chapter seventeen

The promised storm broke before morning. Amanda was jolted rudely awake by the violent pitching of the ship, which tossed her from the bunk to land with a hard thump on the floor. She lay blinking for a moment, trying to catch her breath, then scrambled to her feet. Were they sinking? From the steep tilt of the floor beneath her and the rolling motion of the ship, it seemed quite possible. Amanda shivered as the ship dipped again, then rose up on end like a rearing horse. She had to find out what was happening. Scrambling to her feet, she started for the door, only to remember her nakedness. That was easily remedied, she thought, turning back. Then, seeing the tattered remnants of her lovely yellow gown on the floor where Matt had thrown it, her eyes widened in dismay. She had literally nothing to wear. And not for any consideration would she appear on deck, in front of all those men, clad only in her underclothes.

As the ship pitched again, Amanda staggered, grabbing the table, which had been bolted to the floor for just such an eventuality. Clinging to it for dear life while her feet slid wildly on the slippery wood, she noticed the sea chest from which Matt had extracted the towel and soap last night. More than likely he kept clothing in there, too.

Taking a deep breath, timing her action so that it coincided with a downward plunge of the ship, Amanda let go of the table to dart across the floor. No sooner had she reached the sea chest than the ship was tilting the other way. Amanda grabbed the sea chest for support, finding, to her dismay, that it was not bolted down or secured. Clutching it, she began to slither helplessly across the floor. The sea chest slithered with her and they landed with a thump against a table leg. Amanda hooked one arm around that blessedly stable post and managed to wedge herself against the table so that she was relatively secure. She took several deep breaths to steady herself again, then turned her attention to opening the trunk. If the ship were sinking—and it seemed as if it might well be—the sooner she was decently covered, the sooner she could leave the cabin. Though what she would do once she was on deck she didn’t know.

As she had guessed, the trunk contained several articles of clothing. Matt’s shirt was huge on her, she realized with a grimace as she pulled on one of fine white linen. Its tails hung way past her knees, and the cuffs dangled ludicrously past her wrists, but at the moment all she cared about was that she be adequately covered. She rolled up the sleeves and rooted through the chest for something to cover her lower half. She found a pair of charcoal-gray knee breeches; but, though the length was reasonable, the waist could wrap around hers twice, she realized as she slid into them. There was neither belt nor any type of rope in the chest, so she gathered up the excess material at her waist and tied it into a clumsy knot.

“I hope that holds,” she thought, looking down at the bunched cloth rather doubtfully. Then, with a shrug, she dismissed the problem. Now all she had to concentrate on was reaching the door. That was no small feat, but eventually she managed.

Once she was on deck, she braced herself against the wall of the captain’s cabin, clinging to a hook just above her head. Her eyes were huge as she stared around her. The deck was awash with water. Towering gray waves rose on all sides like mountains; some the ship rode, which accounted for all that bucking and pitching, and some broke over her bow, sending icy water cascading over the deck. Men were everywhere, running across the slanting deck, wrestling with ropes and sails, climbing in the rigging. They paid her no mind, in fact did not appear to see her. Amanda looked up at the lowering sky, listened to the ominous howling of the wind and the sharp crack and pop of the rigging, and understood perfectly. They were battling for the ship’s life; they had no thought to spare for her.

Where was Matt? Try as she would, she could not make out his form among the bustling figures. He had not returned to the cabin last night, and it occurred to her that he might be avoiding her. But surely, when they were faced with such danger, he would put aside such petty considerations as pride and anger?

He would be on the quarterdeck, of course. After all, it was his ship. He would surely be at the helm. She had to get to him. Despite everything, he represented security to her. He would take care of her, she knew, if anyone could.

Negotiating the steep, narrow stairs from the main deck to the quarterdeck was a nightmare. Twice she thought she would be thrown back down on the hard boards below as the ship rolled wildly. Once, she nearly lost her grip on the handrail as a deluge of icy water washed over her. When at last she arrived, clinging to the railing that ran all around the quarterdeck as if it were a lifeline, she was soaking wet and shaking from fear and the cold. And still she couldn’t see Matt.

Zeke was at the helm, barely recognizable in an oilcloth coat. Three other sailors were working feverishly, trying to free a large sail that had broken away from its lines and was now hopelessly tangled in the rigging. Another sailor stood near Zeke, holding tightly to a spar with one hand while he fought to take a compass reading.

Zeke would know where Matt was. He might not think very highly of her, but from what Matt had told her of him, she felt she could trust him. If Matt hadn’t prejudiced him against her, as it had been obvious he had from the very beginning, they might have become friends.

