The Duke

by Katharine Ashe

  Minding his behavior was another matter entirely.

  He bent his head and a stream of water cascaded from his hat brim. He glanced at her through the waterfall.

  “Would you be fretting if I remove my hat?”

  The cinnamon spots that trailed over the bridge of her nose and across her cheeks crinkled together to make one big cinnamon blotch. “Why on earth should I?”

  He set his hat upon a crate. Wrapping her arms about herself she watched him closely.

  “Well?” she said. Some of her hair had escaped the knot at the back of her head and clung wetly to her brow just as the fabric of her gown clung to her hips and legs.

  Copper hair striated with gold.

  Softly rounded hips.

  Long legs.

  The damn pulse in his head was a snare drum. He knew men whose cravings for feminine flesh got the best of them when they finally came into port. He had never been one of those men. Women weren’t to be enjoyed like a randy stallion taking a mare, rather with as much appreciation as a man savored a tumbler of fine brandy, or a sublime piece of music, or a painting by an Italian master—a Michelangelo or Botticelli.

  Sweet curves.

  Her garments were fine, her speech cultivated, and she was old enough to know that her damp gown was not in the least modest at present.

  The stallion was winning.

  “’Twill be some time before the storm passes,” he said in too husky a voice. “’Tis miles wide.”

  The brilliant cloverleaves popped round again.

  “Miles?” Beneath the freckles and agitated flush, her skin was smooth—cheeks, brow, hands. She had not been in the islands long, and she was little more than a girl.

  After nearly a decade at sea, Gabriel could barely remember boyhood.

  “You’ve just arrived?” he said.

  “Two days ago on the Camelot.”

  Gabriel knew it. As first officer on one of His Majesty’s finest ships of the line, it was his responsibility to know the merchant vessels that docked at English ports.

  “No one warned you o’ hurricanes?”

  “No.” She had remarkable features: mobile and bright and expressive. “Should they have?”

  “’Twill be hours still.” And it would leave a mighty mess of destruction.

  “How many hours?”

  “No’ till morning.”

  With a long inhalation, she released her arms from about her chest.

  “Then we should make ourselves comfortable,” she said with newly crisp decision and swept him with another perusal, lingering ever-so-briefly on the medals pinned to his coat. “If you can. You are as wet as I, yet you look like a toy soldier, standing there so erect and unbending. I suppose sailors are accustomed to being soaked through, of course.”

  “If they’re bad sailors, aye.”

  Pleasure flared in her eyes. “Now, make yourself useful and help me search these crates for a woolen shawl or blanket. For I am soaked through.” She set to her task on the nearest crate, but the lid was nailed shut and her fingertips strained at the wood.

  He went to her side. Scent arose from her damp hair and skin. She smelled like a memory.

  He withdrew the knife from his coat and pried open the lid.

  “It seems that you are useful after all,” she said with a half grin that abruptly turned something very sharp in his gut and made him want to tell her the truth. Urgently. All truths. Truths about the hurricane and truths about the depths of the sea and the stars in the heavens and every one of the sins that made him a beast indeed.

  “Lass, ’tis as likely as no’ that before this night is o’er, the sea will top the wharfs an’ swallow this building.”

  “And we in it.”

  “Aye.”

  “I see.” For a moment she said nothing. “After we find blankets we should look for a deck of cards or a backgammon board in these crates. For if we are to die tonight, we had better enjoy our final hours on earth, hadn’t we, Shark Bait?”

  “Lieutenant.” He could not look away from her eyes. Black clouds without blotted the tropical sun, allowing only the most reluctant light into this room, yet her eyes sparkled.

  Backgammon. She had the body of a siren and the innocence of a girl.

  “You’ve a disliking for sailors, it seems,” he said.

  “The officers aboard the Camelot confined me to my quarters for the entire duration of the journey. They said it was not suitable for me to be atop, but I think they simply did not want me to witness them drinking the day away every day.”

