Merline Lovelace (21 page)

“I think we all chose the wrong profession,” she murmured as Sam lowered Mary onto the bunk. “We’re such accomplished actors, we should have gone on the boards and traveled about with a vaudeville show. Wait, let me get that shawl out from under her before she becomes all tangled up in it.”

Between them, they did their best to make Mary comfortable. They didn’t dare undress her or tuck her under the blanket, knowing that the captain would seek them out.

He rapped on the cabin door some moments later. When Sam stepped outside, he allowed the man only a glimpse of the two women sitting on the bunk. Victoria’s nerves crawled as she listened to the rise and fall of their voices outside the door. After what seemed like hours, Sam stepped back inside.

“It’s done. I’ve made arrangements with the captain to cover Mary’s passage. The ship leaves in less than an hour.”

“Thank God!”

“She’ll drop anchor at Key West to off-load cargo, then dock in Tampa.” His glance went to the woman now stretched out on the bunk. “By then, her fever should have broken.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The awesome responsibility she’d taken on
weighed heavily on Victoria’s shoulders. What if Mary succumbed to her illness? What if she died before they made Key West or Tampa? She stood silent while Sam made his farewells to the widow.

“You’ll be home soon,” he promised Mary, taking her hand. “Just rest, sweat out the fever and get back your strength.”

The brusque order brought a feeble attempt at a smile.

“Yes…sir.”

“Victoria will see to you. She insists she learned to care for fever patients from one of the army’s best nurses.”

Mary’s gaze shifted to include them both.

“She…did…indeed.”

With a gentle squeeze, Sam released her hand and drew Victoria outside the cabin to make their farewells.

“Send me a cable when you reach Tampa.”

“I will.”

“You have my service revolver with you?”

“Yes.”

“Keep it handy until you’re home safe.”

“I will,” she said again, sincerely hoping she wouldn’t have to put it to use.

“Are you carrying any funds? It took all I had to pay for Mary’s passage.”

The generous supply of greenbacks her father had given her had dwindled considerably, but suf
ficient remained in her purse to buy food and whatever else they might need until she could wire for more.

“I have enough to get us home.”

He hesitated, knowing he had to go ashore, hating to leave her with the burden she’d so calmly assumed. Amazed that only a few months ago he’d considered her a mere girl requiring his guidance and protection, Sam brushed his knuckles down her cheek.

“I don’t know when I’ll return to the States. I’ll have to answer for taking Mary away from Siboney. I might spend the next months on General Wood’s staff—or in the guardhouse.”

“Let’s hope it’s not the guardhouse.”

This was no time to tell him she might be breeding, Victoria thought with chagrin. He had enough to worry about without her adding more. She’d put the news in a cable when she and Mary were home safe and she knew for sure she carried a child.

Aching for a last taste, a last touch, she slipped her arms around his neck.

S
am stood beside the carriage while the dockhands threw off the
Sea Cloud
’s hawsers and the harbor tug pushed the ship away from the quay. Slowly, her bow swung toward the mouth of Santiago Harbor. Black smoke bellied from her twin stacks as she got up steam. Gray and angry-looking, the waters of the bay churned beneath her stern.

Eyeing the clouds that hung dark and sullen on the horizon, Sam could only grit his teeth and hope the storm held off until the
Sea Cloud
was well away. Victoria would have enough on her hands without heavy seas.

Admiration tugged at him. It had taken a special brand of courage for Victoria to climb into a carriage and start out for Siboney, determined to aid a woman who’d spent weeks in the contagion ward. A woman she’d once considered a rival.

Sam knew now that whatever he’d once felt for
Mary paled beside his fierce passion for Victoria. It went beyond rational thought, sprang as much from instinct as from intellect. No poet, he couldn’t put flowery adjectives to his feelings or wrap them up in fine, noble phrases.

She was his, and he was hers.

It was as simple and as all-consuming as that.

He remained on the dock until the
Sea Cloud
steamed past the ruins of Morro Castle, reduced to rubble by U.S. naval bombardment at the start of the Santiago Campaign. Then he returned to the house on Calle San Giorgio, stripped out of his uniform and bundled it into a blanket. Scrubbed clean of mud, he pulled on his only spare uniform. The khaki canvas pants had seen arduous duty during his first weeks in Cuba, and the blue flannel shirt had a bullet hole in both the front and the back right shoulder, but the bloodstains had washed to only a faint rust.

