Moonfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  Maggie showed the magnificent ring not only to Tansy, but to all the others as well. There were ooos and ahhhs aplenty, and then Tansy said, “Well? Is me friend to join in the game or not? If she ain’t, we’ll just go off, ’er and me, to see what we might see!”

  “She can play,” sighed the girl with the poor complexion, and soon Maggie was a part of a rousing game of whist, having more fun than she’d had in weeks.

  When it grew late, the games ended, and Maggie walked Tansy as far as the rear garden, where her new beau, Jack Fly, was supposed to be waiting to see her home.

  “Coo,” Tansy breathed, admiring the ring one last time in the light of the broad February moon. “Ain’t this goin’ to curl Lady Cosgrove’s ’air. She’ll ’ave to accept you as an equal!”

  Maggie doubted that Lady Cosgrove would ever accept her, married to Reeve McKenna or not. She’d gone beyond the pale as far as that good woman was concerned.

  “About time, it is!” complained a male voice from behind a row of bushes. “I’ve got ’orses to groom tonight, you know!”

  Tansy smiled. “Come out, Jack, and meet me friend, the future Mrs. McKenna.”

  The bushes rustled and then Jack appeared. He was a brawny young man, good-looking in a rough sort of way, and he rubbed one hand down his pants leg, offered it to Maggie, and then withdrew it again before she could reach out.

  Tansy laughed at Jack’s nervousness and linked her arm through his. “I’m gettin’ married too, Maggie. Durin’ the jubilee in June.”

  Jack shivered. “It’s cold in June,” he complained. “At ’ome,” Tansy sniffed, lifting her nose, “ladies gets married in June. Don’t they, Maggie?”

  Maggie nodded. It was clear that Tansy was in love, and Maggie couldn’t have been happier. She hugged Tansy again and they said their farewells and Maggie scampered off to the room on the second floor.

  She undressed quickly, yawning as she put on her ragged old nightgown, then went into the bathroom. There, she cleaned her teeth and washed her face and marveled at the size of the bathtub. The thing was big enough for half a dozen people.

  That night Maggie tossed and turned, uncomfortable in the massive bed, missing Reeve. In the morning she left for the theater, where another round of rehearsals would be held.

  Mercifully, the sister seamstresses had made her a new dress, a lovely cambric creation with sprigs of English holly embroidered on its full skirts, and Maggie was spared wearing her trusty gray woolen.

  She worked hard all that morning, and Philip didn’t holler at her so much as he had the day before, though he did reduce the young woman playing Bianca to tears on several different occasions. Samuel looked as though he wanted to punch Philip Briggs in the nose, but he kept his composure on that score and poured all his passion into the part of Kate’s determined suitor.

  At midday, when the cast was set free to have their noon meal, Maggie couldn’t resist showing Philip her engagement ring. Now let him imply that Reeve had no intention of marrying her!

  Philip sighed. “Lovely. But things like that aren’t hard for a man to come by, Maggie—not if he’s got the kind of money Reeve McKenna has.”

  Thwarted again, Maggie stomped off to her dressing room and slammed the door shut. Her lunch was brought to her, but she ignored it, feeling slightly sick to her stomach.

  The afternoon was as difficult as the morning had been, but Maggie survived it somehow. When the workday was over, she got into the waiting carriage without speaking to either Samuel or Philip, and went home.

  That night there was no card game in the servants’ quarters to distract her. But there was another package on the bed.

  Seeing no reason to stand on ceremony, Maggie ripped the large box open and found a beautiful blue velvet cloak inside, trimmed in some luscious white fur. She draped the garment over her shoulders and whirled round and round in delight.

  Her delight soon faded when a sudden rush of nausea flowed into her throat. Maggie dropped the cloak on the floor and dashed into the bathroom, arriving just in time.

  When the spate of sickness was over and she’d rinsed out her mouth, Maggie went despondently back into the bedroom and sat down in an enormous leather chair facing the bed. For the first time, she allowed herself to count days, and the tally was an alarming one. She should have been bleeding a week before.

  Trembling, Maggie undressed and crawled once again into that big, lonely bed, turning down the lamp before snuggling underneath the lightweight comforter and silken sheet. In the moonlight flowing in through the windows she could see her engagement ring flashing, and she comforted herself with the promise Reeve had made. If she was going to have his child, she was also going to have his name.

