Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  Step by step, he forced her back with him toward the door. Julia flicked a look at the gun in his hand. It was shaking slightly with his excitement and, she thought, his anticipation. What would happen if she struck at it? Regardless of what occurred or what he did to her, she could not go meekly to the punishment he intended to mete out to her. Before the thought was completed, before she had even begun to examine the consequences, the act was done. With all her might, she drove her fist up under Marcel’s wrist.

  The weapon went off. Simultaneously, there was a tinkling crash, and the lantern in the ceiling spun on its chain, scattering broken glass in a wide arc. Marcel swung his fist at Julia, catching her a ringing blow on the side of the head. Even as she fell, she saw Jeremy Free appear in the doorway.

  “Back! Get back!” Marcel screamed. A third shot blasted through the dining room.

  Rud lunged, and there was the sound of a scrambling struggle, then more men were pouring through the doorway. Ranting and cursing, Marcel was disarmed. With blood streaming from his nose and one eye fast closing, he was led away to be locked in his cabin. Eventually, he would be taken to England and tried for murder. Napoleon, it was discovered, still lived, but there was another charge that would be laid at his door — the death of first mate of the American-registered Baltimore clipper Sea Jade, Mr. Jeremy Free.

  They picked up the emperor and carried him to his cabin. There he was left to Julia’s care, for the storm was upon them and the captain and every hand were needed on deck.

  The ship’s surgeon offered his services, but Julia, mindful of her suspicions and his overeager interest, refused to let him in the cabin where Napoleon Bonaparte lay. With the help of the steward, she cut away the emperor’s coat and shirt. At the full sight of the injury thus exposed, she felt a sinking hopelessness. Still, she could not give up. She folded thick pads of linen and tied them in place. After a time, the bleeding seemed to ease, but she was reminded wrenchingly of her father’s death under similar conditions so many months before.

  The tempest outside the vessel grew, more violent. Lightning forked in brilliant streaks across a sky that was as dark as night. Thunder exploded around them like a thousand cannon, while rain lashed the ship in windblown sheets. The Sea Jade rose and fell valiantly, dipping her bow into the waves that rolled toward her, washing over her decks and swirling into the scuppers. Now and then came a ringing crack as a sail was torn away, but for the most part the brave ship held her own, riding the storm as Rud had promised.

  Julia sent the steward away to see to the body of the first mate while she stayed with the emperor. When she was not sitting beside his bunk, she stood at the porthole staring out at the gray sky, gray water, and gray wind-driven spray. She did not think; that exercise was much too painful. Still, she could not prevent the images that formed in her mind’s eye, images of her and Rud together, walking the deck, talking, making love. They filled her with impotent, raging anguish. She felt debased, as though her body and its response had been manipulated for Rud’s treacherous purpose. How could he have used her so? Their marriage had been nothing, but a farce and a sham from beginning to end. A shabby trick, nothing more. She should have known. There had been more than one indication that all was not as it should be. His failure to mention his service in the British army, his attempt to conceal his wealth, the ease with which he had arranged for the David to sail to St. Helena, his mother’s odd pity even his uncle’s strange words on the day they had sailed, all pointed toward concerted deception. With the advantage of hindsight, the reason for all of it seemed transparently clear. She must have been a fool not to have seen. A blind, stupid, fool!

  “Madame—”

  The word was a whisper of sound, but still Julia caught it. Turning, she moved with quick steps to the bunk where Napoleon lay. “Yes, your majesty?” she said, leaning over him.

  “A little water—”

  Julia poured water from a carafe left standing on the floor. Raising his head, she held the cup to the emperor’s lips. He gave a weak nod when he was finished, and she took the cup away.

  “My thanks.” He breathed with a shallow movement of his chest, as if a great weight rested over his heart.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, your majesty?” Julia inquired softly.

  “No, madame. I think there is nothing — anyone can do. Strange. I never meant — for it to end this way.”

  “I am sorry there is no priest, no one to say a prayer for your soul except myself.”

