[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

  He thought again of what he had done and the shame of it was excruciating in a way none of their knives or pokers or whips ever could be.

  Devlin, Hunter and all the rest of the men who had been there that night to witness it were present there in the cell with him, their mouths silent, but their eyes speaking volumes. And present, too, were those he had brought to their knees—his own father and mother, his own sister...

  That pain was unbearable. He cried out against it and in the midst of the torment he prayed for the poker to touch again that it might distract him from that real pain, prayed for the stench of burning flesh that would follow, but the only smell was that of the sea and the wind and dampness of night. There was no clank of metal or rake of hot coals, only the quiet roar of the ocean; no dripping damp wall at his back or hard press of manacles, but a soft mattress and the comforting rock of the waves. There was no relief, only the pain, and the one thing that sustained him through it was the vow he had sworn.

  * * *

  The moonlight through the porthole shone its gentle silver light into the cabin. The bloody rags were gone, the red-water basins, too. Not one of Gunner’s instruments of life and torture remained. The only evidence of what had taken place all those hours earlier were the stained planks beneath her feet and the half-naked man lying on his back upon the cot.

  Kate could not sleep despite the exhaustion that pulled at her body. There were so many thoughts crowding in her head, so much confused emotion vying in her breast, so much fear and guilt, so much she did not understand—about that sharpshooter’s shot; about the man who had saved her from its bullet...and the way she felt about him. If he died... Something contracted in her chest at the thought and there was an ache there, dull but persistent.

  A man so unlike any other. A man she had expected to hate; a man she should hate. He represented everything she despised—the British, a hunter whose prey was honest, hardworking, American citizens who had been driven to justifiable forms of privateering and piracy; he was ruthless, hard, emotionless, someone who put money and a bounty above all else. There was no denying he was all of those things. And he was everything that she respected and admired, too—a man of integrity, a man who had risked his life to save hers, be it to dive into an ocean to snatch her from the jaws of a shark, or to use his own body to shield her from a bullet—a bullet from a privateer she had defended and for whom she had pled. A man of initiative and intelligence, who had not left his crew to rot in an Eastern prison, but had broken them out and got them home. A man who had rescued a small boy to whom he owed nothing.

  A tear escaped as her eyes moved over his torso. What had they done to him in that prison? Too much pain and suffering for any one man to endure.

  Her gaze travelled higher to his hard handsome face. There was nothing of peace in his slumber. The place that it took him was not a good one. And little wonder given the scars that marked him. Kate watched the troubled dreams and saw the pain that etched his face, sleep revealing the truth he hid so well in waking. He hurt, she realised. He hurt the same as her, just as Gunner had said.

  ‘Emma...Devlin...’ The garbled murmurs escaped his lips, fast, troubled, his level of distress so evident that it shook her.

  ‘Hush, I am here,’ she whispered the words softly and soothed a hand against his troubled brow, as she did to little Ben when a nightmare struck.

  And in his dark place of sleep Kit seemed to hear her and calmed beneath the gentle brush of her fingers.

  He was the man she should hate, but what she felt for him was very far from hate. What she felt for him...

  ‘Hush, my love,’ she whispered, soft as a summer breeze through palm leaves and pressed a butterfly kiss to his forehead.

  And she wept, for him and for her children, for Wendell and for the damnable mess she was in.

  * * *

  It was Gunner who woke her, with his light knock on the door before he entered the night cabin.

  She woke with a start, her dreams confused and troubled. Images of Ben and Bea and Wendell, of Jean Lafitte and Bill Linder...and Kit all too clear in her mind and her heart beating too hard with raw emotion, and her chest too tight with the knowledge of what had changed between them.

  The moonlight had long gone, replaced instead with the bright light of day, harsh and unforgiving.

  She was slumped in the chair, her head resting on the edge of the cot near Kit’s legs. As she righted herself she took a breath, preparing herself, screwing her courage to the post before she moved her eyes to Kit.

