Princess at Sea (38 page)

My throat closed, and my shoulders tightened. Kavenlow took my arm and pulled me to my feet. I rose numbly. Jeck was going to tell him. I was going to lose everything that meant anything to me, and my sister was going to die.

His grip supporting me, Kavenlow gestured to Jeck. “Sir? Would you care to accompany us?”

“No!” I exclaimed, then lowered my voice. “No,” I said softer, when Kavenlow hesitated.

Eye twitching, Kavenlow looked at Jeck, clearly not wanting to leave him alone with the two men to possibly talk deals he would know nothing about. He took a firmer stance, his squat silhouette looking aggressive but the look in his eyes questioning.

“Please, Kavenlow,” I begged, my voice barely above a whisper.

He grimaced, frowned, and vacillated.

Jeck wasn't helping. Smiling at Kavenlow's discomfort, he said, “Of course, please go. We can talk later. I'll stay with Captain Rylan and Mr. Smitty. We have much to discuss on our own.” His face was pleasant behind his ragged beard, but I could see his hidden anger now that I had spent several days with him. It wasn't directed at me, but at the two pirates, and I wondered if he could read me as easily, now, too.

Kavenlow muttered a terse, “Gentleman,” taking my arm and pulling me into a fast pace that quickly left them behind. My heartbeat grew fast, and I was glad I was in flat-heeled boots so I could keep up. My steps seemed loud on the slate pathway. I couldn't hear Kavenlow's at all. He moved quickly, his motions abrupt and short. My brow pinched, and I became pensive. He was angry with me. But I had to talk to him before Jeck had a chance.

We came into view of the door. The waiting sentries straightened and opened it for us. I felt unreal as Kavenlow escorted me into the hallway, now smelling empty and barren after the rich scents of the solarium. Still not having said anything, Kavenlow dropped my arm and beckoned one of the outer sentries closer. I stood like an errant child, woebegone and shaky, as the door to the solarium closed, shutting out the birdsong.

“Wine,” Kavenlow said shortly. “Immediately. Until I return, I want two serving girls in there to keep the conversation to the weather and how big the crabs are this year.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And a plate of food as well,” he said. “Something warm. I'll be in the sanctuary with Princess Tess.”

He took my arm. My eyes fell upon his fingers. The tips were stained with ink as they usually were, his nails trimmed neatly and his fingers strong from reining in spirited horses rather than turning pages. He was angry with me. I could understand why. She had been in my care, and I had lost her. Twice.

With a quick, preoccupied gait, he pulled me down the hallway to the sanctuary. He was right in that it would likely be empty. No one went in there since Contessa had made it her refuge. I stumbled in after Kavenlow, seeing her everywhere in the familiar room: the low black ceiling, the one stained-glass window shining like glory itself, the simple altar, and the three short rows of pews. It was a very small room, comforting to her after having been raised in a nunnery.

He left me standing in the middle of the narrow aisle, going with an angry haste to check to see that the small anteroom behind the altar was empty. I heard the thunk of the door closing and the clatter of the bar being set in place.

“Kavenlow . . .” I said, low and miserable.

I gasped when he grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. Expecting a severe chastisement and lecture, I wasn't prepared when he took me in a fierce hug. My shoulder throbbed, and I stifled a cry of pain and surprise.

“They said you had died!” he whispered fiercely, his grip on me never loosening. I could smell the scent of leather and horse that ever lingered on him, and the pungent scent of ink. My breath was forced from me, and I belatedly returned his embrace.
He isn't angry with me,
I thought, in a wash of relief that brought a lump to my throat.

He pulled away, his hands remaining atop my shoulders. His blue eyes were dark and glinting with unshed tears, the wrinkles about them deep with emotion. “They said you had died, Tess. They told me you had died!”

My breath came in a sob. He wasn't angry with me. “Kavenlow . . . I—”

He gave me another hug, gentler this time but no less intense. “When I received Contessa's letter, I was so worried,” he said, interrupting me. “I knew you would be all right. But they told me you were dead! Oh, Tess, I thought you had left me.”