  “There is no need. I did not require religious trappings for my living — why should I have them for my dying?” He gave a wintery twitch of the lips that might have passed for a smile. “It will be said — when Robeaud passes — that I — that I recanted. Too much to expect of him — to die unshriven for my sake. Poor man — they will poke and pull at his body — searching for the source of greatness. Such surprises they will find — such mysteries. How, one wonders, will they explain them—”

  His short laugh turned to a cough. As a red-tinged froth appeared on his lips, Julia reached for a wet cloth, passing it over his mouth.

  “Merci,” the emperor whispered.

  “Your majesty?”

  “Speak.”

  “Do I understand that you do not wish it to be known that you made your escape, even if—” She could not complete the question. There was no need.

  “The Emperor Napoleon will die a martyr’s death — the victim of the British — on St. Helena. A man called Robeaud will be buried at sea. I refuse — to give de Gruys the honor of having caused my death. He is a madman — let him be so revealed if he should claim the credit.”

  “It will be as you say,” she promised, her throat tight with tears. “You must speak no more just now. Conserve your strength, if you will, your majesty.”

  “For what?” he inquired, coughing again. “Tell me, was the lunatic de Gruys — secured?”

  “He was, your majesty.” In the distance, from his cabin across the way, she could hear the Frenchman shouting to be released. He had been calling at intervals for the past half hour, apparently afraid the ship would sink while he was locked in his cabin.

  “A Bourbon agent—” the emperor said, the words no more than a thread of sound. “I knew — we should have — hanged him.”

  He did not speak again. His breathing took on a slow rattling sound. It grew fainter, stopped. Within a quarter of an hour of his last words, Julia, using a mirror, could find no sign that he still lived. With trembling fingers, she closed his staring eyes. For long moments, she stood gazing down at the strong, composed features. So many hopes and dreams had ceased to be with the death of the man on the bunk. Large dreams of empire, and small dreams — such as her own return to a plantation in Louisiana known as Beau Bocage. She had never found the right moment to approach the emperor about her father’s overgenerous contribution to the Bonapartist cause. Too late. It had always been too late. She should have known.

  Tearless, composed, she let herself out of the cabin. Someone had to be informed. The burden of being the only one to know of the passing of Napoleon Bonaparte was too great to be borne alone. With an unsteady gait from the rolling ship, she made her way forward to the companionway. Clinging to the handrail, she climbed steadily upward.

  The wind struck her like a lash as she stepped out onto the deck. It tore at her hair, sending her pins spinning away into nothing. It flattened her gown against her, then billowed and burrowed underneath as if it would strip it off over her head. The door behind her crashed back and forth on its hinges, and she had to let go of the door frame, stumbling a few steps away, to keep it from crushing her fingers. As the ship plunged into the breaking seas, only a lifeline, strung across the deck, kept her from losing her footing. Straining for balance, she looked around for Rud and caught sight of him upon the quarterdeck. He saw her at the same time and pointed with a definite gesture back toward the companionway, yelling something that she could not quite catch as it was torn from his
lips by the wind.

  And then, above them came the cry from a lookout in the crosstrees. “Wave!” he bellowed, pointing forward. “Giant wave!”

  Swinging toward the bow, Julia saw it. Towering a hundred feet into the air above them, hurtling toward them faster than a runaway carriage, it was a green-black wall of water. No mere storm-blown swell was this; it was a monstrous thing such as sea legends are made of. There was no hope of fighting it, no chance of mere men surviving by the use of muscles and knowledge. It was so mountainous, so gigantic, no man could hold the wheel or cling to the rigging in the face of its awesome power. There was only one chance for safety, and that was within the buoyant bull of the wooden ship.

  “Get below!” Rud shouted. “Every man below! All hands below decks!”

