“Promise me if I die, you will take my family’s cargo to Clarkston Plantation in North Carolina.”
He gazed into her once beautiful eyes, now yellowed orbs. “No. I won’t do it.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head and her chest rose up as if pulled by an invisible hook. “You worthless trial of a man! What made me think you were more honorable than other men?”
He pulled her into his arms and growled into her ear. “Now you listen to me, Miss C.C. Collins. I will not take your cargo to your family by myself.
“If you die, I’ve a mind to quit this whole enterprise. Things are a lot worse than I’d been led to believe. Wilmington is the last Confederate port open and rumors say the Yanks are amassing ships and troops to take it. They could move on it any day. The blockade is now so tight we have less than a fifty-fifty chance to make it through. So you best make up your mind to get well because that is the only way you can be sure I’ll hold up my end of the bargain.”
He shifted her to one arm and made a show of pouring quinine into a water glass to drive home the point.
She wrinkled her nose and lips. To his amazement, with several tries, she managed to choke most of it down. The next day she drank a bowl of broth.
“You seem to be regaining some of your strength,” Beau said.
She looked woefully ill but managed a hoarse reply, “Strength? More like refusal to be fleeced. I paid a fortune to help my family in North Carolina, and I intend to get my money’s worth. You will not back out of our agreement.” Falling against the pillow, her eyes drifted closed as she exhaled, “Tomorrow we will discuss how soon we leave.”
Chapter 13
C.C. sat at her dressing table, exhausted. Today was the first day she’d been able to dress herself in weeks. She gazed at herself in the mirror. The changes in her appearance were almost frightening. Her eyes had become enormous brown orbs sunken into pallid, pinched skin. Her gown now hung loosely about her. She dabbed a bit of powder around her face and a little rouge to her cheeks and lips.
The simplest tasks, like putting up her hair, sapped her of energy. A ribbon and a bonnet would have to do. After trudging over to the plush swooning couch, she nearly collapsed.
It was nearly the middle of December. Every day that passed meant conditions might have worsened for her family. She knew her mother to be a very proud woman. Sending a letter begging C.C.’s help could only mean the situation dire.
She closed her eyes. Feebleness made her furious. Yellow fever had hobbled her when she most needed to take charge. She must insist they get underway, but she’d barely the strength to walk across the room.
The intimacy involved in her care had changed the balance between her and the captain. He’d sat in a chair by her bed day and night. When or where he’d slept she didn’t know. He was stubborn and authoritarian and willful…and more attentive and compassionate than anyone she’d known. And she did not like the effect it had on her heart.
Now mere thoughts about him made her want to nestle in his arms and hear him call her ‘luv’ one more time. She rubbed her forehead and sighed. Laws, the man was a torment. Drat him. Why did he have to show her such tenderness?
There could be no more pretense. They had to get underway.
A soft rap on her door had her pushing herself to her feet again. She opened it to find Captain Tollier, with his slouch hat in hand. A sultry breeze wafted the fragrance of soap and shaving cream into the room.
He gave her a wan smile and a head-to-toe inspection. “Are you up for taking a short stroll?”
***
Royal Palms creaked overhead, shading the bright sunlight when Beau led C.C. slowly down the hotel garden’s gravel path. She obviously hadn’t regained all her strength, but once she’d set her mind to fight the illness, she’d made a steady recovery.
“A hummingbird! Do you see it there in the bougainvillea?” C.C. exclaimed. “I haven’t seen one in years!”
Beau followed her gaze to the tiny creature flitting about the pink flowers. “Hummingbirds bring good luck, or at least that’s what people say.” He’d take that as a good omen. Where they were headed they could use all the good luck available.
Turning to him, C.C. said solemnly, “Captain Tollier, I must thank you for taking care of me. It was terribly inconvenient of me to fall sick. I hope now that I’ve recovered, you will make every effort to sail for Wilmington.”
He studied her drawn, peaked countenance and met her adamant gaze with an equally unyielding one of his own. The woman was in no shape to hazard a dangerous voyage. She’d lost so much weight her peach gown hung on her like a wind-starved sail.
He picked a yellow flower and tucked it behind her ear. “Hibiscus represents rare, delicate beauty.”
“Do you remember my question over breakfast?” she continued. “We need to discuss what is left to prepare for the voyage.”
Beau still didn’t respond. C.C. had made it through the second more lethal stage of yellow fever. He could tell she fatigued easily, and he’d no intention of sailing for Wilmington until she’d regained her strength. But if talking about the voyage lifted her spirits, he could certainly play along.
“I’m pleased your appetite is back.” Beau smiled. “That’s a good sign. And given your preference for coffee, you might want to bring extra on the voyage. Basic necessities are in short supply in Wilmington. I’ve no idea if coffee can be bought there at any price.”
“Very good, Captain. What else?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and said sternly, “Perhaps we should discuss the rules on my ship.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It can be, if certain precautions aren’t met. Do you have gowns of pale gray or white?”
“Why?”
