He nodded, knowing what the waves were bringing closer even while he stood here in these last few precious moments with Sarah. There was so little time. He knew what Higgs had told them all. He knew, too, the procedure that would ensue, and that there was nothing he could do to deny it until they got him back to England. And he knew what that was going to do to Sarah. And that knowledge hurt more than everything else that was coming.
‘Daniel, why—?’
But he did not let her finish. Instead, he cupped her face in his hands. ‘Whatever happens, know that what is between us is no lie. In this, at least, I have been honest, I swear with all my heart. I hope you can forgive the rest.’ Forgive him his lies. Forgive the dishonourable scoundrel they would reveal. Forgive him what he was going to have to do if the worst of the possibilities over the ship sailing towards them proved true. He prayed to God it would not come to that, for, even without it, he was asking a lot of a woman who had been betrayed by lies and dishonourable scoundrels in the past. And then his mouth took hers, and he kissed her, knowing that this might be for the very last time. He eased back and studied her face, memorising her every detail. ‘Thank you, Sarah.’
She took off her apron and rolled down her sleeves.
Hand in hand, they walked towards the galley door.
Chapter Six
The light was bright, causing her to screw her eyes up after the dimness of the lower deck. A weak sun struggled in the winter sky. Men were lining the bulwark on the larboard side of the vessel. Captain Davies and Mr Seymour stood together at the stern.
Sarah was conscious of Daniel walking behind her, of the letter in her pocket, and, more than anything, of a terrible sense of foreboding.
‘There you are, Aunt Sarah, do come and look!’ Imelda shouted and ran towards the stern.
Sarah and Daniel followed.
Captain Davies removed the spyglass from his eye to glance round at them. ‘Mrs Ellison, Mr Alexander.’
Daniel gave a nod in return. The anguish she had seen on his face in the galley was masked, as if it had never been, but she knew it was still there beneath the surface.
‘The ship has seen us?’ she asked.
‘I believe so,’ said the Captain.
‘She is heading directly for us,’ said Daniel quietly.
Sarah peered at the blur of the vessel on the horizon.
‘Is she a pirate ship?’ asked Imelda.
‘We shall have to wait and see.’ Daniel smiled, but Sarah could feel the tension that rippled through him just as if it were her own. And that shared feeling was not one of relief or excitement at the prospect of rescue, but dread.
Imelda beckoned him down to her level so that she might whisper in his ear.
‘Imelda, Mr Alexander is busy.’
‘Never too busy to speak to Miss Bowden.’ He lowered his head to hear what Imelda wanted to say.
‘If they are pirates, you will protect Aunt Sarah, Fanny and me, won’t you?’
‘You’ve no need to worry, lass. I’d lay down my life to protect you ladies.’ His eyes moved briefly to Sarah’s and there was so much intensity and emotion in them that it took her breath away and made her all the more frightened of what the closing ship might be bringing other than rescue.
Imelda nodded her approval and came to stand at Sarah’s side.
‘Praise be to God!’ exclaimed Captain Davies. ‘She’s a frigate of the line, flying the ensign.’ He collapsed the spyglass. ‘It seems that this is indeed the time of miracles. First we find Mr Alexander out swimming in the North Atlantic, and now one of His Majesty’s frigates has found us!’
Daniel showed nothing of relief at the news. ‘May I?’ His voice was relaxed as he held out his hand for the spyglass, but Sarah was not fooled for a minute. His face was a stony mask. He was alert, honed, ready, as if waiting to face an enemy.
One of His Majesty’s frigates. Captain Davies’s words echoed in her mind. Surely the fact that it was a Royal Navy ship should allay his concerns, shouldn’t it?
Daniel held the spyglass to his eye and studied the distant frigate. She saw his jaw tighten, saw the flair of his nostrils, saw the way his eyes closed. It was the thing he had feared. Her stomach clenched with the certainty of it even before his eyes sought hers across the small distance.
‘Ladies,’ exclaimed Captain Davies, ‘and gentlemen, we are saved!’
All across the deck the men broke into spontaneous applause and cheered at the captain’s words.
