‘I brought you some stew and wine.’ He sat the tray down on the tiny table.
‘Thank you, but I am not hungry.’ Sarah’s face was pinched pale with exhaustion and worry.
‘She has not eaten a thing all day, sir.’ Fanny’s forehead was creased with concern.
‘Please do not start again, Fanny!’
Fanny’s mouth tightened. ‘But, ma’am—’
‘Go and rest in Mrs Ellison’s cabin, Fanny,’ Daniel interrupted. ‘There is not room in here for us all. I will stay with Mrs Ellison.’
The door closed with a quiet click behind the maid.
Sarah bit her lip.
Daniel moved to the bed where the bairn stirred and moaned in her sleep. ‘Is she any better since this afternoon?’
‘She grows worse. I gave her a little laudanum to aid her rest, but the fever will not let her go.’ Sarah’s voice was quiet and strained.
He touched a hand to Imelda’s forehead and felt the scald.
‘I have tried everything I can think of and nothing makes any difference.’
‘There is time enough yet.’ He rested his hand against Sarah’s shoulder.
She ignored him. ‘She was soaked through to the skin from the rain. And then all those hours tied to the mast in the cold...’ Sarah closed her eyes. ‘You should have explained better to me about the storm. You should have...’ She shook her head. ‘She ran away because she was frightened.’
He said nothing, knowing the real reason she was blaming him.
‘She’s ten years old. Ten!’ The anger flashed in her eyes as she stared up at him. She got to her feet, angrily shrugging his hand from her shoulder and facing him. ‘She thinks you are a pirate captain!’
Still he said nothing, just absorbing her need to vent her frustration and fear.
‘If you had not come with the rope in your hand... If you had not...’ Her voice broke. She closed her eyes and began to weep. ‘It was my fault! I argued against you when you wanted to anchor us to the mast to keep us safe. Had I not...’
‘It would have made no difference.’
‘You cannot know. I was angry with you and angry with myself, over what had almost happened between us up on deck. And because of that...’ She sobbed. ‘I am supposed to look after her. I am supposed to keep her safe.’
‘Sarah,’ he said softly and pulled her against him.
‘It is my fault.’ She wept in earnest and he held her, just held her, giving her what little comfort he could, knowing he would have taken her pain a hundred times over rather than have her suffer like this.
‘There is nothing of fault. A storm is a force of nature, nothing more.’
She wept, this woman who through their journey had struggled so hard against revealing weakness. She wept until the tears were spent, until the sobs died away and she was just standing there with her face pressed against his chest.
‘I am sorry.’ She tilted her face up to look at him.
Her cheeks were wet and blotched from the weeping. He wiped away her tears. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’
‘If she dies...’
He knew he should tell her that everything was going to be fine, just as he had done in the storm, but this was different, far different, and he could not. False hope was worse in the long run. ‘She’s a plucky wee thing. She’ll fight the fever every inch of the way. All we can do is wait this night out.’ Strands of hair stuck to the dampness of her cheeks. He stroked them away.
Her eyes clung to his. All of her defences were gone, broken down and washed away by the prospect of losing the bairn. Without them he could see all of her fear, all of her vulnerability, all of her courage, and the sight of it reached into his chest and squeezed a fist tight and hard around his heart.
‘You are right. All we can do is wait.’ She sat down to resume her vigil.
Daniel lifted the second chair from the other side of the cabin and sat down beside her.
‘Daniel...’
He slid his hand to cover hers. ‘I’m not going anywhere, lass.’
Her fingers closed around his.
He passed her the dinner tray. She accepted it without protest, eating and drinking a little before setting it back down on the table.
They sat in silence for a while, their fingers entwined, watching the child’s fitful rest.
‘I lied to you,’ she said at last, breaking the silence. ‘When I told you that I was still mourning my husband.’
He said nothing, just let her speak.
‘His name was Robert and I hated him. He was an Englishman emigrating to a new life in America when we met. I did not realise that he only needed a wife to help further his career. He was so handsome and charming...at first.’
Handsome and charming, the same words the maid had used to describe Taverner.
‘But he was a scoundrel and a liar, with eyes that turned too readily to any pretty woman.’ She gave a soft laugh that was not of happiness. ‘He bedded half the women in New York before we were wed a year.’
‘The man must have been a fool.’ He understood now why Sarah Ellison had built her defences so high. Betrayed by every man she had trusted—first the husband and then the suitor.
‘He contracted a fever on a business trip to the South. A fever like Imelda’s. I nursed him in the weeks before he died.’
‘I am sorry, Sarah.’ He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, knowing how much it must be costing her to open up to him.
‘Mourning weeds are like armour against men.’ She met his eyes. ‘But I want you to know the truth. I am sorry that I lied to you.’
‘Sometimes lies are told for the best of reasons. For defence. To protect.’
‘Yes.’ She shivered in the chill of the cabin.
‘Thank you for telling me.’ His thumb stroked against the back of her hand.
Sometimes Imelda’s eyes fluttered open, sometimes she cried out in her fevered sleep. Every time the wee lassie stirred, Sarah rose to check on her, wiping the sweat from the bairn’s brow and dribbling weak beer through the dry lips. The hours of the night crept slowly by.