Left me,
echoed in my thoughts. I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eye. A hundred things to say flashed through my mind. A hundred things to tell. A hundred lies to give him so I wouldn't have to leave. But what came out was a weepy, “I'm sorry, Kavenlow.”

His hands dropped from my shoulders, falling to take mine in his. “Hush,” he admonished, seeing the ruin of my hands. “It's part of the game. We'll get them back. One game lost doesn't mean the end of play. And if the danger brings the two of them together, which I imagine it has, then we have come out well.”

“No,” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes. They dropped immediately, and my throat closed. “I'm sorry,” I all but squeaked. “I can't be your apprentice anymore.”

A sob escaped me, and I held my breath lest any more follow it. My head pounded. I wanted to stay his student so badly, I would have lied to keep the position. But I couldn't. Seeing him there with nothing but love in his eyes, I couldn't lie to him. Not for anything.

As he stood in a frozen surprise, I sank into a pew, my head falling forward to rest upon the back of the seat ahead of me. My life was over. There was nothing left.

I heard him take a slow breath. Leather and wood creaked as he sat beside me. I pulled myself straight as he took my hands in his, turning them over to look at my palms. “You learned to use your hands,” he said. “Tess. I'm sorry. Captain Jeck said it would happen whether you wanted it to or not. I am so proud of you—”

“Yes, but . . .” I interrupted, my chest clenching with an unbearable weight.

“Did he let you think you had to be his apprentice if he taught you?” he questioned, a hard anger slipping into his quiet voice. His blue-gray eyes were narrowed when I brought my head up, my gaze swimming from unshed tears. “I bought his instruction for you in this matter. You don't owe him anything.”

“It's not that,” I said, the pounding in my head making my eyes ache.

He placed my palms together as if in prayer, his surrounding mine. “You willingly want to be his apprentice? Are you leaving my instruction for his? Tess—”

His voice was low and even, and I heard the hurt in it. “No!” I exclaimed, pained and distressed. “Kavenlow, please.”

He pulled my hand up and gave it a squeeze. “Duncan,” he said softly, his soft gaze full of regret and understanding. “You want to leave the game to be with Duncan. I understand. I told you that you could. The choice was always yours.”

“Stop!” I cried, overwrought with guilt, the thick walls soaking up my outburst. It would be so easy to lie to him, and say that was it, but I couldn't. “I don't want to leave with Duncan. I want to be a player. I want to stay your apprentice. But I can't, Kavenlow. I can't!”

He waited while I took a shuddering breath, then another. “I lost my tolerance to venom,” I whispered, unable to say it louder lest it break my soul to hear it. “It's gone. One dart will kill me. I can't be a player with that kind of risk. Jeck knows. He'll use it against you when he can.” I looked up, not knowing what I would find.

Bewilderment shone from my teacher. “Did Captain Jeck—” he stammered. “Did he elevate your residual levels of toxin when he taught you to use your hands?” He turned to look behind us at the chapel door. “We will wait until the levels drop.”

“They aren't going to drop,” I whispered. “It wasn't Jeck. Please, Kavenlow. Listen. I'm trying to tell you.”

His breath was fast and impatient as he turned so we were almost facing each other in the narrow space between the pews. My heart seemed to beat in my ears, and I didn't understand why the wind in my head was silent and still when I was so upset, but I was glad it was.

“The pirates tried to kill me by trapping me in a pit with a punta,” I said. My face twisted at the awful memory of it: the fear, the thought that I was going to die, the melding of our thoughts, and the pain of his existence when I taught that great cat of death.

“Tess!” Kavenlow whispered, horrified.

I couldn't look at him, but I was fairly sure the warm drops of tears falling upon our hands were from me. “I tried to charm him,” I said, keeping my voice low so I could force the words past the lump in my throat. “I thought that if I charmed him and showed the pirates that he wouldn't hurt me, that they would let me out of the pit.” I glanced up at the new fear in his eyes. “I almost did,” I said. “But they frightened him, and he broke from me, then he bit me. He was so frightened. All he wanted was to be out.”

“You were bitten?” The wonder in his voice brought my gaze to his, and he ran his attention over me as if looking for it. “You survived a punta bite?” he asked. “My God, Tess. Where? How long ago? And you walked from Yellow Tail?”