Daniel did not cheer. He stood stock-still, grim-faced, his eyes on hers as he spoke the quiet words, ‘Remember the letter, Sarah, and all we have sworn. I love you, lass, for all that it will appear otherwise.’ And then he turned away, leaving Sarah standing there reeling.
* * *
Thirty minutes later HMS Viper drew alongside the tiny Angel’s larboard. She was indeed a British frigate, thirty-eight guns, built of solid English oak and painted in the familiar yellow and black of Nelson’s chequerboard.
Her jolly boat was lowered and a small party of uniformed men rowed across to the Angel. Daniel did not need to see the men’s faces to know who they were and what was coming. The worst of his nightmares. The worst of Sarah’s too, although she did not yet know it.
He watched the boat rowing closer, watched the men clamber up the boarding ladders and on to the Angel’s deck. And all he could think of was Sarah.
Davies hurried to greet the boarding party and Viper’s captain that led them. Higgs shook Davies’s hand, one captain to another, his eyes surveying what remained of the Angel as they spoke.
Daniel stood where he was at the stern, everything in his body language distancing himself from the woman he had spent the night loving. Higgs’s gaze dropped from the damaged mast, passed briefly over Daniel, and moved on. Then what Higgs had just seen hit him. He froze, jerked his eyes back to Daniel, and then made his way slowly over.
‘Captain Higgs, this is Mr Alexander, Angel’s passenger.’ It was Davies who made the unnecessary introduction. ‘Although it is the most unlikely of stories how he came to be so.’
‘I am sure that it is.’ Higgs smiled, but his eyes were sly with menace.
‘We found him in the ocean, nigh on dead. Indeed, he would have been were it not for the fortuitous arrival of the Angel and Mrs Ellison, here’s, keen eyes.’
‘Fortuitous, indeed.’ Higgs glanced at Sarah, noticing her for the first time. ‘Mrs Ellison.’ He bowed.
‘Captain Higgs.’ She curtsied.
‘You have done your country a great service, ma’am.’
‘How so, sir?’ She shot a confused glance at Daniel.
‘You see, Captain Daniel Alexander and I are already acquainted.’
There was silence across the deck.
‘Captain Alexander?’ he heard Sarah echo faintly, but he ignored her as if she were nothing more than a stranger. That tiny moment seemed to stretch and in it he heard the gentle hush of the ocean and the beat of his own heart.
‘Oh, indeed, Captain Alexander and the whole of the Royal Navy are very well acquainted. He is a frigate captain of wide renown since his shore leave in New York a month ago when he decided he no longer wished to serve good King George and deserted.’
Daniel gave a low laugh at the words he had known were coming and shook his head.
‘There is no point denying it. Everyone knows. There is a warrant out for your arrest.’
Higgs was nothing but thorough.
‘Good God!’ he heard Davies exclaim.
‘Daniel?’ Sarah’s voice was barely more than a whisper. She came to stand close, staring up into his face with disbelief, waiting for him to deny it.
Oh, lass... His stomach sank and he closed his eyes, knowing what she had just revealed to Higgs and the only way th
at he could counteract it. He had been prepared to put a distance between them, a coolness, been prepared to be held up as a traitor. But not this. Not with such deliberate bare-faced cruelty. To look into her eyes while he slid a blade into her heart and his own. He thought of Netta and the babe. And he thought of Sarah Ellison’s fragile trust. And it seemed to Daniel that sometimes life asked too much of one man.
Higgs’s gaze moved to Sarah before coming back to rest on him again with a knowing expression. The bastard smiled.
‘I see he has tricked his way into your friendship, Mrs Ellison.’
‘I have no friends, Captain Higgs, but you were aware of that long before me,’ Daniel said. ‘And as for Mrs Ellison...’ He shot a dissolute glance in Sarah’s direction. ‘Look at her. Can you honestly blame me for trying?’
Higgs gave a laugh. ‘I am afraid, Mrs Ellison, that Captain Alexander has something of a reputation when it comes to beautiful women.’
