His face melted into a tender smile. “How very fitting for the two of you.”
“Please, Bradford, if you would, give him one last message.” I flipped through my book and pointed to a line that always affected my tender heart, and now even more so. “To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.”
He closed his eyes and repeated the reference. “I shall write it down the moment I return to the abbey.”
“Thank you ever so much, Bradford. And promise you’ll write straightaway if you hear from him, any little mention. I need to know.”
His eyes welled with pity. “That I will, my lady. Straightaway.” He pinched his lips in the silence, clasping his worn Bible as he looked at me.
I turned away, unable to bear the sorrow in his long face that was only a fraction of what I felt inside.
“You deserve much better than the lot you’ve had, you know. How I do wish you could have a happy conclusion to your story.”
“I may very well yet, even if it isn’t what I imagined for myself.” I rose and took his hand with a smile. “Don’t fret, Bradford. My story is far from over.” Yet instead of clinging to the pen and attempting to force its direction, I’d handed it fully over to God.
37
Being created in God’s image means we bear traces of him. He is our truest identity.
~Diary of a Substitute Countess
You’d best step back from there, miss.”
Sea air brushed my face with its moist palm, soothing the damage done by that isolated prison cell. The salty air pulled away the odor of tightly packed bodies, carrying it out to the water.
“Yes, of course.” I released the rigging and stepped back down onto the deck of the Merry Rose, my legs already wobbly with disuse. I couldn’t wait to set sail, to be out in the middle of the water and making haste toward my new life. Despite the heaviness in my chest, there was a freshness to the day, a powerful sense of freedom around the bend. “Why don’t you rest below deck and I’ll find you later?”
The matronly woman tasked with minding my compliance and my virtue glared at me, her lips turning down in a complicated twist of disapproval.
“No, I suppose that’s not allowed.”
She crossed her arms, then her attention pivoted to something across the deck that deepened her frown. “There’s a man calling for you. Are you acquainted with him?”
I spun, my heart pounding, and caught sight of two arms waving overhead, a long coat flapping in the wind. I gasped and hurried toward him, weaving through the crowds on deck. I reached the earl and he took my hands, his face desperate and plaintive. “Come back to me, won’t you? When your time is served, come back. Just send word and I’ll pay your passage.”
My stomach somersaulted, and I couldn’t speak.
“At least write. Let me know you’re safe.”
I gave a nod. “As soon as I can.”
Hope dawned across his countenance, spreading over his somber face. “Of all the people you’ve brought back to life, I was the worst before you came. I shall never forget you.” He lifted my hand as the heavy winds whipped his hair over his forehead and placed a lingering kiss on my knuckles.
I smiled. “You are quite unforgettable yourself, Lord Enderly.”
“Mitchell. Call me that.”
I nodded again. “Goodbye, Mitchell.”
With one long look, he released my hands and hurried back down the gangplank to the port where he blended into the waiting crowds. When the ship was finally readied and the crew began yelling for the departure, I clung to the side and watched the shore grow distant. The earl lifted his hand in one final wave, then he was out of view and I was on my way.
“You’re still a prisoner, you know.” My hired shadow eyed me as she approached, as if resenting the fact that I could walk about, unshackled, even as one under captivity. “How is it you came into the good graces of the Prime Minister, then?”
I took a deep breath of fresh sea air. “It’s quite a long story.”
Mitchell’s face haunted my thoughts as I lay below deck at night on my cot, staring at the rough wood planks above me and feeling the vibrating groans of the great ship all the way through to my bones. I pictured his firm mouth, his chiseled jaw, those shadowed, piercing eyes.
Then I pictured Sully, and my whole being flooded with sorrow and desire. Would it take the entire trip to heal?
On the third day, a storm tossed the ship and a sailor fell from partway up a mast.
“You’d best see to him.” Captain James pointed to the skinny lad, no more than seventeen, sprawled on the deck.
