With her heart pounding, she removed several bottles of preserved fruit, slid the tip of the borrowed dagger between the panels, and pushed open the concealed door. Inside, a tin box glowed with a dull sheen. The key she’d managed to remove from the coffee canister and hidden in her stiletto sheath now in hand, she unlocked the box that was affixed to the bulkhead and popped up the lid. Copper tubes wrapped in oiled cloth and sealed with wax snuggled inside. In two of those tubes, wrapped in more oiled cloth, lay bank certificates for institutions in London and Alexandria. A copy of her father’s will enjoyed the same watertight treatment. Two more tubes held specie—gold in one, silver in another.
After removing the cylinders, shoving the first three down her shirt, Deirdre pushed the cupboard door back into place and set to work. A quarter hour later, she returned to the deck lugging a box of fruit. Jones still slumped against the rail gazing toward St. George’s. Three other men on watch ranged about the deck, their backs to her, a clear message that Englishmen weren’t going to help an American.
“Too bad for you,” she murmured.
Maneuvering down the ladders with the crate was even more difficult than rowing the longboat alone. Determination kept her going, breath ragged, arms aching, splinters driving into her arms and hands. At the ladder to the hold, she had to stop, light a lantern and carry it down, then return with the crate.
Thirteen startled faces stared up at her in the feeble light.
“What the deuce are you doing here?” Ross demanded.
Deirdre dropped the crate and drew her dagger. She couldn’t help grinning. “I’ve come to free you.”
“Much good that’ll do on an island,” Blaze jeered. “Leave it to a woman—”
“Listen to her,” Wat interrupted. “Are those oranges in that crate, Deirdre? I’m like to die of thirst.”
“Can’t eat an orange tied up,” Blaze grumbled.
Deirdre decided to cut him loose last. She went to Ross first. The instant his hands were free, he grabbed her arms and shook her. “What have you done?”
“I gave Troy the slip. There’s money in that fruit. Gold in the oranges, silver in the lemons. The only weapons I could get you are dinner knives, belaying pins, and marlinespikes, but—”
“Dash it all, Deirdre.” Ross shook her harder. “You know that we’re not going anywhere without you.”
An uneasy murmur rippled through the men.
Deirdre held up her hand for silence. “I’ve arranged it all.” Though half of what she was about to tell them was a lie, she made certain to look Ross in the eye so he’d believe her. “I’ve found a Russian captain who’ll take me aboard as a passenger. He’s heading to Philadelphia before the English sign a treaty with the tsar, so I can get to Alexandria from there.”
“You can’t go aboard a Russian ship,” Wat objected.
“His wife’s along,” Deirdre assured them in complete falsehood. “I’ll be safe. As for you—” She continued to slice ropes. “If you go inland and across the island, you’ll find a way home with one smuggler or another.”
“I didn’t know a girl could be so smart.” One of the newer men spoke in a loud whisper.
Deirdre decided to untie that man second to last.
“How we gonna go free, Miz Deirdre?” Zeb asked. “They got slaves here, don’ they?”
“You’ll be all right if you stay with Wat or Ross,” Deirdre assured him. “Act like their servant.”
Deirdre freed Blaze. “Now get moving. There are only four guards aboard, and they’re drinking heavily. We’ll manage them easily.” She began passing out fruit. “Tuck them into your clothes. Hurry.”
“Wait.” Ross stopped her. “Do you think we’ll go without knowing you’re safe?”
“We’ll see her safe off.” Blaze snatched up several pieces of citrus and a marlinespike.
“The Russian boat is waiting for me below the stern windows.” Deirdre leaped onto the ladder and started up.
With only minimal chaos, the men sorted themselves out, collected weapons, and followed.
Deirdre wanted to sing, shout, dance with joy. Her heart raced so fast she could scarcely feel it. Freedom! Her men would no longer have to be concerned about her at their own expense. They could escape. Go home. Fight.
She fairly flew up the ladders, soared over the coaming—
And came face to face with Kieran Ashford.