  He was awake, his gaze fixed on hers. His face was still pale, but not grey as it had been the day before. Something fluttered inside her heart.

  ‘So, you are still with us, Captain North.’ Her voice was soft and husky from sleep and the tears she had shed in the night.

  ‘For my sins,’ he replied softly, but there was something in the way he said it that made her think the words were not in jest and brought the memory of what she had seen etched upon his face flooding back.

  ‘How is our patient this morning?’ asked Gunner with his usual cheeriness. He did not wait for an answer. ‘I brought you breakfast.’ He set a bowl of blood-soaked oatmeal on the little bedside table. ‘You should eat while it is still warm.’

  She could smell the metallic stench of the pig’s blood, the tingle of it hitting the back of her throat, making her head swim and her stomach revolt. Ironic, for what was a little pig blood in comparison to the crimson tide that had washed the floors of this cabin?

  Gunner leaned closer, peering at the ragged wound with its blood-encrusted black stitches and the newly appeared surrounding bruising. ‘No discolouration, no pustulation. Healing nicely.’

  ‘I had a good surgeon,’ she heard Kit say, and when her eyes moved to his it was to find them on hers. Their gaze lingered, so many words unspoken between them.

  ‘I will take over from here,’ Gunner said.

  She did not argue, but gladly left.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I did not mean to interrupt,’ said Gunner once the door closed behind Kate.

  Kit eased himself up to a sitting position. ‘You did not interrupt.’

  ‘She saved your life, Kit. I could not have got the bullet out.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And she has not left your side.’

  He knew that, too. He thought of the fatigue shadowed beneath her eyes. He thought of the sight of her there, sleeping, overcome by exhaustion. He thought of the feel of her hand within his own. Of all that she was and all that she made him feel.

  There was a silence while Kit ate, the pig blood replacing some of his own which had been lost.

  ‘That shot Lafitte’s man fired. His aim was true. The bullet was meant for Kate Medhurst.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘It does not make any sense.’

  ‘Quite the reverse,’ said Kit. It made perfect sense, once one rid oneself of the blinkers. The truth was glaringly obvious and had been right from the start.

  ‘Care to enlighten me?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Not until he had got his own head around it.

  He finished the oatmeal and the grog, then, ignoring the protests his body made, swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  * * *

  Kate poured the water from the jug into the little basin in the washstand and sponged away the rusty stains from her naked skin. Her face, her neck and décolletage, her hands and forearms. Her feet and shins. Even her thighs where the blood had soaked through the layers of black muslin. She washed her hair, too. At the end of it, her skin was white again and the water in the basin crimson. She rolled the muslin to a tight ball and stowed it beneath the bunk where her holsters and weapons had been hidden, remembering that it had once been her intention to put a bullet in Kit North’s chest herself. Now everyth
ing, and nothing, had changed.

  He was still North the Pirate Hunter. She was still Le Voile. And he knew. Even though he had not spoken the words. It was there in his eyes when he looked at her. She could feel it in the very air between them.

  He knew. And he had still taken that bullet for her. Jean Lafitte had come, but not to rescue her.

  She was confused, so confused. Everything in her life had been so simple before. Everything made perfect sense. But not now. Now, she did not know what to think any more. All that she had believed had been turned on its head. Friend and foe. Betrayal and loyalty. Love and hate.

  She lay down on the cot and closed her eyes. But no matter how long she lay there she could not sleep. And she could not stop the thoughts that twisted and spun in her head. So, after a while, she rose and dressed herself in the black silk from the Antiguan wardrobe. Black stockings tied in place with black tapes. The matching black slippers upon her feet. She combed out her wet hair, leaving it long and loose to dry. Then ate the light breakfast Gunner had left before eventually heading up on to the upper deck.

  * * *

  She stood there, looking out over the grey Atlantic Ocean, the rhythmic roll and spray of the waves lending her some sense of relief.