‘You lied to me,’ she said, the accusation in those soft words more cutting than if she had screamed or shouted or raged. ‘You lied to us all.’ He could feel her stare even though he did not let himself look at her, could feel the weight of it crushing his heart.
Imelda came towards him, ‘I don’t understand, Captain Alexander. What are they saying?’ But Sarah caught a firm hold of the wee lassie’s hand and hauled her back.
‘Stay away from him, Imelda.’
‘Why?’
‘Because...’ Higgs bent down to look into Imelda’s face. ‘He is a very dangerous gentleman, young miss.’
‘He is a pirate, sir.’
‘I am afraid he is a deal worse than that, my dear.’ Higgs gestured to the two marines who accompanied him. ‘He is a traitor.’
Daniel watched Higgs standing there with Sarah on one side and Imelda on the other and knew he could risk nothing.
He let the marines tie his hands behind his back, let them take him away, to Viper, and all that awaited him there. And all the while he kept his gaze fixed steadfastly ahead.
And as he left he heard Higgs command his lieutenant, ‘Transfer all bodies to Viper and make ready to tow the Angel. Time is of the essence. We must reach Plymouth with this villain as soon as possible.’
‘Aye, sir,’ said the lieutenant.
Daniel knew he would not make Plymouth alive, Higgs would ensure that. He could only trust that, despite everything Sarah believed him to be, she would keep the oath she had sworn.
* * *
Two young lieutenants had given up their cabins for HMS Viper’s new female passengers. The frigate might have dwarfed the Angel but the cabins which housed the women were still cramped.
Imelda, sitting on her cot, looked as dazed as Sarah felt.
Sarah kept her face to the porthole, looking out of the passing ocean. She had wept in the night, but not now. And she would not let herself weep again, not over him.
All those little details made sense in the light of the truth. No wonder he had been through many storms and knew to tie people to the mast. No wonder he sailed so often and knew his way about a ship so well. And knew that crystalline ginger eased seasickness. How he must have laughed at her naivety!
She had trusted him. And he had lied. As they all did. How many men would it take before she learned? It felt like her heart had been ripped out and ground beneath the heel of his boot. Her whole body ached from the betrayal. And she knew why it hurt so much more this time. Even if he was a stranger. Even if she had known him only a matter of weeks. Because Daniel Alexander was the only man to have reached in and touched her soul. Because he was the only man she had ever truly loved. She closed her eyes against the realisation.
God in heaven, one man in the whole of the Atlantic Ocean and he had to be a deserter, a liar, a cheat. He had known exactly how to make her dance to his tune. When she thought of how she had gone to him, given herself to him... The humiliation was scorching, rendering that to which Robert had subjected her, before all of New York’s high society, trivial in comparison. Had not Imelda been here to care for, Sarah dreaded to think what she might do. She was so angry, so hurt. But Imelda was here and so Sarah had no choice but to be calm and unemotional—and keep, as her brother Thomas said, a stiff upper lip.
She would not make the same mistake again. Ever.
Sarah sealed off her emotions and got on with the task in hand.
* * *
‘Please come in and sit down, Mrs Ellison.’ Captain Higgs stood while she took her seat in the leather chair set before his desk.
His cabin was vast in comparison with any other she had seen and furnished better than many a ton drawing room. The rectangular windows of the ship’s stern ran the length of the back wall. The desk was in one corner of the room, with a small sofa and bookcase nearby. In the centre was a long mahogany dining table, its surface polished until its gleam rivalled that of a looking glass, its edge lipped. Two weighted flat-bottomed crystal decanters sat in the middle of the table—one filled with liquid that sparkled ruby red in the winter sunshine flooding though the huge windows, the other, tawny. Overhead hung an ornate gold-and-crystal chandelier.
‘I am sorry that you have to be involved in any of this, Mrs Ellison. It is a nasty business.’ He resumed his seat only once she was sitting down.
‘It is.’
‘And one into which I must conduct a full investigation. Which is why I am forced to ask you a few questions regarding Captain Alexander. I hope you do not mind.’
‘Not at all, sir.’ She showed not one sign of how just the mention of his name made her feel.
‘I have already spoken to Captain Davies and his crew.’
