Ransome's Quest (6 page)

Julia shook her head. “Jeremiah told you his suspicions.”

Jerusha nodded. “We’ve been together for nigh on forty years, since I was all of fifteen years old. We share everything.”

Julia’s mind drifted as the only housekeeper Tierra Dulce had known since Julia’s father purchased the plantation twenty years ago extolled her husband’s virtues.

Would she and William ever come to a point where they shared everything with each other? That would be hard to do with him at sea most of the time.

She once again prayed for his safety. Auditing the accounts would be tedious, but it would keep her mind occupied and her worries at bay. Of course, it would mean spending more time with Winchester—

“Jerusha, did you call the steward
Master
Winchester?”

Startled at the sudden interruption, it took the housekeeper a moment to answer. “Yes. Master Winchester insisted that because he’s a white man and rightfully in sovereignty over us, we’re to call him
Master
Winchester.”

“That ends now.” Julia clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. The supposition of the man! She could think of a few choice things to call Winchester, but saying them aloud would only scandalize Jerusha and debase herself. Where was Dawling when she needed a good epithet spoken aloud? The sailor who served as William’s manservant aboard
Alexandra
had only mastered the art of censoring himself a few weeks before they made port in Kingston Harbor.

A smile—an expression that recalled countless pleasant childhood memories for Julia—played about Jerusha’s full, rosy lips. “I will pass the word to the rest of the staff. Now, off to your room with you. I shall fetch you in an hour or so.”

Julia ducked her chin and raised her brows. “Make it an hour. Your
or so
could be much longer than I should be resting.”

“You always were a stubborn child.” Jerusha left the room, muttering under her breath, the smile still dancing about her mouth.

Finding a smile of her own, Julia rose and started for the door—but something on the nightstand on the opposite side of Mama’s bed caught her eye. She rounded the bed and picked up the top volume of a stack of the well-worn leather journals. It easily opened in her hands. The yellowing pages were filled with Mama’s compact handwriting.

Julia had seen her mother write in books like this every day of her life. Her gaze fell onto the page on the right side.

My darling Edward,

It is thirty-six days since “Indomitable” left Kingston. Michael fell from his pony this morning and hit his head. Blood everywhere. I became faint at the sight, fearful his injury was grave. But Julia, my strong, brave girl, doctored her brother as if she had been plying the trade for years instead of being a child of thirteen…

Julia remembered that day. When Malachi, Jeremiah and Jerusha’s oldest son, had shouted for help, Julia dropped the petticoat she’d been embroidering and ran to see what had happened. All she’d done to “doctor” her brother was to press her handkerchief against the cut over his ear to quell the bleeding. Jerusha was the one who had stitched the wound closed and made an herb poultice to help it heal faster.

She flipped a few pages further back in the journal. The whole book was filled with letters to her father, letters recounting the everyday events of life at Tierra Dulce—most of it about Michael and Julia.

She opened the second and then the third. All the same—filled with daily letters to her father from her mother. Had he ever read these? Did he know of their existence—evidence of how her mother pined for him?

The cover of the fourth journal was newer, stiffer, the paper inside still a pale ivory. Only a quarter of the pages were filled. The loose scrawl, the uneven lines indicated Mama’s weakness as she wrote.

Julia turned to the last page.

My darling Edward,

I fear my time has come. Julia tells me there has been word your ship is delayed a week or more. I wanted to see you one last time, but I have not the strength to linger.

Comfort Julia as best you can. She deserved a better mother than I, someone who matched her in strength and wit. Encourage her to marry, to find love, as I did. For though I have spent these many years longing for your presence, I lived a life of splendid fulfillment because I loved you.

I go now to be with Michael. We shall await you in heaven.

All my love,

Eleanor

Julia dashed at the tears creeping down her cheeks. All these years she had believed herself a disappointment to her mother—while Mama believed just the opposite. Oh, to have five minutes more, to say things left unsaid.

Guilt creeping in from reading private thoughts meant only for Papa’s eyes, Julia stacked the journals together and laid them in the chest at the foot of the bed. She wanted to know her mother better, but if Mama had wanted her to read them, she would have let her know that.

Reluctantly, she left Mama’s room and returned to her own. She crossed to her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a similar, but newer, journal—the one she’d purchased in Portsmouth to write in on the Atlantic crossing. Yet it had stayed in the drawer the entire journey, untouched.

She sat, uncorked her ink bottle, and picked up a quill. She spread the book open to the first page.

My darling William,

To carry on a tradition started by my mother, I am writing these letters not only to recount the daily events at Tierra Dulce but also as an expression of my deep love for you. As a way of holding you near to my heart while duty keeps you far away…

M
an—no,
woman
overboard!”

At the lookout’s cry, Salvador dropped the compass and bolted for the quarterdeck, taking the steps in one stride. “Where away?”

“Directly astern, sir. There.” The young man pointed to the churning waters behind the ship. “She jumped through the window in your cabin.”

Fighting the urge to release a string of oaths—cursing being heavily fined on
Vengeance
—Salvador ripped off his coat and waistcoat, flinging the garments at his steward. “Lau, man a boat and stand by to launch if necessary.”

