Marcus twisted in his seat and clasped her hand.
Louisa climbed forward to sit beside An.
The Valiant reefed her mainsails to slow their speed into the docks at Turtle Bay. She sat low in the water, heavy with cargo.
A loud series of clacks carried across the river from the Remus, announcing the opening of her gunports. Henrietta’s jaw ached from clenching. She wove her fingers through Marcus’s. The Valiant stayed her course.
A thunderous boom ripped from one of the Remus’s gunports. As a cloud of smoke hung in the air, the noise rumbled in Henrietta’s chest as if the explosion went right through her. Then a wave of water splashed against the hull of the Valiant.
Marcus mouthed, “A warning shot.”
The Valiant creaked and groaned as she came about with her bells pealing, forgoing the docks.
Henrietta watched in horror. “Is he mad? They are outgunned!”
He scrubbed a hand under his cap. “I . . . I don’t know.”
She peered at his pocket watch. Five minutes remained. It was too much time. A whimper spilled from her lips. Her legs twitched. The whaleboat rocked. Marcus caught her by the hip. “Sit. Down.”
Standing in the middle of the whaleboat, with five sets of eyes on her, she looked around, bewildered.
Marcus shook his head. She’d never seen him this angry. Not angry. Worried.
He climbed beside her to whisper in her ear. “When time runs out, the flintlock on the Hellburner will ignite a fuse and explode against the Remus. They’ll never see it coming.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, think of all the times you couldn’t sleep because of that cursed clock.”
Henrietta whipped around, hitting her nose against Marcus’s chin. “That’s my clock? It was my mother’s!” She rubbed her nose, forcing the tears springing to her eyes to subside.
“Shhhh!” Mrs. Moskowitz warned.
The skiff was barely a daub on the waves.
Marcus pressed his lips to her ear. “I thought you left it for rubbish.”
In truth, she hadn’t known what to do with it. If all the pieces were salvageable and glued together, she’d only ever see the cracks reminding her of Caldwell’s rage. “That’s hardly the point.”
The Valiant returned fire. Henrietta jumped. She wasn’t the only one. The whaleboat teetered as if the river shook from the blast. A cannonball whistled, flying through the Remus’s jib.
Marcus swore, pocket watch gripped in hand. Asher rubbed the back of his neck.
An took back her spyglass. “Why didn’t she blow?”
Asher and Marcus exchanged angry looks.
“Spray of water in the firing pan?” Asher folded the map, tapping it against his thigh.
Marcus grabbed the map. “That’s why you should have put a lip on it.”
Mrs. Moskowitz let go of the steering oar and wiped her brow. “Not now, boys.”
The Remus released another volley of cannon fire. A hole blew through the side of the Valiant, throwing splinters into the air. A mast snapped. Her great sails rushed into the water, and the boat listed. Shouts called from the Valiant’s deck, traveling across the river as if her men were in the whaleboat with them. They were too far away to assist. As if there was anything they could do.
A soft moan came from behind Henrietta.
She twisted, expecting to see Mrs. Moskowitz’s worried gaze directed at the Valiant. Instead, the older woman slumped against the steering oar. “Mrs. Moskowitz!”
Asher leaped to the back of the boat.
“I’m not feeling well. I thought it was something I ate, or nerves, but now my arm aches.” She struggled to catch her breath. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Sit.” Marcus stood to give up his seat, wobbling the boat. Asher carried her down.
She rubbed her face as if it pained her. “I’m too old for this mishegoss.”
Marcus crouched in front of her. “You know that’s not true. You live for this.”
She waved her hand to dismiss him and forced a smile on her face. “I’m fine, Henrietta. Stop looking at me like I’m not.”
Henrietta schooled her expression, but it quivered with worry, anyway.
“We’ve been discovered. We need to go.” An snatched the map from the bench. “Mouse, can you guide us?”
“I—”
“No,” Asher growled.
“Then we do this blind.” An climbed her way to Mrs. Moskowitz’s plank.