Taking a deep breath, she waited until the ship was on a downward roll, then let go of the railing. The motion of the ship propelled her toward where Zeke stood at the wheel. She crashed into the shoulder-tall wooden shelter built around the wheel and hung on for dear life as the ship rolled the other way.

“What do you want?” If Zeke was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it. He scowled at her, shouting to be heard above the wind. His brown hair was darkened with water, plastered to his skull. The hazel eyes were cold with dislike as he looked at her.

“Where is Matt?” She had to scream the question. Zeke heard her—she could tell by the way his mouth tightened—but for a long moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he shrugged and made a curt upward gesture with his thumb.

For a moment Amanda thought that this was some piece of sailor’s crudity. Her cheeks colored angrily, though her eyes instinctively followed the direction his thumb had indicated. And froze, widening with horror.

Matt was high in the rigging, clinging to a spar with both legs and one hand as his knife worked to cut loose the crippled sail. He was dressed only in a shirt and pantaloons. His black head was bare and wet, gleaming like a seal’s, and his feet were bare, too. The distance between them precluded Amanda from seeing his expression, but as she watched him she could have sworn she saw a flash of white teeth in that dark face. She stared, swallowing. She hadn’t been mistaken: the lunatic was actually grinning.

“Dear God,” she breathed. Zeke looked at her curiously, but her eyes were riveted on Matt and she was barely conscious of him.

“You’d better go below,” Zeke instructed curtly, the shout all but lost in the wind. Amanda ignored him. She wouldn’t leave until Matt was safely back on deck. If he fell from that height . . . She couldn’t bear to think about that.

Just then Matt whooped, and as Amanda watched, the tangled sail fluttered toward the deck like a dying swan. He had succeeded in cutting it free. The three sailors below were catching it, gathering it up, while Matt put the knife between his teeth and started to lower himself to the deck. And then it happened.

A wave, larger than the others, caught them unaware, bathing them in a violent deluge of icy seawater. At the same time the ship stood almost on her bow, then plunged into the trough left by the huge waves. Amanda clutched at the wheel casing to keep her balance, felt Zeke’s hand close over her arm like a vise as he tried to hold her in place, and thought for a moment that she might be swept over the side. Then Zeke, looking up, let out a hoarse shout. Amanda looked up, too, to see Matt falling, hurtling through the rigging toward the deck far below.

For the first time in her life, she fainted.

When she regained consciousness, she felt as if a horrible, crushing weight had settled on her chest. Matt had fallen. If by some miracle he was not dead, he must be grievously injured. Zeke was kneeling beside her, leaning over her as she slowly opened her eyes. With the small part of her mind that was still functioning rationally, Amanda noted that the man who had been using the compass had taken the helm.

“Matt . . .” she groaned, struggling to sit up, looking for and yet not wanting to see his broken body. Why was Zeke not with him?

“It’s all right—he managed to catch a line. He’s not hurt,” Zeke yelled over the storm. For the first time he was looking at her without dislike.

“What the hell’s going on here? Amanda?” It was Matt, his voice sharp with anger and concern. Amanda shut her eyes. He was not dead or injured, after all. She thought she might faint again from sheer relief.

“She fainted. She saw you fall,” Zeke said briefly. He stood up, looking at his brother with a frown while Matt, ignoring him, knelt beside Amanda.

“Amanda?”

She opened her eyes, dwelling on every plane and angle of that handsome, beloved face. “Are you all right?”

He snorted. “Yes, but you don’t seem to be. What were you thinking of, to come up on deck?”

“I was frightened—I wanted to see you.”

“Don’t ever do that again. You could be washed overboard. Come, I’ll take you back to the cabin—and this time stay there. I’ll come for you if there’s need.”

His arms were around her, gathering her up. He lifted her high against his chest, staggering a little as the ship pitched again. Amanda rested limply against him for a moment, relishing the hard arms that held her, the beat of his heart against her side, the flush of blood that rose in his face as she looked up at him. Then she shook her head, regaining the use of her muscles and pushing at his chest determinedly.

“You can’t carry me in this storm,” she shouted. “Put me down, Matt, I can walk.”

He looked at her for a moment, his arms tightening around her as if he would never let her go, then, as he had to brace himself to withstand another roll of the ship, he seemed to see the sense of what she had said. It would be difficult to carry her down the narrow stairs to the main deck under the present conditions. Slowly his grip eased, and he let her slip to her feet. His arm stayed around her waist as she caught her balance.