  More than likely they did not trust themselves with the pretty little siren wandering about.

  “I think you are trying not to smile, Shark Bait. Will you attempt to deny that sailors drink excessively?”

  “No.”

  “So, you understand the reason for my dislike.”

  “Because hardworking men are fond o’ spirits?”

  “Because they refused to share their spirits with me.”

  They found blankets woven of soft wool and tins of biscuits. They had no lamp, which Gabriel said was for the better, and she accepted that without comment. As the storm lashed the shop above and water trickled through the seams of the window, and darkness fell, they found a cask of new rum. She said that she had never tasted rum, and asked if, being a Scot, he preferred whiskey. He replied that he did, but that any grog in a storm would do. She smiled so readily, as though her lips were more accustomed to smiling than not. Despite her obvious breeding, there was no maidenly modesty in her frankness. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that over both whiskey and rum he already preferred her.

  She discovered sugar, which he added to the rum to make it more palatable for her, and she sipped warily. As the daylight waned and she explored the contents of crates and barrels, she darted glances at him—frequently. She spoke with ease but she came no nearer to him than necessary.

  When the black night consumed every last wisp of light she ceased speaking. As the hurricane shook the walls, Gabriel settled onto the ground with his back against a crate. Closing his eyes, he made himself picture the Theia bobbing violently at anchor in some nearby port, its decks flooded in foam but its crew and officers tucked into some terrestrial haven.

  No time left for repentance.

  He had thought he and Jonah would have plenty of time. Sailors perished every day at sea, but somehow he had believed them untouchable.

  Invincible, Gabe. That’s what the storytellers will say of us someday. Invincible.

  In the heavy darkness, her scent came to him again. Like home. Not the mossy grass of the mountains of Kallin, nor the wildflowers that carpeted the hills of Haiknayes. She smelled of woodland fir: crisp and warm and rich.

  The room rattled and he felt her settle silently at his side.

  “How did you come to be here in this cellar?” she said very quietly. She was close to his shoulder, closer than he had anticipated.

  “I was watching for a ship. You?”

  “I walked to post a letter and got caught up with exploring. Everything here is so different and interesting. I was far from the hotel before I thought to turn around.” She made a sound that might have been a sigh. “I failed to heed the warnings.”

  “Dinna fear, lass. ’Twill be morning before long.”

  “You are lying again, Shark Bait.” Then he felt the pressure of her body against his arm, her shoulder leaning in. “But this time I don’t mind it.”

  He did not move. He could not move. He wanted her bone and flesh pressing against his so simply. Perhaps in these final hours that had come far too soon in his life, God was offering him mercy, a moment of innocent pleasure after all the moments of sinful pleasure he had seized.

  Something bumped against his leg. Then her fingers slipped beneath his hand. Her clasp was unhesitating, her fingertips brushing across his palm then pressing tight against his knuckles. Palm to palm with her, he strove to breathe and his heartbeats flew at twelve knots.

>   “You are lying to comfort me,” she said, “so that I will not dwell on how we are about to die.”

  “Am I?” Only thin wooden walls and ceiling separated them from death, and yet the touch of a girl’s hand was all he cared for now.

  “You are,” she whispered clearly and softly beneath the storm’s scream. “It seems that I will be obliged to reconsider my poor opinion of sailors. One sailor, at least.”

  Blindly he turned his face to her. He was in fact a beast of a man, and she was a little thing that he could crush with a single arm, and he knew he should not be holding her hand, not even in this circumstance.

  He bent his head closer. “Aye?”

  She did not reply and her hand remained snugly in his and the night raged on.

  Chapter 3

  The Aftermath

  12 October 1817

  The Queen’s Hotel

  Kingston, Jamaica

  Dear Emmie,

  There has been a tremendous storm, a hurricane. Yet now the rain and wind have gone entirely and the sky is as gently still as on a Shropshire summer day. But the harbor still churns and all on land is in upheaval. Mrs. Jennings will not allow me to leave the hotel unless accompanied by my betrothed, who has not yet called although he sent a note with a boy yesterday morning to assure himself of my safety.

