The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (29 page)

Moore puked again.

“So what did he do?” Cranton drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, trying to filter his air through his sleeve. “What dark and awful secret did he take to the grave?”

It was a long while before the helmsman spoke. “He murdered his best friend.” And then, in the stunned silence, he added, “and it was over a woman.”

Chapter 22

It seemed as though Andrew would never leave.

Eventually, though, her deliberate yawns got through to him and bidding her a good night he opened the door, exchanged a few words with the sentry that McPhee had posted just outside, and found his own cabin.

Nerissa wasted no time.

She wolfed down what was left of the cheese to replenish her energy, waited for five, ten, twenty minutes until she was sure her brother was safely back in his own cabin, and set to work rooting around in Ruaidri’s desk. Her stomach clenched at the thought of what she was about to do, what she intended to do, though she saw no way out of it.
Oh, God give me strength!

There. A glass paperweight, smooth and green, tiny bubbles inside it frozen in space and time. A shamrock dominated its center.

A shamrock. She hoped that it, along with her own determination, would be the instrument to save an Irishman from the gallows.

She hefted it in her hand, getting the feel of its weight. The glass molded itself to her palm, lent strength to her fingers and her own resolve, and grew warm.

I can do this.

I
have
to do this.

She found a knife, hacked at her gown, pocketed the strips. Then she went to the door and quietly pulled it open, one hand on her stomach, the other discreetly behind her back.

“Good evening, my lady,” said the sailor who stood there. “What can I do for you?”

“This storm… It is making me unwell. I need some fresh air.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, no, I’m quite all right. I fear that I may be sick, and I would be dreadfully embarrassed to cast up my accounts in front of you or anyone else.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen much worse.”

“I’m sure you have, but I do have my sensibilities, sir, and I am asking you to respect them.” She gave a moan to add emphasis to her nonexistent
mal de mer
. “Is the storm waning?”

“It is, but we’ve become separated from the frigate. I’m sure well find them at first light.”

“We’re all alone out here on the sea?” she squeaked, pretending a frightened gasp.

“You are under the protection of the Royal Navy, milady. There is nothing to fear.”

“And was that awful—” she gave a sudden, quivering sob, wondering if she had a career on Drury Lane—“Irishman, properly disposed of? I would dread to have him rising up from the dead and ravishing me.”

The seaman eyed her askance. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“He’s not dead. Wish he was, though, for what he did to you. No gentleman should ever strike a lady.”

And no lady should ever strike a gentleman, but this one is prepared to if you don’t let me pass.

“He’s not dead?” She widened her eyes and clutched at her chest in feigned terror. “Oh, dear God in heaven help me!”

The sailor drew himself up. “There is no cause for alarm, milady. The rogue is barely breathing and his own surgeon just spent an hour trying to patch him up. Not worth the bother if you ask me.”

Nerissa pretended to shudder. “And where is he now? Am I safe up here on deck?”

“McPhee put him below about twenty minutes ago with the rest of his scurvy bunch of pirates. He won’t harm you, milady. The lieutenant himself is guarding the hold.”

“The lieutenant himself? Why, I do feel much safer, sir…but since he’s the one now commanding this ship, I would have thought he’d have assigned such a task to one of the midshipman. Is that awful Captain O’ Devir so very dangerous?”

“Not so very dangerous at the moment, but very, very important.”

She appeared to consider that. “What about that young man with the cherubic curls? Walters, I believe?”

“Walters has the deck. If you turn and look in that direction, you can see him in the darkness. Again, you are quite safe, my lady.”

She nodded, remembering she was supposed to feel seasick, and passed a hand over her brow. “I need to get some air,” she said and began to move past him, but she knew he was going to be difficult; his eyes were on her, and he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Certainly not long enough for her to slip below. The minute she disappeared, he would raise the alarm, thinking she’d fallen overboard in the still-heavy seas.

She felt the heavy, reassuring weight of the paperweight with its little shamrock in her palm.
You can do this.

I can’t!

You can, because you’re doing it to save
his
life.

The guard was right behind her. She pretended to trip, and pulling off a nonexistent necklace, let it fall to the deck.

“My choker!”

“Eh?”

“My choker! It was a gift from my brother for my twentieth birthday. Oh, do help me, sir, I fear I’ve lost it in the darkness!”

She began to sob and sure enough, the sentry put down his pistol, dropped to his knees, and began to search with his palms on the wet, salt-sticky deck, eager to be the one to save the damsel in distress.

The damsel, though, raised her hand, uttered a silent prayer for strength and forgiveness, and gave a little cry as she brought the paperweight down hard on the back of his head.

The feel of the impact in her palm and up her arm was awful, and the nausea that suddenly flared in her stomach was not feigned. She allowed herself a moment of horror as she looked down at the man’s prostrate form, both awed and sick at heart that she had actually struck someone down. She sucked her lips between her teeth, pulled from her pocket one of the strips that she had cut from her ruined gown, and hastily tied it around the fallen man’s wrists. A second piece secured his mouth in a gag, and bending down to make sure he was still breathing, she picked up his pistol and left him there on the deck in the darkness, hoping that squeaky-voiced Midshipman Walters would not come back here to check on him.

Walters himself was at the tiller, conversing with the helmsman. Neither had heard a thing over the roar of the sea as it creamed past the ship in the darkness.

Gripping the deckhouse, skirting a mast, Nerissa crept quietly behind them, thankful for the sound of wind and wave, the trusty Irish paperweight still securely in her hand. It was slippery and she told herself it was only salt spray, and not the sentry’s blood.

