by Diane Gaston
‘You suffered a blow to the head. It happens sometimes to have difficulty remembering.’ Or perhaps it was the trauma itself, of the storm, of being swept into the sea. He’d heard stories of soldiers in battle forgetting where they were. No one had suffered a similar affliction on his ship, though, and they’d been through plenty of trauma. ‘Try not to worry over it, my lady,’ he reassured.
She peered at him. ‘Why do you keep calling me “my lady”?’
He gaped at her. ‘I was told you are Lady Rebecca Pierce. Was I misinformed?’
‘Lady Rebecca Pierce,’ she repeated in a whisper. Her voice rose. ‘Is that who I am?’
He searched her face. Her distress seemed genuine. ‘You do not remember your name?’
‘I do not remember anything!’ she cried. ‘My name. Why I am here. Why I was on a ship. Why you are here.’
None of that mattered at the moment. They were in a battle with the elements. If the wind stirred the sea again, they might be tossed off this makeshift raft. If they could not shield themselves, the sun could burn their skin. And if they survived today, would they survive another cold night? They had no food, no water. How long could they last without water?
But he did not tell her any of that. He held her closer. ‘Try not to fret. It will not help. It is important to stay as calm as you can.’
She leaned against him and turned quiet again. He knew she must be cold so held her closely.
After a time she spoke. ‘Do I know you?’
‘We met briefly on the ship. I am Captain Lucien Roper. No reason for you to know me.’ Except that her family had ruined his mother’s family, but what use was it to tell her that? ‘I am bound for London.’ Or will be if they survive.
She stirred a little. ‘I wonder where I am bound.’
Claire pressed her cheek against his warm chest. She was cold and her head ached and her situation terrified her. She was adrift on the sea with a stranger, a man who stirred some unsettled emotion inside her, an emotion she could not name.
Was she to die in the arms of a man she did not know, without even knowing her own name? Her past?
Was she Lady Rebecca Pierce, as he’d said? The name meant nothing to her, but then, her mind was a blank when she tried to think of something, anything, about herself.
There was only this man. His chest was firm and warm and his manner confident and able. He’d covered their heads with the canvas again, but she could glimpse the sea from beneath it. The vast empty sea.
The sun’s reflection on the water hurt her eyes, but when she closed them the rocking of their raft seemed even more pronounced.
Would they die here? she wanted to ask him. But that was one question the answer of which she feared the most.
Had other people died? Had there been someone on the ship she knew? Someone dear to her? She tried to conjure up a feeling of attachment to someone, anyone, but there was only this man. Only he seemed real.
Maybe he knew. ‘Was I with anyone on this ship?’
He hesitated before answering. ‘I saw you with another woman. She was in the cabin with you.’
‘Who was she?’ A mother? A sister? Did she belong to anyone? If so, had they survived?
‘I did not learn her name.’ He sounded regretful about that.
‘Was she related to me?’ She wanted to belong somewhere, to someone.
‘I do not think so,’ he replied. ‘She was dressed plainly and I was told she was a governess. I never saw more than a glimpse of her.’
A governess? Was she connected to this governess in some way?
Was there anyone who cared for her? Who would search for her? All she could conjure up was a feeling of being alone. She lifted her arms, wanting to press her fingers against her temples. On one of her arms dangled a lovely but sodden red-velvet reticule.
She stared at it. ‘Is this mine?’
‘I remember now,’ he said. ‘The woman with you handed it to you as we left the ship.’
Who had she been? Why would she hand her a reticule?
Claire strained to remember, but nothing came.
She shook her head. ‘What happened to her?’
‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘She hurried off to find someone else and we never saw her after that. We climbed up on deck.’ He paused. ‘Then the wave came.’
The wave that swept them into the sea? How could one forget such an event? How could she not know who’d sailed with her?
How could she not remember her own name?
She shivered and stared at the water. How easy it would be to slip beneath its surface and join the void, so like the void in her mind.
Lucien Roper tightened his arms around her again, stilling her trembling, reminding her that she was someone, even if she could not remember who.
And, no matter what, she wanted to live.
‘Do you know anything about me?’ she asked him.
He paused before answering. ‘Very little. That you sailed from Dublin. Your name. That you are sister to the Earl of Keneagle.’ His voice stiffened.
She did belong to someone! ‘Do you know the Earl of Keneagle?’
He shifted his body a little. ‘He is an Irish earl, that is all I know.’
‘Then someone will look for me.’ She relaxed against him again.
‘These waters are well travelled,’ he said.
He did not sound convincing.
The waves beneath them rocked them like a bumpy carriage ride and the air smelled of brine. Her skin itched from the salt. They’d lapsed into silence. Only the slapping of the water against their raft made a sound.
The emptiness was driving her mad. She needed memories, any memories.
Even his would do. ‘Will you tell me about you, Lucien Roper?’
He stirred a little. ‘I am in the navy.’
‘The navy?’ Keep talking, she wanted to beg. He was her only reality at the moment. He and some brother she could not remember. A governess who’d been her companion.
And probable death. ‘What do you do in the navy?’
