A Brother's Honor

by Ferguson, Jo Ann

  “Merci,” he muttered as he reached for his sword. It skittered away when the ship lurched with another discharge of the gunpowder stored below.

  “Forget it!” she cried. She tugged him toward her bedchamber.

  “Abigail, we must go.”

  “We are.” She put her arm around his waist and steered him through the door. “The only way we can.” She faltered. “Can you swim?”

  “Swim?” He frowned. “I am not leaving this ship while it is still afloat. I have won—”

  More men rushed into the saloon with triumphant shouts. Dominic swore viciously as he picked up his sword and raised it. He had to give Abigail time to flee. He was not sure how much longer he could protect her from her father’s insane crew.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Get off this ship any way you can.”

  Abigail did not hesitate as she climbed onto the sill. The ship lurched as something rumbled through it. She teetered on the edge. Her arms windmilled. She screamed as her feet slipped from the sill.

  Falling, falling, falling, she shrieked again. The wooden stern became a blur. She tucked her feet beneath her at the last second. When she crashed into the water, its salty maw swallowed her.

  Down, down, farther down she went. She tried to fight her way to the surface, but she could not halt the momentum carrying her toward the bottom. Her chest burned. Her soaked clothes pulled her downward. She pulled off her shoes. As they fell away into the murky mist, she struggled upward. She had to breathe.

  As her head came above water, Abigail heard gunfire and more explosions. Debris crashed around her. They were going to destroy the Republic! She did not look back as she struck out for shore with a clumsy stroke.

  Where was Dominic? Had he followed her, or was he staying to fight? She did not believe that he would relinquish the ship, but he could be killed easily when his right arm was useless. She choked back a gasp of horror. If he had jumped, he might not be able to swim.

  Scanning the water, she saw nothing but the ship and the endless rise and fall of the waves. She could search the night away and never find Dominic.

  Abigail took a steadying breath and started for the shore. Again and again, she raised her head to look toward land. It never appeared any closer. Her heart pounded against her chest, and she gasped for breath as her arms and legs grew exhausted. The gentle waves broke in her face, choking her.

  Rolling over onto her back, she stared at the Republic. Her eyes widened. A small flicker of scarlet erupted from a porthole on the lower decks. Fire!

  She swam furiously. The pull of the waves toward the shore helped. As the water became shallow, she waded, fighting to escape the water. Her fingers clenched the small pebbles on the beach as she dropped, panting, to the ground.

  An explosion ripped the air. Abigail jumped to her feet as a fireball climbed from where the Republic had been. She raced for the trees at the edge of the beach as sparks soared toward her. Another crash rang through her head.

  Clutching a tree, she watched as the fire seemed to feed directly off the water. The cloud of smoke took the shape of the ship, with fingers of fire outlining the masts. The center one dissolved into the flames. Another explosion crashed over her seconds after she saw a flash on the starboard side of the ship.

  Wood splashed into the sea. Each piece was alight with fire, burning as ferociously as her horror. She stared at the blaze. As flames crackled wildly against the smoke-filled sky, she knew she had never been so scared. The crew was mad.

  Or following orders, whispered a soft voice inside her head. Father! Father could have ordered this, and the crew would have followed his orders, but surely her father had hoped to save his ship and crew … and her. Yet now he would be free. The French could not hold him and the rest of the crew without the evidence destroyed with the Republic.

  “But why did you leave me to die, too?” she whispered as she slid down to sit beneath the tree. She feared that was a question she would never get an answer to.

  Chapter Five

  Abigail scrambled over a mound of the rocks that cut through the strand, dividing one cove from the next. Behind her she heard excited voices. Englishmen! She could not let them find her here.

  Spies died on the gallows, and she doubted that anyone would heed her tale of being a prisoner on the ship. Then these people would ask the same questions Dominic had—that she had. What had the Republic been doing so close to England with a load of weapons? Her very lack of an answer could condemn her to hang.

