by Barbara Dan
Throwing up his hands, Dr. Trowbridge tried to picture Bruce MacGregor as a hen-pecked husband. He could not. But one thing he did know: That little termagant needed a firm hand—and soon, or there would be hell to pay.
* * *
Alice Graham drove out the next morning with a wagonload of hand-picked single women between the ages of fifteen and thirty. These, added to the eight who had answered Lydia's summons yesterday, and the three already in residence, made a total of twenty-three volunteers. Finally! Lydia had enough staff to take care of the men's needs, even taking into account any complications Cupid was likely to introduce.
"Alice, I cannot thank you enough." Lydia said, showing the lieutenant's wife around the upstairs. All of the new volunteers were on the third floor with Sarah, getting settled.
"It's the very least I can do. I had no idea you were farther along than me," Alice Graham gently chided.
Lydia blushed. "So my secret is out, is it? I was hoping not to provoke talk—"
"Nonsense! It only proves you're as brave and dedicated as your husband. Captain MacGregor must be extremely proud and delighted to hear of your fine efforts."
Lydia blushed guiltily. "Actually, he doesn't know about the baby, or any of this—yet." A sweep of her slender arm indicated the bustling infirmary, where cheerful feminine voices mingled with deeper masculine ones, as the women performed their nursing and household tasks.
Someone down the hall let out a vile oath, and Lydia winced, not because of the crash of a bed pan against a wall, but because of the pain and anguish in the man's voice.
Having grown up the only girl in a houseful of boys, Lydia was used to salty language of the sea; Alice was not. "That poor man!" she whispered, drawing Alice Graham out of earshot. "He learned only this morning that his arm must be amputated."
"Do you think it might help if my husband came to see him?" Alice asked, suppressing her shock and aversion to the man's crude language.
"It couldn't hurt. He certainly needs an understanding friend." said Lydia, walking arm in arm with Alice out to the Graham's modest but roomy wagon.
"Then I shall send Andrew. He's less shockable than I." Alice paused, her eyes twinkling, as they smiled and hugged.
"Please ask your husband to drop by, any time," Lydia said warmly.
Alice shook her head in amazement, as she saw how suddenly Lydia's figure had bloomed like a robust rose of late. "I do so admire you." She sighed wistfully, and climbing into her wagon, she switched her horse lightly and drove off, a straight thin figure bouncing along on worn-out springs, as she disappeared down Ocean Avenue.
In the orchard beyond the tree-lined driveway, apple blossoms were fluttering like tiny white moths on the wind. Following an impulse, Lydia crossed into the newly plowed field and drew a deep breath, savoring the rich earthy fragrance and sweet blooms. Bending, she scooped up a handful of black dirt and sifted it through her fingers. An earthworm lay squirming in her palm, as she crouched in reverie. How terrible that the horrors of war had driven such simple pleasures as the miracle of spring's triumph over the bleakness of winter from her thinking.
She felt the baby stir restlessly inside and found it strangely comforting. At least there's one miracle I haven't missed, she mused.
Gently she placed the worm in the cool earth and straightened. Her back still hurt, but a day off her feet had done wonders. She broke off a sprig of apple blossoms and inhaled the heady perfume. By summer's end, her body would be as ripe as this orchard, with fruit ready to fall.
'Make me a son, Lydia.' As Bruce's words came crowding back into her memory, Lydia gave a jaunty salute. "Aye, aye, Captain!" What a dutiful little wife she had become! She could almost laugh at the comical aspects of her condition, were she not so achingly lonely for Bruce.
Lord, watch over my husband, she thought as she walked back toward the house and her busy household. Everything is meaningless so long as he's not here to share this life with me.
She looked up at the massive stone structure, with its latticed windows and leaded, diamond-cut panes, and envisioned those sheltered behind its sturdy walls. How she wished it were truly a fortress against the ugliness of war and heartache!
Until now, she hadn't fully appreciated the laughter of Bruce's friends on the eve of their wedding. Now she yearned for their ribald vitality. She was tired of the smell of gangrene and festering sores, and, always, the nauseatingly strong soaps they had to use. There ought to be a limit to how long she must keep herself busy, just hoping and waiting . . . She longed for the day when the house, now filled with suffering, would be filled once again with the sounds of rejoicing.
