Cullen calculated a quick size-up of the man. He had at least two or three stone on Towle, and was a head or so taller. The lieutenant was too busy trying to subdue Willa to notice Cullen’s presence behind him, and the man’s wife was too absorbed in her own misery to notice his approach. It was ridiculously easy to wrest away the man’s service pistol, letting it discharge into the air. Sometimes it was a blessing to be a hulking, thick-headed Scot. He towered over most men which gave him considerable leverage in a mill.
After throwing the man’s service pistol as far as he could into the jungle-like undergrowth surrounding the cottage, he turned and made a reasonable suggestion.
“I require the pleasure of the company of all of you inside…now.” Cullen stretched his arm in the direction of the cottage. When he turned to Willa, she gave him a dark look before falling in behind the Towles. In a whisper-like growl, she assured him, “I had everything under control before you showed up to meddle.”
He gave her a not-so-subtle firm push from behind and said, “You’re welcome.”
Once they’d all settled in around the wooden plank table in the tiny kitchen, Cullen decided to be blunt and save time.
Lieutenant Towle immediately accused Willa, pointing his finger and waving his hands about.
Cullen slammed a fist down onto the table so violently that all the china in the corner cabinet shook and clattered. “Stop and listen carefully, because I will not repeat myself.”
“One - I happen to know that my wife was defending herself, fighting for her life. Two - your wife, if that’s her real identity, is an agent of the French royalists and just took possession of a havey-cavey locket which has a hidden packet of powder that I doubt you would wish to have examined if we were to bring this before Governor Lowe. And three - Captain Still of the Arethusa knows exactly what is inside the locket, because he took it into safe-keeping for my wife while I was incapacitated from a beating ordered by one of your lot.”
Lieutenant Towle paled and pushed away the other woman’s hand which she’d moved to cover one of his. “Go on,” he said. “We’ll say nothing.” He waved a hand at them.
The dark-haired woman stood and accused Willa. “Did you leave the locket intact?”
“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t. I suppose one of you will have to test the contents.” Willa rose from the table and Cullen stalked behind her out into the sun.
“Ye couldn’t leave well enough alone, woman? Ye had to poke the bear one last time?” Cullen shook his head at his wife’s insane insistence on cracking the whip of her tongue to have the last word over the royalist spies.
They walked briskly back down the mountain path, not trusting the couple they’d left in the cottage.
Cullen eyed Willa solemnly from the side. “I had no idea what a bloodthirsty lass I married.”
Willa did not deny his words but threw him an angry stare.
He blinked. “I’ll take that to mean I should sleep with one eye open from now on.”
Cullen sat in a damp sitting room and listened to the rustling of mice in the walls at Longwood House. And he prayed to God the world’s most famous prisoner would not show up. He’d had word sent to the Arethusa by the shore boat waiting on the quay in Johnstown. He and Willa would be ready to board that afternoon after his “summons” to give medical advice on the state of the prisoner’s health.
Captain Still had kept the ship out, not far beyond the harbor, patrolling and guarding who knew what secrets. He was beginning to get an uneasy feeling that Captain Still knew more about the state of the politics and intrigue on St. Helena than he’d let on. Cullen, for one, would be grateful to get this assignment behind him.
He’d nearly nodded off after several hours of sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair when he was suddenly alert again. A whispered conversation floated across the screens separating the waiting area of the long sitting room. From the rhythm and tone of the back-and-forth of the words, he guessed an argument and debate were taking place. Great. He was within an hour of turning his back on the madness of St. Helena.
Just when he thought someone would come out and dismiss him, a young Frenchman appeared. His English was heavily accented, but good enough. “The General has decided it would not hurt to give you an audience from behind the screen. You can ask him questions about his health, and, if appropriate, he will answer.”
Cullen’s mouth dropped open. He could not think of any intelligent response to such an addle-pated suggestion. But he did want this ordeal to be over.
“Fine. I would be happy discuss the Emperor’s health.” When he stood, the young man dragged his chair across the thin, faded carpet to the area next to the screen.
Cullen sat gingerly on the wobbly chair which could use re-assembly with some new nails.
After a long silence, a low voice from the other side admitted, “The pain - it never ends.”
“Where?”
“My stomach.”
“Which side is the pain worse?”
After a long pause, the voice resumed. “On the right.”
“High or low?”
Another pause. “About the middle.”
“I can’t tell you anything without at least seeing where you’re pointing for pain.”
“What would be your guess, Dr. MacCloud?”
Cullen jerked at the mention of his name and then automatically suggested what he would for any patient with unexplained stomach pain. “There’s always bleeding, a bland diet, perhaps a tonic, or calomel for purges, and of course, laudanum for pain.”
The voice on the other side of the screen turned abrupt and dismissive. “That is quite enough. You do not seem to have any more knowledge than all of the other know-nothing physicians who have seen me over the years.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I wish you well.”
And that was the end of the strangest patient conversation Cullen had ever had.
He shook his head hard and headed out the door behind the young man who had summoned him.