He shrugged. ‘I am a captain.’
‘Do you have a ship?’ Captains had ships, she somehow knew.
His ship, his home, was likely scrap by now. ‘Not at the moment. I’m bound for the Admiralty to be given a new ship.’
How could she know what the navy was and nothing about herself?
Maybe if he kept talking...
‘Are—are you on half pay?’ she asked.
* * *
Half pay, Lucien thought. She obviously knew what half pay was.
He nodded. ‘Until I’m given a new ship.’
‘You had a ship? What happened to it?’ she asked.
‘The war is over. The navy does not need so many ships. It was sold.’ He could not bear to tell her the Foxfire would be broken up. The ship had more life in her.
‘How sad for you.’ Her voice sounded genuinely sympathetic. ‘What was the name of your ship?’
‘The Foxfire.’
‘A lovely name,’ she remarked. ‘What kind of ship was it?’
‘She was a Banterer-class post ship with twenty-two guns.’
‘How impressive sounding,’ she said. ‘I know nothing of ships—at least nothing I can remember—but I know of the war somehow. I know it is over. Is that not strange?’
Strange that she remembered some things and not others? ‘I suppose it is.’
‘I—I cannot remember anything to do with me.’ She said this quietly, but he heard the pain of it in her words. She moved enough to look him in the face. ‘Would you tell me more about you? About being in the navy, perhaps? I need to know that there is more than us drifting on this water. I need to know someone has memories.’
His heart resonated with her pain. The fact that they were drifting on t
hese boards in the middle of the sea would be terrifying enough without amnesia on top of it. She might be a spoiled aristocratic lady, but at the moment she did not know even this. And, although he would not say it to her, she must realise they faced probable death.
If talking about himself would ease her anguish, he would talk about himself.
‘My father is an admiral,’ Lucien said. ‘My grandfather was an admiral. I was always meant for the navy, as well. It is in my blood. And I’ve done well in it.’
‘How long have you been in the navy?’ she asked.
‘Twenty-one years. Since age twelve. At fifteen I was in the Battle of the Nile. At twenty-two I was at Trafalgar and, since then, countless encounters with French, American and Danish ships. Mostly in the Adriatic Sea and the Mediterranean.’
‘You did well in the war, then.’ Her sympathy seemed genuine.
He gazed out to the horizon. ‘I also sent good men to their deaths.’ He closed his eyes and saw the carnage of battle. He saw his quartermaster blown apart. His midshipman, a mere youth, set afire. Why had these memories come and not the glory of capturing enemy vessels?
‘Did you earn prize money.’
There it was. He should have known she would ask about his money. A man’s monetary worth was of prime importance to aristocrats.
‘I did well enough.’ Good enough for him to retire, if he chose to—if they ever made it to shore again. Good enough for him to pay his uncles’ debts and set them up more securely. They should have no financial worries now.
‘And you will be given a new ship?’
‘So I have been told.’
If they survived, that was.
* * *
As the day wore on, the sun warmed them as he’d expected. It dried the canvas and most of their clothes. Lucien scanned the horizon for ships, to no avail. Lady Rebecca remained calm, eerily calm, as if detached from the danger they were in and the suffering they would endure if rescue did not come soon. She must be as hungry and as powerfully thirsty as he was, but, unexpectedly, she did not complain. Instead, she asked more questions about his life and Lucien found himself telling her things he’d never shared with anyone.
Like being left to his own devices as a young boy in a village outside Liverpool. How his mother, in her loneliness when his father was at sea—which was most of the time—sought amusement elsewhere by pursuing the local Viscount, who took his pleasure from her when the fancy took him. His mother was always too preoccupied by this love affair to bother much with a little boy or to make certain his nurses attended him. Lucien told her about how he’d been left to his own devices, sometimes to cope with situations he was too young to understand. His mother seemed happy when he was sent to sea.
He told her how his life changed after that. He’d loved the structure of rank and the discipline the navy required. Every man had his place and his duty and together they conquered the enemy and the sea itself. The sea, which so often was beautiful. A beautiful, if often treacherous, mistress.
Lucien shared with this woman what he’d never spoken of with anyone else. How he loved the sea.
He didn’t tell her that he’d be happy to die at sea and be sent to his rest beneath its depths.
Not yet, though. He wanted to live. He wanted her to live.
The sky darkened as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. Lucien continued talking, recounting his experiences at sea and his ship’s victories. He left off the close calls of horrific storms and the carnage of battle.
She listened and asked questions that showed some knowledge of naval matters, not entirely without memory of facts, at least.
He’d thought about telling her of the connection between their families, of how her grandfather had cheated his grandfather out of his property and fortune, but what good would that do? She had enough agony without him adding to it.
Her predicament almost made him forget his thirst, his hunger and the dire consequence of spending another night floating to nowhere.
He kept his eye on the horizon as he talked. His years at sea had given him sharp vision for which he was grateful.
Suddenly he saw a shape form in the distance. It sailed closer, but still too far to notice them, a mere speck in the vastness. He watched it, saying nothing to Lady Rebecca. Why spark an expectation that likely would never come to fruition?
