Devil of the High Seas, page 15
“He did, with the promise that I sail the Lady Siren alongside him for a few months. We worked together, taking prizes. We were off the coast of the Bahamas when a storm hit. Harding and his crew were forced to abandon their ship and head for land. We rescued them and salvaged some of the cargo. Harding was a broken man after that. He decided to retire, and gave me the mermaid figurehead we’d salvaged from his ship as a gift for my Siren. I took on some of his crew, and we sailed the seas until my boatswain, a man named Beauchamp, turned most of my crew against me.”
Josephine stared at him when she heard his harsh tone.
“Why did they mutiny? Were you a harsh captain?”
His brown eyes still held shadows as he gazed at her, his face solemn.
“My charter gave equal shares to all men, even me. But our take had been poor the last few months, and Beauchamp convinced them I had lied to them about our fair portions and got them thirsting for blood. The men still loyal to me were slaughtered as we escaped the Siren. Only Ronnie and I survived. That was mere hours before I met you. Abandoning my ship was the worst grief I have ever felt aside from the night Charity chose Griffin.”
She replayed the night they’d met in her mind with fresh eyes, seeing now how terrible that night must have been for him. Betrayed, wounded, lost, and exhausted, he had sought refuge in the only place he’d ever been safe, his childhood home. But instead of finding his twin brother, he’d found her.
As if he could sense her thoughts, he kissed her. “I’m glad it was you who found me.” Then he kissed her chin, the tip of her nose, and when she closed her eyes, he kissed her eyelids. “I’m a selfish man, lass. I don’t let my treasure go so easily.” He held her gaze meaningfully.
Her heart twinged with pitiful longing and the foolish hope that he meant it, that she was a treasure to him. If it was true, did that mean he meant to keep her? Would she have a life of freedom with him on his ship? She dared not ask, not yet. She wouldn’t ask him until she was certain that he would say yes.
“Why don’t you rest, lass? I need to speak to Ronnie.” Gavin settled her under the covers, retrieved his clothing and dressed, and then stole one last lingering kiss before he left her alone. She pulled the sheets up over herself and stared at the cabin door as he closed it behind him.
Her pirate wanted time to savor her, but Josephine had a terrible feeling that they didn’t have much time. It was almost as if she could feel some cosmic clock was counting down the minutes that remained of her freedom.
“You may want to wait, Gavin, but I don’t,” she whispered to the empty cabin.
CHAPTER 11
They had been at sea two full weeks before the first sign of trouble appeared. Josephine had grown almost lazy with the peaceful days of good wind and sailor duties and nights spent in Gavin’s arms, where he showed her pleasure over and over until she fell headlong into a deep and restful seat.
On their fifteenth day of the voyage Josephine saw the storm. She was stationed on the lookout post atop the mainmast crossbeams, her favorite spot. With her eyes trained on the horizon, the skies, and the water, she saw the storm coming before anyone. The clouds, once soft and lazy, began to build into a tower behind the ship. The jagged edges of the wispy vapor formations were a clear sign of tossing air currents. She cupped her hands and yelled down a warning to a sailor below her on the shrouds.
“Storm off the port stern!”
The sailor heard her warning and bolted for the deck far below as he passed along the warning. By the time the rest of the crew was aware of the approaching danger, Josephine could hear Gavin bellowing commands.
“All hands, wear ship! Main clew garnets and buntlines, mizzen and brails!”
Every man rushed to take in the mizzen sail and the mainsail. Josephine descended the rigging to join the men on the shrouds below as they worked hand over hand to pull the mainsail into a rolled canvas so it wouldn’t be battered against the mast if the wind reversed and blew directly at them rather than from behind.
“Man weather main, lee crossjack braces!” Another command echoed across the decks.
Ronnie held the helm, where he would ride out the storm because changing the helmsman in the midst of a storm was too risky. Men had been tossed over or crushed beneath a wildly spinning helm when it had been released to let another man take over.