Outside, Cullen accepted the loan of a mule to transport him down to the harbor as quickly as possible. The animal could be returned by the next visitor to Longwood. All he wanted now was to return to his own surgery and his beautiful, maddening, unpredictable wife, who by now would be waiting with their things aboard the shore boat with a group of His Majesty’s Royal Marines. Thank God.
Willa’s stubborn husband leaned against the bunk in their cabin that had once again become the place where they shared the nightly dialogue that had gone on for months. She knew every plane, every bumpy surface on his body. In the dark of the tiny space they’d shared, she’d gone over the rough chart of his face with her fingers more times than she could recall. She kissed those lips and greedily sucked in his warmth. But she still did not have a map of the uncharted depths that lay behind his thick skull.
Cullen broke the extended silence. “Now what is going on behind those sinful gray eyes, lass? Today, they look like the foam that crashes over rocks near the shore. Just waiting to take down an unwise sod like me who doesn’t care if he gets dragged under and sucked back out to sea.
“You know what I want.” Willa crossed her arms beneath her breasts and hugged her middle.
Cullen said nothing, but pulled her into his arms and held her so tightly, she stopped breathing for a moment. And then he was gone.
After the temporary door slammed shut and the canvas walls shuddered and flapped in his wake, she grabbed the nearest solid item to hand - her journal - and hurled it to the deck floor.
She would get to the truth of what they had to fear from Ariadne’s hatred and spite if she had to extract the details from someone who knew. She couldn’t be sure, but she could not imagine Captain Still accepting a physician to replace her father without knowing everything about him. If the captain refused to tell her what lay behind the allegations hanging over Cullen’s head, she would leave the ship once they returned to Portsmouth and throw herself on the mercy of her husband�
�s kinsmen in the far north Highlands.
The marine guarding Captain Still’s door on the morning watch was Sergeant Claridge. He rapped a knuckle against the door and then opened it just as Willa sailed through. He kept his face blank of expression, but she noted a nervous flicker in his eyes when she stormed past him.
Captain Still sat at his desk and was in the act of pouring a cup of steaming tea from a silver pot. When she stood before him, blinking back tears, he pointed toward the chair opposite him. “Sit, Willa. Tell me what’s troubling you, child.”
His servant passed the cup to Willa, along with a small plate of biscuits. The captain had remembered how she liked her tea, and the cup contained a healthy dollop of cream.
He waved Jenkins away and leaned back in his chair, waiting.
“Why did you not tell me what you knew about Dr. MacCloud’s past when I came to you with the locket?”
“You didn’t ask.”
She took a long sip of the bracing, hot tea. “I’m asking now.”
“All of the officers and men on our ships at the Bombardment of Algiers acquitted themselves valiantly. Many were commended and promoted. Our surgeons performed especially above and beyond the Admiralty’s expectations. The fleet overall lost nearly two hundred dead and seven hundred twenty-six wounded.”
“But what possible reason would Dr. MacCloud have for abandoning his station aboard ship in the days before the battle?” Willa set down her cup and leaned forward, clenching her hands together.
“There was a special shore party dispatched to evacuate the dependents of the consul and other British families in Algiers. Since they had to be rescued under the cover of night without the Dey’s knowledge, they needed a way to ensure the babies and small children could be smuggled out safely.”
Willa scooted close to the front of her chair, her hands gripping the edge of the seat.
“Dr. MacCloud was one of the surgeons who volunteered to accompany the marines to make sure the children didn’t cry, without endangering their breathing.” Captain Stills gave a huge sigh and set his spectacles aside, rubbing hard at his eyes.
One of the last rescuers headed for the shore boat was your husband. He was carrying a baby. From what we were able to piece together from witnesses, apparently Madame de Santis was on a mission to smuggle sensitive French documents out of the embassy before the bombardment began. When she accosted Dr. MacCloud and demanded he provide her passage aboard the shore boat, he refused, and she shot him.”
Willa could not contain her rage. “What happened then? What about the poor child? Did no one detain Ariadne for such a foul deed?”
Captain Still raised a hand in a sign of peace. “Dr. MacCloud’s infamously hard head saved him, and the blast only grazed his forehead. She showed up at the boat with the baby, claimed Algerian troops had killed the surgeon, and they believed her.”
“Then the letter she used to get me to do her bidding was only part of the truth, the part she thought she could use to destroy Cullen?”
He paused before answering. “I’m afraid so. In fact, Dr. MacCloud rejoined the Leander’s crew before the battle began, they patched up his wound, and he assisted the surgeon, Mr. Quarries, throughout the entire bloody action.”
Willa scarcely remembered stumbling out of the captain’s cabin and scrambling down multiple hatchway steps at a time to return to Cullen’s side. When he saw the look on her face, he opened his arms and she fell into them.
Later that night, she stripped off her sensible cotton nightgown and climbed over top of him, nuzzling her way up his body, stopping to touch and lick at all of the places of which she’d become inordinately fond.
When he pulled her up hard against him and claimed her mouth for a long kiss, she straddled his cock. He rubbed the tip carefully against her entrance and then moved to pleasure her with his fingers, the way their lovemaking usually progressed. She pushed his hand away instead. “No,” she breathed into his mouth. “I want you inside me.”
