He’d learned that the lust that he slaked with the willing women of the sea ports was different from the love he observed shared between some of his crewmen and their mates who waited on shore. They had a connection and a commitment to each other that went beyond fondness and beyond sex. He almost envied them this emotion that provoked such depths of passion. He’d also seen the other side of love, the side that perverted the sweetness of true feelings to lust and jealousy when love wasn’t returned. He wondered what love truly felt like and wished he had more time to explore such a thing, but he knew it was impossible. Mermen were incapable of love.
Compassion, though, that was something he might be able to teach his people. He’d seen humans who had next to nothing give their very last piece of food to another who had less. He’d watched shipmates go without to help another who was ill. On land, he’d seen the wealthy give goods and money to the poor and watched the poor turn around and share what little they had. This was something his people could benefit from and perhaps save them from the petty squabbles and in fighting that was almost sport in his world.
His thoughts turned to the destructive nature of the wave again. It had come from an unexpected quarter, given the seas they’d been sailing through. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that it had been created and sent by someone who wanted to send him a message. Someone who didn’t care about the possibility that human lives would be lost because of the wave. Someone who wanted him back in the sea kingdom no matter what.
More information, he needed more information of what was going on in his native home. After Mrs. Shore fell asleep tonight, he’d slip into the sea and search for some answers. He’d have to be back before she awoke in the morning, and he’d have to endure the pain of transformation again. It couldn’t be helped. The compassion he’d learned from these humans made him know that he couldn’t leave Mrs. Shore here without somehow finding a way to rescue her.
A flutter of white down the beach caught his eye. Her gown, teased by the wind, billowed away from her feet and legs. She was a beauty; many mermaids would envy her lush curves and glorious length of hair. Every movement was graceful whether she was walking or bending over to pick up a stick.
She’d been soft and warm when he’d taken her in his arms before. The webbing between her digits and her sea colored eyes mesmerized him, her revelation that she’d grown up on the island of Jamaica tickled a thread of memory. A piece of information was missing from this puzzle. Two puzzles to work out, he thought as he searched for rocks or logs on which to sit. Which one was of more import, the one of the woman or that of the rogue wave upon the sea?
* * * *
The sun set in a palette of red and gold and pink that reminded Jonah of the coral gardens in the tropical seas. Just before the sun disappeared beneath a horizon of waves, it shot the sea with a brief show of emerald, then was gone. The dark sky filled with the wash of stars that sailors called the Milky Way. Jonah studied them in an effort to figure out exactly where this island was, but he knew that his best bet was to go into the sea and get information from his friends there.
The moon was on the wane. When it was full again he must return to his father’s palace. Between now and then he must find a way to return Mrs. Shore safely to her people. He strained his senses but no hint of wooden ship hissing through the waves reached his sensitive ears, nor did he hear the sounds of wind on sails. It became more and more apparent that they were not in any of the normal shipping lanes plied by sailors on the sea.
“Those roasted tubers were quite awful, were they not?” Mrs. Shore’s rueful voice cut the silence. “I was sure they would taste like something similar from my homeland. Alas.” She laughed in a quiet way that said that she appreciated a joke even if on herself.
Jonah watched her from the other side of the small blaze. Deep lights were drawn out of the depths of her black hair by the flickering fire. Her face was made more finely etched by the give and take of shadows and her gown, though looking soiled in the sunlight, gleamed as if made of sea foam in this light.
“I’ve eaten much worse,” he offered.
“You are kind. The mussels weren’t as bad as I feared, though a lovely melted butter sauce would have made them more palatable to my tongue.” She wiggled her toes in the sand.
“You must be tired, madam, from your efforts today. Perhaps you should sleep.” Jonah couldn’t go into the sea until he was sure she wouldn’t see him transform. He ached for news and information.
She yawned. “What is your name, Captain?”
“What?” Her question took him by surprise.
“Your given name? If we are to be trapped here just the two of us, it seems odd to continue with the formality of Mrs. and Captain, does it not?”
“I would have thought that a woman of your breeding would appreciate the social courtesies even in such an unusual situation.”
She stretched her arms over her head. Jonah watched the soft fabric tug against her breasts causing an answering ache in his groin.
“I have spent the last several years chafing against the social courtesies, Captain. When I get back to Jamaica I’ll have the wherewithal to do what I wish when I wish. Perhaps I simply want a bit of practice.” She hesitated, then tilted her head so that her eyes glowed across from him. “You may call me Marianne, if you wish.” She shrugged.
He nodded. “I am Jonah, though perhaps you already knew that.”
“Yes, your full name was given to me before departing Nantucket. It didn’t seem appropriate to call you such without a by-your-leave.” She poked at the fire with a stick. “An unlucky name for a sailor, Jonah, so they say.”
“What else do they say?” He’d heard it all before but was curious as to how much she’d been told.
“It is said that you can read the wind and waves like a scholar reads a book.” Her voice slowed as if she tired. “Also that you do not need charts or sextants or other aids to navigate the waters of the world. And that you have never lost a ship or its cargo.”
“I sound like the very paragon of a ship’s captain,” Jonah said dryly.