Gladly would she give up the present back-breaking drudgery for a little peace. She and her staff were forever standing over boiling kettles in the backyard, making candles and soap to keep up with the demands of a small army of wounded men. Seeing that there were enough provisions on hand to feed everyone. The list went on and on, all of it essential, if they were to save lives. But it wasn't how she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
By comparison, the burden of carrying Bruce's child seemed a small thing. And how much better to wash the happy dirty faces of tiny babes and kiss away their hurts? Instead she found herself sponging patients delirious with pain and fever, and praying they wouldn't die.
Oh, God, how long? Would she ever be able to stop waging this war against death?
Would she ever experience beauty and laughter and love again?
She knew she was being selfish, but she couldn't help it. Her own needs kept surfacing, as persistent as the crocuses during an early spring thaw. She felt restless and rebellious. True, she had assumed responsibility for these men's welfare. But now with so many willing—indeed, eager!—helpers, she found herself stepping back to review her own usefulness at this point. Perhaps it was providential that her own involvement was no longer crucial.
Renewed by flowering fields that stretched out over the hills on both sides of the river, Lydia picked up her pace as she returned to the house. The time had come to seek and to find, to grasp her own destiny more firmly. And, if the need arose, she was perfectly willing to get radical.
* * *
As Lydia approached the cot where her brother lay sleeping, she felt a rush of tenderness. Growing up, she and Seth had shared a special bond. They had kept each other's secrets, gotten into mischief, and laughed together—until eight and a half years ago, when her first marriage had marred their friendship. Since then, they had kept a careful distance.
His blond hair was tousled, and he looked younger than his twenty-seven years, as she stroked his temples and called his name softly.
"Seth . . ." She hated to nag, but she hadn't had a free moment to talk with him yet. "Seth, wake up!"
One corner of his mouth twitched. "Sneaking up on me, Lydia?" Seth spoke without opening his eyes, his voice rich with humor. "I'm waiting for you to put a frog down my shirt next."
Their eyes met in laughter, instantly bridging the unhappy years.
"How do you feel?" Lydia asked.
"My leg burns like fire," her brother admitted. "Seeing you is better medicine than that sawbones' gruesome tonics."
"You were one of the fortunate ones. You escaped with only a ball in your leg," she reminded him. "Two of your shipmates died."
Seth nodded soberly. "We lost a lot of good men. Only a few of us made it into the longboat. The Endymion blew the Archer out of the water."
"Was it a long hard fight?" Lydia asked, smoothing the heritage quilt across his shoulders.
He shook his head. "We never saw what hit us. The Endymion came at us out of the fog, about twelve nautical miles from Watch Hill."
Lydia's insides churned at the mention of Watch Hill; it would have been Bruce, lying here. Propping her brother up, she offered him a glass of water dosed with drops for his pain. "You can't imagine how relieved I was when they brought you in alive."
"I see marriage agrees with you, sis," he said, cha
nging the subject. He raised an eyebrow at his sister's rosy cheeks and softening curves. "You've turned into a nicely rounded pigeon."
Lydia blushed. "I fear I won't be able to hide it much longer. I'm expecting in September."
Seth let out a low whistle and counted the months on his fingers. "MacGregor didn't waste any time, did he?" His eyes were dancing. "Does he know yet?"
Lydia shook her head, unable to keep the longing out of her voice. "I've seen Bruce only once since he sailed in December."
"Well, you'll not be seein' him any time soon, from what I've heard."
Lydia's gaze locked with her brother's. "Seth, you know something. What? Tell me!"
He shrugged. "All I know is what a couple of blokes from the Marauder told me. They went ashore for doctoring, shortly before your husband tried a sneak attack at night on a British warship. Funny thing, MacGregor was comin' up on the Endymion, the same ship that sank the Archer—"
"Oh, my God!" she cried, her heart fearfully constricted. "What happened? Is Bruce—?"