‘Why do you dislike Christmas so much, Daniel?’ It came out of the silence, the question he least expected.
He did not want to answer. But she looked at him with her soul stripped bare and he knew he would tell her, even though he had never told another, never even spoken the words.
He looked into her eyes. ‘Because I lost my wife and babe at Christmas.’
‘Oh, Daniel...’ her words were soft as breath ‘...I am so sorry.’
‘Childbirth is a treacherous thing.’
He felt her fingers tighten around his. She raised his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. ‘So I have heard.’
He pulled her closer, wrapping his arm around her as she laid her head against his shoulder.
‘I am glad you are here, Daniel.’
‘So I am, lass. So am I.’ And despite everything, it was the truth.
* * *
Sarah woke with the gentle light of a winter morning. For the first time in such a long time she felt safe. She breathed in the scent of fresh wood and tar, of sea and the underlying pleasant scent of Daniel Alexander. The muscle of his chest was hard and warm beneath her cheek, and the steady reassuring beat of his heart loud in her ear. Curved protectively around her spine she could feel the weight of his arm. She shifted her legs beneath the blanket that covered them both and opened her eyes.
Daniel’s blue eyes looked into hers and he smiled the most handsome smile in the world. ‘Good morning, Mrs Sleepyhead,’ he said softly. ‘There is a young lady only just woken up before you.’ He shifted his gaze to the cot and winked.
Sarah followed his focus to find Imelda looking at her.
‘Imelda!’ The whisper conveyed all of her relief and joy and thankfulness. All sleepiness vanished. She hurried to the cot. ‘Oh, Imelda.’
‘Aunt Sarah.’ Imelda’s voice was rusty with lack of use.
‘Thank God!’ Sarah stroked her niece’s face.
‘Captain Alexander saved us.’ Imelda smiled.
Sarah heard the quiet click of the door and knew he had gone.
* * *
It was the middle of the afternoon before Sarah had a chance to seek out Daniel Alexander. She found him up on the main deck.
The men were all busy repairing the damage the storm had wrought. And for all their sawing and hammering the destruction was great indeed. Shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a pair of strong arms, and hatless so that his hair was dishevelled in the sea breeze, Daniel was lifting what looked like a tree trunk. His face was rugged, his jaw stubble-shadowed where he had not shaved. She knew now why the scent of fresh wood and tar had been in his clothes last night. He had been working all the time, making the Angel safe, and yet still found time to help her.
Daniel’s eyes met hers across the deck and she felt her heart grow warm. He hefted the spar into position, then made his way over to her.
‘Mr Alexander.’
‘Mrs Ellison.’ He smiled. ‘How is Miss Bowden?’
‘She grows stronger with every hour and wished to accompany me up here to find you. It was all I could do to keep her in bed.’
His smile deepened. ‘I am relieved to hear it.’
One of the seamen passed between them. Daniel guided her over to a quieter spot by the bulwark. She gripped a hand against the wooden wall, but neither of them looked out at the ocean.
She lowered her voice so that only he would hear. ‘Last night, had you not been there...’ She could not bring herself to admit the rest of it aloud. ‘Thank you,’ she finished instead.
‘No thanks are required between friends.’ His bare fingers surreptitiously touched against hers in a small reassuring gesture. Let go of the fear, lass.
And when she looked into his eyes, this man who was like no other she had ever known, she knew she had done just that. A happiness welled up within her and she could not help herself from smiling.
It was like the brilliance of sunshine on a dreich day seeing her smile. And inside his chest were feelings that Daniel had not felt in such a long time, not since Netta, feelings of tenderness that he had thought never to feel again. There unbidden, unwanted, and yet, at that moment, with Sarah Ellison standing before him he could not resent them.
Sarah glanced away, to further along the deck, to the place where they had stood so often to take the air and view the ocean. Rope now cordoned off a section of missing bulwark.
‘It can be repaired,’ he said, following her gaze.
‘Are you trying to make me feel better, Mr Alexander?’
‘Am I succeeding, Mrs Ellison?’
‘You always do,’ she confessed.
The admission warmed his heart. ‘I am glad of that.’
There was a small comfortable silence.
‘How bad is the damage, Daniel?’
‘She is still afloat.’ Just.
‘Are we going to make it?’
‘We can secure her so that she is watertight. But the Angel is too small a ship to carry much material for repairs. Captain Davies has not the spares needed to repair the mast and rigging. We can stay afloat, but—’
‘We cannot sail,’ she finished.
He nodded. Neither of them spoke of the peril of that position. It would not take another storm to finish the Angel.
‘What are we to do?’
‘Wait until another ship arrives to tow us to port.’
‘In all of the past week we have seen only one other ship and that was far in the distance.’
‘We are without sail and any other vessel that sees will come to our aid. The storm has not blown us far off course. We are north of the Azores.’ He saw she did not realise the significance of the location. ‘There are many naval ships in these waters. We should not have to wait long.’ He turned his mind away from what that might mean for him and focused, instead, on the relief on her face.
