“Go!” he commanded.
He didn’t even worry about the lot of them streaking out into the night. They ran to the wagon. Sloan helped one of the old women into the back, then he started for the front.
“My Lord Treveryan!” Philip called to him quickly.
“What?” Sloan rasped out.
“What about Brianna?”
“Leave her just as she is,” Sloan said flatly. “We’ve still got to reach the ship.”
He hopped up beside Rikky, who cast him a glance, then flipped the reins, and the horses started moving. “Slow?” Rikky asked.
“Nay—fast.”
“As you command, Treveryan!” Rikky replied. “Giddup, there!”
The horses bolted down the street, the wheels turning like spinning stars. The dull drizzle continued all around them.
Sloan closed his eyes. God help me, he prayed silently.
When he opened his eyes, he could see the wharf. And lights flashing, out on the water, coming closer and closer.
The wagon ground to a halt. Sloan hopped from his seat and hurried around to the back. Emily—or was it Mathilda?—hopped into his arms. “Bless you, dear young lord!” she murmured.
He smiled. “See those boats? Get to them!” She nodded, turned to her sister, whom Philip had just assisted, grabbed her arm, and hurried to the dockside. Sloan saw one of his men—Paddy, he thought—rise to help them. “Go on!” he told the two youths. Philip was reaching into the wagon for Brianna.
“Lord Treveryan,” Philip murmured awkwardly, “Shall I take her—or shall you?”
Sloan clenched his jaw and swallowed tightly. “You take her, Philip. Once we’re on the ship, you can free her. Tell her, tell her that I’m sorry, her husband is dead. But keep her the hell away from me tonight, understand?”
Philip didn’t look as if he understood at all. But he replied, “Aye, Lord Treveryan.”
The others were all headed to the dinghies; only Rikky stood beside him. Sloan lifted a brow slowly, then stuck out his hand. “I thank you, Lord Turnberry. I’d be damned if I know why you did all this, but thank you.”
“Oh, I like adventure,” Rikky said negligently—but then they both frowned; they could hear the sound of horses racing toward them in hot pursuit.
“Looks like you’re coming along too,” Sloan muttered, grabbing Rikky’s elbow. They both raced for the dinghies.
“Room’s in this one, Captain!” Paddy called to Sloan.
“Coming, Paddy!” The skiff was halfway out. Paddy had had the sense to push off when he’d heard the hoofbeats.
“Oh, what the hell,” Rikky muttered, “I had a craving to visit New York anyway.”
He took a dive into the water.
Sloan actually felt a grin tug at his lip.
Then he plunged into the water after Rikky.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sloan took the wheel as they moved out into the ocean. The weather was choppy and rough and the sailing difficult, but that was not why he chose the bridge. He wanted to hold the wheel. He loved the sea, and tonight, the gray rain and brooding darkness well matched his mood.
Paddy had asked him what arrangements he wanted made for the travelers. A number of the officers were willing to give up their quarters and bunk together, so there was really no difficulty about privacy. George had offered his cabin to the sisters—it was a short voyage south to New York and he’d be on duty most of it anyway. Paddy had been happy to give up his cabin to Lord Turnberry. Philip and the lads would be fine, threaded among the other crew members, and Eleanor had been situated in a small cabin earlier in the day.
“Sounds fine, Paddy,” Sloan told him. “All well done. Thank you, and extend my appreciation to the others involved.”
Still Paddy hesitated. Sloan, from long experience, stared at him warily with a brow raised high.
“Where would you like Brianna?”
Sloan turned to the dark sea ahead of him. “Offer her the use of my cabin. Privately, of course.”
“I already did that, Cap’n.”
“You did?”
“Aye—with a mind to your preference. We’ve got them all down in the galley now. Hungry lot, they were. Seems a seaman’s rations might be an improvement over prison fare.”
Sloan grimaced. “So you offered her my cabin—minus me—and she refused?”
“Aye, that she did.”