  The tap of Gunner’s stick sounded as he came to stand by her side

  ‘Here you are,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Here I am,’ she said, without looking round. ‘How is he?’

  ‘He is typical North,’ said Gunner in a voice that made her smile despite everything else that was in her chest.

  They stood in companionable silence for a while.

  ‘It was my fault that he was shot,’ she said.

  ‘Men make their own choices, Kate.’

  ‘He told me to go below. He told me Lafitte meant to fire. But I would not listen. I...’ She could not tell Gunner the truth of her words in those final moments. No doubt Kit would tell him soon enough. ‘I thought I knew better,’ she finished instead. Then looked round, meeting his eyes for the first time, saying what every man on Raven already knew, ‘He took that bullet for me.’

  Gunner’s silence was an agreement.

  She sighed and returned her gaze to the grey roll of waves, watching them in silence for a few minutes. ‘Does Captain North have a woman?’

  ‘No. I have already told you the way it is with him and all the usual vices of a man at sea. Why do you ask?’

  Emma...Devlin... ‘No reason.’

  Voices sounded. Men moving to the quarterdeck. She glanced over and saw Kit standing there in his faded leather coat and his hat, and Bob the raven on his shoulder. As if his shoulder were not torn apart. As if he had not been hovering so close to death’s door all through the night.

  ‘What is he doing?!’

  ‘Taking the morning briefing,’ said Gunner quietly.

  She shot a look of accusation at the priest. ‘You should have stopped him. He is not well enough—’

  ‘He is the captain. And these men need to be led.’

  She made to move past him, but he stopped her by the lightest touch upon her arm. ‘If it is any consolation, I have seen him rise the next day after a lot worse.’

  ‘What could be worse than yesterday?’

  ‘Much more than you could imagine, Kate,’ said Gunner softly so that she remembered the scars upon Kit’s body.

  Her eyes moved to where Kit stood, at the helm of his ship. Those dark eyes met hers for the briefest of moments, before he turned away and got on with giving his orders.

  ‘If you will excuse me, Reverend Dr Gunner.’ She left and headed back down to her cabin, needing to be alone, needing time away from the man who affected her too much.

  * * *

  In the days that followed Kate Medhurst steadfastly avoided him. She did not come to the dining tables. She spent too much time in her cabin, and the minutes during which she did surface on deck was when it was busy, overrun with crew, and she kept well clear of wherever he was to be found.

  Part of him was relieved by it. But it was just putting off the inevitable. She knew it every inch as much as him. His eyes traced her silhouette against the prow, the black silk dark and sheened as Bob’s wings in the dying sun.

  ‘Take over, Reverend Dr Gunner,’ he instructed. ‘Carry on, Mr Briggs.’ He made his way up the length of the ship to her, aware that the eyes of his crew were watching.

  ‘Mrs Medhurst.’ He stopped by the rail only a few feet away from her, sharing the same view.

  ‘Captain North.’ She did not look round at him. ‘I was just leaving.’ She began to turn away.

  ‘You cannot hide in your cabin for ever, Kate,’ he said quietly.

  The words stopped her in his tracks. She did not flee. Just stood there very still for a moment before resuming her position at the rail. ‘No, I suppose I cannot.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, and took a deep breath before she glanced at him.

  ‘Tell me about your husband,’ he said softly.

  Their gaze held for a long second until at last she gave a nod and looked out once more to the vast grey expanse of the ocean.

  ‘His name was Wendell Medhurst. He was born and raised in Tallaholm, the same as me. We married when I was twenty-two years old and had our son, Ben, a year later and our daughter, Beatrice, Bea for short, a couple of years after Ben. He was a good man—a kind husband, a loving father. We owned a small general store. It earned us a good living. And then with all the political trade blocks—first the French, then the British, and finally our own government. So many blocks as to be a stranglehold—we could not make ends meet. Could not put food on the table for our children. It was the same for all of Tallaholm, as much as New Orleans. So Wendell did something about it.’ She glanced round at him, something of the old light of defiance in her eyes. ‘He stood up to you British.’