  The following day was much like the two that had preceded it. Maggie worked hard, she was sick once, and there was another present waiting on the bed when she got home. This one was a tiny silver music box, and there was a note tucked beneath its lid.

  Maggie opened the note. “Maggie,” Reeve had written in his forceful hand, “I’ve arranged for something to be delivered every day until we can be together again. Though I’m writing this ahead of time, I know I’ll be missing you by the time you read it. If you see Jamie again, don’t let him leave. Sincerely, Reeve.”

  Maggie would have felt better if the note had been signed with love, but she was willing to wait for that. With a sigh she wound the music box and let its tinkling notes carry her far away, to a place where she and Reeve could be together always.

  Chapter 17

  THEY’D BEEN AT SEA THREE DAYS WHEN THE GREAT, rolling hulk of a whale was sighted off the starboard bow. A spray of water shot twenty feet into the air, glistening in the midday sunshine, and Reeve stood stock-still on the deck of the Elisabeth Lee, his hands gripping the railing.

  Behind him, the crew raced to reset the sails, to lower the dinghies into the water, and to load the harpoons. Reeve felt sick, looking at that majestic creature as it plunged far beneath the surface and then rocketed skyward, as if to issue a challenge.

  “Comin’, Cap’n?” a crewman asked, swinging a leg over the side of the small ship. He held his harpoon in one hand as he made his way down the rope ladder dangling above the sea.

  Reeve followed the man down into the dinghy and took hold of the oars. The tiny boat moved swiftly toward the mammoth creature frolicking in the sun-spattered water, two other small craft bobbing in its wake.

  Again the whale sounded, and there were moments of unearthly silence before the enormous beast broke the water in a burst of power that set the boats rocking violently from side to side. With a shout the man who had spoken to Reeve earlier on deck lunged to his feet and fired the harpoon. It punctured the sleek water-filmed flesh of the whale, and there was a cry of anguish that Reeve felt in the very core of his soul.

  The water turned red with blood, and it took all Reeve’s determination not to bend over the side of the dinghy and heave. Two more harpoons found their marks, and the magnificent animal rolled onto its side, one great eye covered by a crimson sheen.

  “Oh, God,” Reeve muttered. “God.”

  “Haul her in, mates!” shouted the man who had fired the first harpoon. “Ain’t she a marvel, though?”

  Reeve had never liked whaling, not since his first experience with it at fourteen. Now he was finding it intolerable.

  His hands shook as he climbed the ladder to board the Elisabeth Lee again, and he had barely swung himself over the rail when he heard the screams and the horrible churning of the water. He whirled.

  “Sharks!” screamed one of the men still below. The water bubbled like hell’s caldron, and the dinghies were flung this way and that. Most of Reeve’s crewmen made it up the ladder; the rest—a dozen or so—were hurled into the water.

  What followed was the stuff of which nightmares are woven. Men on deck fired rifles at the frenzied sharks, while the predators tore at the carcass of the whale and at the crewmen who had been thrown into the sea. Reeve wat
ched in horrified helplessness as a young man was dragged beneath the surface. Moments later bright red bubbles boiled up.

  “Jesus,” sobbed one of the men standing beside Reeve on the deck, and his words were more prayer than blasphemy. “Holy Jesus, help ’em.”

  The fury of the sharks drew other sharks, and the frenzy went on and on. Reeve stood frozen at the rail, unable to look away.

  When the horror had finally ended, there was little left of a whale longer than the Elisabeth Lee and nothing left of the men who had died in that roiling mess of blood and gore.

  “Come away, Cap’n.” The first mate spoke quietly, his hand resting on Reeve’s arm. “Cap’n?”

  Reeve shuddered. No matter how much he longed to, he couldn’t step away from the rail or the memory of what he’d seen. In twenty years of whaling he’d watched more than one man die, that was true, but he’d never witnessed anything remotely like what had happened that day.

  The first mate tugged at his arm. “Cap’n, we’re settin’ sail for Sydney—is that all right?”