Paddy was surprised when Sloan shrugged. “Then tell her she must sleep wherever she likes.”
“But, Cap’n—”
“Wherever she likes, Paddy.”
“She’s a mite upset, what with the news of her husband and all, Captain.”
“That is her difficulty. You can relay my message, then see that someone spells me in another hour. I need some sleep.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
Shaking his head with disbelief and muttering beneath his breath, Paddy went on about his business. Sloan continued to watch the sea, keeping slowly and carefully to the open water—there were numerous shoals here if one got reckless.
He spent his time thinking—and yet not thinking at all, for when he would try to piece together his thoughts, they were nothing but fragments and images. They all kept coming back to one—Robert Powell, staring at him with sightless eyes.
He really wasn’t feeling anymore. It was strange, because he had spent years fighting. The pirates who still prowled the seas for booty, and then the Irish at William’s behest. Men like Matthews. He’d seen carnage and death far worse than the trauma now plaguing Salem. He’d lost Alwyn.
But nothing had ever made him quite so numb as this night, as the entangled emotional involvements he’d come to be a part of here.
He was glad when George came to the wheel, greeting him both cordially and respectfully, and warning him that he would find correspondence on his desk—along with a bottle of dark rum. Sloan thanked him and ducked down the stairs to his cabin.
George had lit the lantern on his desk. The bedding on the bunk was fresh, and as George had promised, there was a heavy shot glass along with the rum on his desk.
He should have lain down to go to sleep but he didn’t. He was so tired that he couldn’t sleep. He pulled off his boots and coat, then moved behind his desk, sank down in his chair, and lifted his stocking feet to the desktop. He poured himself out a long shot of the rum and drank the fiery liquid down in a gulp, shuddered, and poured himself another. This time he sipped it, his eyes falling without volition to the bunk.
He’d never been able to sit in his cabin without imagining her aboard the Sea Hawk again. Well, she was aboard and the way things were between them, he could imagine himself insane for the rest of his life.
Except that he had determined he wasn’t going to go near her again. Maybe he was feeling too harsh this evening; it was natural that she would be very upset, no matter how obvious Robert Powell’s condition had been. He was on the defensive because he knew what was coming. And he was just damned determined to have his walls up ahead of time.
He set his teeth and picked up the first envelope, grasping a pearl-handled letter opener to slit it open. It was from a merchant in Virginia seeking to arrange a shipment of tobacco. Another was a promise of payment, and still another a request to take on another sailor. It was while he was reading the last that his door suddenly burst open. He instantly knew that no member of his crew would have entered so, and he tensed, eyes narrowing as she stood there in the doorway for a minute, then charged for his desk.
“I want to know what happened!” she demanded, her voice shaking. Her fists were clenched at her sides, as if she could stop trembling by the action.
He leaned back in his chair, watching her with all the cool control he could muster. He set the letter opener slowly down on the table, then crossed his arms over his chest.
“It’s customary to knock at doors, madam, especially when the door is the captain’s and you’re a guest on a merchant vessel.”
She ignored
him completely, slamming her fist down on his desk. She was wild, very barely in control at all. Her eyes glistened with tears, but she was not crying. Her hair was free of caps and pins and tumbled about her shoulders, and her breasts heaved with her agitation. He smiled slightly, bitterly, thinking that there had never been a time when he hadn’t thought her uniquely beautiful.
“I want to know what happened! I told you I would not abandon Robert, yet you left him, and then—then I hear from someone else that he is … is dead. Damn you, Sloan! How could you leave him?”
She was precariously close to tears. He longed to reach out and comfort her, yet he knew the futility of such an action.
He picked up his rum and took a sip, surveying her over the glass. “I’m sorry,” he said flatly. “I could not carry a corpse with me for your inspection.”
She took a step back from the desk, as stunned as if he had slapped her. “Oh, you bastard! How can you be so cruel?”