"Take it easy, sis. Right before the British sent the Angelic Lady to the bottom, they took off all survivors. It happened up north, off the Newfoundland banks. Your man and his crew put up a helluva fight, or so I heard, but they were outgunned. MacGregor and his men were taken aboard the Tenedos before the British torched his ship."
Lydia swayed and clutched his sleeve. "He's been captured!"
Seeing how distressed she had become, he patted her hand. "Lydia, don't take it so hard. The British are probably holding him in the garrison at Halifax. It's a filthy hellhole, by all reports, but at least he's alive."
"He could be there indefinitely." Lydia collapsed against her brother's shoulder with a sob. "I need him here, Seth, not in some prison," she wailed.
"Cheer up, sis. Maybe he'll get released. Prisoners are traded all the time."
"Time! I'm running out of time—and patience. I'm having his baby, and I want him home!" A tear trickled down her cheek to the tip of her chin.
"Lydia, at least he's alive! The world hasn't come to an end."
"It very nearly has, Seth," she said, making a valiant effort to pull herself together. "I need my husband, and all you can tell me is that he's stuck in some 'hellhole' till the war ends? I fail to see how that's supposed to cheer me up."
Seth grinned, watching his baby sister fish a clean handkerchief from her apron and blow her nose. "There's not much you can do about it, now is there?"
She glared at him resentfully. "Halifax?” she said after a long reflective silence. "You think there's a good chance Bruce is at Halifax?"
He nodded. "Stands to reason. That's where most prisoners in the North Atlantic wind up.
"You'd better be right," she said, the wheels already turning in her brain. She lifted the quilt from Seth's leg and inspected his bandage. "How does your leg feel, Seth?"
Her concern over his welfare pleased him. "Hurts like the devil, but I'm mending. In fact, old Doc thinks getting wounded may have been a blessing in disguise. He was able to fix those torn ligaments I suffered over a year ago."
"Won't that be wonderful, Seth, to have your leg as good as new again?" Lydia threw him a calculating look. "So, how soon before you can be up and out of this bed?"
Seth flushed with annoyance. "What's your hurry, Lydia? Are you wantin' to be rid of me so soon?"
"Oh, Seth, I mean no such thing! You, me and Frank, that's all dead and buried forever, as far as I'm concerned. We were both so young, Seth! Neither of us could see how Frank was using us. Sometimes I used to think you were as much a victim as me."
"I don't deserve your pity or forgiveness, Lydia," Seth said slowly. "I wish I had been stronger. I should have broken with him, but somehow I never could." He looked at her with all the pain of eight wrecked years etched in his face, and suddenly Lydia saw a man who had lost far more than she had, to misplaced love.
"Sometimes I don't think I'll ever entirely shake off the effects of all those years," Seth said. "I hated him, yet I loved him. I guess you'll never understand that."
Lydia met her brother's tortured gaze with a blend of sadness and compassion. "Don't forget, I loved you, too, even when I was angry and hurt by what I knew was going on behind my back. I was jealous, too, I suppose. I thought I loved Frank—in the beginning, at least. But that was before I saw what he was doing to you." She stroked the blond locks back from Seth's damp forehead. "If only you and I could have talked, instead of fighting."
Seth nodded. 'You always had a fiery temper. Besides, I deserved everything you dished out. I said some very hurtful things terribly."
She swallowed, barely able to speak, as all the old feelings came back like a flood.
Suddenly the baby inside her kicked.
On impulse, she grabbed his sleeve. "Seth, would you like to feel my baby?"
Seeing her radiant face, he let her place his hand on the small mound below her waistline. He shook his head. "Can’t feel a thing."
She smiled. "You will. He's a very active baby."
They sat in silence, their hands linked over her distended abdomen, their eyes holding each other. "There! By God, I feel it!" He laughed, and a flush of excitement lit up his face, as a tremor streaked beneath his palm.
"That's my son. Mine and Bruce's." Lydia fastened her blue-violet gaze on him earnestly. "And Bruce doesn't even know."
"You miss him a great deal, don't you, sis?"
She nodded, pondering the strange events that had led up to her marriage. "We didn't know each other very long before he left, but—" She sighed.