Gavin shouted to secure the guns for bad weather. A group of men followed him down the companionway to the gun deck below, but Josephine feared the command would come too late. A sudden squall raced ahead of the approaching storm, and Josephine sprinted back up the rigging for safety. She wrapped her wrists around the shrouds and threaded her ankles through the lines, trying to hold herself to the stiff ropes as the squall hit.
The Cornish Pixie lurched to one side as the waves smacked her port side. The impact of the wall of water made the Pixie lurch like a man taking a blow to the jaw. The ship pitched, rolling wildly as the wind swirled through the forest of masts and rigging.
Bartholomew clung to the rigging near her. “Hold fast, lassie!” They were like a pair of spiders on quivering webs caught in a thunderstorm. The wind whipped her hair against her face in stinging lashes, forcing her to shut her eyes. The waves surged across the decks, and two sailors were swept off their feet. Fortunately, they crashed into the bulwark instead of going over the side. The men on watch struggled to stay behind the shield of the tarpaulin weather cloths. The moment the wave cleared the decks, the men below finished rigging the lifelines and battening down most of the hatches.
“Bartholomew, will you keep a lookout?” she yelled at her friend.
“Aye, lassie. I’ll stay here. Jim is on the foreyard above us. You check on the cap’n and the guns.”
Hands freezing from the cold rain, Josephine scrambled down the ratlines to the deck and rushed for the companionway where Gavin had gone. She chanced a glance at Ronnie at the helm. His head was thrown back, red hair blowing wildly, laughing like a madman as the ship dipped into the trough of a building wave.
She ducked below into the modest safety of the gun deck as Gavin and several of the crew fought to secure the guns. Her heart pounded at the deadly threat the massive guns posed. If even one cannon got loose and slid across the deck, it would crush any sailor in its path. It could also unbalance the weight of the ship, causing it to be unable to right itself. There was even a chance it could crash down through the hull. Two sailors held one of the loose guns and were jamming the muzzle up against the clamp above the gunport so that the barrel pointed up at a forty-five-degree angle.
One of the guns lurched forward on the deck a few feet, unseen by the crew, who were focused on the opposite side of the ship. She had no time to think beyond a flash of a mad idea. She raced one deck below to where some men were storing their hammocks.
“We need to choke the trucks on a loose cannon! I need hammocks!”
Two men grabbed their hammocks and raced up after her to help. Together, they caught the sliding gun halfway across the deck by using the hammocks like slings and started to drag it back to the wall where it belonged.
“Heave!” Josephine shouted at the men helping her. Her cry caught Gavin’s attention, and he glanced her way. His eyes widened when he saw the massive gun that had been coming toward his exposed back and realized that Josephine had been the one to stop it.
He joined her, grabbing the hammocks’ ends as he lent his strength to theirs. The gun groaned in protest as it was dragged sideways toward the ship’s planking.
“Lash it alongside!” Gavin shouted at the other two men. They answered with nods and fresh cries of “Heave!” The gun was finally swung around and lashed forward and aft against the inside planking of the ship.
Josephine’s legs shook as she collapsed onto the deck. She’d given all that she had to help pull that gun across the deck.
Gavin put an arm around her lower back and helped her back up onto her feet. “Is Ronnie still at the helm?”
“Yes,” she gasped. They paused on the steps leading to the weather deck, and Gavin pinned her against the bulkhead when the ship made a sudden roll. Their soaking bodies were pressed flush against each other, and his ragged breath mixed with hers. His eyes were dark and burning as he stared at her trembling lips.
“Stay down here. Don’t come up on deck, you understand?”
“Gavin, I have to help—”
“You’ve done enough, and done it well. Now I want you safe.”
He silenced her with a hard kiss, one that sent her head spinning and her legs quaking. When he tore his mouth away from hers, she saw his grim resolve.
“Stay below. That’s an order. If you disobey, I’ll have no choice but to whip you in front of my crew.” The violence of his threat was so unexpected that she could only stare at him.
