Whispers from the Shadows (4 page)

“Yea!” Jack threw his arms up. And apparently tightened his legs around Father's neck to compensate, given the shade of red his face turned. “We all get to stay at Uncle Thad's house!”

“It will be a veritable holiday.” Thad tugged on the boy's foot, well remembering how it felt to be atop Father's shoulders. Now he had to climb a mast to get that same sensation.

If only he had an excuse to do so. He nudged Arnaud with his elbow. “You can stay and visit. I can take the
Demain
out for you.”

His friend shot him a glare.

Father laughed. “Your mother would…” His voice trailed off, his
gaze on the street. A look of awkwardness took over his face, so that it was no surprise when he muttered out a low, “Ladies. Good day.”

Thad pivoted as the
clip-clop
of hooves penetrated his consciousness, and then he tipped his hat to the four ladies within the phaeton that rolled past. “Good day, Miss Rhodes, Miss Margaret, Miss Georgiana.” The stair-step sisters smiled at him, but his gaze went to their mother. When he had bought the house on this street, Mrs. Rhodes had been a bright woman, full of laughter and plots to pair him with one of her daughters, but in recent weeks her face had taken on lines of worry that deepened every time he saw her.

With a few long strides he matched pace with the slow-moving carriage. “Mrs. Rhodes, have you heard the latest stories from the sea? A British frigate was engaged in a most remarkable chase a fortnight ago and lost to one of Baltimore's own privateers.”

The woman's eyes lit up, and a few years fell from her face. “The
Dragon
, Captain Lane?”

“Without question. My friends do not use names lest the British intercept the missives, but the description was sure. Your husband and son are proving an invaluable menace.”

Mrs. Rhodes pressed a hand to her lips as her daughters erupted into a symphony of excited babbling. He kept his gaze on the matron, however, and lifted his hand to wave them beyond his lawn.

She lowered her hand enough to call out, “Bless you, Captain! Come by tomorrow. I shall have a pie for you!”

Arnaud snorted. “As I brought you that news, 'tis I who should get the pie.”

“Very well. You lay claim to the pie, and I shall lay claim to the sea.” He turned back around, his brows arched.

Arnaud made a show of debating and then grinned. “Enjoy your pastry,
mon ami
.”

They started back for the walkway, where Father stood shaking his head. Thad could hardly resist sending him a crooked smirk. “You can join me for the pie, Father. Enjoy an afternoon with Mrs. Rhodes and her daughters.”

Father narrowed his eyes. “How can you speak so easily to those baffling creatures? Sometimes I wonder from whence you came, Thaddeus.”

Laughter filled his throat and spilled out. “If you had not figured that out by the third child…”

“Thaddeus!”

His mother's voice tugged him toward the door and made the smile stretch wider on his face. He jogged her way, arms wide.

Father followed, muttering, “Perhaps you are a changeling. Stolen at birth and replaced with an identical child, but one with a confounding bent toward society.”

Mother chuckled as she came into his arms. The scent of lavender and violets drifted to his nose. Why was it that his own house never made him feel as at home as did that one whiff of her perfume? She gave him a squeeze and then, as always, pulled back enough to study him. “As handsome as ever, just like your father. Who,” she added with a pointed look past Thad, “knows well from where that streak of charm came.”

“Knowledge which would be even more frightening than the idea of a changeling, had our boy not inherited our sense along with my brother's affability.” Father winked and rubbed at his neck.

The gesture made Thad wonder when he had put Jack down and where the boy had gone. A happy squeal from the back of the house answered that question, so he focused on his parents again. “Mother, did he
have
to bring his entire laboratory?”

Her smile seemed never to change. Ever since he could remember, it had been that lovely, that faithful. “It seemed the wisest course, Thaddeus. One never knows when he might need to mix up a new batch of elixir.” By which, of course, she meant the invisible ink and the counter liquor to develop it. “And we certainly could not risk all his compounds falling into British hands, should they come to Annapolis.”

All inclination to jest dissolved on his tongue. He glanced over at Arnaud and then back to Mother. “Have you reason to think they will?”

