Night Storm

by Catherine Coulter

  But it wasn’t. It belonged to Alec, just as did everything. Even her home now belonged to Alec simply because he was her husband. At least she assumed that was the case, having overheard two gentlemen speaking of their ownership of their wives and all their belongings sometime before.

  She would win this race. Alec simply didn’t understand that she had sailed since her sixth birthday and had taken command of a clipper when she was fifteen. She remembered the Bolter down to its last halyard block. That clipper’s design had been ahead of its time, but it didn’t compare with the Pegasus, a vessel that was truly extraordinary. There was no doubt in her mind that she would leave Alec and his heavy barkentine far behind, and through no lack of ability on his part.

  Well, he was stubborn. He would see. She wondered what he would do then. Would he behave like many men she knew in Baltimore and be furious with her because she beat him? Would he really deed the shipyard back to her?

  Genny lighted the cabin lantern and fitted it into its slot atop the captain’s beautiful mahogany desk. She closed and latched the door and stripped off her damp clothing. She laid out another set of clothing in an orderly fashion, knowing that in an emergency she would need to be on deck in thirty seconds—or less.

  She doused the lantern, slipped a flannel nightgown over her head, and stretched out on the bunk. The Pegasus was heeling sharply to port, but it was such a constant movement that after a few minutes it wasn’t particularly noticeable. One simply leaned into it, or turned into it, as she was doing now. The Pegasus was so very smooth, slicing through the waves cleanly, staying high in the water as she’d been built to do.

  Why didn’t anyone buy the Pegasus from her? Why did her being a female make her vessel any less to be valued?

  Silly questions with no answers. Alec would probably just shake his head and tell her it was the way of the world and to forget about it. He would forget about it, of course; he was a man, after all. She yawned. The day had been full, the men excited about winning the race, beating those damned Brits. That ploy, she thought now, grinning into the darkness, had been an excellent one. She’d just have to keep them excited, keep Alec and his bark as the enemy, so they wouldn’t spend their time mulling over the fact that their captain was a female.

  It would take nearly two weeks to reach Nassau. Perhaps less, depending on the winds, and they were nearly always erratic along the eastern seaboard, particularly during the fall months. Just before it became dark she’d seen Alec’s barkentine in the distance. Not closing the gap between them, but not dropping back either. She’d wager her last American dollar that his men were already exhausted from tacking all day to maintain as little distance as possible between the two vessels.

  Genny closed her eyes and saw Alec. Not the Alec who was captaining the barkentine, but Alec her husband and lover, naked and on top of her, kissing her, caressing her breasts, closing his eyes as he came into her, as if the feelings were so strong he had to. And when he was deep inside her, he would sigh with the pleasure of it before he started moving within her. And she would kiss his throat, his chest, grasp his arms as tightly as she could, feel him plunge deeper and deeper into her, only to withdraw, teasing her, knowing how to drive her distracted. And she’d lift her hips, trying to bring him into her again, and he’d smile down at her and ask her to tell him what it was she wanted. She hadn’t told him yet, her mind too overwhelmed with the wildness of the feelings he aroused in her and with the inherent embarrassment of saying aloud to him what it was she was feeling and wanted. But he always knew without her saying a thing, and he knew he was right and it pleased him, she guessed now, this power he held over her.

  Genny’s eyes flew open. There was a faint line of perspiration on her forehead. Goodness, her body was reacting as if he were here with her. She wanted him. Now. Very much. The intensity of her feelings surprised her. It hadn’t been that long since he’d first taught her about passion. But taught her he had. She realized also that she’d never taken the initiative with him. She wondered if a woman was allowed to or expected to. She didn’t know. She thought of his member, hard and slick, pressed against her belly, and wondered how he would feel rubbing against her hand or in her mouth. Was it any different than him caressing her and stroking her? She didn’t know, but she firmly intended to find out. Both of them should have power over the other. It was only fair. But that made another problem rear its head.

  When she won the race what would she do? Leave him? Make him leave her?

  She couldn’t imagine not being with Alec, couldn’t imagine never seeing him again.