When he released her, he bolted up the steps as a clap of thunder broke through the wailing winds. She sank to the deck, leaning back against the bulkhead as she fought to steady herself. The storm was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She’d witnessed and lived through plenty of violent storms on land, but a storm like this took on new depths of terror because one couldn’t escape it. The knowledge that at any moment the right wave could topple the Pixie or smash it to pieces filled her with raw terror. Everyone on board could perish, all of the eighty men, including her and Gavin.
For the first time in her life, Josephine understood the nature of fear as it crawled through the walls of her mind and sank its teeth and claws into her chest. She couldn’t breathe. No air was moving in or out of her lungs. There was a buzzing in her skull like a hive of raging wasps.
“Josie!” A voice penetrated the fog of terror inside her, and she looked up to see the cook, Olive, holding out a hand to her.
“Come on, girl, move! The surgeon needs us.” Olive pulled her to her feet, and they headed for the surgery.
Two sailors lay on a pair of surgery tables, and Dr. Gladstone was doing his best to keep one man lying flat. The man’s leg was broken and jutted out at an awkward angle. The sailor screamed as Dr. Gladstone tried to calm him. The man on the other table had a broken arm, which he cradled with his hand, his face pale as he watched the doctor and the sailor with the broken leg struggling.
“Hold him down so I can get some laudanum,” Gladstone ordered.
Olive and Josephine helped pin the man down on the table. Gladstone grabbed a dark-blue bottle of laudanum from a cabinet and tipped it into the sailor’s mouth. The poor man coughed and swallowed, before drifting to sleep.
“I need to set the bone,” Gladstone muttered, and Josephine winced as the sight of flesh and bone being moved back into place unsettled her stomach.
“Watch him, Mrs. Castleton,” the doctor ordered. “Olive, I need you to help Thomas while I fix his arm.”
Josephine sat down on a stool that was nailed to the deck and held on to the table with one arm as the ship swayed. The man on the table shifted in his sleep and Josephine lunged, grabbing his shoulder to keep him steady. The lamps above their heads swayed, and she stared up at the ceiling, her fear returning in full force. What was happening on the top deck?
Please let Gavin come out of this alive.
Gavin threw out an arm and caught a sailor before he was washed overboard. The man grunted and they both slammed down onto the deck as the wave passed over them. He held his breath as the seawater briefly engulfed him and then sucked in great lungfuls of air once the deck cleared of water.
Above them, a dozen men were in the shrouds, lashed to the foreyard, where they were in some ways safer than anyone on the deck. This was one of the things he hated about sailing. Even the sturdiest frigates could roll in storms like these, and every man on board would be lost. It didn’t matter how skilled a captain and crew were or how well the ship was built. Gavin had always hated storms, but with Josephine here he felt a new intensity to his old fears.
Gavin looked at Ronnie, who still manned the helm. A rope had been wrapped around him, securing him to it so he wouldn’t lose his footing when the waves smashed over the deck.
“Storm’s clearing!” Ronnie called out, and Gavin turned to see behind them as the distant clouds were in fact clearing, but so much could happen between where they were now and the clear blue skies coming up behind them as the storm overtook them and surged on ahead.
A tremendous roar came from all around. Gavin turned to see a massive wave heading toward the ship.
“Everyone get below!” he bellowed.
The crew on deck scrambled for safety. One of the older men, a sailor called Bartholomew, slipped as the wave came toward them. With a curse, Gavin dove for the man, slamming him down against the shelter of the railing. Water pounded them with such force that it knocked the breath from his lungs. Water drained around them, pouring in a deluge off the sides of the besieged vessel, but he and Bartholomew were still alive.
“Thank you, Cap’n,” the old man sputtered and wiped seawater from his face.
“I want you inside,” he growled. They started for the entrance to the lower decks, but Gavin realized too late they wouldn’t make it. Everything slowed down as he and Bartholomew raced for the companionway steps. Suddenly Josephine appeared in the entrance leading belowdecks, her eyes widened as she saw what he had seen a few seconds before. A great wave arched up and over the ship.
“Run, damn you!” Gavin shouted at the older man in front of him as he pushed him into Josephine’s waiting arms. A second later, the wave knocked Gavin clean off his feet . . . and then off the deck of the ship entirely.
