Bound By The Heart

by Canham, Marsha

  Wade slashed his way to the foot of the ladderway leading up to the bridge. There were at least a dozen men between himself and Bennett Winfield, but there was no such thing as caution now that he could see his enemy before him. Winfield stood with his feet braced apart, wielding his sword as if he was on an open field with a fencing master. His snow-white breeches were splashed with blood; his neatly clubbed blond hair had been shaken from its velvet ribbon and wet strands clung with sweat and filth to his neck. The pale blue eyes glowed like embers, and as they scanned for a new victim, they found and clashed with Morgan's darker ones.

  Winfield backed up several paces, his face rigid with hatred. His gaze flicked to where the Chimera pulled and tugged against the grappling lines, and when he looked back at Wade, there was a slow, cruel smile on his lips. He sheathed his sword and vaulted up and over the fife rail, landing on the deck below. In a few strides he had balanced his way across a boarding plank and leaped onto the deck of the Chimera.

  Morgan's lips drew back in a snarl and he slashed at the man blocking his path. He raced after Winfield, hacking at a length of rigging to use as he swung himself across the narrow gap separating the two ships. He saw Winfield glance over his shoulder before vanishing through the main hatchway leading below. Morgan whirled and descended through the forward hatch, hoping to cut the commodore off before he could follow the trail of wounded to the surgery.

  Residual smoke and powder dust hung thick in the air of the lower gun deck. There were wounded and dead scattered among the twisted wreckage and hissing cannon; some were dazed and propped against the guns nursing dreadful wounds; some lay face down in pools of their own blood.

  Morgan charged through the debris, conscious of the sounds of men still fighting and dying overhead. He saw a reflection of sunlight glint off something up ahead and realized his valiant ship had ugly gashes and holes in her hull. He reached the midship ladderway Winfield had used to descend and abandoned caution once again as he plunged into the darkness of the airless deck below. He missed a second glint of light bouncing off steel and felt, before he saw the shining blade of the sword strike out of the shadows and sink deeply into his flesh.

  Summer and Gabrielle worked alone in the surgery. Thorny had left them to tend to some of the men who could not be moved from where they fell. Summer had hoped she would be better prepared this time to handle the horror, but she was not. Her stomach, emptied violently long ago, was tied in knots; her mouth was dry as sand, her hands shook so badly at times she had to stop what she was doing and squeeze them together. Gabrielle was a godsend. She was as pale as the tallow candles that glowed along the walls, but she stitched and swabbed and bandaged without complaint.

  There was a hopeful lull, when the cannon ceased firing, that Gabrielle and Summer had looked to Thorny for the same cackle and winked assurances as before, but he had merely paused over the shattered limb he was amputating to shake his head. When he left the storeroom, his only comment was, "Drop the bar down over the door be'ind me and' don't lift 'er fer no one but me, ye ken?"

  "But the wounded—?"

  "Wounded'll wait. Ye keep the door bolted, d'ye 'ear me?"

  Summer had nodded wordlessly. Behind her, Stuart Roarke forced himself into a sitting position, and although his face streamed with sweat and his breath came in tortured gasps, he painstakingly loaded and readied two heavy pistols. Beside him, Sarah lay bundled up tight in a cocoon of blankets. She was awake, her eyes wide, her thumb jammed into her mouth and being sucked furiously as if sensing this was not the time to cry for attention.

  Thorny's absence stretched from ten minutes to fifteen, then twenty. The corridor outside the surgery echoed with cries for help, punctuated now and then with pounding on the door. Summer could not bear it and, despite Thorny's warning, was lifting the bar when she was jarred off her feet by the impact of the Chimera grinding into the Caledonia. She fell heavily against a wooden bench and rolled sideways, saved from an ugly meeting with a pile of discarded severed limbs by Gabrielle's quick hands. Even so, her head had struck the edge of the table when she fell and she was dazed as she staggered upright.

  "Are you hurt?" Stuart asked hoarsely. "Summer! Are you hurt?"