He made no move, except to set his rum down and pick up and slit open a letter. “I went for your husband first, madam. Since you care not to trust what I might say, you are free to question Lord Turnberry. Robert died. I am sorry. I am not God, and life is one thing that I cannot always command.”
She was still for a minute, then coldly accused him. “It was a convenient time for his death, don’t you think?”
On that he looked up from his correspondence, allowing light of dry humor to touch his eyes. “Madam, if you think I bore him ill, you are quite wrong. And if you think I would do murder on your account, you sadly flatter yourself and malign me. Now, you were offered this cabin, quite properly and privately, and you did not wish to find accommodation here, so I will appreciate it if you leave me.”
The tears hovered ever close in her storm-swept eyes; he held himself in rigid check.
“I do despise you, Sloan!” she whispered. “And, no, I do not want your cabin, or anything else for that matter! You should not have bothered with your superbly gallant rescue! Your strength does not make you any better a man!”
He looked down unseeingly at the letter again. “Your husband bade me vow to free you, Brianna. I keep my word.”
“Well, then, all is fine, isn’t it? I am free. I’ll thank you now for the passage.”
“For the passage?” he asked her politely. “It’s quite possible that I saved your life.”
“I’m not sure what my life is worth!” she spat out, and then gasped as she heard her own words. But she wasn’t about to back down, not that evening.
“Well, then, thank you, Lord Treveryan. Thank you again, and again, and again, and I am so damned sick of thanking you! If they take me for a witch in New York, bless them and I shall buy the rope myself! But until that time I will take my son and quit your company and pray never to see you again.”
He looked up, smiling. “My son, Goodwife Powell? Have you forgotten that?”
“By the law—”
“Ah, you’ve seen yourself, girl, I would think by now, that the law works in most wondrous ways.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Nothing, really. If you’ve finished with your accusations and assertions, I’d appreciate being left alone.”
She emitted a wild cry and flew around the desk, ready to pelt against him in uncontrollable fury and misery. But as negligent as he had appeared, he was on his feet with the speed of a winter’s wind, catching her before a first blow could land, and twisting an arm behind her back, causing her to cry out.
His touch was like ice; and, as always with him, she had lost.
“Madam, I’m not in the mood to handle you this night. I’d given orders that you were to be kept away from me, yet I don’t find it hard to understand that you could maneuver some other poor fool. Well, I am done with it now. I am sorry about Robert Powell, as sorry as I have ever been to see a man’s life wasted. But it was not my fault, any more than it was yours. Now, you may call me cruel, or bastard, or any other epithet that comes to your lovely lips, but not in my presence. You turned down my cabin, yet you came here to accost me. The cabin will be yours this evening, and you will not leave it, because I will not be accosted again. You will have to learn to accept the paths life takes, girl—and I’ll not be your martyred scapegoat while you do it!”
Suddenly he pushed her across the cabin, causing her to land on the bunk. Vaguely she heard his footsteps as she tried to right herself. He was leaving.
The cabin door closed—and locked.
She ran to the door, banging against it. The strangest sense of déjà-vu filled her then, causing her slowly to sink before the door until she was sitting, grasping her head furiously between her hands, as if she could crush away the pain there.
She started to cry at last, not loudly, not hysterically at all. Tears fell silently from her eyes for Robert Powell, and she could not help but hate herself for what had come to pass. She had married him—without loving him. And all the time he had been struggling along, she had betrayed him in her heart. Lying at his side she had dreamt of Sloan. While Robert had lain a prisoner, she had kissed Sloan and almost forgotten that she had ever taken marriage vows at all. Robert had died accused and alone, and very possibly imprisoned because of her. She sat there remembering the darkness of his eyes and the gentleness that never failed to dwell within them. She thought of him holding Michael and of his great determination that nothing should ever happen to her.
At last she rose and moved to the bunk, so listlessly that it seemed a great journey. She fell down on the mattress and closed her eyes.