  Nor could she imagine not working at the shipyard, not sailing, not being responsible, not knowing the triumph of accomplishing something, of seeing her efforts succeed. And Alec would say that she’d know a wonderful sense of accomplishment when she birthed their children.

  A mare could birth colts, but not every mare could win a race. It was a rather conceited, very self-important analogy, but Genny liked it. Just as not every woman could build Baltimore clippers.

  Well, the truth of the matter was that very few little girls were ever given the opportunity to do anything save play with their dolls and sew samplers. They were educated from their cradles, but not with the kind of education that would make them competent and independent; no, all their education was in how to please a man and how to run a man’s house. She’d been lucky that her father had treated her no differently from her brother. Until the will, that cursed will of his.

  Life, her father had said once, was a series of compromises, some of them hurting like the very devil, others making you feel like a king, or a queen, in her case. But she doubted that her father could possibly have been considering compromises when it came to a marriage.

  Or maybe he had. Was that why he’d written his will the way he had? To force her to compromise?

  She shook her head on her pillow. If that was true, then the compromise meant her utter and complete defeat and capitulation.

  She fell asleep wondering what Alec was doing, what he was thinking, if he was thinking about her. She slept deeply until Daniels woke her for her watch.

  As for her husband, Baron Sherard, he was drinking a snifter of fine French brandy and wishing to heaven he’d never suggested the stupid race.

  Damnation and bloody hell. He’d underestimated her. And the wretched clipper. He’d watched nearly openmouthed as the sleek vessel had borne herself so close to the wind that she was nearly head-on, whilst he and his crew had had to tack repeatedly to keep the distance between the two vessels within reason. But she would gain on him. His men simply couldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day tacking the bark. It was exhausting work. He drank more brandy. Damnation. She’d win. There was no hope for it.

  And she would leave him or request that he take his leave. But he knew he couldn’t do that. She was his wife. He couldn’t leave her in charge of that shipyard and let her bankrupt herself. And it would happen, there was no doubt about that.

  Was she pregnant?

  Alec realized he was being not only a pessimist but a defeatist. He hadn’t lost to her yet. If he and his men had to tack the Night Dancer a hundred times to the Pegasus’s one time, he’d do it. he’d do whatever was necessary to beat her. For her own good.

  He wondered how his men would feel about that.

  The following afternoon it was drizzling. The sky was a cast-iron gray, the waves choppy, the winds more erratic than they’d been just two hours before.

  The Pegasus wasn’t at her best in this kind of weather.

  “It is the Atlantic, Genny,” Daniels said, forgetting that the ruddy-cheeked girl beside him was also his captain. “It’s also late in the season, a bit too late to believe a clipper could sail without incident. You know that. It was your decision to chance running into foul weather.”

  “Yes, I know. I’d just hoped we’d be lucky and that wonderful northwesterly wind would keep up.”

  “Maybe the winds will calm and straighten out. If w
e hold our current distance from the barkentine, there’ll be no problem. You just keep thinking about all that sun and calm water in Nassau.”

  “I’m thinking of little else at this moment.” Suddenly a gust of wind whipped off Genny’s wool cap. She made a grab for it but was not quick enough. She and Daniels watched it swirl in the winds over the side of the Pegasus.

  “It’s just a mild passing storm, that’s all,” she said.

  Daniels nodded dutifully. He prayed it was so. Truth be told, he didn’t like the idea of Miss Genny—captain or no—being caught in the Atlantic in a gale, particularly not in the Pegasus. He knew she was thinking hurricane. It was the season. It was possible. They would be in grave trouble if it were a hurricane. Daniels wasn’t all that convinced that the extreme design of the clipper would survive a severe storm, even in relatively protected waters. Mr. Paxton had planned the masts to be more sharply raked than their predecessors, and the stays were more than minimal. With its canvas fully unfurled, the foremast mainsails overlapped the mainmast, making both masts resemble great white isosceles triangles. If they did run directly into a gale, gusting winds of sizable force against those already sharply angled masts would snap them neatly in two and tear the sails to shreds. Also, the freeboard was very low to the water. A storm worth its salt, and the waves would wash over her decks.