  Suddenly, there was a man beside her. “For God’s sake, Julia me darling, get below!” O’Toole said, sweeping her with one long arm back toward the companionway. He half supported, half lifted her down the steps. No sooner had they cleared them than other seamen came pounding down the short stairway. Julia flung a look back over her shoulder, but it was too dark to make out faces, to tell who was among the men already below and who was still on deck. Farther down the corridor, she saw Marcel outlined in lamplight in the doorway of his cabin. Dr. Hastings stood beside him, the tool he had used to force the door in his hand. The two men stared in total incomprehension at the sudden rush of men below decks. Panic leaped to Marcel’s face, and he stepped back inside his cabin and slammed the door.

  At the captain’s cabin, O’Toole paused. “Inside,” he said, giving her a small push. “Get yourself a pillow, hold it over your head, and lie down flat on the floor.”

  Julia held back, her hand on the doorjamb. “What about you and Rud?” she asked.

  He did not have time to answer. The ship turned on end, bow first, plummeting downward as though it was falling into a great black hole. They had reached the trough of the monster wave. There was a roaring sound, and Julia lost her footing. She felt herself hurled forward, sliding, slipping down into dark space. She slammed into a bulkhead. Bright light exploded behind her eyes, and in her ears was the shifting, grinding sound of creaking timbers. A tremendous crash came overhead as the weight of tons of water poured down upon the Sea Jade. Water swirled around Julia, drenching her to the skin. A wave of pain, as enormous in its way as the mountain of water crushing them, trying to drown them, washed over her. She closed her eyes, slipping mercifully into the wet darkness.

  “Julia! Julia!”

  There was an urgency in the sound of her name that demanded an answer. She opened her eyes and was surprised to find that she could see, though the light was dim. There was a heavy weight across her legs, and the salt water that nearly covered her splashed into her eyes and mouth, making her cough. She could hear someone moaning, a faint sound above the noise of wind and rain, and hear also the ominous gurgling and sloshing of water in a confined space. Beneath her, the ship was still buoyant, but it moved with a heavy, sluggish roll that could mean only one thing.

  “Julia!”

  It was Rud, leaning over her as he spoke her name. His face was pale and water trickled down his face, turning red as it ran into the raw graze across his chin. With more haste than care, he dragged aside the body of the seaman which pinned her to the floor, then raised her to a sitting position out of the rising water.

  “Are you all right? Can you walk?”

  “I think so,” she answered, though her voice sounded weak in her own ears, and she spoiled the brave effect by setting her teeth on her bottom lip as she was torn by a gripping agony deep in her belly.

  He did not wait for more, but scooped her into his arms and turned toward the shattered opening above the companionway.

  The damage above decks was incredible. The foremast was torn out of the planking like an uprooted tree, the mainmast had broken in half and fallen, dragging its sheets and sails over the side, while the mizzenmast had been stripped to the bare pole. Where the bow had been was a gaping hole, huge beyond hope of repair. They were taking water at such a rate that the ship had already settled until there was less than two feet of freeboard between the water and the ship’s railing.

  With the passing of the wave, the storm had begun to die away, though the wind still tore at the crippled ship and the rain splattered onto the sluggishly rolling deck.

  Carrying Julia, Rud picked his way through the debris scattered over the deck to get to the clear port side. There O’Toole waited in the ship’s longboat with two other men, both injured from the look of them, stretched out in the bottom of the boat.

  At the sight of Rud and Julia, a grin of relief broke over O’Toole’s face. “That’s the ticket, sir! Bring her aboard,” he called, releasing one hand from the rope which held the longboat to the Sea Jade in order to steady Rud as he stepped into the craft.

  Rud settled Julia in the stern, hurriedly drawing a piece of canvas over her as protection from the wind and pouring rain, then he turned away, leaping back to the deck of the ship.

  “Captain! Where are you going?” O’Toole shouted.

  “There may be others below!”

  “Don’t be daft, sir! The water’s rising so fast anybody still below will be drowned by now. You’ve done all you can, saving Madam Julia and these other chaps. Let it go!”

  As if to lend weight to the second mate’s words, at that moment, the bow of the ship settled so that the decks were awash. There came a rending sound as of a bulkhead bursting below, and spray shot from the open maw of the companionway.