"You love him."
Lydia's head came up, and she caught the gentle understanding in her brother's eyes. Sharing the intimacy of a baby's kick wasn't half as startling as this confirmation of what she had thought all along, but refused to face till now. "Yes," she said hesitantly. "Bruce is a wonderful man." She smiled over the differences between her two husbands. 'Not at all like Frank with all his games. Bruce is— Well, he's everything I had hoped to find in Frank, and didn't."
Seeing the rosy glow in her cheeks as she spoke of MacGregor, Seth reached out and touched her cheek. "I'm truly happy for you, sis."
She grasped his hand, her throat choked with emotion. "I'd be a lot happier if I had Bruce with me right now."
Seth nodded toward her expanding waistline. "You have his child."
"You know what I've noticed about you, Seth? Your ability to soothe and infuriate me, all in the same breath!" Lydia jumped up. "Now, how long before your leg's all healed and you're seaworthy?"
Startled by his sister's mercurial disposition, he laughed nervously. "What did I say that ticked you off this time?"
Lydia smiled mysteriously. "Nothing! But I need your help to find Bruce and bring him home."
"No way! One look at me, and that husband of yours will knock my block off."
"That's a chance I'm willing to take," she said stubbornly.
"Well, I'm not. Besides, Lydia, you're pregnant!"
"Yes, and I refuse to have this baby without him. You and I are going to Halifax and negotiate his release!"
"Listen to me, sis." Seth gave her an earnest shake. "You get Doc Trowbridge to prescribe something to calm you down. You're just overwrought."
Lydia wrenched free, her gaze stormy. "Seth, you will take me to Bruce," she declared and drew a deep breath, threatening to shout the roof down if he denied her.
“Keep it quiet, will you?” Alarmed, he struggled to rise from his bed, only to fall back weakly. "All right, climb off your high horse. As soon as I get my sea legs back, I'll help you."
He was perspiring with pain, and Lydia paused in her tirade to lay a cool hand on his brow. "Promise?" she persisted.
"Oh, hell, I suppose. Whatever you say." He lay there, dizzy and weak with exertion.
Lydia smiled like a cat. "Good. While you get well, I shall find us a ship to sail to Halifax."
"What? A tugboat? Any ship that’s not out fighting the Briti
sh fleet already isn't worth the cost to scuttle it," he objected.
"Nevertheless I shall make inquiries." Lydia bent over and gave him a quick buss on the cheek. "By the time you're back on your feet, I shall have found you a ship and a crew beyond your wildest imaginings!"
Seth groaned and closed his eyes in resignation. "Aye, aye, Madam Captain."
Chapter Eighteen
Early June 1814
"Well, Seth, what do you think?" Lydia pulled her brother along by the arm, up the gangplank and onto the foul smelling deck of the Isobella, a stinking little fishing vessel, no more than seventy feet in length and scarcely twenty-four feet in width.
"This is what you came up with?" Leaning against her for support, Seth cocked a skeptical eyebrow. His leg still hurt worse than if it had been chewed up by a 'gator, but Lydia wasn't willing to wait a second longer. She had dragged him down to the wharf to inspect the ship he was to command.
My God, have I sunk this low? he thought, mentally cringing.
"I know it looks a little rough, Seth, but the hull is sound, and the price is right." Lydia trailed along beside him, pointing out its best features.
Seth didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he looked over the tiny Portuguese vessel. It wasn't just the lack of paint and the stench of fish guts, which years of hard use had left permeating the half-rotten deck.
"Without knowing what you paid for this leaky old tub, I still say it's no bargain."
He stumped off toward the grungy prow. There had to be some way to persuade her to give up her hare-brained scheme to rescue Bruce. He would be a laughing stock, if anyone ever got wind of his commanding such a sorry excuse for a ship.
"Lydia, look at those sails. They're in tatters! How am I supposed to catch enough wind to move her around on the river, much less in the open seas? She needs a complete overhaul. New rigging, new sails, paint. Probably needs new caulking, work below the waterline, and God knows what else!" He opened the forward hatch and descended into the putrefying hold below deck.