Carrying the soiled, bundled uniform out behind the house, he burned both it and the blanket he’d wrapped it in. Ten minutes later, he presented himself at the governor’s palace.

“Sam!”

Max Luna jumped out of his chair. His dark eyes were grave as he hurried around the table he’d appropriated and put to use as a desk.

“General Wood wants you to report to him the moment you show your face.”

“I figured as much.”

Squaring his shoulders, he started for the door to the general’s office. Max stayed him.

“How’s Mrs. Prendergast?”

“Weak, but holding her own.”

“Where did you take her?”

“Not to Calle San Giorgio.”

Anger flashed across the New Mexican’s proud face. “Did you think I wouldn’t want her at the house? She cared for the men in my company, too, Sam.”

“I know.”

“If you’d told me what the hell you intended before you rushed out of here yesterday, I would have gone with you to Siboney.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to involve you.” Seeing that his friend was still offended, he tried to make amends. “I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to imply you wouldn’t help Mary or have her at the house.”

“I only asked because of Victoria,” Luna said stiffly. “I knew you wouldn’t want to expose her to danger.”

“She exposed herself.”

“What?”

“I stopped her just outside Santiago this morning. She was on her way to Siboney.”

Max gave a soundless whistle. “She’s very brave, your woman.”

“She is that.” Sam glanced at the door behind the desk. “Guess I’d better get this over with. Is the general in his office?”

“Yes. Colonel Roosevelt’s with him, going over the order for the Rough Riders’ embarkation.”

“When does the regiment leave?”

“Two days from now. They’re shipping home to Montauk, New York, out on Long Island. They’ll stay there until it’s clear they’re not contagious, then be mustered out.”

“So the regiment’s being disbanded?”

At Max’s nod, regret splintered through Sam. He’d served more than eight years in the regular army and forged many close friendships with his brothers in arms. But his ties to the tough, colorful Rough Riders had been fired by respect and tempered to unbreakable steel by battle.

He would have liked to complete the journey he’d begun with the United States First Volunteer Cavalry. Chances were, though, that he’d miss the final mustering out. He’d be here in Santiago. Or in a ship’s brig, awaiting transport with the other misfits and derelicts.

The prospect of returning home, stripped of his rank by a court-martial, wasn’t one Sam particularly relished. He spent a second or two imagining what his father would have to say before shrugging the thought aside. He’d done what he had to do. He’d do it again, in a minute.

Squaring his shoulders, he strode to the door.

With a ruddy-faced Roosevelt sitting to one side, General Wood rose, clasped his hands behind his back and pinned the officer standing at rigid attention before his desk with a cold stare.

“Let me make sure I have the facts straight, Captain. Did you or did you not write out a pass for yourself without authority?”

“I did, sir.”

“Did you ride to Siboney and overcome a sentry by use of force?”

“Yes, sir.

“Enter a restricted area?”

“Yes.”

“Violate the direct order of the Secretary of War by removing a medical attendant from isolation?”

“Yes.”

Wood’s jaw worked. Through clenched teeth, he bit out an acidic query.

“Are there any other potential charges that might be brought against you for last night’s piece of work, Garrett?”

Sam thought about it for a moment. “I’d say that about sums it up, sir.”

“Dammit, man! Why didn’t you come to me before haring off to Siboney?”

He gave the general the same answer he’d given Max. “I didn’t want to involve you.”

“Harrumph!” Clasping his hands behind his back, Wood rocked back on his heels. “I’m not going to ask where Mrs. Prendergast is. I’m assuming she’s in good hands.”

“Yes, sir. Very good hands. And if it will relieve your mind, she’s no longer in Cuba. She and Miss Parker left this morning.”

The general looked anything but relieved. “All right, Garrett. You may return to your quarters. Consider yourself under house arrest until further notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

T
he
Sea Cloud
’s passage from Santiago to Key West took twelve torturous hours.

Gray skies and swelling seas provided the two women aboard with the perfect excuse to remain in their cabin, but as the swells grew rougher, Victoria’s stomach began to roll with the ship. Battling bouts of nausea, she somehow managed to bathe away the rest of Mary’s mud and sweat and force several doses of quinine down her throat.