I ran to him and knelt before his form as he groaned in agony, clutching his arm. As one of the few women on board, I’d quickly become known for lifting up the downtrodden, and my help had been requested by the ship’s doctor to aid in several injuries and sicknesses.
I held him still in the dripping rain while Dr. Phinneas tied the final strips of linen onto the splint, binding it to his arm. “Does it rain like this often?”
“Not lately, it hasn’t. It’s been drier than dry this entire summer. You’d be thankful for it if you were stuck in steerage, though. No one on this floating box has the chance to bathe, and this rain will be a blessing. Why, we even have one poor sap down there who cries out for rain at night. Over and over, ‘Rain! Rain!’ Keeps the others awake.”
“Maybe he should be on deck.” I grumbled in the spitting mist that soaked through my worn garments.
“Can’t come up on his own. He came from the hulks, and they were none too kind to him there. Tried to be a hero for too many sickies.”
My fingers curled harder around the boy’s arm as my flesh crawled. “The one who called for rain? Who is he?”
The doctor shrugged as he dug through his bag with a frown. “He’s here on some special provision from up high. The PM himself, I heard.”
I sucked in a lungful of wet air. “I have to find him.”
I bolted, but he grabbed my arm. “No you don’t. You’re not allowed down there with the men. Strict orders.”
“Please, Doctor. You have to let me see him. I may know him.”
He looked into my rain-soaked face, his eyes finally meeting mine, and what he saw there stilled him for a moment. “Very well. Sailor, I need you to go into steerage and bring someone up.”
He described him and two sailors disappeared. I huddled under the loose rigging with a pounding heart and eyes focused on the hatch across the ship’s deck as waves crashed into the side of the boat. Thank heavens the rain had chased my matronly shadow below deck, despite the rules, and I was free to relish this moment, in the hope so intense it might just knock me over. I waited endless minutes before two sailors struggled back up to the deck with a burden between them.
I blinked through the rain, then I saw it and wanted to weep—the blue cap. Just as it had appeared across the bridge and through the fog in Spitalfields, that bright wool cap signaled the arrival of the person most special to my heart. With a cry I jumped up and stepped over the injured sailor, watching that familiar figure in a gray shirt and suspenders rise onto the deck, each arm about another sailor. He tipped his dirty face up to receive the cool rain, that boyish delight overtaking his features. My hands flew to my mouth as I stood across the deck, but I couldn’t move forward.
Sully craned his neck about and stretched his legs, then spoke to the two men who’d brought him. They said something back and pointed at me across the deck, and I waited, my heart in my throat. Then he turned and laid eyes on me, and time froze. He struggled to stand, and joy exploded in my heart. When the men who’d hoisted him scampered off, I walked toward him, giddy, trembling. The only thing between us now was the short distance across the deck. No secrets, no schemes. When a happy grin split his face, I launched myself across the last few feet with the abandon of an ordinary girl who loved an ordinary boy, and the freedom was wildly beautiful.
Weak as he was, he caught me up and held me close agai
nst his pounding heart, stumbling back to catch his footing. I clung to him, caught my breath, reveled in the reality of his presence as the rain and his eager kisses covered my face together. Words were too inconsequential in this most sacred of moments, so we said nothing. Being in each other’s presence was enough.
Then as I moved back, his arms still firmly around me, that exultant celebration of friendship sparked an awareness of the deeper feelings that lay below, of which we’d only begun to speak.
I smiled up at him. “So the lad got his girl after all.”
His eyes twinkled. “Did he, now?” His deep voice was raspy with his recent suffering.
“Oh yes, so very much.” I buried my face in his chest, clutching his smudged cotton shirt and wondering why I ever wanted an adventure away from home, for nothing compared to the exhilaration of so precious a moment. His arms tightened around me, holding me to his rising and falling chest with all the fervor that had driven him to pursue me into this mess. When I felt him heaving for breath, I stepped back and eased him down to sit on the deck. He shoved his dark hair back with one hand, agony streaking across his face.