He eventually could tell it was a two-masted ketch, a fishing boat, likely. And it looked as though it was sailing straight for them.
Lucien waited as the ketch sailed closer. Odds were still greatest that it would pass them by, but his heart beat faster.
He quickly tied the rope to the latch on the door that was their raft. ‘Hold on to this,’ he told her. ‘And be still. There is a ship. I’m going to stand and try to signal it.’
‘A ship?’ Her voice rose.
In hope, he supposed. ‘With luck they will see us.’
When she’d secured herself he carefully rose to his feet and waved the piece of sail that had sheltered them. He waved the canvas until his arms ached with the effort. From time to time the waves threatened to knock him off balance.
The ship came closer and closer. It still could miss them, though. Lucien knew how easily their small raft could be a mere speck, but he continued to wave the canvas.
When he could faintly hear voices from the ship, he shouted to them, ‘Ahoy! Ahoy!’
Lady Rebecca added her voice to his.
Finally a voice from the ketch returned their call. ‘Ahoy! Ahoy! We are coming.’
Lucien sat down and again put his arms around Lady Rebecca. ‘They see us, my lady. We are rescued.’
Chapter Three
It took another hour for the ship to approach and lower a boat to row out to them, but Claire did not mind the wait. They were rescued.
Soon enough they were safe on board the ketch and greeted by a man who introduced himself as Captain Molloy.
Lucien immediately told the Captain, ‘The lady needs water and food.’
Claire had not realised the strength of her thirst until Lucien mentioned it.
Lucien.
She could not think of him in more formal terms than his given name. He’d saved her life and he was the only person she had in her memory.
He kept an arm around her, though she thought she could walk on her own.
‘We’ll get you both below.’ The Captain ushered them towards a hatch. ‘What vessel are you from?’
‘The Dun Aengus,’ Lucien replied. ‘Packet from Dublin to Holyhead.’
Captain Molloy walked them to his cabin, a tiny space, but one with a table, four chairs and a berth. Anything else in the room must have been stored behind the cabinet doors which lined the walls.
One of the men brought water. Claire nearly pulled the tin cup from the man’s hands.
‘Take small sips,’ Lucien warned her. ‘You’ll want to keep it down.’
She nodded.
He watched her drink before taking any water himself.
‘Can we find the lady some dry clothes?’ Lucien asked the Captain.
Captain Molloy signalled to his man, who nodded and left. ‘We’ve been out only a few days, so there should be enough clean clothes to be found.’ He nodded to Lucien. ‘For you as well?’
‘I would be grateful.’ He took another small sip of water. ‘You are fishermen?’
‘That we are,’ the Captain said. ‘We’re after cod and haddock.’
Claire saw concern flash on to Lucien’s face.
‘I am afraid you will be with us for a bit.’ The captain looked apologetic. ‘We’ll be at sea for three weeks at least.’
‘Three weeks?’ She gasped. It seemed so long a time.
But why was she concerned? She knew of no other place she must go, no other place she belonged. She might as well be at sea.
&
nbsp; ‘My lady, you will have the use of my cabin.’ Captain Molloy glanced over at Lucien. ‘We’ll find a place for you, as well.’ He looked away and muttered, ‘Although I cannot imagine where.’
Claire spoke up. ‘I do not wish to trouble you so. Is there not room for Lucien here with me?’
She was not entirely selfless. She dreaded being alone with the emptiness in her mind. He was her one link to her previous life, the life she could not remember.
‘I cannot stay here,’ Lucien protested. ‘Your reputation—’
‘My reputation cannot matter here.’ She turned to Captain Molloy. ‘Can it, Captain? No one will speak of this, will they?’
The Captain answered eagerly. ‘I’ll see they don’t.’
A muscle in Lucien’s cheek tensed. ‘As you wish.’
‘Well, that is settled.’ The Captain clapped his hands together. ‘I need to return to my duties. Food and clothing will be brought to you shortly.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Claire said.
He bowed to her, a gesture of respect that seemed foreign to her.
After he left, she lifted her cup to sip more water, holding back from gulping the whole contents at once.
Lucien frowned. ‘Are you certain about sharing the cabin, my lady?’
‘They saved us, Lucien.’ Was it not the least they could do in return? ‘I cannot repay them by causing more discomfort.’
He nodded. Grudgingly, she thought.
The reticule still hung from her wrist. She untwisted its strings and slipped it off.
‘Look inside,’ he said. ‘Its contents might tell you more about yourself. Spark a memory, perhaps.’
It looked as alien to her as this fishing boat cabin, but she loosened its strings and reached inside to pull out the contents.
A small purse filled with coin. A tortoiseshell comb. A white enamel etui painted with exquisite flowers and containing a tiny scissors, needles, pins and hairpins. A linen handkerchief with an embroidered edge and a monogram—R.P. Rebecca Pierce. The name that didn’t seem like her name. The items that didn’t seem like her possessions.
‘Nothing looks like mine.’ She trembled. ‘It is as though I have never seen these things before.’