  She scurried like a child from one huge stone to the next, watching carefully because the moon was slipping beneath the bank of clouds rising out of the sea. When she reached the top, she clung close to the boulders and looked back toward where she had come ashore. Several forms were coming out of the trees, not more than a stone’s throw from where she had paused to catch her breath. If she had remained there, they might have seen her.

  Staying low and thankful for the concealing darkness, she slipped down the other side of the rocks. She winced when she scraped her hand on a sharp stone, but did not slow until she reached the sand piled up on this side of the break.

  Abigail crouched in the shadow of the boulders. She wondered why the Englishmen had not come to this beach first. It was already littered with charred boards from the ship. In horror, she realized those were not boards. They were bodies. No wonder the English were not coming here. They were more interested in the ship’s cargo than in corpses. Those they could rob later.

  She swallowed her desperate yearning to flee from the carnage that had washed up onto the shore. Mayhap someone was still alive. She refused to admit that she was the only survivor. If someone else had washed ashore, she would have an ally against the English.

  Inching toward the bodies, she submerged the disgust swelling into her throat when she discovered the corpses were burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left to suggest they had been alive. She saw knife blades that were twisted out of shape, their hafts gone. The stench rising from them was worse than belowdecks.

  Her toe hit something half-buried in the sand. She bent and picked up a pistol. A loaded pistol, she saw when she tilted it Carefully, she slid it through the sash of her wrapper. She did not want it to misfire, but she might need it.

  A mournful yowl resonated along the strand, and Abigail whirled. She laughed weakly when she saw her cat nosing around a corpse. Dandy gave a low cry.

  “It is horrid, isn’t it?” Abigail whispered.

  The cat prowled back and forth before settling to clean his whiskers in a very self-satisfied manner. He had survived, so that was all he cared about. She sighed. Dandy would take care of himself. She did not doubt he soon would be feasting on the birds that lived among the trees lining the strand. She must become as ruthless.

  She froze as she heard a strange sound. Were the English coming here to steal from the corpses? Looking back over her shoulder, she saw no one. No one alive. She gasped as she heard the sound again. Was it from a corpse?

  Dandy inched past her, but that did not ease her superstitious fear. Aunt Velma often said cats could hear and see unearthly things. The cat nosed the sand by one of the corpses and wandered away, disinterested.

  The soft sound came once more. It sounded like a man moaning.

  Abigail gasped again. That sound did not come from a ghost, but from another survivor off the Republic. If the English heard the groan, they would surely come to investigate. She had to help the man before the English could find him and her.

  She ran to a pair of bodies farther along the beach. She started to touch the first, but pulled back in horror when she saw that his face had been ripped away by one of the explosions. Her stomach threatened to betray her, but there was nothing in it. She knelt next to the other body on the sand.

  “Dominic!” she breathed in shock.

  His shirt was shredded and his breeches torn to reveal scorched skin on his legs. Other burns were an angry red on his chest and arms. With his eyes closed, sh
e was spared his powerful glare.

  Her fingers trembled. He had been her captor. Looking past him, she saw a stone that would fit perfectly in her hand. If she crashed it against his head, he would never awaken. He was a French pirate. He deserved no mercy. At his command, his men had murdered her father’s crew. Because of him, the Republic was gone.

  Her fingers closed on the rock, but, instead, she thought of how he had rescued her in the middle of the storm. Closing her eyes, she recalled the haven of his arms. No, it had not been safe. There had been nothing safe about the passions he aroused in her.

  When another sigh of pain oozed from his lips, Abigail knew she must help him, for he had saved her life more than once. She suspected the French were even more hated than Americans here in England. She must hide him.

  Straining, she rolled him over on his back, taking care not to touch his right arm. She brushed sand from his face. The stickiness of blood caught her fingers, and he groaned. She pushed aside his matted hair and found blood, but no wound. She tore a long strip from his ripped shirt, then cringed as the sound was like a scream in the darkness.