“All right?” he asked. She nodded, not wanting to waste any more breath shouting into the storm. His arm stayed around her to the stairs, and then he insisted on going before her, making her back down while holding to the rail with both hands, poised to catch her if she should slip. They achieved the bottom with no mishap. Amanda would have clung to Matt’s hand when they reached the cabin, fearing to let him out of her sight, but he pushed her inside the cabin without ceremony, to stand staring at her for a moment from the open doorway. With his arm braced over his head for support, he completely filled the opening.

“Stay here,” was all he said, but he looked as if he had wanted to say more and then thought better of it. He closed the door behind him. Amanda’s knees began to tremble as she crossed to the bunk and sat down. At least he no longer seemed angry . . .

The storm lasted for three days. In that time Amanda, as well as everyone else on board, lost an appreciable amount of weight. With the violent pitching of the ship making a cooking fire dangerous, all they had to eat was dried fruit and pieces of hardtack washed down with water—all of which had been somewhat affected by salt from the seawater that was continually washing over them. Not that Amanda was hungry. If her stomach hadn’t been so empty, she feared that she would have disgraced herself completely by being horribly ill. As it was, she was more frightened than anything. From the ominous creaks and groans of the timbers, and the ripping sound of canvas being torn to shreds over her head, she feared the worst. And came to accept it. Whether they sank or not was in God’s hands.

She did not wholly obey Matt’s edict about staying in the cabin. On the second day, when it occurred to her that every man must be needed to battle the storm, she made her way to the ship’s galley and told the exhausted cook that she would be pleased to assist in the distribution of food. Unaware of Matt’s instructions to the contrary, he was equally pleased to let her.

The sailors accepted the bits of food and water she brought them with gruff thanks, some of them even unbending sufficiently to warn her to look tight when the ship heeled. They were not unduly friendly, but after the third time she brought them food, they were not unfriendly, either. Perhaps they were beginning to question their earlier judgment of her. At least she hoped they were.

It was inevitable that Matt should see her. She had carefully avoided the quarterdeck, knowing he would immediately order her back to the cabin as soon as he set eyes on her. But toward the middle of the third day, he observed her as she made her way across the deck, clinging for dear life to the safety lines that had been run from one end of the ship to the other. And he swooped down upon her like a hungry hawk.

“Damn it, I told you to stay in the cabin,” he roared. Amanda had not heard him come up behind her, and his angry bellow made her jump. It also made her lose her grip on the safety line. She staggered, then fell heavily to her knees. The supplies of dried fruit she had been carrying scattered around her on the deck, only to be washed away by an enveloping wave.

“Good Christ.” Amanda would quite likely have been washed away with the fruit if Matt had not reached down and grabbed her by the single thick braid in which she had confined her hair. Wincing with pain, she was nonetheless grateful to be caught. Being washed overboard was not the fate she fancied for herself. Then it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have been in the least danger if Matt had not startled her, making her lose her grip on the safety line. She was scowling as blackly as he when he hauled her to her feet.

“Damn it, don’t you have any sense?” Even over the howling of the wind, his angry bellow was audible. And not only to Amanda. Looking around, she saw that to nearly every man on board they were the objects of fascinated attention.

“Don’t shout at me,” she cried, incensed and embarrassed at being publicly upbraided. “I was perfectly all right until you came along and frightened me.”

“If I frightened you this time, wait till you see what I do to you if I catch you out on deck again.” Dark blood rising high in his cheekbones said more than words about how angry he was. His silvery eyes took on the menacing gleam of twin knives as he glared at her. With his black hair wet and curling wildly around his head, his clothes soaked with seawater and plastered to his body, showing every sinewy muscle, and his mouth set in a grim line, he looked formidable. Amanda lifted her chin and returned glare for glare, her eyes shooting purple sparks and the color of her hair no redder than the haze before her eyes. She was not about to allow him to intimidate her.

“Don’t threaten me, you bully.” She was furious now. Matt looked down at her slender shape, ridiculously clad in his too-large clothes, and noted her arms-akimbo stance that threatened to send her sprawling with the next pitch of the ship. Then his lips twitched. Until he noticed how the drenched clothes clung to her skin, revealing every luscious hill and valley. Her nipples, rigid with cold, were straining against the material of the shirt she wore. The laughter vanished from his eyes, to be replaced by another hot flare of anger.

“I’ll do more than threaten you next time. And that’s a promise,” he said grimly, snatching her off her feet and throwing her over his shoulder as he spoke. Amanda kicked and squirmed furiously, scarlet with humiliation, as he strode back toward the cabin with her, one arm locking her in place over his shoulder and the other hand holding tightly to the safety line. When at last he shouldered his way through the door, he tossed her on the bunk and turned to leave. Amanda was spluttering, too angry to be coherent about the insults she would like to have flung at him. He stopped at the door, turning back to fix her with a stony glare.