I touched my shoulder, and his gaze sharpened in understanding for why my dress was being held together with cord and string as well as why it was rimmed with the brown stains of blood that the seawater couldn't remove. He reached out, hesitating until he saw the permission in my eyes, then unlaced the temporary fix with his trembling fingers.

“Jeck saved my life,” I said, staring at the red triangle in the stained-glass window. I was numb and empty, having told my worst fear to Kavenlow. There were no decisions now that were left for me to make. I had only today to live for.

“He was there?” Kavenlow said, his fingers gentle as he undid the knots. “He was there and didn't stop them?”

“He wasn't there,” I breathed, not caring when Kavenlow caught his breath in dismay when my shoulder came to light in the dusky gray of the sanctuary. I wondered what was different that Kavenlow could unfold my dress to bare my shoulder, and I couldn't let Jeck watch me do it on my own. “Jeck was on the
Sandpiper
trying to find us,” I whispered.

Kavenlow was silent. I tensed when his fingers traced lightly beside the scars, evaluating how much they had healed. “Tess,” he said softly, gathering the ends of my dress back together and settling back. “How could he have healed you if he was on the
Sandpiper
?”

“Through a dream.” Of its own accord, my hand rose to cover my bite to hide it again. “I was dying from the venom, but it threw me into a prophetic dream.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his brow worried and pinched.

I nodded, remembering being tied to the mast of Jeck's raft, the emotions of anger and frustration riding high in me. “One came true already.”

“There was more than one?”

“Yes,” I whispered, remembering. “One wasn't a dream, though. I was Jeck, on the
Sandpiper.
And I pointed the way to the island through him. It was real, because he dosed himself on venom to try to maintain the link we had, and we landed together in the same dream.”

“You shared the same vision?” Kavenlow went white behind his graying beard.

I ran my fingers over the grooves in the pew ahead of me, feeling the sharp smoothness of the lines. “It was the venom,” I explained, though he had probably figured it out for himself. “And it wasn't like the first dream. He was as aware as I was. After I told him I'd been bitten, he tried to heal it.” I felt myself blush, hoping it was too dark to see. “Of course we ruined any chance of seeing the future correctly,” I said, trying for a flippant air. “But it worked. When I woke up, I was alive.” My gaze went distant, remembering it.

Jeck had saved my life. For what? It was over except for what came now day by day. My hand dropped from my shoulder to lie still in my lap.

Kavenlow watched me with wide, worried eyes. “It looks well healed. How long ago was it?”

“I don't know anymore,” I said softly, not caring, then realizing he did, I thought for a moment. The moon was almost full now. It had been a waxing quarter when I had gazed at it from the bottom of the pit. “Five days ago?” I said, surprised. It seemed like forever.

“It looks two weeks old,” he said, and I nodded.

“If the last dream is anywhere accurate, I'll live long enough to have Jeck take me prisoner in the woods again,” I said, telling myself I didn't care. “Shouldn't be too much longer, by the age of the scar. It almost matches that in the dream.” My voice rose up high at the end, and I made fists of my hands. My right hand ached, but I clenched it as hard as I could, fighting the tears.

“Tess . . .” Kavenlow soothed, putting a fatherly arm across my shoulders and pulling me close. “Don't cry. Those dreams can't be believed.”

“I'm not upset about the fool dream!” I said around a hiccuping sob. “I can't be a player anymore.” I started to cry, hating myself for it.

“Listen to me,” he said firmly. “We don't even know what your tolerance is. It might not be so bad.”

“It was a punta bite!” I cried in frustration. “I should have died. I have so much venom in me that I almost killed Jeck in a flash of annoyance. I can't control it, Kavenlow!” I exclaimed, coming out with the worst of it. “It's fighting me. It's too much. And it's not going away. The venom fixed itself into my healing tissues. It spills out into me when I get angry.”

I sobbed as Kavenlow pulled me closer and held me as he used to when I fell from a horse. “Shhhh,” he soothed. “It's never as bad as you believe. Slow down. Take a step back. We'll go carefully until we know just what happened. Your tolerances will fall.”