An argument broke out about whether they should head to the Valiant to assist, or escape to Brooklyn. Neither would guarantee Mrs. Moskowitz seeing a physician before dawn. And Turtle Bay was still at risk, especially if the Valiant succumbed.
Mrs. Moskowitz rubbed her arm. “The Valiant,” she gasped before collapsing.
Chapter 31
The whaleboat glided along the starboard side of the Valiant, carefully avoiding ravaged planks and sails languishing in the water. Cannon fire continued with a backdrop of drums beating to arms from the shore.
When the noise of the last salvo cleared, Marcus shouted up to the main deck, not that he thought they’d hear him, but he had to try.
Asher cradled his mother in his arms. She needed medicine and rest. “They’ll never hear you,” he rasped, his voice nearly gone.
Timbers and snakes of rope floated in the water. The Jacob’s ladder attached to the snapped mast lay like webbing, rising up to the gunwale.
Marcus gestured at it. “Think you can climb it and send down the accommodation ladder?” There was no way he could do it himself.
Asher surveyed the ropes and frowned. “Maybe.”
Louisa held out her arms. “I’ve got your mama.”
Asher slipped into the water. He came up wheezing and gasping for air. An dove in after him. She hooked her arms under his and dragged his body to the ropes. As they climbed in tandem, water sluiced from their clothes, both shaking the ropes with their shivering convulsions. The ropes twisted. An lost her footing. Asher snatched a handful of her shirt, hauling her back and fighting to draw breath. Her foot kicked around his leg, hooking herself to him.
One, then the other, slipped over the gunwale.
“Louisa, you ready?” It had been weeks since she’d last seen Augie, her only kin. While her smile was always bright, her brown eyes lacked their usual steady luminance.
Louisa brought Mouse to Henrietta. Her gaze swept from the woman in her arms to the rise up the ship, and turned to him, a look of utter bafflement on her face.
“We’ll do this.” He rarely promised what he couldn’t deliver. He hoped this was no different. But hope blew apart as a cannonball plowed into the water, generating an upsurge ten feet away.
The accommodation ladder unrolled over the side of the ship. Louisa nervously waded into the water, face frozen in determination.
He watched her climb, checking that she could make it all the way. “Hen,” he said as Mouse groaned, gaining consciousness. She stirred in Henrietta’s arms.
“How are we carrying her up there?”
We. If only. “I’ll carry her. Don’t worry.” He reached to take Mouse from her. The whaleboat wobbled, and pain set fire to his leg as he tried to hold himself steady.
“How?”
Losing control of his ankle, he landed heavily on the bench behind him with Mouse in his arms. “She’s a slip of a woman. I can handle her.”
Mouse stirred. “I’ve never been a slip of a woman, you insulting cad.”
A breath of a laugh escaped. Marcus sent up a prayer of gratitude to whichever deity might listen to a heathen like himself in the midst of battle. Ares? Guan Yu? Lucifer?
Somehow, he carried Mouse up the ladder. On the deck, the crew moved in a blur of activity and c
onfusion. Gunpowder and burnt wood overcame the usual smells of pitch and varnish on the Valiant. On the quarterdeck, Turk shouted to gunners below. A ragged gash bled freely from his cheek.
Marcus carried Mouse to Turk’s once-opulent cabin, now tossed and tattered from battle, and laid her on the bed. Not knowing what else to do, he closed the bed curtains to keep out flying debris. Henrietta caught up and watched from the doorway. Her eyes were overly bright.
He had to go to her, touch her again, know that she was there with him. If it was the last thing he did, if this were his last night on earth, he wanted it to be with her.
“Hen.” He crossed the room in three strides. Setting his hands on her hips, pulling her close, he finally understood. He might not deserve her love for a hundred different reasons, but for the things he did right, for the things he wanted to do for her, be for her, he managed to earn it.
Her hands came up to cradle his face. Looking at her grounded him to the earth. Trust burned in her brown depths.
