The Creole Princess (46 page)

“Wake up, Charlie,” she muttered, “or I’m going to tell your grandfather you’re ditching your lessons again.”

She bent to seal his lips with hers again, but his chest lurched under her hands. He gave a strangled cough, and water bubbled from his mouth. Relieved, terrified, Fiona scrambled to shove at Charlie’s shoulder and back until she had him half turned. He continued to cough, weakly at first, then with agonized hoarse gasps. Fiona pounded his back with all her strength, helping him rid his lungs of the suffocating seawater.

“Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”

Finally she heard him whisper something, and she paused to bend close to his lips. “What?”

“Sto . . .” He wheezed.

“What?”

“I said st . . . stop hitting me,” he choked out. “Headache.”

Abruptly she straightened. “You’re alive! Oh, thank God, you’re alive!”

Charlie winced. “Yes, but would you mind lowering the volume?” He opened his eyes, those familiar, piercing cerulean eyes that she saw in her dreams.

Well, one was blue, and the other had that odd hazel-brown splotch. Perfect, Charlie was not. She sniffed back tears. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Er . . . you too.” He coughed, then frowned as he stared at her. “You look an awful lot like someone I used to know.”

“You don’t remember me?”

The stare intensified. His face was sunburnt, sand-encrusted, and there was a large bloody gash over his left eyebrow. But of course he was Charlie. Nobody else had those oddly colored eyes. And likely she looked just as unrecognizable as he, for nine years had made a significant difference in her appearance.

As if following her thoughts, Charlie’s gaze traveled downward from her face, and one eyebrow rose with that droll quirk she’d loved so much. “I think I’d remember you, if we’d met before.”

Suddenly aware that she all but sat on him, Fiona jumped to her feet. “Oh, you! You haven’t changed one bit—except it used to be Maddy you were drooling over.”

“Maddy who? If there’s another one as pretty as you, I’ve landed in heaven.” He got an elbow underneath him and levered himself to a semi-sitting position. “What’s your name?”

She stared at him in chagrin. “You really don’t remember?”

“Right now I barely know my own name.” He looked around irritably. “If I haven’t broken down the pearly gates, where are we? Did I fall off my horse?”

Fiona looked around and found Bonnie ambling closer. Probably looking for food. “This is
my
horse, Bonnie. You seem to have washed in from the Gulf. There was a big storm last night.” She paused. She’d heard of people losing their memory after a head wound. “You had to have been on a ship.” But where was it? Frustrated, she scanned the empty horizon. There wasn’t a hunk
of wood or other detritus anywhere to indicate the type of vessel he’d arrived on. She shifted her gaze to the east, where an Indian trail ran toward Perdido Pass and on to Pensacola. Could he have come overland and then gotten injured and washed into the Gulf during the storm? It didn’t seem likely.

Clearly no more enlightened than she, Charlie didn’t bother to answer. Shutting his eyes, he simply lay back, as if too exhausted to even look at her any longer.

Now what was she going to do? She wasn’t strong enough to lift him onto the horse, and she certainly couldn’t drag him back to Navy Cove by herself.

“I should go get Léon,” she said aloud.

“So there’s a Maddy and a Léon, and a horse named Bonnie. I’ll just call you Duchess.”

She whirled to look at him, and found one eye open—the solid blue one—and his lips curled in a smile. “Then you
do
remember me!”

“No, I just—” The smile faded. “Your name isn’t really Duchess, is it?”

“Of course not, but everyone—that is, my family—But I told you about it the night you—” Drowning in memory and anxiety and confusion, she dragged in a breath. “My name is Fiona Lanier. My cousin Maddy and my aunt and uncle all stayed at your grandfather’s estate the summer I was eleven years old. It was a long time ago, but I would have thought . . .”

“If I hadn’t gotten brained and nearly drowned, I’m sure I would remember you,” Charlie said gently. “But do you think, Miss Fiona, we might find a way to get off the beach? Because, and I hate to mention it, I think the tide is going to carry us back out to sea before very long.”