“If you leave this cabin again before the storm clears, I’ll hog-tie you to the bunk.” Before she could reply, he left, closing the door behind him.

By the next morning the storm had vanished as though it had never been. The sea was as smooth as blue-green silk, and the sky was equally halcyon. The sun shone brightly down, reminding the world that it was indeed spring, and a gentle breeze chased a few fluffy white clouds across the sky. Amanda, waking to find that the rolling and pitching had miraculously ceased, poked her head cautiously out the cabin door and smiled with pure delight. It was a beautiful day and, best of all, she no longer had to worry about the possible consequences of defying Matt. Because, of course, she had no intention of staying in the cabin.

Quickly she stepped back inside the cabin and tidied herself as well as she could. Besides splashing her face and hands with water and pulling her chemise on under the shirt and breeches, there wasn’t much else she could do. The bit of string with which she had bound the end of her braid the day before had fallen off when Matt had grabbed her hair; finding a comb in Matt’s sea chest, she merely ran it through her hair, then tucked some carelessly behind her ears.

She left the cabin, padding barefoot toward the quarterdeck—and Matt. Now that the storm was past, it was time for him to answer a few questions, such as where he was taking her, although she had a fair idea. Hadn’t he said once that the first thing he would do after escaping from England would be to head for New Orleans, his home?

Men were sprawled all over the main deck, most lying facedown in attitudes of exhaustion. Amanda would have thought that some dreadful plague had visited the ship overnight, killing off her crew, if it had not been for the stentorian snores that rose all about her. From the look of things, only a very groggy skeleton crew remained to see to the operation of the ship.

Zeke was at the wheel again, Amanda saw as soon as she set foot on the quarterdeck. There was no one else about. With some trepidation, she looked up into the rigging, but Matt was not there either. Hesitating only a moment, she walked toward Zeke, who was whistling as he stared out to sea. He might not like her, but surely he wouldn’t harm her.

“Good morning,” she said, hoping that civility would win a like response. To her surprise it did. He didn’t smile at her as he returned her greeting, but his eyes no longer shouted his dislike.

“Matt is below, having something to eat,” he added dryly, anticipating her question before she could ask it. “That’s what you were going to ask me, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Amanda smiled at him, wanting to be friends. She had no idea how that sweet and faintly mischievous smile affected him. It was the first time he had ever seen her smile, and it made her look very young, and very lovely. Not at all the monster in maiden’s clothing who had betrayed his brother.

“Why did you do it?” he blurted out, then was immediately angry with himself. Matt would wring his neck for butting into Matt’s private business; besides, it didn’t matter why. The only important thing was that this dazzlingly beautiful and deceptively innocent-looking chit before him had nearly gotten his brother killed.

“Do what?” For a moment Amanda was at a loss. Her smile faded as she stared up at Zeke. He was not anywhere near as handsome as Matt, she noted abstractedly, but he had a certain charm of his own. A friendly, open charm that did not extend to her. He shrugged curtly in answer to her question, his mouth tightening as he returned his eyes to the sea.

“Betray Matt?” Amanda queried softly, and the look he sent her was answer enough. “I didn’t, Zeke. I swear it. I went to the beach that morning to warn him. My half brother, Edward, had told our local constable that Matt was hiding at the convent. Edward hates me, you see. I don’t know how he found out about Matt, though. Anyway, I wanted to give Matt a chance to escape. The soldiers must have followed me. I suppose I was responsible in that way, but I didn’t deliberately betray Matt.”

Zeke was silent for some time after Amanda’s earnest little speech, and she suspected that he, too, thought she was lying. Then he turned to look at her. a sharp, judgmental expression in his hazel eyes.

“Did you tell that to Matt?”

Amanda nodded miserably. “He doesn’t believe me.”

“Why not?”

She shook her head, her eyes clouding over as she pondered the question that had tormented her so many times. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Zeke pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. He frowned at Amanda, his hands idly tracing patterns on the wheel’s wooden surface.

“I believe you,” Zeke said suddenly. His eyes were intent as they fixed on her face. “And I think I can explain to you why Matt doesn’t—although he’d probably slit my throat if he knew what I was about to tell you.” He hesitated. “Before I do, I need to ask you a personal question. Amanda”—this was the first time he had used her name—“are you in love with my brother?”

Amanda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was embarrassing to admit such a thing to a stranger, but . . .

“Yes,” she said softly.

Zeke stared at her hard for a moment, then nodded.

“All right, then, I’ll tell you. But for God’s sake, don’t tell Matt that I did.”