“Until yesterday.” Her gaze caught him, straight and sharp.
“Yes.”
“It is said you never lost a seaman who was under your command and neither did you take on passengers. Yet the ship was split in two pieces, the cargo and probably all of your men sent to the bottom of the sea.” Her voice thickened with emotion. She rubbed her hands across her eyes. “And here am I.”
“Yes,” he said again. He didn’t know what else to say. Instinct warned him to keep his voice gentle and low and perhaps stave off the hysteria that he felt was like a wave trying to crest and break from her.
“Yes,” she echoed. “I’m very tired, Jonah.” She stretched out so that her head, cushioned by a bent arm, rested on the log on which she’d sat. Weary, sleep filled eyes blinked at him. “Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.
Fierce protectiveness swelled in his chest as he watched her eyes close and waited until her breathing slowed and deepened into sleep. Though he hated to leave her alone, he knew that his best chance for keeping her safe was to find out things that he could not find out here. She’d be safe until morning, he told himself. He’d searched the island with all the senses at his disposal. No other humans had ever walked here, nor did predators of the mainland make this place their home.
He put one more piece of driftwood on the fire and moved away from its circle of light. In the darkness beyond, between the flames and the sea, he stripped off the trappings of humanity. With one last look at Marianne’s sleeping, trusting form, he turned and strode naked into the water of his home.
Chapter Six
Jonah felt his body transform as he dove into the waves. No pain accompanied this transformation; it was back to the streamlined shape of his species. The taste of water ran through his mouth and gills as he cut through his natural element with the speed of heady delight.
The water caresse
d his skin as he swept down to the cold depths then back up into a warmer current a few yards from the surface. The creatures of the sea either ignored him or spoke a brief word of greeting according to their kind. Jonah reveled in the freedom that bore him away from the small island and the woman to whom he felt a stifling responsibility.
Many hours and miles away, he finally found the family of dolphins with whom he had spoken earlier that day. They played and leapt about each other until they tired of the game. At last Jonah could ask the old female leader of the group his questions. It was slow going, she had to rise to the surface for air more often than her younger kin, but she was wise in the ways of the sea and Jonah had great respect for her.
What she told him, worried him. “You say the wave came upon you without foreknowledge, too?” He frowned as her thoughts found their way into his mind.
“Yes, Prince, we felt the ocean rise as if taking a deep breath, then the seas raged in a steady stream of turbulence. No warning, no chatter of the earth or whisper of strong winds foretold the event. A darkness covered its coming.”
Jonah sensed a deep melancholy in her. “Did your people suffer because of this mischief?”
“Aye.” Her huge, gentle eyes stared at him. She nudged him with a flipper until he turned. In the near distance, a female dolphin swam in circles. She cried out for a little one but he could see none of their young.
“It came too fast to save the pup?”
The old one moved her head up and down. She headed for the surface again. Jonah heard her blow then suck in another lungful of air.
“Who would do such a thing?” she asked.
Sadness filled Jonah as he heard the mother’s mournful song. A dolphin’s lament could bring tears to the most jaded of any race. “I promise to find out, old mother,” he said.
“It is said that one of your kin has suffered as well.”
Dread settled low in his gut. “Who?”
“The one like a brother to you. He once joined you as you learned to ride the waves. You know of whom I speak?”
“Sebast? No, not Sebast.” His closest cousin, he couldn’t be dead.
Kind eyes blinked at him. “No, Sebast’s sire, not Sebast. But your friend mourns. He needs you.”
His uncle, his father’s closest friend and adviser, dead. A thread of anger made its way through him as he counted the cost in lives of one rogue wave. It didn’t even count the human cost, but the small dolphin and his uncle were more than enough for him to do his duty and discover who would cause such a thing.
“Can you get a message to my cousin, old mother?”
At her nod, he said, “Have him meet me at the isle on which you found me in two nights. I have a duty waiting there that I cannot leave.”
“Have a care, Prince, the tide is turning in your kingdom. Choices are almost upon you that have simmered in the oceans of the world since your birth. You cannot turn away. Look forward, Prince.”
After that cryptic statement the dolphins gathered around their leader, whistled a farewell, and swam away.
Jonah watched them go with a sense of abandonment. He wished to go with them, but his obligation, an emotion he’d picked up from humans that meshed well with his sense of responsibility that came from being heir to a kingdom, bade him return to the island before dawn. A glance through the clear glass of the surface showed him the face of the heavens in the stars. Like reading one of the clocks of mankind he knew exactly when it was and how far he had to travel to return to the beach.
At least he wouldn’t return empty handed, he vowed. He hunted with an eye to the tasty and easy to prepare of the fishes. He had several on a string of strong weed by the time the sky was lightening with the coming day and the beach was in sight. He allowed waves to surf him up onto the sand, pulling his bounty behind him. Just as he said the words and the pain took him, he remembered that he’d removed his clothes.
The thought of Marianne’s face when she found him thus, naked and wet, almost made him laugh through the agony. Not quite, as usual the agony took him away.