After that, one hour blurred into the next. Victoria couldn’t have said when day became night. Mary consumed all her attention, all her energy. When she thrashed on the bunk, moaning with the heat, Victoria ripped up a spare pair of drawers, dunked them in the pitcher of water a cabin boy delivered and wrapped her in damp, cooling cloths. When the heat gave way to bone-rattling shivers, she replaced the damp cloths with blankets.

By the time the ship made port at Key West a little past four o’clock in the morning, the wind shrieked like demons from hell outside the porthole and Victoria was so seasick she could hardly stand. She’d retched up most of what she’d forced down of her dinner. Each wild, plunging swing of the ship at the end of its anchor chain threatened to bring up the rest. Thoroughly miserable, she passed almost another hour with her body flung across Mary’s to keep her from rolling out of the bunk.

“Miss Parker!”

A hard pounding on the cabin door accompanied the muffled shout.

“Miss Parker! Cap’n says we have to put you ladies ashore.”

Staggering across the cabin, Victoria wrenched open the door. “Put us ashore? Why?”

The mate stood in the gangway, drenched to the skin. Bracing his arms and legs, he shouted to be heard over creaking metal and howling wind.

“The storm’s blowing up fierce enough to snap the anchor chain. Looks to become a full hurricane. We’re taking the
Sea Cloud
to open water to try to ride it out, but cap’n says it’s safer for you ladies ashore.”

“But—”

“No time to argue. The longboat’s ready to be lowered.” He brushed past her into the cabin. “You
take your grip, miss, and I’ll help your friend up to—”

He stopped short, his eyes bugging at his first real glimpse of Mary, and swung around.

“You said she’d hurt her ankle!”

Victoria could hardly deny the truth staring at them with dark, fever-glazed eyes. “Unfortunately, she’s also come down with a touch of malaria.”

Hawkins looked as though he might bolt at any second.

“It’s only malaria,” Victoria insisted. Flinging out a hand, she gestured to the box of tablets at the foot of the bunk. “I’ve been dosing her with quinine all night.”

Half-afraid he might run to the captain and have them both tossed into the sea, she tottered to the bunk and began wrapping Mary in blankets.

“Bring me that poncho. Now, if you please! If the captain says it’s safer for us ashore, then we’d best get to the longboat.”

Hawkins hovered by the door, uncertain, nervous. The sight of Victoria calmly tending to Mary reassured him somewhat. Still, he refused to lift the invalid from the bunk until she’d been swathed head to foot in the rubber shield.

Making his way precariously out of the tilting, swaying cabin, he carried Mary down the narrow passageway and up two flights of stairs. Victoria lurched along behind them. With every other step,
a hip slammed against the bulkheads and her valise banged against her knees.

The moment Hawkins shouldered open the hatch that led out to the deck, she gasped in terror. The entire world outside that small, square opening had become a seething cauldron of wind and rain and gray, crashing waves.

“We can’t disembark in this!”

The wind tore her frantic protest away. Either that, or Hawkins chose to ignore it. Slinging Mary over his shoulder, he reached for the safety line strung across the deck.

“Dear God!”

Her heart in her throat, Victoria watched him plunge across the deck toward the lifeboat riding high in its davits. Her fingers fisted around the lifeline, but she couldn’t bring herself to take so much as a step until she saw that Hawkins had made it safely across the tilting, sea-washed deck.

Setting his jaw, he fought his way back and relieved her of the bag. “I’ll take that,” he shouted over the shrieking wind. “Hold on to the rope and haul yourself across, hand over hand. I’ll be right behind you.”

She was only a few yards from the longboat when the deck seemed to drop out from under her feet. She went down, legs thrashing, arms straining against the pull of seawater that crashed over her. Cursing, Hawkins let go of the lifeline, buried a fist
in her skirt and dragged her the rest of the way. Heaving, he tossed her into the longboat. Her valise landed on top of her.

“Wait for the next wave,” he shouted to the men at the ropes. “Then lower away!”

Victoria groped about on hands and knees and found Mary huddled in the sloshing water at the bottom of the boat. Blinded by rain and the wet hair that slashed at her face, she could only throw herself atop Mary and pray as she’d never prayed before.