled her against him, his arms holding her firmly, his warm breath in her hair. “Better?”

She only nodded, because she couldn’t speak with her heart in her throat. And she lay in his arms, listening to the fire pop and snap, picking up the scent of wood in the damp air, watching the flames draw flickering shadows on the cave walls.

She might have been frightened from the shadows had she been alone. But she wasn’t alone. For some reason his being there was almost as warming as the heat from his body. It was the most marvelous feeling, knowing he was there for her. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have him there for her all the time, whenever she needed him.

She felt the rise and fall of his chest against her back, his hips cupping her, his legs along hers. She adored the feel of him, the closeness, taking in his scent, experiencing the thrilling whisper of every breath he took.

Her heart felt like a star inside her, burning so brightly she had the fanciful thought that she might glow from it. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He grunted a response.

She shifted slightly, her body wriggling naturally loser to his warmth.

She sighed.

He groaned.

“Am I crowding you?”

There was a long silent pause, then his only answer was to slide his arm tighter around her waist. It was enough of an answer for her. She smiled, and her eyes drifted closed to the snapping of the fire, the distant pounding of the waves, and the soft silly sound of Gus’s snore. But the last thing she heard was the most soothing: a voice as wonderfully sweet and smooth as hot chocolate.

“Go to sleep, hellion.”

The fog was even thicker in the Bristol Channel, where a blue smuggling
lugger
listed to one side from a canvas-patched hole and limped through the dirty weather with no direction—except the same wide circle in which it had been sailing for hours.

“Can’t see a
bleedin
’ thing.”
Phelim
stood on the bridge and turned the helm, completely unaware that he’d just steered the ship in a new direction. He scowled at the panorama of white fog and grumbled, “Turn
yer
eyes on the compass, Bertie, and give me some sense of direction.”

“Give ye a sense of direction?”
Philbert
said low enough to escape
Phelim’s
ears, then sniffed. “An while I’m doing that I’ll fly from the ship on fairy wings and tiptoe me way
t’shore
.”

Phelim
scowled at his brother. “Don’t stand around like
ye’ve
cannonballs in
yer
boots!”

“Better than cannonballs in
yer
head,”
Philbert
mumbled.

“Read the
bleedin
’ compass!”
Phelim
paused, then added, “It always points north.”

“I kin figure out how it works.”
Philbert
stared at the compass in his hand as if it were growing a head. “The needle’s spinning.”

“The Devil take ye, Bertie. Hold the
bloomin
’ helm and give me the blasted thing!”
Phelim
snatched the compass from his brother’s hand and repeated, “The needle’s spinning . . . Hah! What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”

“Most likely the idiot ye be.”

A mouthful of inventive curses drowned out everything but the sound of
Phelim
stomping across the cabin. He moved nearer the ship’s lantern hanging from an iron hook above the door and held the compass up to the dim light, squinting at it.

The door flew open with a
thwack
!

Unfortunately, the
thwack
was
Phelim’s
head hitting the wall.

Phineas
froze, the door in one hand. He looked across the room at
Philbert
, who was wincing.

A brass compass hit the wooden floor with a loud
clunk
and rolled out from behind the doorway. With a look of dread on his weather-crinkled face,
Phineas
hesitantly peered around the door.

Phelim
stood between the door and the wall, wobbled slightly, his face dazed, his eyes glassy and distant before they rolled back as he slowly slid down the wall.

Phineas
looked at his unconscious brother and chewed uneasily on a fingernail, then gave a resigned sigh. “He’ll be vexed over this one.”

“Ye think so?”
Philbert
asked in a droll tone. “Can’t think why
bashin
’ his hard head with a door might vex him.”

“What say we don’t tell him,”
Phineas
suggested, then glanced at
Phelim
. “Do ye think he’ll remember?”

Philbert
shook his head.

“Do ye think he’s hurt?”

“I’d wager an iron door couldn’t hit
Phelim
hard enough to hurt him.”

“True,”
Phineas
agreed with a nod as he continued to stare at his unconscious brother. Then he turned to
Philbert
. “I come t’ tell ye that Harry’s taken lookout near the bow.”

“Could he see anything?”

“
T’aint
nothing t’ see but dirty weather,”
Phineas
said. “Though Harry swears ’tis better to face fogs and storms, bloody pirates, and a hundred hungry sharks than that one female again.”

The sound of thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Did ye hear that?”
Phineas
said. “Figure there’s one corker of a storm brewing.”

“Sounds like
yer
stomach again t’ me.”

“
T’aint
me stomach.
Hain’t
had a thing t’ eat. ’
Tis
a raging thunderstorm, I tell ye!”

“Then tell me something else, Brother. If there be a storm . . . why isn’t this ship rocking?”

Phineas
scratched his head.

“Ye can’t have fog
and
a storm.”
Philbert
stared out the helm gallery at the foggy mist beyond.

The thunder rumbled again.

“Cannon t’ the left of me!” came a shout.

Both brothers turned, caught off guard.

Phelim
stood before them, one arm out of his dangling shirt sleeve and the other arm brandishing a grappling iron as if it were an admiral’s saber. He squinted one eye. “Cannon t’ the right of me!”

Philbert
groaned. “Not Nelson again.”

“God save the King and roast the frogs! Man the
gunports
, load the balls, and fire the eighteen-pounder!”

“That does sound like
cannonfire
,”
Philbert
said thoughtfully.

“’
Tis
a thunderstorm,”
Phineas
argued.

“No. ’
Tis
cannon.”

“Thunder.”

“Cannon.”

The booming grew louder.

Two minutes later the limping ship crashed into Lundy’s rocky coast.

Chapter 15

The Duke of
Belmore
leaned against the open door to their sitting room and reveled in the pleasure of just watching his wife—the witch. Joyous
MacQuarrie
Castlemaine
, Duchess of
Belmore
, stood in front a huge gilt mirror, frowning and making faces.

“No. That’s not right,” she muttered, tapping an impatient finger against her lips. “Let me see . . . ” Joy threw her hands up into the air and took a deep breath. “Eye of newt! No . . . no . . . no . . . That’s not right either.” She lowered her voice an octave.

“Oh, powers that be,

Please listen to me.

I’ve lost my aunt,

And find her I can’t.

Also missing is
Beezle
,

My familiar
—
a weasel
.

And Gabriel too,

A white cat with eyes of blue.

It’s my wish on a star,