“Only those colors are allowed. They blend with the ship and the surrounding sea. Additionally, no lights of any kind are permitted topside and care should be taken below. All sounds must be kept to a minimum. No singing, whistling…or laughing. Conversations should be in a low tone of voice and short. If we happen to be surprised by a blockader after dark I don’t even want to hear you breathe. We are invisible. Is that understood?”
C.C. gazed about his face and nodded.
“Once you board my ship, you must follow my instructions immediately and without question.”
C.C. chewed her lip.
“Do you swear to abide by my rules?”
She finally nodded.
“And another thing.” He halted and took her gloved hands in both of his. “In formal situations you may call me Captain Tollier, but in private, like we are now…my dear, please call me Beau.”
She didn’t respond and let her gaze drift around the nearly deserted gardens.
“Here in the islands, things are less formal. Many people are only known by their first names. After what we’ve been through, I would say we’ve earned the right to call each other whatever name we want.”
She shook her head. “It is not appropriate. Only married couples are allowed such familiarity.”
He doubted most husbands encountered the kind of intimate care her illness required. And, save for one minor technicality, there wasn’t much he’d not seen…or touched. “My dear, it may come as some surprise, but many here already believe we are man and wife.”
Her head jerked toward him. “What has led them to that conclusion?”
“In order to get the help you needed, I had to…how do I put this…let people run with their assumptions. I might add, while ill you spoke with less formality.”
C.C. pulled her hand from his. “I was out of my head with fever. I have little memory of what either of us said.” Her eyes narrowed and swung toward the harbor. He could almost see the cogs turning. Clearly she was attempting to sift through her recollections and fevered ramblings.
He couldn’t say why her insistence on convention chafed. She’d had no problem calling him by his other fictitious names when she’d coerced him into this undertaking. Needling only see
med fair. “You mentioned a man named Merinus.”
She whipped her head around and glared at him. Ah, she hadn’t remembered that little slip.
“He’s someone I knew in the past, of little consequence now.”
“Yet I assume he is the man in the love triangle you spoke of and appears to figure prominently in the fissure between you and your family.”
Color tinged her pale cheekbones. “I have little memory of what I said while I was delirious. A gentleman would not mention such things.”
“We have already established I am no gentleman. Like it or not, there is now something between us. I have questions deserving answers. Must I await your next journey to death’s door before you’ll speak frankly? I don’t like being blindsided.”
Her eyes began that eerie transformation to a dead fish.
“Your loony act is quite convincing, my dear, but you let that one out of the bag too. It’s clear to me you’ve led everyone in your cousin’s circles to believe you are someone quite different from who you really are. What I cannot understand is why. You profess to be seeking a titled husband. But something in me says you are up to something quite different. What is it C.C.?”
“I am trying to save my family.”
“A family who marooned you with your cousins an ocean away. And if I can infer from your answers while in delirium, you have not seen them now these ten years while you’ve been a hunting a lord. Tell me, C.C., when we reach Wilmington, will it be your family we meet or will it be other Confederate agents?”
“I am not a Confederate agent.”
“Then is it the Union? Who are you working with? You mentioned a Jacob Rives practically in the same breath as your former lover—Merinus.”
“He was not my lover!”
“Be that as it may, a certain Union Navy Commander by the name of Jacob Rives led the squadron that chased down the Roundabout.”
She covered her quick intake of air with a sniff, but it was enough to give her away.
He smiled. “I take it his name rings a bell? You called both men by their first names in your ramblings. With your rule of only married people calling each other by their first names, I must presume they were your husbands.”
“Oh please, Captain. Husbands? That is ridiculous. If I ever said their first names it was strictly to myself.” She looked ruffled, like a hen that’d gotten her feathers mussed.
“What name do you use for me then, when speaking…strictly to yourself?”
“Impossible! Bullheaded—”
“Some could argue names and epithets have different meanings depending on the connotation placed on them. Perhaps you are not aware of this, but due to dear Jacob’s diligent efforts, words and names for what some had called heroic actions on my part were turned into villainies.” Beau rubbed his jaw. “He, too, seemed quite knowledgeable about my past.”
A sheen broke out on C.C.’s upper lip and forehead.
“You also mentioned Alexander, Phillip and Henry. More first names,” Beau added.
She huffed. “Those are little boys at an orphanage I support. Laws…did I ever stop talking?” She trudged to a bench and sank down onto it.
He removed his hat and sat next to her, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. “I’m sorry, C.C. When a voyage is filled with as much risk and unknowns, I prefer to have settled in my mind who I can trust.” He slowly turned his hat in his hands. “Will your friend Jacob Rives be waiting with the Union fleet to finish me off?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Beau studied her face. “Two months ago I didn’t know you existed. Yet suddenly I find a connection too coincidental to overlook. After I saw you through an ordeal that takes the lives of almost half those stricken, do you not feel the least bit obligated to be forthcoming? If you aren’t working with the Union, then what is Jacob to you?”
“If you must know, Mr. Rives’s parents and mine were friends for years.”
“Is that all? Everything? The complete truth?”
Her hand trembled as she dabbed at her brow with her handkerchief. She didn’t respond for so long he wondered if silence would be her answer. Exhaling, she finally let her darkened gaze drift over his countenance, setting his heart thumping in his ears. She felt something for him, something deep. How could she not after what they’d been through?