  Reeve managed a brisk nod, but that was all. His muscles were still as taut as though they’d been cast of iron, and there was a queer buzzing sound in his head. Underlying this were the shrieks of men dying a nightmare death.

  It took several men to pry Reeve’s hands loose from the railing. They led him, like a child, to his quarters below deck.

  “We’ll put in at Auckland,” he heard the first mate say to the other men. “We’re closer there than Sydney. The cap’n needs a doctor.”

  “It be ’is mind that’s needin’ treatment, mate, and there ain’t no doctors for that,” responded someone else.

  Reeve wanted to lift his hand, to tell them that he was all right, that he didn’t need a doctor, but he found that he could neither speak nor move. He was trapped inside himself.

  “We’re going to Auckland,” the first mate insisted, and though Reeve could see Jacob’s face looming over him, he couldn’t respond in any way. Even the flicker of an eyelash was beyond him.

  “I’ve seen this before,” put in a swabby standing at the foot of Reeve’s berth. “Some never get over it.”

  The sailor’s words echoed through Reeve’s mind; the thought of staying this way for the rest of his life filled him with desperate fear. Maggie, he cried, from the depths of his soul. Maggie.

  The days passed quickly for Maggie, she was working so hard on the play, but the nights were long and filled with doubts and fear. She was sure that she was pregnant now, and once she was in bed, she was tormented by wild imaginings. Almost invariably, when she did manage to sleep, she dreamed that she was playing the role of Kate, her stomach burgeoning out in front of her, while the audience booed and hissed and threw vegetables.

  When a week had gone by, Maggie began to look for Reeve, but he didn’t arrive, though more presents and more notes did. The gifts were always frivolous and expensive, and the notes always mentioned Jamie.

  Ten full days had slipped by when Philip let himself into Maggie’s dressing room late one afternoon without bothering to knock. He was holding a piece of yellow paper tightly in one hand and the expression on his face was ghastly.

  Maggie had been using her free moments to try on the new dresses the seamstresses had been making for her, now that most of her costumes were done. At the sight of Philip, reflected in the glass of her mirror, she whirled and demanded, “What is it?”

  “The Elisabeth Lee ran into some trouble, Maggie. Part of the crew was killed.”

  Maggie felt the blood drain from her face and the strength flow from her legs. She sat down heavily on the bench in front of her mirror. “Reeve?” she asked in a whisper.

  Philip shrugged miserably and held out the piece of paper. Maggie snatched it from him and read the telegraph message thereupon, CALAMITY THREE DAYS OUT. TWELVE MEN DEAD, REST SAFE IN AUCKLAND. JACOB HUGHES, FIRST MATE, THE ELISABETH LEE

  Staring into space, her throat thick, Maggie managed to ask, “Who gave you this?”

  “It was sent to Mr. McKenna’s offices, Maggie. A clerk brought it over.”

  The telegram was crumpled in Maggie’s hands; carefully, she smoothed it out on her knee. “You think Reeve is dead, don’t you?” she accused Philip in wooden tones.

  Philip sighed and came to stand close by, his hand resting gently on Maggie’s shoulder. “Jacob Hughes is the first mate, not the captain. If Reeve were alive, he’d have sent the wire himself, wouldn’t he?”

  Maggie wanted to attack Philip like an animal, kicking, biting, scratching. How dare he suggest that Reeve was dead! She sat perfectly still instead, drawing in one deep and shaky breath after another. “I’m going to Auckland.”

  Philip sat down on the end of the chaise longue and then reached out to catch one of Maggie’s hands in his own. “You can’t, Maggie, and you know it. You’ve got the play to think about, and besides, what good could you do in Auckland? The Elisabeth Lee will sail back to Sydney as soon as she’s manned and fitted for the voyage; it’s her home port.”

  “To hell with the damned play!” Maggie cried out, plunging to her feet and pacing the dressing room, tears welling in her eyes. “To hell with everything and everybody except Reeve McKenna!”

  Philip gave another sigh, this one ragged and long. “Maggie, I know how you feel, but you’ve got to stay here. You’ve got to wait for news!”

  “I can’t bear to wait!”