  She held her breath, but no one climbed over the rocks. As more shouts came from the other beach, she guessed the scavengers were finding whatever had washed ashore from the ship. She hoped it would keep them busy until she could get Dominic off the beach.

  Rinsing sand from the material she had torn off his shirt, she carefully wrapped it around his head. As she tied it in place, she saw that some of his hair had been singed away. His dark eyebrows were as full as ever. The wound was over his left ear, she found. That surprised her, because she had guessed he always would confront danger face to face. She wondered how many of her father’s crew he had fought alone in the moment before the ship exploded.

  A flush darkened her cheeks as she ran her hands along his body. To be embarrassed to touch an unconscious man was ridiculous, but the heat on her face burned hotter as she cautiously touched his ribs, seeking to discover if any were fractured. As she moved her fingers across his chest, she could not keep from remembering how it had been so strong against her as he held her. She glanced at his face, but the only expression he wore was of pain. Suddenly she wished for the irreverent smile she had detested.

  She looked at his legs, which remained half in the water. Like hers, his feet were bare. She noticed a swelling in his right ankle and did not dare to touch it. If it had been broken, she feared he might never walk again. As her fingers slid along his breeches, which were ripped and flapped at his knees, she shivered with sensations she did not want to acknowledge. Even in senselessness, his sensual power continued to exert its beguiling control over her.

  Abigail shook those thoughts from her head and looked over her shoulder again. Still no one on the stones. If the English remained in the other cove, she might be able to save him.

  As she reached to grab Dominic’s left arm, she heard another sound. This low grumble had not been a moan, but the distant drumbeat of thunder. In horror, she saw clouds had swallowed the moon completely.

  “No, not now,” she whispered. Just thinking of a storm terrified her, urging her to race into the shelter of the trees.

  She must not leave Dominic here. He had saved her from the last storm. To abandon him to the waves would make her worse than a French pirate.

  Stooping, Abigail put her hands under his arms. She tugged. She collapsed to the sand. Dominic was tall, past six feet, and he carried no extra flesh on his muscular body, but in spite of that, she could not budge him.

  She glanced upward. The sky was laced with lightning, revealing the contortions of the storm clouds. Thunder sent fear rumbling through her, and she gripped his arm again. She braced her feet against the sand. Taking a deep breath, she took one step backward, then another. She wanted to shout with joy when his senseless body shifted.

  Each excruciatingly slow step demanded all her strength. Sweat lacquered her nightdress to her back. She did not dare to stop, fearing he would sink into the sand. She might never get him moving again.

  “Wake up, Dominic,” she repeated over and over. If he woke, then he could help her save him.

  Although her breath seared beneath her ribs, Abigail kept moving until the grass at the edge of the strand slipped beneath her feet. She pulled Dominic beneath the trees and sat, cradling his head in her lap as she panted with exhaustion. Pressing her hand to her side, she kneaded it to ease the pain. An ache ran from her shoulders along her spine.

  Dominic did not react when she lowered his head to the ground. Jumping to her feet, she plucked some ferns and ran back onto the beach. She swept away any signs that someone had been dragged off the sand.

  More thunder cracked as she ran back to where he was lying. When lightning played across the sky, she pulled him toward some fallen trees that were piled atop one another. A legacy from another storm, she guessed, and hoped the trees would protect them now. With a tired groan, she wondered if he had gained weight since she had pulled him from the water. A crack of thunder spurred her.

  Dragging him beneath the overhang of dead branches, she wished he would wake. All her hopes were useless. He was still senseless.

  A few drops of rain struck her as she collected two pieces of wood from under the trees. She looked up, but no more rain fell. It must have been spray sent ashore by the rising wind. She bent her head and ignored it as she placed the wood along both sides of Dominic’s ankle to keep it immobilized and bound them together with another strip from his shirt.

  Abigail froze with renewed horror when she heard voices not far from her. Was someone searching for survivors?