“Nothing new.” Father urged them off the walk a step as Henry emerged again, set to grab the last of the wagon's load. “But normal operations have all but ground to a halt. My students have either taken up arms or gone to protect their homes, so there was no reason to stay.”

Mother nodded. “Amelia and the children are safely ensconced on their plantation, so we thought we would come here, nearer to you and Philly.”

“Put us to work, son.”

Exchanging a look with Arnaud, Thad gave a slow nod. With Father's arsenal of chemical agents and Mother's history with codes, they could prove invaluable indeed. Perhaps between them, they could make sense of the missive that had been bewildering him for the last week. The one from too important a source to be as benign as it appeared.

He turned to the door and crooked a finger. “Come inside. I have a letter you may want to see from an old friend of yours. One Isaac Fairchild.”

Three

T
he cabin blurred, doubled, yawned. Darkness oozed toward her, though Gwyneth knew the ferocious teeth of the sea waited beyond. She pressed herself to the corner of the floor and clenched her jaw. If she slid into that open mouth…

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, the cabin looked like it had when she first stepped foot in it some six weeks ago. Wooden planks for floor, walls, and ceiling, the few pieces of furniture nailed into place. The bed to which she'd lashed herself in rough seas.

The bed that had provided no rest, nothing but nightmare upon nightmare.

A rattle came from the door, and a moment later Mrs. Wesley slid in, her face a web of concern. She scanned the room with alarm before finally spotting Gwyneth in her place between the small desk and the wall. “Ah, love, what are you doing on the floor?”

She hadn't the energy to resist Mrs. Wesley's gentle hands. Dizziness washed over her and made her sway, but when it cleared she was on her feet, standing in the middle of the tiny room and staring at the wall that had been a mouth.

Mrs. Wesley clicked her tongue. “Still in yesterday's dress I see, though you promised me you would change into your nightgown. Did you sleep at all?”

Gwyneth couldn't convince her gaze to leave the wall, lest it open
again. “Sleep?” She took a step away from the monster of a bed. “I do not know. Perhaps for an hour or two.”

Before the nightmare had snapped its fangs around her, before the scream had battled for a place on her lips and, when denied, tried to choke the life from her.

Mrs. Wesley's worried frown was yet another arrow through her heart. “Dear girl.” She laid a soft hand against the Gwyneth's cheek and swept a thumb under her eye, where circles had deepened to hollows. “You cannot survive on so little rest. Why, if the general finds you in such a state, he will think me a sorry guardian indeed.”

Her voice had been light, straining for a jest, but it struck like one of the rogue waves of which the sailors had spoken, the kind that hit without warning and swept all life into the depths. Gwyneth squeezed shut her eyes and opened her lips. She must tell her, must tell the Wesleys that their master was no more. She must…she ought to…

Her lips pressed together as tightly as her eyes. She couldn't speak, couldn't scream. He would hear her, and he would come after her. Come and…what?

Have no fear, Fairchild. Dear Uncle Gates will take care of our precious girl
.

Her stomach pitched and rolled, sending her to the floor in search of the chamber pot. She pulled it out in time to heave into it, though there was nothing in her stomach to come up again.

“'Tis the strangest case of seasickness I have ever seen.”

Gwyneth nearly shrieked at the voice, too deep, too masculine. Then she sat up and saw the captain and Mr. Wesley. When had they come in?

“Has she slept at all this week?”

Gwyneth rested her head against the side of the desk. The captain never bothered speaking directly to her anymore, only about her. Perhaps because she could never wrap her tongue around coherent answers.

Her eyes slid shut. She was tired. So very tired.

“Not to speak of.” Mourning filled Mrs. Wesley's tone. As if Gwyneth had already been lost. As if she somehow knew Papa had been too. “How long until we reach port, Captain? She cannot survive this much longer.”

“Not long now. If the winds remain with us, it should be but another few days. We—”

“Sail ho! Captain Stokes, she flies an American flag!”

Gwyneth opened her eyes in time to see the gray-haired captain lurch for the door. “Stay in here together.”