Would she ever learn to bear such sorrow? She wished that she had died—but then she repented of such a thought, for there was Michael to consider. She would teach him Robert’s fine values of love and honesty and goodness. She would live with him quietly, close to the land. And she would never let the illicit passions of her heart and soul injure Michael as she had injured Robert.
Yet even while these thoughts tore at her mind, she wondered at the fury and emptiness she felt toward Sloan. He’d risked a great deal for her; at her plea he had taken the sisters from the jail. It had not been his concern, he could have left at any time.
Now he said that he was done with her, and that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To live a life that would bring pardon from God for the terrible sins of her soul.
She thought of Robert again. Smiling, laughing, speaking gravely. It cut through her like a knife; he was gone. Dead, and she would never see him again. She would never be able to thank him, to tell him that he had been one of the finest men, surely, who had ever lived …
Somewhere in the jumble of it all she fell asleep. She didn’t hear the door open, or ever know that Sloan had come in to stare down at her.
Or that he shuddered with the same sense of déjà-vu that had struck her. It was so familiar, watching her lying there, at last asleep. It had been almost four years since he had first done so. He had watched a girl then, and now she was much aged by the passage of years, yet not old at all. Matured—and still young enough to believe that heartache could be fought, rather than experienced and slowly quelled.
He thought to touch her, to shift her more comfortably on the bunk, but he did not. To touch her was dangerous. He left the cabin and did not lock the door. When she awoke, they would be docked.
Rikky came for her in the morning, and Rikky, gently solicitous, led her along the wharf for her first glimpse of New York.
There were people everywhere, an abundance of people all manner of dress, with all manner of accents. From the women who hawked bright ribbons and cakes, to the old seafaring men pushing their catches, the place seemed incredibly alive. The sky was beautifully clear, and beyond the weather there seemed no hovering of gray here—no pall of doom. People smiled and laughed, and they did not rush by their neighbors in their fear or speak in hushed whispers.
Rikky had to pull her out of her absorption with the people about her. “Come—aren’t you anxious to see your son?” And of co
urse that query sent her scurrying along behind him.
She was somewhat startled when Rikky directed her toward a very magnificent coach finely emblazoned with his family’s motto and emblem, a snake’s head facing a lion. The seats inside were of velvet and silk, and she realized that not only was she pathetically drab, but filthy.
“Is it your aunt’s coach?” She asked Rikky uneasily.
“Aye.”
“And why is it here?”
He chuckled slightly. “Lord Treveryan did pave the way for us earlier.”
“Oh,” she murmured, stiffening. Mention of Sloan’s name somehow reminded her that Robert had not been dead a day; that somewhere he would be receiving a pauper’s funeral, with little care for the mortal remains of an accused “witch.”
But when the coach carried them along a tremendous sweeping drive to one of the finest houses she had ever seen this side of the Atlantic, her thoughts turned to Michael. She couldn’t wait to hold him yet cringed at the filthy sight of herself in the face of such vast wealth. For a moment she realized that she had survived on the charity of others, and quickly became determined that she would not remain dependent on others long. She would start a new life for her and her son.
The great doors opened as Rikky led her up the curving stairs of the porch. There was a woman dressed in a gown of light yellow and white. Its cleavage was low, and bowed ribbons were caught throughout the voluminous skirt, showing the delicate lace of the petticoat beneath. There was a scent of roses about her; she was both beautiful and elegant, with tawny light curls caught at her nape and bright gray eyes that seemed as silvery as the moon. She smiled, and Brianna felt even more her own tawdry filth.
But it was a welcoming smile, and even as they reached the doorway, the woman was berating Rikky in musical tones. “Cedric—you do take your time!” A hand was extended to Brianna—a soft hand, untouched by calluses, as her own were now. But there was warmth to it, and Lady Alyssa’s grip was a strong one.
“Brianna, I’ve a room all prepared for you, with a steaming bath,” Alyssa said, pulling her into the house. “I’m so dreadfully sorry for your loss … We’ll remember your dear husband in our prayers. But your son waits you now—”