  “Come on, sir! We have got to pull away, or she’ll suck us down with her!” O’Toole’s voice changed, deepening. “I know you hate to leave her, sir, but you’ve got a wife to think of now, and you are the only navigator among us.”

  Rud gave a nod and stepped back into the longboat. O’Toole cast off, and then took one oar while Rud took the other. They pulled strongly away from the dying ship. At a safe distance, they shipped their oars and rested, letting the boat drift in the wind as they watched the mizzenmast sink beneath the waves.

  “Look,” one of the sailors cried, hanging on the gunwale as he pointed away to the left. “Is that a man?”

  O’Toole squinted against the driving rain. “It’s a hatch cover, that much I can make out.”

  “I thought I saw something move on it,” the seaman insisted.

  “We can find out,” Rud said, and set his back into the oar. But, though they tried with all their sinews to reach the hatch cover, they could not. In the turbulent waves, the wind and rain, the piece of flotsam eluded them. Each time it was sighted, it seemed to be farther away than the last. Finally, they lost sight of it altogether and were forced to the conclusion that it had broken up in the heavy swells.

  For Julia, what followed was a nightmare of pain and blood. Lying in the bottom of the longboat with rain falling in her face and a wounded man on either side, her sore and battered body gave up the child she was carrying. Weak from the ordeal, she grew feverish during the night, and as the dawn broke on a clear sky the next morning, the heat of her skin rivaled that of the tropical sun that burned down upon them. At some time during that first night, one of the sailors died of his injuries and was passed gently overboard. On the third morning, the other succumbed to the fluid trapped in his lungs. Julia, Rud, and O’Toole were alone in the longboat without provisions, and with only a bailing tin half full of rainwater between them. By sunrise of the fifth morning, the last of the water was gone. The day grew hot. Julia, her mind moving in and out of consciousness, was protected from the worst rays of the sun by the canvas boat cover. She lay staring at nothing, her mind blank and uncaring, protected by nature from the terrible shocks she had sustained. Her face was drawn, revealing the well-defined bone structure, and already, she was thin to emaciation.

  So great was her detachment that she gave no sign of understanding when O’Toole straightened from his oar to whisper through cracked lips, “Sail. Sail awa
y.”

  Rud turned his head. He stared at the ship, his eyes narrowing to slits, before he gave a slow nod. “It’s a ship, all right.”

  “Then, we be saved, sir. Julia, me darling, we’re saved!” O’Toole croaked.

  “Yes, at least our lives,” Rud answered in a tone so flat and without emotion that Julia turned her eyes in his direction. Something in the slump of his proud shoulders and in the dull expression of his eyes touched her with dread.

  O’Toole swung his head to gaze across the water at the ship once more. Impelled by the sudden still hopelessness, so like Rud’s, that gripped him, Julia raised herself slowly to one elbow, clinging to the gunwale.

  The ship veering in their direction, bearing down upon their small craft, had a high prow painted with enormous eyes on either side, twin banks of oars, and a pair of red lateen sails. From her stern flew a flag bearing the crescent of Islam. It was a Turkish felucca.

  13

  More than a hundred men thronged the decks of the felucca. They were a wild, fierce-looking crew with pistols and knives in their belts, and each with long, curved saber at his side. Black-bearded and dark, they watched with hard grins as Julia, Rud, and O’Toole were brought aboard.

  From among them stepped a man more villainous-looking than the rest. His dress, his bearing, and the deference paid to him identified him as the captain of the vessel. He put a question to them in what was doubtless the Turkish tongue.

  “I am sorry,” Rud said. “I don’t follow you.”

  The captain switched to a corrupt Spanish. Julia stared at him, understanding that he wished to know their names and circumstances, and yet unable to force her numb mind to answer. It was all she could do to remain on her feet, even with the support of the Moorish seamen on either side who held her arms in a cruel grip. Rud shook his head.