“Maybe I did not communicate clearly enough,” she said softly. “Thank you, Captain, for being with me, taking care of me, saving my life when no one else would have lifted a finger.”
She twisted her kerchief into a knot. “And as far as how much you are worth to me, I need not remind you that you are already in possession of six thousand dollars in gold, will receive another six thousand upon completion of this venture and will stand to make even more with your own cargo.”
Her miserly declaration made him want to howl. For some reason he couldn’t let the matter drop. “I am told you are a very wealthy heiress. Money means different things to different people. Maybe twelve thousand in gold is but a speck of sand on the beach of your fortune.”
“I assure you, sir, twelve thousand represents an enormous amount, but if that is what it takes to help my family, so be it.” She dabbed her handkerchief at her upper lip and around her face.
By God, he’d seen it in her eyes. She cared for him but wouldn’t admit it. The woman was more mule-headed than anyone he’d ever met. He launched to his feet, shoved a hand into his pocket and smacked his hat on his knee.
“And as to your other points—” she delicately cleared her throat “—I have taken no sides in this war. I have not heard of or from Mr. Rives in ten years. You may doubt my claim that my acquaintance with him ended a decade ago, but it is the truth! Personally, I never would have dreamed Mr. Rives would forsake his comforts to indulge a zealous impulse.”
“Your Mr. Rives has done more than that. He’s now a hard-nosed Union Commander.”
“I find that unbelievable,” she scoffed. “Just about any man has more courage than him. Why, I dare say, even Lord Sutterland has more courage.”
He stared at her, momentarily confused. “Lord Sutterland?” He tried to place the name. “That doddering old man in the wheelchair?” He vaguely remembered coming upon the elderly lord watching C.C. and the children play hide-and-seek at Grancliffe. Later, he’d observed C.C. sitting in the library carefully studying a chessboard. Lord Sutterland sat across from her, gazing at her in more than a fatherly fashion.
“A riding accident made his body infirm, but he has more honor and patriotism in half a body than Mr. Rives has in a whole one.”
“You sound like an admirer of the old gentleman.”
“He has a strong mind, is a prodigious intellect and I count him a good friend.”
Somewhere in the archives of his mind existed a short comment his brother made regarding the influence the old relic wielded in the House of Lords.
Beau felt an unexpected wrenching feeling as C.C.’s new revelations turned his opinion of her another one hundred and eighty degrees. In England, he’d thought C.C. eschewed all men. Since landing in Nassau he’d witnessed her charming the ears off island dignitaries.
Further, right under his brother’s nose, she’d cultivated a friendship with Lord Sutterland, a very wealthy and powerful peer. She may consider Sutterland merely a friend, but Beau knew male interest when he saw it.
What was the matter with him? Millie had known hundreds of men in the biblical sense, and he’d never felt an ounce of discomfort. Yet the thought of these men so much as looking at C.C. crosswise set his blood aboilin’.
“It is time we get underway, Captain. I am quite recovered enough for a voyage.”
“I disagree. You had a fearsome case of yellow fever. Fatigue and weakness may continue for weeks, months. Little to no sleep can be expected on the fifty- to sixty-hour voyage. It is best you not overtax your health.”
“We have delayed long enough. The last part of this journey, running the blockade,
is the most dangerous. It is why you were chosen for the job. You, better than anyone, know how to successfully run the blockade. I am beginning to wonder if you are using my illness to hide your own sudden lack of courage.”
Sudden lack of courage? The impertinence of the woman! He gripped her pen in his pocket in an attempt to hold his temper. In a quiet, controlled voice, he said, “If you truly believe I know what I’m doing, you should listen to my advice. We need to wait for a moonless night.”
“I know you’d prefer such a night, but you’ve made many successful runs without it.”
Beau flinched. C.C.’s knowledge of him never ceased to amaze. “Different times, madam. Back then the Union Navy had not organized. Their vessels barely stayed afloat. Blockade-runners could slip past them in broad daylight.”
“Let me make a proposal, Captain. If the fever does not return after two days from today, we will leave two days after that.”
He made a quick mental calculation and shook his head. “Too much moon. The new moon isn’t until the twenty-eighth. We might be spotted by the blockaders unless there’s a heavy mist.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “What else needs attention before we can sail?”
Beau scowled. The ship had been ready to go within days of his arrival. A full load of anthracite coal and C.C.’s cargo were already on board. “If we leave too soon, the risk to your health and the ship could be tragic. I do not think it wise.”
C.C. spoke with a strength and authority contrary to her delicate appearance. “A captain is responsible to the ship’s investors, is he not? As their representative I will tarry no longer. If the fever does not return, four days from today we shall sail.”
Chapter 14
Four days later C.C. stepped aboard the Redemption. The solid decking underfoot sent a quiver of anticipation arcing through her. This was it. They were finally embarking on the five hundred and seventy mile voyage for which she’d expended so much effort and expense. Though a relatively short run, many who’d attempted it had been captured or died. The next two to three days would see which way their fortune would go.
The Trouble With Misbehaving Page 13