The world spun around him as he plunged into the dark black waters. He kicked out, swimming frantically, but he couldn’t tell which way the surface was. Not that it mattered. A man overboard in a storm was a man lost.
Still, it wasn’t in him to give up. He kicked toward what he prayed was the surface. His head broke the water, and he spotted the Pixie not far off. He kicked hard, powering his arms and legs to reach the ship, but there was no hope. Wave after wave struck him hard. Finally, exhaustion and pain won out. He watched his slim chance of salvation sailing off without him. He had but one thought, one regret before he sank beneath the waves: he had never shown Josie what she meant to him.
The instant the wave carried Gavin off the ship, Josephine screamed his name.
“He saved me,” Bartholomew muttered in shock as he huddled under the raised deck beside her. When Josephine took a step toward the deck outside, he caught her arm. “He’s gone, lass. You can’t save a man overboard. Not in a storm like this.”
“Watch me!” Josephine snapped.
She grabbed the longest coil of rope she could find and wrapped one end around her waist, tying a secure knot like Bartholomew had taught her. Then she secured the other onto the center mast of the deck. She prayed the rope was long enough.
Without a backward glance, she ran for the railing and dived off the side as the ship rolled downward toward the water. Her calculated jump meant she had only a dozen feet before she dropped beneath the waves rather than twenty. Once she hit the water, she searched for Gavin. She crested with a wave and spotted him not too far off, just as he went under. She plunged below the surface, her fingers closing around his arm. She pulled him, all the while fighting toward the faint light of the surface. Her lungs burned like fire. Every muscle in her body screamed, demanding air. The Pixie drifted away from them, and the rope pulled taut against her waist, squeezing her stomach. She wanted to scream at the agony, but if she did, she would take in water.
She begged her body to not give up. Just hold on . . . A wave lifted them, and then sweet, glorious air filled her lungs. She shifted her grip on Gavin, but didn’t let go of him. His head bobbed above the water as she dragged him behind her while the ship pulled them in its wake. The clouds above began to thin and the tumultuous waves died down. She prayed someone would soon realize that she and Gavin were still there in the water. A face suddenly appeared over the stern railing, and a cry went up. Whatever the sailor shouted was lost on the wind, but he pointed at her and Gavin as more faces appeared over the side to stare at them.
She wanted to weep with relief, but she knew she had to stay strong just a little bit longer. The rope around her stomach tightened again, this time as she moved forward. They were reeling her and Gavin in. When they reached the hull, she gripped the wooden treads against the ship.
“Can you climb, lassie?” Bartholomew yelled down at her.
“Yes, but Gavin can’t. Send me another rope.” The sailors dropped a line down the ship, which allowed her to tie the rope around Gavin’s waist and upper body, forming a harness.
“Pull him up!” she called out to the sailors. A moment later, Gavin’s body was lifted from the water and began the ascent upward. Bone weary, she blew out a breath and started climbing the wooden treads on the side of the ship. Gavin was pulled up over the side long before she reached the top. When she did finally got back on board, she found the boatswain, Mr. Greenwell, bent over Gavin’s prone form as he pressed down on his chest. Gavin coughed, and water flowed out of his mouth.
“That’s it, Cap’n, breathe,” Greenwell encouraged as he rolled Gavin onto his side while he expelled the last of the seawater from his lungs.
Josephine sank to her knees and stared at Gavin. He was alive. By some miracle, she’d saved him.
“That was a bloody brave thing to do, lassie,” Bartholomew said as he crouched down by her. “You saved his life. We never would’ve been able to reach him in time. I hope your husband knows how much you love him.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she didn’t love Gavin, but Bartholomew was right. She did. As mad as it was to love a man who might never love her back, she loved him with every fiber of her being.
“Three cheers for Mrs. Castleton!” Bartholomew shouted, and all of the men cheered.
Josephine tried to smile, but instead she slumped down onto the deck, her breathing ragged. The sailors around Gavin lifted him up and carried him down to Dr. Gladstone’s surgery.