The ship shuddered with another explosion. His arms closed around her, creating a shelter for her with his body. When the shuddering passed, he growled against her ear, “I have something to say to you.”
“Now?” she countered, equally outraged.
“No. When this is over. I have volumes to say.”
She tensed, pushing him back. “Have I done something wrong?”
He was scaring her. “God, no.” All the cannon fire didn’t scare him as much as her retreating from him did. He tried to smile, but he wasn’t happy. He was terrified.
Henrietta’s brows furrowed deeper. “Offer me a hint?”
A hint? How about I love you? I’m an idiot for not knowing it? Love me anyway?
But the words ricocheted between his brain and his mouth, and he was better at doing than telling. So he opened his arms, and she came to him. Her body was as familiar to him as her scent, the worry in her eyes, her tenderness and strength. They were minutes from either certain death or uncertain victory. He kissed her with everything in his heart. Hungry, mad, scorching kisses, leaving her with no doubts about how he felt. As if he could kiss her right back to when she kissed him at sixteen. He kissed her the way a boy kissed a girl who was in over his head, but would do anything to make it right. Because he loved her.
Time meant nothing on the brink of death. This kiss was their forever.
Henrietta gasped. “That’s your hint?”
“That was my declaration.”
Her dazed eyes widened. He ran off to help on the deck before she could pull him back for more.
From the main deck, the damage to the Valiant looked hopeless. They were close enough to shore to view the crowds gathering at the Loggerhead Tavern by the wharf, but not close enough to warn them off. The Remus could turn its guns on the town at any moment. Down the road, lanterns gleamed as residents who hadn’t fled came out to watch the battle unfold. It would take a miracle, outgunned and outnumbered as they were, to turn this disaster into victory.
Marcus calculated the distance between the Remus and the Valiant. One of those mercurial winds could have risen up and taken the Hellburner off to New York Bay. It could have sunk from shrapnel. Or languished in a doldrum. He trained his sights along the waterline of the Remus and nearly choked on his own spit. Bobbing at the stern of the warship, the skiff with the black sails lagged, twisted in rope.
Heart flipping in his chest, Marcus ran to Augie worming the barrel of a cannon. Augie wore a stained bandage on his arm but otherwise appeared whole. “Augie—aim at the skiff.”
“You show up ten seconds before we all die and tell me how to die faster?”
They hugged, relieved to see each other.
“No.” Marcus caught his breath, consciously ignoring the fiery pain in his ankle. He looked into his best friend’s eyes. “I’m telling you how to finish this.”
Augie pressed his lips and studied him. They’d known each other a long time. Augie nodded and swiveled the cannon in the skiff's direction. “You’ll explain why I’m going to waste my time on a boat smaller than your kitchen table?”
They loaded the cannon while Marcus briefed him on the failed Hellburner.
Augie paused. “You sure about this?”
Marcus had a woman waiting for him who didn’t realize it because he hadn’t told her he loved her. So, yes, he was sure about this. Mouse needed a physician, and their friends and the whole town of Turtle Bay needed to survive the night.
“Absolutely.”
Augie lined up the nose of the cannon with the skiff. Though cannons weren’t particularly accurate, at this range it hardly mattered.
He lit the fuse and they jumped back, covering their ears.
The ship quaked. Gunpowder erupted in a thick, bitter cloud. The air tore apart with a whine. A deafening sound echoed between the ships.
When the air cleared, there was a trifling breach in the massive hull of the Remus. Shards of wood drifted down in the air currents like twinkling rain.
“Damn.”
Hope sank in Marcus’s chest. A mere five feet from the breach, the skiff remained undamaged.
And then a chunk of burning wood tumbled from the hull, brushing the tar-pitched sail of the skiff. Flames ate through the canvas and down the ropes. For a second, the barrel of gunpowder glowed with an eerie light. Then the skiff blew into the air and tore apart, obliterating the Remus’s stern. Her stores of gunpowder detonated.