  Oh, hell, Daniels thought, and watched. There was little else to do. He heard Miss Genny—Lordy, now she was an English baroness—shout to reef the topsail on both masts. That was a good idea and the perfect time to do it. It wasn’t wise even in this wind to add stress to the masts. He heard Snugger with that giant’s voice of his bellow out her orders again. This time the men heard and hastened to obey, swarming up the rigging, surefooted.

  Daniels licked his left forefinger and held it into the wind. He sniffed the air as it blew off his finger. He cursed softly.

  He didn’t think the virgin voyage of the Pegasus was going to be successful.

  “What do you think, Captain?” asked Abel Pitts, Alec’s first mate.

  “I think,” Alec said, as he tried his best to make out the Pegasus in the growing dark, “that this better be a mild autumn storm and over soon, or my bride of four days is in big trouble.”

  He knew he sounded quite light about the situation, but within he was scared to death. He wasn’t all that familiar with sailing in the southern Atlantic in the autumn. He knew there were hurricanes at this time of year. But no, this was just a passing storm, nothing more. He wouldn’t worry about it. He looked to his own vessel. The Night Dancer was continuing her way through the choppy waves as if naught were occurring out of the ordinary. Her timbers groaned as she plunged deeply into the trough of a wave, her rigging of tarred hemp rope moaned and shrieked like the damned as the wind pulled and whipped at the sails—all the normal sounds Alec was quite used to.

  “Where are we, Abel?”

  “I reckon we’re about one hundred and five miles due north of Cape Hatteras.”

  “That’s the cape off Pamlico Sound? In North Carolina?”

  “Aye, Capt’n, and it isn’t kind to vessels; it’s known to be in treacherous waters. Sailors call it the graveyard of the Atlantic.”

  “Obviously my wife knows that. She’ll keep due east.”

  “Aye, Capt’n,” said Abel and wondered. He watched the baron keep looking in the distance and he knew that his lordship would have given just about anything to catch but a glimpse of that clipper schooner.

  Abel turned his head and went about his business. The topsails were reefed a bit, the foremast sails and the mizzenmast sails brought in. The wind was picking up. It was nearly dark now. He heard Pippin, the captain’s cabin boy, say to Ticknor, the second mate, “I tell you, I don’t like it, Tick. The air’s thick—you can taste it nearly. I don’t like it at all.”

  Ticknor grunted as he tested the tautness of the forestay. It was tight, humming slightly from stress in the swirling winds.

  “Maybe not,” said Ticknor. “The capt’n knows what’s what. It ain’t up to us to stew about it.”

  “But that’s his wife on the clipper, Tick.”

  “Aye. Did you get a good peep at her?” asked Ticknor.

  “I saw her good when his lordship brought her on board weeks ago.”

  “Here? His lordship brought her on board our vessel? You never told me that.”

  “’Tweren’t none of your business. He was carrying her, he was, like she was hurt or something.”

  “Odd,” said Ticknor. “She’s a lady, you know.”

  “His lordship wouldn’t have married her if she wasn’t a lady, baconbrain.”

  “You know what I mean. She’s different. She’s captain of that clipper.”

  “Aye,” said Pippin. “That’s true enough and we got to beat her or the capt’n will have no peace for all his years.”

  Alec, in the meanwhile, had given up trying to see in the darkness. He ate what Clegg put in front of him and thanked his cook absently. He studied the charts to Cape Hatteras. With the winds as perverse as they were, they’d be lucky to reach it by midmorning. Would Genny steer the clipper well clear of the cape even if it meant losing time? Of course she would. She wasn’t stupid.

  But she wanted to beat him, and there was the rub. She probably wanted to beat him more than anything else in the world. He cursed over his slab of beef, now congealed in gravy on his plate. He shoved the plate away and rose. He couldn’t stand the cabin or his own thoughts. He stayed on deck until the slashing rain drove him below.