  “The storm will wash it all back out to sea before we get a chance to gather it.” The man’s disgust was clear.

  “Don’t fret,” said another man. “What the sea takes away tonight, she’ll wash back on the morrow.”

  “But if ’twas one of the king’s ships, his men will be here to lay claim to every morsel.”

  “Who’s going to tell the king’s men about this?” The second man’s laugh was swept away by thunder.

  As the men’s voices vanished into the distance, Abigail fought not to scratch the itchy spot on the tip of her nose. It was harder to ignore than the burning along her arm where salt had gotten into the scratches left by Dandy when she had tossed her cat out of the ship’s window. She wondered where Dandy was now.

  She could not look for him. She could only cower in the shadows and watch as dark forms hurried away from the strand. Their voices continued to drift to her as the men went along a path on the far side of the fallen trees. They were curious about why a ship had exploded just off their shore, but were more eager to discover what of her cargo would wash to them.

  She shifted, then froze again when the branches around her rubbed together at her motion. No one slowed along the path. Shouts of excitement announced that some of the debris had reached shore and been gathered to take back to the village that must be farther inland.

  How long had she been crouching here? Every muscle protested, and that blasted itch threatened to undo her.

  Leaves rattled beside her. Just the wind or …?

  “Dandy?” she whispered.

  Abigail got no answer, but she saw his small prints in the mud beneath the trees. She flinched when a weak explosion tossed more debris across the water. One of the barrels of gunpowder must have washed away from the ship before detonating.

  Inching back more deeply into the shadows, she could not halt her sneeze. Not moving, she waited for someone to follow the sound. Then she realized that the people were too interested in getting their prizes back to their homes before the rain fell in earnest. Now anyone else who reached shore from the ship had a chance to hide, too.

  But what if you and Dominic and Dandy are the only survivors?

  She sighed, wishing that thought had remained silent. Hanging her head over her knees, she stared out at the sea that was now the same black as the night sky. So many had died. She was not sure f
or what purpose.

  The wind wheezed at Abigail, spinning the hem of her nightdress about her legs. When the wind rose to a shriek, she huddled under the branches and pulled them closer to her and Dominic. Her cat slipped in to sit behind her to escape the storm.

  Dominic moaned.

  “Are you awake?” she whispered.

  She got no answer. Tearing another strip from his shirt, she wrapped it around his head. The other one was already stained crimson. She did not know how much blood he had lost, but she doubted that he would live if it continued to seep out of him at this rate.

  “Please wake up,” she whispered.

  Lightning seared the sky. Abigail moaned and, hiding her face in her hands, huddled next to him.

  When Dandy curled up near her chest, she put her arms around him. How she wished someone was holding her. “Please wake up, Dominic,” she whispered again, more desperately.

  Why didn’t he open his eyes? The thunder was loud enough to wake the dead. In horror, she stared at the shore.

  Waves, which had been gentle strokes on the beach, began to crash with a vengeance. She did not know what would happen to the unburied bodies. Fearfully she prayed they would not rise to haunt her. She closed her eyes as she imagined the faceless man crossing the sand.

  She flinched at a tap on the leaves overhead, but it was only rain. Her shaky laugh filled the rough shelter. The worst of the thunder’s fury soon would be past.

  She had survived it!

  A drop striking her head cut short her celebration. When she looked upward, another fell on her nose. She glanced at Dominic. The rain was taking no pity on his helpless condition. Reaching beneath her, she grasped some green ferns. She held them over his head like an umbrella.

  Drawing her knees up, she balanced her elbow on them. She frowned when her elbow struck something in the sash of her wrapper. She pulled out the pistol. Sweet heavens! She had forgotten it while rescuing Dominic and facing the tempest’s fury.

  “You continue to be trouble, Dominic,” she said, although he could not hear her words. “But when you wake up, it will be different. I promise you that. I am not your captive any longer.” She laughed again as she ran her finger along the pistol’s barrel. “You shall be mine.”