‘So I understand. Where is Captain Alexander now?’
‘You need not worry, Mrs Ellison, he is safely imprisoned down on the orlop deck.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’ She truly was. He deserved every punishment they heaped upon his villainous head.
‘We all are,’ said Captain Higgs. ‘He is not only dishonourable, but dishonest too. I need to know what lies he told you.’
I love you, lass—the cruellest lie of all.
‘The same as he told everyone aboard the Angel. That he was a businessman returning to London from New York. That he fell overboard in an accident from a merchant ship named Miss Lively.’
‘I do not know quite how to phrase this delicately, Mrs Ellison.’ Captain Higgs paused. ‘But as a lady, and a very attractive one at that, it is possible that Daniel Alexander may have sought to impress you with stories of his own importance, of treachery and imagined derring-do.’
‘He made no such claims.’
‘Not even to win your...affection?’
She faced him levelly, refusing to be cowed with embarrassment. ‘What are you implying, Captain Higgs?’
‘You called him by his given name aboard the Angel.’
She closed her eyes, knowing just how much that one small slip had revealed. ‘He saved us in the storm. My niece developed a fondness for him.’
Not just her niece. The words whispered unspoken in the cabin between them.
‘What did he tell you of himself?’
That he had lost a wife and a babe. That she was beautiful. That he loved her. Was anything of it true?
‘He told me nothing of himself.’
She saw the scepticism in his eyes. ‘Come now, Mrs Ellison, do you expect me to believe that you were on Christian-name terms with a man, a stranger plucked from the sea, of whom you knew nothing?’
‘I am afraid I have a history of poor judgement in men, sir.’ She glanced past him to the large stern windows and the rose-tinged sky.
‘He did not tell you, for example, that he is the second son of the Earl of Glen Affric? And the younger brother of Viscount Cannich?’
‘He is an e
arl’s son?’ He was a stranger indeed. A man she did not know at all. She felt the wound she was struggling so hard to hide begin to gape.
Something of the truth must have shown in her face because Captain Higgs said softly, ‘He really did not tell you.’
She stared down at her hands, determined not to weep.
‘And he gave nothing into your keeping, no letter, no document?’
Swear it, Sarah. For the sake of all that is between us. The words of a deserter, a liar and a scoundrel.
I swear. Her own oath taken in such foolhardy ignorance.
‘Mrs Ellison,’ Captain Higgs pressed.
‘Nothing.’ The lie slipped from her lips.
‘Then I will take up no more of your time, ma’am. I am sorry to have troubled you. Please allow me to show you out.’
The captain’s cabin doors opened out on to the main deck, revealing the sun setting in the west—a glorious blaze in the white-grey winter sky, so vivid and beautiful amidst all the misery dragging at Sarah’s heart. She stopped where she was and stared at it, remembering all the times she had stood watching the sun set by Daniel Alexander’s side.
‘May I ask you a question, Captain Higgs?’ She did not look round at him.
‘Of course.’
‘Why did Captain Alexander desert?’
‘He found himself a woman in New York that he was reticent to leave.’
She closed her eyes to control the pain.
‘It bodes well for fine weather tomorrow.’ Higgs glanced at the sunset. ‘We shall make good speed for Plymouth.’
‘I hope so,’ she said and meant it.
‘Thank you again for your help, Mrs Ellison.’
‘You are welcome, sir.’ She turned to leave, but what she saw coming down the deck stopped her dead. Daniel, flanked by two armed red-jacketed marines, his hands bound behind his back, his ankles shackled together with irons, was being manhandled towards her. A third marine walked behind, the muzzle of his musket pressed against Daniel’s back.
Daniel’s face was scraped and bleeding. One eye was dark bruised and there was a cut on his lower lip. The borrowed brown coat was gone and the white of his shirt was crimson-speckled with blood. As she stared in shock and horror his eyes met hers and she saw the man she had known aboard the Angel, the man who had saved her, the man who had loved her. She saw trust and love and a plea for understanding. There for a flash, then gone, as quickly as it had appeared. His eyes were cold and hard as he turned them to Captain Higgs.
A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic Page 25