Chapter 11
Deirdre slashed her stiletto toward Ashford. He jumped out of range. She darted around him and sprinted for the companionway. She must reach the cabin. She had a few moments’ advantage.
Behind her, the deck erupted into a maelstrom of shouts and pounding feet, orders, a scream.
Deirdre skimmed down the companionway and into the cabin. Slam the door. Lock it. No, better than that. She flung boxes of oranges against the door.
“Deirdre!” Ashford’s voice sounded beyond the door. Fists pounded on the panel.
He would kick it in. He was strong and could move the crates.
Deirdre leaped onto the window seat. Right on schedule, the Russian boat hovered below her. She swung her legs over the windowsill.
The cabin door crashed inward. “Stop!”
Deirdre dropped. Huge, calloused hands caught her, set her on the thwarts.
Ashford leaned from the window, tried to grab her. A Russian lashed at his arm with an oar.
Deirdre gasped. “Don’t. Get away. Hurry. Vite, vite, vite.”
The Russians began to pull away from the Maid of Alexandria.
“Don’t do it, Deirdre,” Ashford shouted.
“See you at home, Deirdre,” Ross called from the deck where he stood with Blaze and two other of her men. “My love.”
“Get away,” Deirdre shouted back. “They’ll stop you.”
“I’ll stop you,” Ashford roared. He swung his legs over the window ledge.
She cast a frantic look at the Russians. “Faster.”
“He can’t catch us,” one man said in a voice slower than any Southerner’s. “We’ll get you safe.”
Of course they would. No one could jump into the harbor and swim to the boat.
Ashford didn’t jump. He stood on the window ledge and launched into a dive that carried him yards away from the schooner.
Yards closer to her.
He still couldn’t catch her. No one swam that well.
Ashford cut through the water like a dolphin. Swift.
Graceful.
Not too swift. Oars were faster than swimmers.
The Russians seemed to row as if the water were jelly, slow, ponderous. Ashford gained on them. She swore. He would catch them. Take her back.
If her men were safe it wouldn’t matter.
Anxious, she glanced toward the quarterdeck. Only Blaze remained, glowing like a mahogany figurehead in the sunset. One arm raised, swung. Metal flashed.
Deirdre screamed. “No!”
Too late. The marlinespike swooped toward Ashford.
“Look out,” Deirdre cried.
Ashford raised his head—too late. The marlinespike struck. He went down. The harbor water closed over his head.
And stayed closed.
Deirdre sprang to her feet. Rough hands dragged her back. She elbowed one man in the belly and kicked another in the groin. The second man bellowed, dropped back, landed against his companion.
Freed, Deirdre dove. Harbor water engulfed her. Green. Murky. Foul. She saw nothing. She felt nothing but cold deeper inside than the water reached. Searing pain in her lungs. Roaring in her ears. She had to surface.
She had to find him. If he drowned, it would be her fault.
She was going to drown, too. Another heartbeat and her lungs would burst. She would breathe in water . . .
Her foot struck something solid. She twisted in the water, reached out, felt long, wet strands. Seaweed? The bottom of a ship? Or Ashford’s hair?
His hair. She grabbed a fistful and hauled him to her. Wrapping her arms ar
ound him, she kicked her legs, trying to drag him to the surface. Her legs were gelatinous lumps. Useless legs. Useless arms. Searing lungs.
His weight dragged her down. Down to death, not up to air, to life. She had no more breath, no more strength. She could let him sink and save herself or go down with him.
She couldn’t let him go. One more try. One more kick.
His weight lifted from her arms. She still clung to him, but he was buoyant, drawing her upward. The water lightened. She saw sky. Her head broke the surface.
Hands grabbed her, lifted her over a gunwale, then bent her over that same gunwale while she spewed up harbor water.
“Thatta girl, cough it up.” Ross’s voice.
Deirdre whipped around. He knelt beside her, drenched to the skin, his hair hanging in sodden clumps around his face. On the other side of the Maid’s longboat, two English seamen held Ashford over the gunwale. His hair streamed down his back like black seaweed threaded with a scarlet ribbon.