  ‘He became a pirate,’ he said.

  ‘He became a privateer, with a letter of marque from the French consul. He might have flown French colours, but everything he did was to benefit Louisiana.’

  ‘He plundered British merchant vessels.’

  ‘He stood up for his family and his country against tyranny.’

  ‘He became one of the Lafittes’ men.’

  ‘He worked for himself, not Jean or Pierre Lafitte. The Lafittes helped with the set-up, the storage and distribution of goods, and offered a measure of protection. They know people in high places, powerful people.’

  ‘The overlords.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking I suppose they are.’ She nodded.

  ‘What happened to Wendell?’

  ‘He was murdered by the British.’ She met his gaze. ‘A naval captain boarded his ship and slit his throat in front of his crew.’

  Just as he had feigned with the boy on Coyote. Only then did he realise how much it must have affected her to see his blade held to the boy’s throat. The threat had been an empty one, but she could not have known that.

  ‘I am sorry, Kate. That never should have happened.’

  ‘It should not. But it did.’

  There was a silence.

  She met his gaze. ‘So you will understand something of my feelings towards the British.’

  He said nothing. He did understand. Too much.

  ‘I loved him,’ she said, and looked down to where her fingers twisted the plain gold wedding band on her finger. ‘I still do.’ She swallowed. ‘I always will.’

  Her eyes met his again and he saw her pain and her grief, and the strength that had driven her.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘How many days until England?’

  ‘A week at most.’

  She nodded and looked out again at the ocean.

  They stood in silence together.
<
br />   He felt her pain as keenly as he felt his own.

  He understood, but understanding changed nothing. He walked away, left her standing there and returned to his duty.

  * * *

  At the dining table a few evenings later Gunner was sitting opposite her and little Tom beside her, keeping her company at the dinner table, now that she had given up hiding in her cabin. It made her heart swell to see how much the boy had come out of his shell.

  ‘If you’re not wanting that...’ Tom eyed the chicken pieces in gravy sauce that she was poking round her plate, like a starving dog staring at a food-laden table.

  ‘Take it.’ She pushed the plate towards him. ‘A growing boy needs to keep his strength up and I am not hungry tonight.’

  ‘You weren’t hungry last night, neither. Nor any of the nights since the captain got shot.’ He looked at her with concern creasing between his brows.

  ‘Eat the chicken, Tom,’ Gunner said.

  She forced a small smile to her face. ‘My appetite does seem to have deserted me these days. I cannot think why.’ But she knew why.

  She glanced down the length of the table to where Kit sat with Briggs, Collier and Hastings. On the surface he was his usual self. Cool, strong, remote almost. A captain in every sense. And yet she noticed he looked pale and there was still a slight stiffness in the way he moved.

  As if sensing her gaze, Kit moved his eyes to hers. Across the small distance the tension vibrated between them. So much unspoken. So much he had not asked her. Not one question on Jean Lafitte. No mention of Le Voile.

  She returned her attention to Tom and to Gunner, to find the priest watching her.

  ‘You cannot go on like this,’ Gunner said softly.

  ‘I cannot,’ she agreed. It was time to take matters into her own hands.

  * * *

  Kit was alone when he came into the day cabin, just as she had known he would be. From the shadows that obscured her she watched him close the door behind him and lean back heavily against it, closing his eyes, his shoulders slumping as if he carried the weight of the world upon them. The sunset that blazed through the huge stern windows washed the pallor of his face rosy and revealed the darkness of the shadows that smudged beneath his eyes. It touched mahogany streaks to the darkness of his hair and showed the full extent of the vulnerability only revealed now he thought himself alone. The sight of it touched raw against her heart. She swallowed.