  Instead I will tell you of the plans for my wedding day, which, because of events, has had to be postponed . . .

  Order of Command

  By Order of the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom and Commander of the Atlantic Fleet, you are required to take command of the Theia, with all the rights and responsibilities attending, and to carry out, and to cause your crew to carry out, any and all Orders by Superior Officers, barring none.

  Given on board the Fairway at Kingston Harbour, 15th October, 1817, to Gabriel Hume, Hnble, from this moment forth Commander of His Majesty’s Frigate Theia.

  Chapter 4

  The Captain

  Amarantha stood before the hotel parlor window, peering at the people rushing to and fro. Her fingertips drummed.

  “I cannot remain another minute inside,” she said to her companion, Sarah Jennings, whom her parents had hired for the journey to Jamaica.

  “You cannot go out into that melee, my lady.”

  “Everybody is busy except us. There must be a hundred and one things I could do to help.”

  “You will only be in the way.” The widow was plying the needle to a linen cap.

  “In a fortnight I will be the wife of a man of the cloth, Mrs. Jennings. I cannot rest in idle comfort while everybody else labors.”

  “Reverend Garland’s note indicated that he will call on us the moment he is able. Until then we must remain here.”

  The hotel was damp and making Amarantha’s temper damp too. Outside, the tropical sun bathed everything in heat. Even yesterday morning, as she had found her way from the dry goods shop to the hotel entrance, the sun had already been baking the carnage: uprooted trees, parts of buildings, lifeless livestock, broken furniture, torn sails and tangled rigging, and pools of water everywhere. Now that landscape was a whirl of activity.

  “I cannot wait here,” she said decisively, moving to the doorway. “I will go out now and find someone to lead me to the mission.”

  “My lady, you must not—”

  Grabbing her bonnet and a parasol, she threw open the door and stepped out into the sunlight.

  Before the hotel was less a proper street than a morass of detritus from both sea and civilization. Everywhere people were at work picking through the remnants of buildings, heaping refuse into great mounds, and sweeping and scrubbing and hammering. As she headed in the direction of the mission, nobody even noticed her.

  Not far away, where a small building had been only days earlier, amongst the rubble an elderly Englishman with a deeply tanned face and hands was tending to the wounds of a cluster of people, most of them brown-skinned, including some sailors she recognized from the Camelot. For several minutes she watched, shocked as the people crowded about him, some bleeding and others weeping, but all polite as they requested his aid. The doctor moved from one wound to the next without even looking up.

  Moving to the edge of the crowd, Amarantha held the parasol high and said quietly, “May I pass through?”

  They parted for her, swiftly returning hopeful eyes to the doctor.

  “—then reapply the salve and rebind the wound,” the doctor was saying to a mother holding a wailing child in her arms.

  “Doctor,” Amarantha said, “I am Amarantha Vale. I am staying at the hotel—”

  “Dr. Hill will tend to you at his practice, miss. I’ve others to care for here.”

  Amarantha stood for a confused moment, looking about at the people waiting for treatment. Then, abruptly, she understood. While she wore fashionable jonquil muslin, the people around her were all dressed simply and plainly. Dr. Hill must be treating persons of means.

  “Oh, no, sir,” she said. “I am not injured. I have just arrived in town and have no home or family here yet.” It felt odd to say that. “May I be of use to you here?”

  He peered at her more closely.

  “Somewhere in the wreckage here, Miss Vale, is a medicine cabinet. You will need two able-bodied boys—those two. Find the cabinet and bring it here. Then I will need your assistance.”

  They found the medicine cabinet beneath the ceiling that had fallen on it. While digging it out, she asked the boys about the doctor. In English she barely understood, one of them said that Mr. Meriwether had been a ship’s surgeon but now treated slaves and sailors living near the docks. When the medicine cabinet had been moved, she sent the boy to the hotel with a message for Mrs. Jennings. Then the surgeon bade her assist in arranging pallets on the ground for the most seriously wounded.