* * * *
She started awake at the sound of the scream. As it faded into silence she looked at the remnants of the fire and beyond it to the empty space where Jonah should have been. Had it been he who’d cried out? She rushed to her feet, determined to find him if only to make sure he was safe. Sand had blown into her eyes in the night. She stumbled to the spring, cursing that she’d forgotten her foot wear as branches and stones scraped at her. At last she was able to wash out her eyes and rub her face clean.
The woods were quiet; all she heard above the soft whisper of wind was the rote upon the beach.
“Jonah?” she called. Empty silence, not even the echo of her own voice broke it.
Perhaps he’d gone for a walk. She hurried back to the little camp and searched up and down the beach. There, her heart leaped to her throat. Half way down the beach a large form lay on the sand above the lap of the waves. It was big enough to be a small dolphin and Marianne hoped it wasn’t a dead creature. But it could yet be alive and she could save it. She pulled her gown above her knees and ran in that direction.
Before she’d gone ten feet she stumbled over a piece of clothing. Jonah’s shirt? And a few feet further, trousers ripped along the inseam. Anxiety had her running faster across the tugging sand.
His bald head shone in the early sun. A string of fish lay in the sand by his side.
“Oh dear,” Marianne gasped as she knelt beside him. He must have gone into the sea to fish for them. She’d nagged at him for food but he must have been too prudish for her to see him in wet clothes or no clothes. And now look, he’d drowned just so she could eat.
“Oh Jonah,” she sobbed and pulled his head into her lap. Her hand rested across his chest. The thudding of his heartbeat came through this muscles and skin. His chest moved up and down with breath. Relief washed through her.
“You’re not dead,” she exclaimed. He didn’t answer. She searched his head and chest for injuries, something to cause him to swoon, but found no evidence of such a thing. She wanted to check the rest of his body, but his nakedness quite stunned her. Then she realized that in order to help him, she needed to know the extent of his injuries and must set aside her own misgivings.
“It’s for his own good,” she said. She put his head gently onto a pillow of sand and began to feel his arms for any breaks.
No, they were whole. As she spread her hands across the muscles of his chest, her fingers swept across his nipples chest. She marveled at the breadth and strength evident there. She could discern no bruising or damage.
A deep breath later and she let her gaze wander to where his slender waist became strong hips that cradled the mystery of his manhood. Though curiosity had her gaze lingering there, her sense of propriety had her shying away and moving down his nether limbs to his elegant feet. She touched his legs and found no damage there.
A pile of sand covered his feet so she had to lift them and brush them off before she could examine them closely. She couldn’t help but notice the small webbing between his toes, much like hers and her father’s. Odd, she’d never known anyone but she and her father with such an odd physical defect.
She frowned and finished her examination. Then she rolled Jonah half way over to make a cursory examination of his backside. Except for a small bruise on his buttocks, probably from the stone on which he lay, she saw no reason for his unconscious state.
“Jonah,” she said giving him a little shake. “Can you hear me?”
He groaned.
“Ugh, I’ll have to drag you again,” she said. At least she’d had a restful night of sleep and wasn’t as exhausted as after the shipwreck. Still, he was a large man and heavy. And she couldn’t drag him across the sand naked.
A giggle escaped her lips at what her staid, puritanical mother-in-law would say if she saw Marianne’s predicament. The poor woman would no doubt swoon herself.
Her giggle grew to a full belly laugh
until Marianne was so overcome that she collapsed onto the sand beside Jonah and laughed until tears filled her eyes and her stomach ached. Then the laughter gave way to real tears. Weeping tears that surprised Marianne as much as the laughter.
The gripping sadness that had held her since learning of her husband’s death, the unreality of the life she’d led since living in the cold waters off New England, all washed away in the torrent of tears that until now she’d not let overcome her. The only blessing, once the tears stopped, was that Jonah had been unconscious and hadn’t witnessed her weakness.
“Well then,” Marianne said. A quick wash in the waters of the sea freshened her face and her spirits. She had to drag Jonah to the shelter again so she did her best to fasten his trousers around his body. It was slow going, having to roll him this way and that and partially lift him to get them pulled up. The fact that they were ripped along the seams was strange to her, but the damage to the cloth made it easier to wrestle him into it.
Finally she had his body partially protected. She was sweating with the effort by then but didn’t stop until she’d dragged him back up to the fire side and brought a huge leaf of fresh water to toss over him. Even that didn’t wake him. She thought of dressing him in his shirt but thought better of it and used the garment to fashion a kind of shade over him. Then she found a sharp rock, replenished the fire, and got to work on the fish.
“You’ve been hard at work.” His whispering voice pulled Marianne out of her reverie an hour later.
“Here.” She helped him sit and sip some water from the bark container she’d managed to fashion.
“Thank you.” He drank then sat. When he’d finished he looked down. She saw a small, grim upturn of his lips as he took in the way his trousers were on, though twisted and probably not very comfortable. Then his head turned so that he could see the pit she’d dug for the fish, fish that was now cleaned and wrapped in leaves waiting for the fire to die down so that she could bake them under the hot coals.
From The Deep Page 5