Mr. Wesley stopped him with an outstretched hand. “You will not engage, will you, Captain?”

The man tugged his coat down and straightened his spine. “I swore to the general I would see his daughter safely to Annapolis. I will do nothing that would endanger her. We will outrun this vessel.”

As he strode from the cabin, the world tipped again and doubled. Gwyneth had little choice but to wrap her arms around the leg of the desk and shut her eyes.

Now blurred into forever, with nothing but the ever-increasing ache in her muscles telling her time passed. At some point shouts rang out and echoed, turning to a deafening roar from which she could pluck no single word. Hands touched, urged, but when she felt the prickly tick of the bed under her, she choked on a scream, lunged away, and fell yet again to the floor.

Tomorrow
. The whisper came from within her but made little sense. She tried to focus on the promise of reaching port, as if that would make the nightmares cease. As if that would make sleep come peacefully. As if land would steady the roiling of her world.

But it wouldn't. She knew that. Seasickness was not her malady. Could one die of heartsickness? Of fear? Of insomnia?

Tomorrow.

The shouting changed in timbre, and thunder split the world in two. A scream rent the air. Fog overtook her vision; cursing blistered her ears. Papa would be furious if he heard such words uttered in her presence. He would…

He would do nothing. Because he was gone.

The door crashed open, and its collision with the wall made her vision snap back into alignment and the echoes cease. When two unfamiliar men charged into the room, Gwyneth pushed herself to her feet, though she had to put a hand upon the surface of the desk to keep herself steady.

Mrs. Wesley slid an arm around her waist. Mr. Wesley stood in the center of the cabin, a pistol leveled at the intruders.

One of them smirked. “Put that away, old man. The captain has surrendered.”

“No.” Voice quavering, Mr. Wesley lifted the gun another inch.

Gwyneth took a step forward, though her knees wobbled. “Mr. Wesley, please. Do nothing foolish.”

The pirate's eyes softened. “You've nothing to worry about, sir. We are Americans, not monsters. Our interest is in the ship. We will deliver everyone safely to Barbados, and you can write home or arrange new transport.”

Write.
Her brow furrowed, her thoughts pounded against one another.
Papa
. The letter! Where had she put the letter, the one he had given her just before…the one she was to present if taken by American privateers? It was…no, she had put it in her reticule. It must be still in her reticule. Which was…

She turned, slowly lest the dizziness strike again, her gaze moving about the cabin in search of the small bag. Mrs. Wesley said something, but she could not spare the attention to discern what. All her concentration was needed to stagger over to the trunk wedged between the bed and the wall.

She lifted the lid, her ears buzzing at a sudden loud noise. There, right on top, lay her reticule. She grabbed it and turned back too quickly, and then wished she hadn't when the world kept spinning after her feet had come to a stop. When her eyes refocused, she saw the muzzle of a gun inches from her face.

Her throat went tight, paralysis seized her limbs. All she could do was clutch the bag to her chest and stare at the man before her.

Oddly, he looked more exasperated than angry. “What in blazes are you doing, miss? I told you to stop.”

“I did not hear you.”

Frustration twisted his countenance, but Mrs. Wesley slid to her side again. “Please, sir. She has scarcely slept since we left England due to seasickness. Her perception has been…dubious.”

Dubious. Her whole life, it seemed, was dubious. Her fingers tightened around her reticule, her gaze going to the doorway when another unfamiliar figure filled it. This one strode in with the confidence that bespoke authority and tossed out a casual, “What is going on here?”

The man before her lowered his gun and stepped away. “A misunderstanding, Captain. The girl went for her trunk, and I…”

“Hmm.” The captain halted in the middle of the room and regarded her steadily. “Are you unwell, miss?”

No doubt she looked like something left for dead. She hardly
cared, though even her sleep-deprived eyes had no trouble seeing this captain was handsome enough to set female hearts pounding. The way his hair curled brought Sir Arthur to mind, though he was dark where Sir Arthur was fair.

Thoughts of him caused only a numb little thump in her chest. There was no room, it seemed, to mourn the loss of a suitor.