  "N-no, I don't think so." She probed the source of the blinding pain at her temple and her fingers came away red.

  "You are hurt; let me see."

  "No, it's nothing. A scratch. Oh God...my poor baby!"

  Sarah was screaming, having been thrown onto the floor in the collision. Summer scooped her up, holding her tight, rocking her until the terrified wailing stopped. There wasn't time to do more. She shoved the whimpering bundle back onto her nest of blankets and crawled past Stuart to check on the wounded men who had been jolted off the benches in the turmoil.

  For a moment she could not see Gabrielle. But there she was...under the tangle of arms and legs of one of the wounded who had fallen on top of her. Together with one of the men wearing bloodied bandages over half his face, Summer helped her out from under the unconscious deadweight. She had crawled aside to check on another fallen body when a flash of white caught her eye. She remembered that she had been lifting the bar off the door when the impact occurred. The door was wedged open now, and partially blocked by the body of a dead crewman. Standing over him, the bloodied tip of a sword pointed unwaveringly at her throat, was Bennett Winfield.

  "On your feet," he snarled. "Slowly, though. I would not want my hand to slip and sever that lovely neck of yours."

  Summer could not move. She continued to stare at him, to refuse to believe what her eyes were telling her.

  The sword moved and the bloodied tip pressed against the side of her throat.

  "I said...on your feet!"

  Summer swallowed hard but before she could make the decision to obey or not, he had reached down, grabbed her around the wrist, and hauled her roughly to her feet. He twisted the same wrist around to the small of her back, pinning it up between her shoulders and jerking her around to act as a shield against his body.

  "Now then, you're going to come with me. We're going to back out slowly and go up on deck." The pale eyes sent a threat around the room. "If anyone moves or tries to stop us, she's dead. You—" he looked at Gabrielle— "relieve your brave friend over there of his pistols and bring them to me."

  Gabrielle moved haltingly to where Stuart was sitting, helplessly unable to risk taking a shot in the cramped storeroom, and took the two loaded guns from him. Winfield lowered the sword long enough to tuck one of the guns into his gaping tunic and the other into a nearby barrel of water. He pressed the edge of the blade into Summer's throat again and tightened his grip on her wrist, forcing her up onto her toes with the pain. He backed up slowly, dragging her with him into the corridor.

  "Morgan will kill you for this," she cried.

  "Your lover is dead, bitch, His ship and crew are mine."

  "Dead?" She gasped and her steps faltered.

  "Very much so. I warned him. I warned you both there would be no further offers forthcoming. He chose to ignore me and so paid the butcher's bill with his own arrogance. You will pay the price as well, Summer dearest. Every single day for the rest of your life...however long I choose to let that be."

  He kept her arm wrenched painfully high as he pushed her along the companionway, but Summer was too numbed by shock to feel it, or to even care where he was taking her. Morgan was dead. Morgan was...dead.

  Bennett pushed her up the broken ladderway to the gun deck, then up a second flight of wooden steps to the main deck. They emerged into the sunlit haze of dust and smoke and ash just as a cheer erupted from the forecastle bridge of the Caledonia.

  Bennett's eyes were glazed with triumph as he raised them to the deck of his ship. The look remained for the length of several more heartbeats until he saw the Union Jack had been hauled down from the foremast and was being waved aloft by a cheering squad of Wade's crew.

  "No," he whispered, his jaw working furiously. "No, goddamnit...no!"r />
  "Let her go, Winfield. It's over."

  Summer cried out softly and twisted as much as the blade of the sword would allow, searching through her tears for the source of the deep baritone.

  Morgan stepped out from behind the trunk if the mizzenmast. The breeze was blowing his ebony hair forward over his brow; his hand was clutched to his ribs to staunch the flow of blood from a wound that had already soaked the leg of his breeches crimson.

  He raised his sword toward Winfield with a challenge.

  "Let her go, Commodore. This is between you and me; it always has been. Finish it here and now...if you're man enough to face me without the help of a squadron of guns behind you."