“Aye, Captain.” The boatswain practically flew down to the main deck, calling men’s names and giving orders.

Salvador dropped his belt and hat to the deck, took the end of a rope handed him by Picaro, and tied it around his waist.

“Trim sail.” He climbed atop the balustrade, took a deep breath, and dived into the sea.

He kicked and fought the wake, trying to propel himself away from the ship and toward the surface. Finally, the pull lessened, and he managed to get his head above the water. Orienting himself to the back of the ship, he turned to swim in the direction he’d last seen the billowing fabric of Charlotte Ransome’s dress.

“Two points to larboard, Captain.” Picaro’s voice skittered over the water.

Salvador adjusted his bearing right—hoping his second mate meant the larboard side of the ship, not to Salvador’s left. When no correction came, Salvador poured all his strength into his stroke. As he crested each wave, he paused, looking for the girl.

There, only a few dozen yards ahead. He gulped air—and a bit of water—and plunged forward, arms and lungs burning from the added drag of the rope and his boots.

The thrashing quality of Miss Ransome’s swimming told Salvador he’d reached her with little time to spare.

“No, no, no!” Charlotte increased her effort, but Salvador slipped his arm around her waist. She tried to push him away, but he squeezed until she squealed, “Enough!”

Obviously, the words
I surrender
were not in her vocabulary. The faint cheers of his men prepared him for the increased pressure of the rope around his waist. He pulled Charlotte’s back tightly to his chest and grabbed the rope with this other hand, guiding it close to hers.

“Hold on to the rope. My men will pull us to safety.”

Her small hands joined his on the line.

“Would you care to explain yourself?”

“I told you. My duty as a captive is to find a means of escape.”

Salvador wasn’t certain if his nausea was from the pressure of the rope around his gut or what he’d just heard. “There is no land within swimming distance, no ships in view. You would have drowned before you found rescue. Am I to infer you find death preferable to the hospitality I have shown you?”

“Hospitality? You abducted me! Attacked my fia—” A wave from the ship’s wake interrupted her derisive statement when it slapped over them. She coughed and sputtered.

“Attacked your…were you going to say
fiancé,
Miss Ransome?”

“Yes. Not that it is any of your concern. He had only just proposed when you and your nefarious crew of villains came upon us.”

“Then may I be the first to wish you joy?”

“You may not.”

He sighed. “Must you rebuff all my overtures of civility?”

“Yes”.

“Very well.” He dropped all effort at conversation.

Picaro directed the men to pull Salvador and Miss Ransome around to the larboard accommodation ladder. Before allowing his captive to climb the side of the ship, though, Salvador called for his steward.

Suresh’s dark face appeared over the bulwark—along with most of the crew, who lined the side of the ship. “Yes, Captain?”

“Retrieve my dressing gown from my cabin.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Charlotte struggled against him.

“Be still.”

“I want to get out of the water.”

“You should have thought of that before you jumped into it.”

“Is this some kind of punishment, keeping me down here?”

“No—but the decision does have merit.” He untied the rope from his waist and looped it around hers before securing it with a knot she would never be able to untie. “We are waiting until Suresh returns—ah, there he is. You will come up behind me.”

Charlotte gawked at the man. He was making her wait down here, being knocked against the side of the ship by the waves until his manservant returned with his dressing gown? Of all the—she hadn’t expected him to be so dandified that he could not walk the few yards from the waist entry port to his cabin in wet clothes.

As soon as he turned his attention from her to the shallow notches in the side of the ship, Charlotte turned hers to the rope. He thought a simple knot like this would confound her?

“Do not dawdle, Miss Ransome.”

Under the water, the knot came loose and the rope fell away. “Coming, Captain Salvador.”

She fit her toes and fingers into the notches—but her skirt and petticoat, molded to her body, wrapped around her legs. She couldn’t climb the side of the ship one-handed while holding up her dress.

She dropped back into the water.

“Is there a problem? Did you not understand my command?” Salvador leaned over the railing beside the open entry port.

“My skirt impedes me from climbing.”

Salvador sighed loud enough for her to hear. “Pull her up with the rope.”

The burly sailor beside Salvador braced himself. He pulled the rope—and staggered back when the line gave way easily.

Before it whipped away from her, Charlotte grabbed the end of the rope and twined it around her arm. Finding the ladder slots with her toes, she bundled her skirts in her free hand and, with the burly sailor’s assistance, climbed up to the deck.

Her head had hardly cleared the edge of the deck when someone grabbed her, yanked her up, and tried to smother her.

Remembering the suffocating feeling of the burlap sack thrown over her head the night before, Charlotte panicked. She swung her fists and elbows, a few grunts telling her she’d connected.

She cried out when someone wrapped his arms around her from behind, trapping her in the cloth.

“Be still.” Salvador’s hot breath on her ear made her shiver. “Believe it or not, I am trying to protect you, not hurt you. In case you have not noticed—for certainly my men will if given a chance—the water has made your dress almost transparent.”

She stilled and then clutched the dry fabric close around her. Salvador’s dressing gown. The one he’d sent his steward for before they came out of the water.