“What is it? What hurts?”
“I’ll be fine.”
My fingers gently prodded his chest and arms to find the source of the problem, but he moved them away. “I said I’ll be fine.”
“You’re blessedly stubborn, Sullivan McKenna. Why in heaven’s name won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I don’t need it.”
“Nonsense. Don’t be a fool.”
“Please, just leave me be.” He curled away from me, his pain evident.
Fighting back the hurt, I laid a gentle hand on his that was fisted against the deck. “Sully.”
“I’m the rescuer, Raina, not you. What am I to you if not—”
I covered his lips with my fingers. “Everything.”
He looked down as the rain cleared and distant thunder rumbled.
“Don’t ever underestimate my love, Sullivan McKenna. It’s there because of who you are, not what you do.” The character, the very nature of this man, had drawn me to the true Rescuer, proved that sacrificial love was possible, and for that I would forever be grateful.
He looked at me, nostrils flaring, tears nearing the surface. He frowned and sniffed them away.
“This time maybe it’s my turn to take care of you.” I smoothed my hand along his cheek, and he leaned into it, closing his eyes. “I owe you that much at least.”
He heaved a deep sigh and reached up to cradle my face. “I knew you’d be here. Just knew it.”
“How did you know?”
“Darlington told me he offered you the same choice, and I knew you’d choose to restore the convicts.”
“You did?”
He gave a slight shrug and a crooked little smile. “It’s who you are. My Renaugh.”
I closed my eyes and grasped his dear hand, holding it to my moist cheek. What a blessed, blessed life I had been given. “And you came too.”
“I’d follow you on any adventure.” He smiled. “I cannot help myself. It’s who I am.” With an exhale of delight, he drew me close, his voice low and rough, and I curled into him where he sat. “You’ll never be rid of me, Raina Bretton. Never.”
“Promise?”
He tightened his hold, resting his head on top of mine, and for several silent moments we remained wrapped in the embrace. Finally he spoke into my tumbled curls, his breath warm against my wet scalp. “Raina?”
“Hmm?”
He pushed back and leaned his forehead against mine, those glowing eyes smiling into mine. “Can I kiss you now?”
Alive with eagerness at those simple words, I reached up and ran gentle fingertips along his face, smiling up into his eyes. “I suppose I’ve made you wait long enough.”
He kissed my forehead like the seal of a promise, then brushed his lips down my face until they found mine and sank into the long, deep kiss that had been years in the making. It carried me away like the passionate, lilting melodies he drew from his instrument, the pure loveliness and harmony that spilled from his very being, and it intoxicated me with its depth.
From childhood chums to a grown lad and his lass, we’d been stitched together with years of love and honesty, sacrifices and invincible devotion, and his embrace felt like the culmination of it all. Intense and powerful, rich with sweetness, that moment was the first of many to come.
He released me and exhaled, smoothing my wet curls off my face. “So now you are finished with adventures?”
I nearly laughed at his hopeful face. “Hardly.” I laid a hand on his chest and smiled. “Blessed are those who hand God the reins, for they shall find adventures. Only now, we’ll have them together.”
The moment we docked, I put pen to paper and explained everything in a letter to the earl. But to Bradford, I wrote only a single line.
And dear reader, I married him. ~ CB:JE 436
Epilogue
ADDLEY POINT, AUSTRALIA, 1873
“You owe me a few moments alone today, Mr. McKenna.” Wiping my sleeve across my moist forehead again, I tossed a basket of pruned branches across the aisle to him.
He caught it and raised his eyebrows with a little grin. “Aye, that so?”
“You’ve not forgotten our anniversary, have you, now?”
Dropping the basket, he hopped over the row of vines and slipped his arms around me. He leaned me back to steal a deep kiss, one that I sank into with delight. “How could I forget?” He whispered the words against my lips and righted me again as my head spun.