“Dead men don’t bleed, do they?” Deirdre murmured.
“He’s still alive, but he’s in a bad way.” Ross touched her face. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Deirdre dropped her face into her hands. “It’s my fault. You wouldn’t have given up your freedom if not for me. If I’d gotten away . . .” Her voice shook, but she didn’t weep. Her pain ran too deep for tears. “Did anyone escape?”
“Blaze and Zeb. They swim almost as well as Ashford. A good thing, too. If they caught Blaze, they’d hang him.”
“He shouldn’t have done it.” She doubled over. “What have I done?”
Ross squeezed her shoulder. “You’re going to have to figure that one out for yourself, my sweet.”
The boat bumped against the ship. Curses rang down on them like hailstones, preventing Deirdre from asking Ross what he meant. She couldn’t be concerned with herself now. She had to think of Ross, her crew, and Ashford.
Shaky, she rose and reached for the chains. Her hands wouldn’t grip. Ross lifted her up high enough for one of the Englishmen to haul her aboard.
“I’d like to throw you back,” the man ground out.
“I don’t blame you,” Deirdre answered.
He looked startled and released her. “Get below before I’m tempted, missy.”
“Help me with Mr. Ashford.” She forced her muddled brain to think. “Hot water. Fresh water. Lots of it. Lemons. We’ve lots aboard. And rum. Rum helps fi-fight—” She couldn’t say it, that dreaded word that could result from swallowing harbor water. The disease that killed too many sailors.
She was safe. She had lived through typhoid. One didn’t contract it twice. But what about Ashford? Highborn, pampered, rich enough to drink wine and tea instead of water . . .
“And something for bandages.” She concluded her list of necessities and turned aft. The deck dipped and swayed beneath her as if the ship rode out a storm. She flung out a hand for balance.
A solid arm appeared beneath her hand. “I’ve got you, miss,” Troy said. “I’ll get you to your cabin.”
She shook her head. “Ashford.”
“We’ll see to him.”
“No, I must. My fault.” Her vision blurred. She blinked to clear it. No time for tears now. “Please. I know I did you wrong at the church, but let me see to him.”
“You get yourself into dry clothes first. Then we’ll see.”
Troy’s kindness nearly broke Deirdre. She had to force herself to place one foot in front of the other. Inside her cabin, the temptation to collapse onto the bunk nearly overwhelmed her. The sound of men carrying Ashford into his cabin stiffened her spine.
After stripping off her sodden clothes, she tucked the cylinders into the false bottom of her sea chest, dried off on her coverlet, and yanked on shirt and breeches. Her braid was half unbound, but she left it as it was and stumbled the few feet to the captain’s cabin.
Troy and Jones were tugging off Ashford’s clothes. Ashford’s face was ashen, his eyes closed, his body inert. He looked dead save for the blood soaking through a pad of linen and into the pillow.
“Jones, fetch a doctor,” she commanded.
Jones, apparently sober now, turned on her. “Don’t you order me around, you—”
“Fetch a doctor, Jones,” Troy said. “She can help me.”
“It ain’t right,” Jones objected.
“Go,” Troy shouted.
Jones stomped from the cabin.
Deirdre went to Troy’s side. Without a word, she began to dry Ashford. Hot water arrived, and she bathed him while Troy cleared away the crates of fruit. She touched all of him, face, chest, legs. Smooth skin over refined muscles. A dusting of dark hair, thicker on his legs and chest. A beautiful man. A strong man. A man who neither moved nor spoke.
She replaced the makeshift bandage on his scalp. Where it wasn’t sticky with gore, his hair was soft. She combed her fingers through it, brushing strands stuck to his face, and felt the scar on one ear. What was left of one ear. No wonder he wore his hair long. That disfigurement would damage his good looks. She started to wonder how he received the wound, but jerked her hand away and concentrated on staunching the bleeding from his newer wound. Once, Deirdre laid her head against his chest to assure herself of his heartbeat. It was too weak for such a big man. It couldn’t keep him alive. She and her crew would have given up their freedom for nothing if he died. She had sacrificed her crew to save the enemy, and no good would come of it. Even if Ashford lived, he would not be grateful to her.