“Oh!” With a start Fiona realized he was right. The surf had crawled inland until the waves had almost reached Charlie’s feet.

He was on his elbow again, clearly intending to stand up.

She shrieked. “No! You’ll faint—or . . . or something!”

But he rolled to his knees. “I’ll be fine,” he managed, panting. “Do you have a saddle for that horse?”

“Of course I do, but it’s at home. I just came out for a quick ride on the beach.” Suddenly she remembered the letter. How could she have forgotten Sullivan? She wrung her hands. Now she had an injured British aristocrat to care for, and Léon was going to be apoplectic.

“All right, well, bareback it’ll be then.” Charlie was on his feet, swaying like a man coming off a five-day bender. He lurched at Bonnie, who quite understandably pranced away from him. Charlie landed on his rear and began to curse in Spanish. At least she thought it was Spanish.

Laughing in spite of their predicament, Fiona grabbed Bonnie’s reins. “Shhh, it’s okay, girl, he looks like a lunatic, but he can’t hurt you.”

Charlie snarled and began again in French.

She let him run down, then said, “I’m sorry she hurt your feelings, but she doesn’t like to be mounted from the right.” She reached down a hand. “If you can stand again, I’ll give you a leg up.”

“She didn’t hurt my
feelings
, it’s my
bum
that aches.” But he laughed and grasped her wrist, coming to his feet with surprising agility for a man who had nearly succumbed to Triton’s fury. She let him regain his balance with a hand on her shoulder. He was so tall that the top of her head barely reached his lips. She looked up at him, trying to find the boy she’d known in this mysterious stranger.

He stared back down at her, his expression just as muddled as she felt. “I
do
know you, somehow,” he muttered. “I just can’t remember . . . You said my name is Charlie, and that feels right. You mentioned my grandfather. Where is he? Did he bring me here?”

“No, he’s—” Should she tell him he was English? Did he know
there was a war between their two countries? “I don’t know how you got here.” She shrugged. “This is Mobile Point, the isthmus that separates Mobile Bay from the Gulf of Mexico. I live about two miles across on the bay side, at Navy Cove.”

Charlie squeezed her shoulder in friendly fashion. “All right, then, duchess of Navy Cove, if you’d be so kind as to cup your hands, I’ll endeavor to boost myself onto your trusty steed. Then I’ll swing you up, and we’ll away.” He grimaced. “We’d do it the other way ’round, except I fear I’m not exactly in fine fettle at the moment.”

The deed was accomplished with more comedic effect than grace, but in a few moments Fiona grasped Charlie’s extended hand and let him swing her behind him onto Bonnie’s back. She put her arms around Charlie and took the reins, clicking her tongue to give Bonnie leave to walk.

She had ridden astride behind her brothers all her life, but this—clutching Charlie-the-stranger round the waist just to stay on—was another kettle of fish entirely. Not only was it awkward and uncomfortable, but she had enough sense to know that it was highly improper. Mama would not have approved. Maddy would definitely not approve. Léon would likely challenge Charlie to pistols at dawn.

None of them must ever know. She and Charlie would enter the barn from the back side, put the horse away, and hope nobody saw them. She could pretend Charlie had walked all the way from New Orleans. Or something.

There had to be some way to explain his presence, his injury, his obvious Englishness.

Oh, dear Lord, what was she going to do?

Beth White
’s day job is teaching music at an inner-city high school in historic Mobile, Alabama. A native Mississippian, she is a pastor’s wife, mother of two, and grandmother of two—so far. Her hobbies include playing flute and pennywhistle and painting, but her real passion is writing historical romance with a Southern drawl. Her novels have won the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Carol Award, the RT Book Club Reviewers Choice Award, and the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. Visit
www.bethwhite.net
for more information.

Books by Beth White

G
ULF
C
OAST
C
HRONICLES

The Pelican Bride

The Creole Princess

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