Rain began to patter softly around them.
Seymour’s head appeared at the hatch, shouting over at the captain, ‘We need more men down below, Captain.’ And then Captain Davies was bellowing for Oakley and Struthers to go with Mr Seymour.
Daniel smiled. ‘I should get back to work.’
‘I should get back to Imelda.’
‘We will talk later, Sarah.’ But he was not sure he wanted to talk. Not with the knowledge that in all probability a naval ship would soon come to their aid and their journey would be over. And most of all, not feeling the way he did. Daniel was not sure that he wanted to care so much about a woman again.
He walked Sarah to the hatch for the deck below.
* * *
But there was no opportunity for either of them to talk over the next days.
The weather grew worse and the repairs more urgent. Daniel worked with Davies and Seymour and the rest of the crew from first light in the morning, all the day through and into the night, straining to see by the light of their lanterns. The hull had been patched and would hold if the seas did not grow too violent. They repaired the hole in the main deck as best they could, and the bulwark where Sarah and Daniel had stood. But there was little they could do for the rudder or the mast. The Angel stood stripped and bare. Everyone knew they were at the mercy of the ocean and everyone prayed for the sight of another ship before the next storm found them.
It grew so cold that they could see their breath clouding before them even when below deck. A fire burned constantly in the galley, but it made no difference to the men up on the deck. They wrapped themselves in layers of clothes, but the wind whistled through them as if they were naked. Sarah and Fanny stayed within the galley to keep Imelda warm, both helping the cook as best they could. The only time Sarah saw Daniel was when he came in with the others to eat, and the sight of him tired, soaked through and half-frozen tore at her heart.
Sarah tucked Imelda up safe with Fanny and retired to her own cabin, but, exhausted though she was, she could not sleep. There were too many thoughts in her head, all of them centred around one man. A book lay limp within Sarah’s hands. She gave up the pretence of reading, closed its pages and watched the lantern light flicker against the cabin walls.
She had suffered a storm and the near loss of a child she loved. She was adrift in a wrecked ship in the North Atlantic in the midst of winter, at risk of sinking, of being attacked by pirates, or drifting undiscovered until they died of dehydration and hunger. She had worked like the lowliest maid. She had learned to peel potatoes, wash dishes and clean lantern glass. She had scraped wax from tables and dug out ashes from a fire, and drunk beer. Her fine dresses were marked with soot and grease and gravy. Her hair was a mess. She had never experienced so much fear, never felt so cold or tired...or so happy.
Imelda was alive and well. And for the first time in all her life, Sarah felt alive too. Perhaps it was because of how close she had come to losing everything. But she knew it was not.
She had never met a man like Daniel Alexander. She knew virtually nothing of him. Nothing save that he had lost a wife and babe. Nothing but that he had saved their lives during a storm. Nothing except he had been there to help her when she needed him during those long dark hours when the fear of losing Imelda had almost broken her apart. And to hold a woman’s hair while she retched her stomach overboard on a winter night. She knew, too, the smoulder in his eyes when he looked at her and the way her heart thrilled when he was near.
Robert had never looked at her like that. Robert had never been kind or protected her. After two years of marriage Robert had remained
a stranger to her. After little more than two weeks with a man who really was a stranger it felt as if she had known him a lifetime. It felt as if she had loved him a lifetime.
Men’s voices murmured as they passed by her cabin, making their way to their own cabins. The sounds trailed off into the distance. Across the deck she heard a door open and close, and did not have to look out to know that it was Daniel’s.
All would change when they were saved. If they were saved. She would go back to her own life, turning away from men lest she make the same mistakes she had made with Robert and with Brandon Taverner. But here and now in this little window of time, Sarah had been granted something magical, a chance to know real happiness, the chance to love, for however short a time. It did not matter if it was weeks or days or only hours. She set the book down on the lipped shelf and, pulling her shawls tight around her, slipped from the cabin.
Her lantern swayed softly in the draught, illuminating the darkness. There was only the creaking of timber and the sound of wind and waves. Her heart began to thud as she made her way across the deck.
Chapter Five
Daniel had taken off his coat and was sitting on his cot, unwinding his neckcloth when he heard the quiet knock at his door. He gathered up his coat and with a weary sigh got up to open the door to Davies, but it was not Davies that stood there.
‘Sarah.’ The sight of her chased away all exhaustion, only to be replaced with a sudden worry. ‘Has something happened? Imelda...?’
‘Is well.’ She glanced away, and when she looked at him again he could see the nervousness about her and he knew why she had come, knew what had always been inevitable between them from the very start, but still he gave her one last chance to turn away from it.
‘Do you wish to take the midnight air?’ He smiled.
‘No. Not that.’ Her voice sounded breathless. Her eyes, so dark and soulful, met his. There was a smudge of soot on her cheek, her hair was escaping its pins, she was bundled beneath two shawls, and she was the most beautiful woman Daniel had ever seen. He knew the level of trust she was putting in him by coming here, and his heart was tender with the knowledge.
A Magical Regency Christmas Page 23