  “You’ll have to,” Philip said firmly, rising to take her quaking shoulders into his hands in an attempt to steady her. “Maggie,” he began again, his voice reasonable and quiet, “suppose you did set sail for New Zealand this very day. Do you know what would probably happen?”

  Maggie was trembling. She shook her head.

  “Your ship and the Elisabeth Lee would pass each other. You’d be no closer to learning the truth than you are right now.”

  Maggie lowered her head with a despondent sob, and Philip drew her close, wrapping his arms around her. “My poor Maggie,” he whispered hoarsely. “What have I done to you?”

  Her face buried in Philip’s shoulder, Maggie wailed. “There’s a child—oh, Philip, I think there’s a child—”

  Philip’s embrace tightened. “My God,” he breathed.

  Maggie had already come to regret blurting out such a confession, and she thrust herself away from Philip and sniffled, trying to recover her composure. The first thing she had to do was go directly to Reeve’s offices and find out if anything else was known about the disaster at sea. “I’m leaving now,” she said, her chin high.

  Philip caught her arm in his hand. “Let me go with you, Maggie,” he pleaded softly.

  Maggie shook her head, pulled free of his grasp, and crossed the dressing room to open the door. Philip’s next words stopped her where she was, her hand grasping the knob.

  “If you are expecting McKenna’s child, Maggie, I’ll marry you. I owe you that much.”

  Maggie could not bear the thought of marrying anyone but Reeve, but she understood that Philip was being more than kind, he was being noble. She turned to look back at him with puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and then she left the room.

  Tansy was standing beside Maggie’s bed, bathing her head with a cool, damp cloth. “There now,” she said sadly, “that’s it. You’re comin’ ’round at last.”

  Maggie had a headache, and she felt sick to her stomach. “Reeve—”

  “I know,” Tansy said gently. “I know.”

  Maggie struggled to sit up, and the room spun around her, making her sink back onto the pillows and gasp for breath. “He’s not dead, Tansy,” she insisted. “If Reeve were dead, I’d know it.”

  “There now, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” Tansy was fussing with the covers, and Maggie slapped her hands away, trying to get out of bed.

  “I’ve got to speak to the people at Reeve’s business—”

  Firmly, Tansy shoved her friend back into bed and put the covers in plac
e. “No, Maggie. You tried that once and, to ’ear your Philip Briggs tell it, you got no farther than the sidewalk before you collapsed in a heap. There’s a love, now just rest.”

  Maggie groaned. “I can’t rest!”

  “Do you want to lose that baby as well as the man you love?” Tansy demanded, drawing up a chair and plunking herself down in it. “You will if you keep this up.”

  Maggie’s eyes had gone wide. “How—”

  “I knew by the look o’ ye. It ain’t like I ’aven’t seen this before now. What’ll you do, Maggie, if Mr. McKenna is dead?”

  The memory of Philip’s second marriage proposal flashed in Maggie’s mind, but she put it aside immediately. Neither she nor Philip would be happy in such a situation, much as she’d once dreamed of being his wife and bearing his children. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t ’ave asked,” Tansy said, looking angry with herself. “Lord knows, this ain’t the time for it. Rest, Maggie, and don’t give the man nor the babe narry another thought. Tansy Quinn will take care of everything.”

  Maggie settled back against her pillows and sighed. She could think of nothing but Reeve McKenna and his child, and she doubted that anyone other than God could set things right.

  Jamie sat beside Reeve’s bed, his battered sheepman’s hat dangling from his fingers. It had been more than twenty years since he’d had a close, clear look at his older brother, and to find him like this was almost unbearable. Reeve had always been so strong, so certain of where he was going and what he wanted.

  “His soul done froze up inside him,” Cutter O’Riley observed from just inside the door of the room in Jamie’s house. “Never seen anything like it in all my days.”

  Jamie kept his eyes on Reeve’s immobile face, thinking of all the effort he’d gone to to evade the detectives. The reasons for avoiding his brother hardly seemed important now. He was glad that Peony kept her ear to the ground, knew what was going on in the seafaring world. He might not have learned of Reeve’s tragedy if it hadn’t been for her.

  Convinced that his brother should be looked after by someone of his own flesh and blood, Jamie had gone directly to the newly docked Elisabeth Lee and claimed Reeve, then brought him home.