There, in the darkness, was the hatch that led below. She knew the layout. A short companionway ladder, which she easily descended in breeches and coat. Lantern-light behind a cabin door.

Andrew.

She bit her lip, then reached into her pocket. Found a strip of her gown. Quietly, carefully tied the door shut against its neighboring latch so that he would be safe—and unable to interfere.

Another hatch, and finally the hold, where McPhee would surely be on guard.

The ship was pitch black. She paused for a moment to get her bearings. Around her, the quiet was eerie and frightening, the sound of the sea rushing past outside, muffled. She wished she had a candle, though the risk of carrying one and being discovered was too great. She would have to rely on her memory, and her senses.

I’m coming, Ruaidri.

I won’t let you down.

Her palms moved along wooden bulkheads as she felt her way forward and steadied her balance. Great masts creaked in the heavy darkness. And there, a noise. Just below and somewhere in front of her; the sound of low voices and a man moaning in pain.

She had found the hold.

Which meant that McPhee was nearby.

Her gaze plumbed the darkness, but to no avail. She took a deep, steadying breath and held it, straining to hear something, anything.

And there, yes. Snoring.

McPhee, it seemed, was asleep.

She listened to the light, rhythmic sound of his slumber, trying to discern exactly where he was. She moved silently to her right. There, barely discernible in the pressing gloom, she could see a dim glow. Praying that the steady snores would continue, she crept toward it, the glow getting brighter as she moved around the base of the foremast, a bulkhead, and there, finally, the small space in which McPhee had crammed himself, his back molded to the curve of the hull, his cheek across his drawn-up knees and his feet resting on the hatch cover beneath which the American crew was imprisoned.

A musket and a pistol lay near his heel.

Nerissa swallowed hard and began to creep forward, bringing up the pistol she had taken from the sentry and training it on McPhee’s still form.

He didn’t move.

She crept closer, the agonized moaning coming from below that closed hatch causing her heart to beat a little faster. Was it Ruaidri? Or some other poor soul, desperately in need of medical attention and trapped like an animal in the darkness?

Three more feet and she would be able to touch McPhee.

She crept forward another few steps and holding her breath while keeping her gun trained on him, slowly reached down to retrieve his pistol.

His eyes opened and he jerked up, staring at her.

“Don’t move,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her quaking nerves. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Lady Nerissa?”

“Open the hatch.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I can’t shoot you, either, but I will if I have to. Open the hatch.”

“You’ll have to shoot me, then. And the moment you do, my men will be down here like a swarm of hornets.”

“There are a dozen of you. And one less, if you make me shoot you. There are, if I guess correctly, some forty Americans and one nearly-dead Irishman locked in that hatch below your feet. While we both place great faith in the Royal Navy, Mr. McPhee, even you will acknowledge those are pretty long odds.”

“Do you know what you’re
doing
?”

“Indeed, I have thought it out most carefully.”

“You’re the daughter of one of Britain’s noblest, oldest families, a family whose very history is interwoven with England’s itself. You are about to betray your country, your family, your navy!”

“Open the hatch.
Now
.”

He let out a deep sigh, unfolded himself from against the hull, and reached for the latch that kept the square wooden door firmly atop the space in which the prisoners were kept below. She did not expect him to give up without a fight, and indeed he did not; as he undid the latch, he swung around in a lightning move and made a grab for her pistol and everything happened at once.

Her arm jerked up, the small weapon went off, and as the cover exploded off the hatch, a horde of Americans came bursting forth, intent on reclaiming their ship.

“Huzzah for you, Lady Nerissa!” shouted Lieutenant Morgan as he clambered up and past, knocking a stunned McPhee onto his back while seizing the British lieutenant’s weapons. He went tearing out into the darkness, his shipmates, stinking of sweat and salt and blood, howling like Indians in his wake. One of them stopped to tackle McPhee, quickly binding his wrists with a piece of rope that Nerissa had found and now offered silently; the last strip from her gown secured his mouth, and then there was nothing but his eyes meeting hers from above the gag, the sounds of fighting from above, and down here in the darkness that was lit only by the dim glow of McPhee’s small lantern, the yawning black hole of the hatch.

“Let this be a lesson to you, Mr. McPhee,” she said, her fingers tightening around the lantern, “to never go to sleep on the job.”

He shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the curve of the hull, no doubt already envisioning his own court martial and dishonorable discharge from the Royal Navy.

But Nerissa didn’t care.

She was already climbing down the short ladder into this wretched small, hot space, already shining the light into what had been pitch blackness, already looking for
him
.

“Nerissa,
mo grá,
” he said weakly, from where he had been dragged to a corner and propped up against someone’s jacket. “
Mo cróga, bean laoch álainn.
” He was still in the bloodied breeches, a clean band of linen wound just above one knee. “My brave, beautiful warrior woman.” His eyes, deep and bottomless in the lantern-lit darkness, looked up at her through their absurdly long lashes, and she reached a hand, still smelling of gunpowder, down to touch his bristled cheek. He closed his eyes and held it there, reluctant to ever let her go, and she reveling in the warmth of his skin beneath hers, the knowledge that his heart still pumped his lifeblood beneath her hand.

“I could not let you die,” she breathed, kneeling down beside him and offering him the strength of her own slim, lithe body. His face was ghostly from loss of blood, and she could see that it was an effort for him to even keep his eyes open, let alone press her hand to his cheek.