  Mrs. Jennings appeared, hovering at the edge of the makeshift sick-house with a laced kerchief pressed to her nose.

  “This is not suitable activity for a lady of your delicate years. Your parents will be shocked that I have allowed this.”

  “My parents would not bat an eyelash at this.” Only a slight exaggeration. “And I am far from delicate. I spent my childhood racing from one adventure to the next.”

  “My lady, this is hardly an adventure.”

  “Mr. Meriwether needs help,” Amarantha said, shifting tactics. “It is the work of God.”

  In Shropshire when she had discovered the angelic Reverend Paul Garland preaching in that church beyond the border of her father’s estate, he had warned his congregation that the life of a missionary was not for the faint of heart. The notion of sailing off to a foreign land had so thrilled Amarantha that she had fallen in love with his crusade on the spot. When, after a month of courtship, he told her that he must finally depart for the West Indies, and asked her to join him there as his bride, she had not hesitated to accept.

  And yet, never in her wildest imaginings had she expected this. The injured that sat on the ground awaiting the surgeon’s care seemed to have nothing but the clothing they wore. As people searched among the patients for their loved ones, cries of joy with each reunion and wails of despair from others filled the sticky air that smelled of mud and brine.

  “Will you help me?” she said to her companion.

  “I most certainly will not. I will remain here and wait for you to remember yourself,” she said, and sat stony faced with disapproval on a pile of rubble.

  Amarantha offered her the parasol then decided not to worry about her. She was far too busy.

  It was a long, long day.

  “Miss Vale, you have overtaxed yourself,” Mr. Meriwether said as the evening made shadows across the cluttered street. “You must go home now.”

  “But there is so much still to do. So many people!”

  “You are exhausted, and I cannot have my only nurse fall ill.”

  “Do you not have a regular nurse? An actual nurse?”

  “Eliza left for the interior yesterday to se
e to family. Now, do go and rest, child.”

  Returning to the hotel on sore feet, with blistered hands, aching arms, and a gown stained in things she didn’t want to think about, Amarantha had only one ear for Mrs. Jennings’s complaints. For her companion had spoken rightly: this was no mere adventure. Her entire world had changed. In comparison to the suffering she had seen in a single day, her mother fretting over megrims seemed so foolish.

  She entered the foyer with a full head and uncomfortable heart.

  “My lady,” the footman said. “A gentleman called for you earlier.”

  A spark of happiness pierced her befuddlement. “Reverend Garland?”

  “It was an officer from the Fairway.” He proffered a calling card.

  The crisp rectangle of ivory cardstock bore two sentences in clean, bold script: A backgammon set is purchased. I will hold you to your promise.

  Nerves tumbled into her empty stomach.

  In the small hours of the morning, in the blackness of the shop’s cellar as wind beat at the walls, they had not spoken of the storm. Instead they spoke of unimportant things: the impressive variety of bolts in a crate she had opened, the most effective methods for tying a secure knot, the challenge of choosing the perfect Yule log at Christmastime, the unfortunate occasion when at age ten she had opened a gate before taking note of the ram on the other side of it, the curious practice by which naval lieutenants wore a gold epaulette on only one shoulder rather than on both, her profound appreciation for all shades of red despite the color of her hair, the first instance in which he had accidentally walked into a door lintel, and whether winning at backgammon required true strategy or only good luck.

  Concerning the last, she argued for luck, he for strategy. Laughingly she scorned his position on the matter, to which he replied if she were so confident, then she must be able to beat even an officer trained to naval tactics in a mere game of backgammon. She promised him that she could—easily—and that if there were any light she would on the spot.

  But there had been no light, not until hours later when she had opened her eyes to discover silence all around, that they were alive, and that she had slept, her cheek pressed to his shoulder, her hand still tucked in his.