  Bennett had not moved so much as a muscle. The men on the Caledonia slowly fell silent as both the victors and the vanquished focussed on their commanders.

  Bennett's fingers loosened their grip on Summer's wrist. She heard the hard metallic clang of his sword hitting the deck as he threw it aside, but her relief was short-lived. She was shoved roughly out of the way as he reached beneath his tunic and drew the loaded pistol he had taken from the storeroom. Summer watched in horror as he assumed the perfect duelling stance, cocking the gun as he stretched out his arm and took aim dead center of the broad chest opposite him. The silence that had fallen over the deck was shattered in the ensuing explosion of gunpowder and shot.

  Summer screamed. Terror had frozen the last of her tears on her lashes, but she could see both men clearly as she looked from one to the other and saw the enormous red stain blossom across the white shirtfront.

  Bennett's look of triumph faded and was replaced by confused disbelief as he stared at the pistol in his hand, as yet unfired, and then at the spreading stain on his chest. He had only a fraction of a second to focus on the darkened hatchway before his eyes dimmed and his legs folded beneath him, sending his body crashing down onto the deck.

  Stuart Roarke lowered the smoking pistol and sagged heavily against the support of Gabrielle's narrow shoulders. Sweat was pouring from his face and it was obvious that it had taken every last shred of his strength to climb to the deck.

  Morgan threw aside his cutlass and reached Stuart's side in time to catch him as he fell forward out of Gabrielle's grasp. He carried his brother to one of the flat-topped capstans and eased him down gently, propping him against a twist of broken timbers.

  "You were supposed to be dead," Stuart gasped. "I heard him say you were dead."

  "Take heart that I would have been had you not come along," Morgan said, slumping down beside him on the capstan. He cursed and pressed a hand to his ribs again. "And don't sound so disappointed. There's still time."

  "A fine pair we make," Stuart muttered, his face ash-gray. "Are you certain we won the day?"

  Morgan glanced over at the Caledonia. Mr. Monday was there, his fist clenched around the captured Union Jack. By his side, grinning with equal abandon, was Michael Cambridge. Further on, Jamie Phillips vaulted over the rails and landed cat-like on the Chimera's deck, sweeping Gabrielle into his arms as she ran over to meet him.

  Morgan looked over at Winfield's sprawled body, then at Summer's golden beauty. His arm tightened around her shoulders, drawing her close as he buried his lips in the silk of her hair.

  "Aye, Roarke, aye. We've won."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Morgan Wade stood on the quarterdeck of the Chimera, his battered hands braced on the rail, his face carved from granite as he watched the last of the salvage brought aboard from the Gyrfalcon. The frigate was still wedged solid to the bow of the Caledonia, although she was showing evidence of breaking away as the weight of the seawater rushing into her belly dragged her down. Bull Treloggan's body had been found and sewn reverently into a burial shroud, committed to his watery grave along with the bodies of the forty-three other crewmembers who had fallen that day. The British saw to their own casualties—a horrendous one hundred and twenty in all.

  There were shouts and groans from the Caledonia's wounded as they were lowered into the longboats to be ferried to the small crusty knoll of Bird Island. Now and then a body turned up among the living, and it was slipped unceremoniously over the side with a hasty sign of the cross and a muttered prayer. Morgan intended to keep only a skeleton crew of British on board to supplement his own men; the rest would await rescue with the wounded. Part of him wanted to sink the Caledonia where she stood, but the practical side knew the value in terms of morale of towing such a prize into an American port. It would prove, if nothing else, that the invincible Royal Navy was not so invincible after all.

  Bennett Winfield's body had been strapped to a litter and covered in canvas. The surviving officers had asked that it be allowed to accompany them to Bird Island for eventual burial on British soil. Captain Emory Ashton-Smythe had been the one selected to put the request before Wade, and he did so with obvious reluctance showing on his face.