  When finally he slept, he dreamed and it was terrifying. Genny was yelling to him, screaming, and he heard the fear in her voice. He was trying to turn to see her, but something was holding him in place. He called her name. Then he saw her, not all of her, just her eyes, and he saw anguish there, so much anguish that his belly cramped viciously. Then it wasn’t Genny’s eyes, it was someone else’s, a stranger’s.

  Alec woke up with that cramp, a very real one.

  Something would happen to her, he knew it, and he’d never felt more helpless in his entire life. Except when Nesta had screamed and screamed and died and he’d done nothing because he hadn’t known what to do.

  Alec rolled out of his bunk and lit the lantern. Eerie shadows danced through the small cabin. He looked out the stern window. It was raining more heavily, thick sheets of rain. Still, nothing to be particularly concerned about. Unless it was the prelude to a hurricane. He jerked on his boots, pulled on his oilskin coat, and went up to the quarterdeck.

  Everything was in orderly array.

  “Good evening, Capt’n,” said Ticknor, who had watch.

  Alec nodded. His gut cramps eased. He stopped rubbing his belly. That bloody dream! It had been ghastly. What the devil should he do now?

  Where was she?

  Genny was watching the waves grow higher and higher. If the storm continued, if it grew stronger, water would wash over the decks. It wouldn’t be very pleasant, but on the other hand, it wasn’t the end of the world either. The sky was suddenly darker. It was then that she knew, knew deep down, that a hurricane was coming north from the Caribbean. It was the smell of the air, the feel of it, really, and something primitive inside her knew what was to come. “I think it’s time to think of the present, Snugger.”

  Snugger wanted to tell her that late autumn westerly gales weren’t unexpected. He wanted to tell her they could survive, even in the center of one. It would just be a passing storm, he wanted to say. He had no chance to say anything. Genny gave him her orders and he shouted them out to the crew.

  “Starboard a little,” she said to Daniels, who had the wheel. “Yes, that’s it. Keep her as close-hauled as you can.”

  “Aye, aye, Capt’n.”

  “Snugger, tell them to get the fore-topsails in. Set the main top—no, wait. Daniels, quickly, sheer off.”

  Daniels sheered off, the wheel spinning in his large hands.

  Genny was flung sideways, falling hard, hitting
her hip against the mainmast.

  “You all right?”

  “Yes. Now, believe me, and don’t argue. This is a hurricane. We’re going to Pamlico Sound, to Ocracoke Island. You know it’s got the deepest inlet in the sound. We’ll be safe. We’ll ride out the hurricane there.” She stood a moment, watching the waves crash over the deck. Her hair was whipping into her face, stinging her cheeks, strands going into her mouth. Finally she grabbed the thick mass and began to braid it. When she finished, she realized she had nothing to tie it with. Snugger, without a word, handed her a thin strap of leather. She managed to tie the braid securely, then said, “Shout to the men to be careful. I don’t want to lose anyone. Tell them what we’re about.”

  Snugger nodded and bellowed over the wind.

  “Tell them it’s a hurricane.”

  Snugger did as he was bidden. He turned finally and cleared his throat. “The sound is shallow, treacherous.”

  “I know that. We’ll go around Diamond Shoals into the inlet, then to Ocracoke. It will take us three to four hours, I think, depending on the winds.”

  Snugger sighed. “It’ll be tricky as the devil.”

  “It’s better than drowning out here in the Atlantic. A hurricane would snap the masts in a thrice and waves would wash over us, sending us down in a matter of minutes. You’d better pray that we get to Hatteras in time.”

  “We’ll do a direct bearing,” he said and shouted to Daniels to bear to starboard. Even three feet away, he had to shout. The winds were shrill now, like banshees screaming in the dark on All Hallows’ Eve.

  “I want the barkentine to follow. I don’t imagine that his lordship has had too much experience in this part of the world. He must come after us into the inlet.”

  “He will, I doubt not,” Snugger said. “He’ll have some help from O’Shay.”

  Genny turned wide eyes to Snugger. “He took on O’Shay?”

  “You have to agree that the man’s a wizard when it comes to sailing the straightest, safest course in this hemisphere. He can’t help his love of the bottle—he’s Irish, after all. Likely the baron won’t let him near any whiskey until the voyage is over.”