She should have let him drown. They would all be free if she had. Yet she had accused him of causing her father’s death and could not turn around and be the cause of his.
She must keep him alive to protect her crew, to keep them all alive. She pressed a pad of cloth to the gash on his scalp. “The doctor will have to shave part of his pretty hair.”
“He’s got enough to cover it.” Troy laid his hand on her shoulder. “Go to your own cabin, Miss MacKenzie. You look worn to a shade. I’ll see to him now.”
“No, I must do it. I have to do it.”
“You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t get some rest.”
“I won’t rest knowing he’s in danger.”
Deirdre had the same conversation with the doctor who came to stitch up Ashford’s head, pronounce that he was concussed, and predict that he’d likely end up with a fever. She had the same conversation with Troy a dozen times during the next two days. “This is my fault. I will nurse him back to health.”
She didn’t realize how difficult that would be. Oh, she had done her share of nursing. She didn’t grow faint at the sight of bloody bandages or gag at cleaning up from sickness, both of which she had to deal with taking care of Ashford. She even managed on little sleep. When she grew fatigued, she reminded herself she had only herself to blame, and kneeled on the hard deck beside his bunk, bathing his face with cool cloths and holding his hand, spooning tea and broth between his lips, and reading to him whether he heard her or not.
Two days after Blaze’s attack on him, Ashford opened his eyes and stared straight into hers. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“I’m—” She stopped the apology before it slipped out.
She was sorry he was injured. She was sorry she and her crew had not gotten away. She was not sorry she had tricked him.
“I had to try to free us. Please understand.”
But he was already unconscious again.
With a sigh, she rested her head on the bunk beside him and must have drifted to sleep, for his voice jerked her awake sometime later.
“You have got to believe me, sir. I never—I never—”
His head tossed hard enough to dislodge the bandage.
“Hush.” Deirdre stroked his face, trying to calm him enough to replace the dressing. “I believe you.”
“You will regret this.” The words were clear, the message surely meant for her, yet his eyes remained closed.
Dei
rdre tied the white linen strips back around his head, combing her fingers through the thick tangle of his hair, then settled beside him again. “Sleep now.”
“Ah, so sweet.” A smile curved his lips. “So beautiful.”
Deirdre’s solar plexus tightened. “How can you say that when I—”
“Joanna, my dear.”
Deirdre rocked back on her heels as though he had struck her. He hadn’t been talking about her. He was dreaming of that other lady who had betrayed him. She, Deirdre, was neither sweet nor beautiful, especially not to him. She was a fool for thinking he had been, even for a second. And yet, for that moment, she had hoped he meant her.
Only because that meant he had forgiven her for her treachery, nothing else. The sound of another woman’s name on his lips merely annoyed her.
He didn’t mention the sweet and beautiful Joanna again. His fevered ramblings focused on trying to convince someone to believe him, to understand. Deirdre considered asking him about whom he fretted so much, and maybe even ask him about his scarred ear.
Then he awoke the evening of the third day and fixed his eyes on her with sorrow dimming their golden depths. “You had tears in your eyes when you said good-bye at the inn.”
“Nonsense.” Deirdre laid her wrist on his brow to test for fever. “Your fever has broken.”
He caught hold of her wrist. “I came back because you had tears in your eyes when you said good-bye.”
“But you’re still concussed.”
“I am perfectly well.” He tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillow. “And weak as a kitten.”
“Rest.” She collected a full bottle of laudanum. “You need rest.”
She spoke briskly to mask her joy in seeing him in his right mind and not cursing her for her actions—yet.
“No medicine.” He closed his eyes. “Cannot trust you out of my sight for a moment.”
“I have scarcely left you for a moment.” She returned to his side.
He clasped her hand in his. “Do not go.”
Later he roused and asked about the Phoebe.
“No sign of her yet.” Deirdre brought him a cup of broth. “Maybe tomorrow.”
My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles) Page 13