I caught my balance and covered both flaming cheeks with my hands. “No more of that out here, in front of everyone.”
He walked backward a few paces, dipped a mock curtsy of obedience, and leaped over to the next row with a firm hold on the post.
Two years into our life in Australia, we had fulfilled our sentences and worked harder than ever, but life was rich. Deep. We poured ourselves out onto these castoffs, helping to rescue and renew. Growing grapes and sugarcane and aiding these released criminals took every bit of strength and much of our time, especially in the fall, but we reaped great rewards. I winked at my husband and scanned the red kerchiefs bobbing among the rows, covering the heads of our many co-laborers. Many of them had earned passage here by committing petty crimes, and some none at all, but we delighted in our brood with pride. Over three hundred of them had passed through our farm, being trained and encouraged, then embarking on their second chance at life.
“It’s all right, Missus.” Sarah Jane Fowley approached, holding up her apron full of little sprigs she’d pruned. “Gives the rest of us something to hope for in a marriage.”
I touched the girl’s arm. “You’ll find someone who fits you perfectly, Sarah Jane.”
“That’ll be a trick, finding a man who wants to love a pickpocket.” She gave me a coy smile and moved on.
“It’s part of your past, you know.”
“Some parts of the past are simply who we are.”
I turned at the quiet voice of Aster behind me, the former maid who had been sacked and transported after repeatedly lying to her mistress about tasks she’d overlooked or objects she’d broken. My heart squeezed as it always did when this girl, so characterized by her remorse, spoke of her own sins. Many hours and tears we’d spent sorting through her particular vice that she desperately wished to put behind her, despite its relentless hold on her that she felt would be a permanent fixture in her nature. Over time I’d seen the problem go from one that resided in her house to one that merely came knocking now and again, but she was only too aware of the times she’d given in.
I looked at her and brimmed over with the abundant grace that had been poured into me. “Do you know, I believe those children have been begging me to let you finish your story since sunup today. They love your tales.”
She smiled shyly. “They come natural to me. I suppose it’s the one good side to my affliction.”
/> “You’re brilliant at them too. Those children will remember the lessons wrapped in the neat packaging of your story far better than the sermons they hear on Sunday. There’s much value in that.”
“I suppose.”
I put an arm around her. “You, dear girl, are a storyteller. It’s who you are.”
Her delicate brow furrowed. “I wish I weren’t.”
“You’ve always had a knack for spinning fiction, but what you once meant for deception is now a powerful conveyer of truth.” I smiled. “That’s God’s redemption, you know.” I spoke with the compassion of one who knew.
When the sun set over our very hot corner of the world and the laborers had all gathered in the big open rooms to consume the food we’d prepared, Sully and I finally slipped away and lay together on the flat roof of our bungalow, hands clasped.
“What should we name that one?” I pointed at a set of three bright stars in a row. “It needs a long name to cover that many stars.”
“How about Agamemnon?”
“You’re brutal.” I laughed. “Those poor stars.”
“Persephone?”
“What does that even mean?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It always matters.” I closed my eyes and pictured Uncle Wells just then. I owed him another letter soon. A few more weeks, and I could tell him our news. I shifted under Sully’s hand that rested on my abdomen. “What do you think of the name Amethyst?”
“A bit pretentious, but I suppose it’ll do. For a star.”
I wasn’t thinking of granting that particular name to a star. “Sully?”
“Hmm?” He lay with his eyes closed, tracing gentle circles on my arm in a way that still made me weak.
Before I could gather the right words, a door banged open and a voice erupted nearby. “You all up here?”
We scrambled to sit up and greet Amadeus Price, the longtime doctor of Addley Point and avid supporter of our mission.
“Well, look at what a year’s done to you, Mrs. McKenna. How fine and bright you look, like a woman about to embark on an adventure.”
Finding Lady Enderly Page 30