Marcus stood with his mouth hanging open.
From hundreds of yards away, heat from the conflagration rushed over the water like a tidal wave. It was as bright as day and hotter than any summer.
They’d done it. Not at all how they planned it, but it worked just the same. The crew of the Remus would not turn their guns on Turtle Bay, destroying it as an example of what the British would do to rebel factions.
The Remus was now an example of what rebels could do to the British.
Marcus and Augie erupted in howls and huzzahs, soon joined by the rest of the crew. They’d done it. Against all odds.
Above them, on the quarterdeck, Turk thrust his sword in the air. “All right, lads. Let’s take her home.” His grin was as wide as the sea as he took careful hold of the splintered helm.
Chapter 32
Dr. Dewing’s bulbous nose and furry white brows poked through the doorway. He was an old physician known as a radical in his day and therefore trusted should Caldwell come looking for them. The door opened wider to accommodate the second, taller man pushing through.
“Yankel. What are you doing here?” Mouse leaned on her elbow. Since Asher carried her off the Valiant two hours ago, her skin had looked waxen. With Yankel’s arrival, pink blooms of color rose to her cheeks.
Marcus moved closer to Henrietta to make room for Mouse’s husband in the small bedroom.
Yankel shook his head in exasperation. “I should stay away when you need me most?”
“But—” Mouse said, Dr. Dewing cutting off her argument by taking hold of her shoulders and forcing her into a sitting position. “—you were busy—”
The physician wedged a horn into his hairy ear and placed the bell-shaped end against her back, listening with his mouth hanging open, chanting, “Eh, eh.” Mouse tried to sit dignified and silent. Neither lasted.
“—with something vitally important. I’m fine. I had a spell.” She glared at the physician, daring him to disagree with her.
“Mrs. Moskowitz,” Dr. Dewing said, dropping his horn into his bag and not noticing her expression. “’Twas more than a spell.”
Yankel rubbed the back of his neck in the same way Asher did. “What can we do?”
Mouse softened, taking Yankel’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “He’ll give me a tisane, and I’ll be on my way.”
Dr. Dewing laughed, his whole body bouncing. “That’s my line, dear girl. Unfortunately, you’ll need more than a tisane to rid yourself of me.”
Mouse rolled her eyes. Yankel brought her hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Moyzeleh, let the man do his job.”
“Did you see Asher?” she asked, purposefully diverting his attention.
“He’ll keep.” Yankel’s thumb rubbed over her knuckles.
Henrietta slipped her hand into Marcus’s, startling him. He’d been captivated by Mouse’s and Yankel’s interaction. The touch of her hand brought surprising warmth to him.
“I’m not dying, Marcus. Wipe the pout from your face,” Mouse snapped.
The doctor took a variety of instruments from his bag. “She is not. Though, she’s had a time of it. I daresay her heart is weak, but for a woman of her age, it’s not unusual.”
Well, that was a comfort, he supposed, though probably not to Mouse.
The doctor finished his examination and addressed the room. “She mustn’t exert herself, or she’ll have another spell. I suggest she hire a lady’s companion.”
Yankel kissed her hand again. She pinched his cheek.
Dr. Dewing packed his instruments.
Marcus glanced at Henrietta and wished he hadn’t. She looked like she was working through a difficult problem and had come out the other side, with her eyes darting around the room and her mouth a perfect O of wonder.
“Mrs. Moskowitz, I could be your lady’s companion. I don’t have anywhere else to go. In fact, helping you would be helping me.”
Marcus would fight her to the end on this, not that he could persuade her to do anything but what she wanted. He scoffed. “You hate tending the sick.”
“I’m not sick,” Mouse argued from her sickbed.
Henrietta’s chin lifted with a bedeviling grin, raising the corners of her lush lips. “I’ve discovered I hate tending the unappreciative sick. Asher was a delight.”
A Widow's Guide to Scandal (The Sons of Neptune Book 1) Page 27