  "Do whatever you like with him," Wade said, wincing as he straightened. The wound in his side had been bound so tight it felt like an iron corset, but he steadfastly refused to go below until the last of the wounded men were safely aboard and the transfer of prisoners had been completed. The British captain marvelled at the man's strength and stamina even as he suffered the nauseating aches and weakness from his own days-old wounds.

  "In truth, I would as soon dump him here," Ashton-Smythe murmured, "but I suppose we must have our pomp and ceremony to whitewash the disgrace."

  "There was no disgrace in the loss," Wade said carefully.

  "Firing on a surrendered ship?" Ashton-Smythe shook his head sadly. "I still cannot believe he ordered it. Worse, I cannot believe the men obeyed. It seems as if I am always apologizing to you for our conduct, Captain Wade. You are always the victim of our worse moments, yet always the gracious victor."

  "Our countries are at war, Captain. Suppose we save our apologies and accolades until the end of it. Who knows, our positions may be reversed one day soon."

  "We both know this had nothing to do with politics. I believe Winfield was quite insane in the end. Not that it gives us an excuse for this day's actions. We had an opportunity to stop him, and we didn't. That makes us all a little mad, does it not?"

  With difficulty, Ashton-Smythe withdrew his saber from its scabbard and held it out to Morgan. "You would do me an honor by accepting it this time. The admiralty is bound to strip it from me anyway when we return to Bridgetown."

  "This was none of your doing."

  The captain smiled wearily. "Can you honestly see them crucifying a dead hero? No...not if what you said about the Belvidera is true. My God...losing three warships in under a fortnight? We will be lucky if we come out of this war with any self-respect at all. We have sadly underestimated you Americans...again. I repeat, sir, the honor would be mine."

  Wade accepted the burnished sword and the formal salute from Captain Ashton-Smythe.

  "Ten of Winfield's crew claim to have been pressed into service. They have no papers but are vehement about their birth not being on British soil." He paused as he was about to leave the deck, and snorted softly. "I would be remiss if I did not also deliver the unfortunate news that Mr. Farley Glasse died of his injuries early this morning."

  "Unfortunate, indeed," Morgan murmured. "Emory—?"

  Ashton-Smythe paused again.

  "You are welcome to join us. We need good men in command."

  The officer looked startled, even flattered, but in the end shook his head and smiled sadly. "But thank you. The offer means a great deal coming from you. However, you will need someone on the other side of the fence to give you a little trouble now and then."

  Wade nodded, but halted the captain one last time. "That night...on board the Africa...were you really that poor of a shot?"

  Ashton-Smythe looked into the midnight blue eyes and his own sparked suddenly with the memory. "I believe at the time I held both the silver and the gold crosses for regimental sharpshooting. Of course, we all have our bad days."

 
"Of course." Wade stretched out his hand. Captain Ashton-Smythe took it and held firmly for a long moment before he turned and limped off the bridge.

  Summer had watched the exchange, but waited until the British captain had left the deck before she made her presence known. Morgan smiled when he saw her.

  "You English never cease to surprise me," he murmured, placing the saber carefully to one side.

  "I thought you were beyond surprises."

  He chuckled. "Madam, if I ever say that again in your company, you have my permission to take another shot at me."

  "I think I shall hold you to that."

  He growled softly and took her into his arms for a kiss. When he released her, he kept his arm around her shoulder, holding her close against his side. "How is Stuart?"

  "Resting. Finally. As you should be. He insisted on being in his own cabin, however. He said he wouldn't have as far to climb the next time he has to save your life."

  Morgan grinned. "And the child?"

  "I don't think she will forgive me too soon for ignoring her for most of the day. And I am beginning to know how she feels. Thorny has not spoken to me since he found out I unbarred the door to the storeroom. Gabrielle is looking after Sarah and Thorny won't let me help with the men, so I feel pretty useless at the moment."

  She smiled up at him through a watery film of tears and Morgan wondered that she could ever consider herself useless. She had worked as hard as any of his men today. She hadn't complained once since leaving Fort-de-France even though he knew she must have died inwardly a thousand times over the past two days.