“But what about—?”
She silenced him with her fingers against his lips. “Journal entries be damned.” When she slid down, sheathing his cock in her wetness, there was the tiniest of bit of pain until he grasped her hips with his hands and began to move within her. He thrust up several times before grabbing her wrists and demanding, “Are you sure?”
Her only answer was to rise up on her knees before slowly grinding back down over his cock.
He groaned. “Ye’re killin’ me, lass.”
She growled low near his ear. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Och, no. Then I’d be a dead man for sure.”
Hours later, she rubbed her fingers across his bare chest and purred a little hum of satisfaction. “Why didn’t you want to tell me the whole truth of what happened in Algiers?”
He stopped breathing for a moment before taking in a deep inhale and answering. “What Ariadne did to me at Algiers was nothing compared to the suffering and dying…all the blood in the surgery that day.” He sat straight up in the dark. “I love you more than life itself, Willa, but there are parts of my past that are so dark, I may never be able to share them with you.”
“I don’t care. I want to share everything with you. I’ve been in the surgery with my father when the blood ran so thick on the deck, even the sand we threw down couldn’t keep the decks from being deadly slippery. None of those men knew I was a woman, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have cared, as long as I kept the saw blades sharp and Papa did amputations wicked quick.
Cullen pulled her onto his lap and covered her neck with kisses. “Point well taken, wife. We’re just going to have to take this married life thing one day at a time.”
May 4, 1821
The Arethusa
Somewhere Off St. Helena
* * *
Captain Still called Cullen and his other officers into his cabin on the morning of May 4 to explain he would have to leave the ship abruptly for a meeting with St. Helena’s governor, Hudson Lowe, Napoleon’s controversial gaoler. He put First Lieutenant Dalton in charge and left with a shore party of marines.
When the captain did not return that night, the gossip amongst the sailors aboard the Arethusa was wild with speculation and rumors.
And then, finally, during one of the the ship’s passes in front of Jamestown harbor, the flag officer reported the semaphore messaging indicated Napoleon was dead. After a few more passes, the shore launch bringing the captain back was sighted, and Lieutenant Dalton gave the order to head into the anchorage.
After Captain Still was piped back aboard, he disappeared into his cabin for the rest of the day. When he emerged the next morning, he announced they would be sailing back to Portsmouth, per his sealed orders which were to be opened only on the occasion of Napoleon’s death.
Chapter Twenty-Four
First Lieutenant James Dalton waited anxiously outside the door to Captain Still’s cabin. He’d been summoned in a note to meet with his commanding officer about an “opportunity.” Perhaps, finally, the Admiralty had seen fit to promote him to captain and give him his own ship.
When finally the marine swung open the door, the captain’s servant, Jenkins, showed him to the table in the great cabin and offered a cup of tea. Dalton did not particularly care for tea, but dutifully downed the steaming liquid. After a wait of at least an hour, he wondered what the devil the captain was about. The sun had set, and darkness had descended on the harbor.
“Ah, Mr. Dalton.” The captain appeared suddenly from his private cabin.
Jenkins materialized with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. He poured a tot of brandy into each and then disappeared again.
When Captain Still joined Dalton at the table, he lifted his glass. “A toast?”
“Of course.” Dalton’s hopes soared. “To what are we toasting?”
“To old times, to new adventures.” Captain Still sat back and stared a long minute after downing the dark, amber liquid. Then he rose and walked t
oward the long row of windows along the stern. “Do you see those lanterns over there?” He pointed toward the Chilean warship anchored several hundred feet away from the Arethusa and motioned for Dalton to join him.
“Of course. They’re leaving tomorrow as soon as they’ve taken on fresh water and provisions.”
“I think they meant to try to liberate old Boney, but gave up when they found out how sick he was. Otherwise, the captain is an Englishman, former Royal Navy. Good chap to have alongside you in a fight.” Captain Still turned back to face Dalton. “A fair, honest man to work for. He’s looking for a first lieutenant. He just lost his to fever.”
Dalton’s heart started thumping in double-time. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think this would be a great opportunity for you.”
Dalton took a step back. “My loyalty, and my career, lie only with the Royal Navy.”
After a few moments, Captain Still continued. “That’s too bad, because sailing back to Chile on that ship would be infinitely preferable to sailing back to England for a court martial, shackled in the Arethusa’s brig.”
“Why? On what charges?” Dalton took on a blustering tone.
“Behavior unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, to start. And I’m sure I can think of more before we get back to Portsmouth.”
Dalton sagged and sat back down hard.
“The coxswain will take you over tonight in a small boat. Don’t make him wait.” The captain returned to his private cabin, and the marine guarding the door came to make sure Dalton followed his orders.
Cullen could not speak for the rest of the crew, but he for one would be more than happy to put the sight of this island behind him.
When he and Willa received an invitation to the captain’s table for supper that evening, they assumed the other officers would be joining them. However, when they arrived, they were greeted by Captain Still alone.
Pride of Duty (Men of the Squadron Book 2) Page 19