Linda Needham (19 page)

“Later, if you must. The boat’s getting loose!” The woman was already on her feet, tugging at the rope where he was lying on it.

“You’re going back up where it’s safe!” He stood and pointed to the promontory, saw more lanterns bobbing along the edge and that there were two other men roping their way down the cliff.

“Come, Jared!” His foolish wife was tearing at the rope around her waist, straining to get away from him.

“I’m not going to let you…”

“Father Sebastian!” She was staring at the boat, her eyes fixed on something.

“Are you mad?” Even as Jared shouted over the wind a wave dumped a stumbling curtain of water between them, knocking her off balance.

“He’s right there, Jared!” She righted herself and pulled at the rope and his hand. “Don’t you see!”

A thin, dark-clad figure was struggling to rise from the bow of the bedraggled little launch, a large bundle tucked under his arm.

“He’s got one of the children!” Kate fought forward against the wind and the rope and Jared could do nothing but follow her, hoping to reach the man before his wife could leap into the foam.

“Katie, my darlin’!” the water-logged old man bellowed. “I knew you’d come.”

“And you’re a miracle worker, Father.”

“Where the devil do you think you’re going, Kate?” Jared tried to keep the boat in place as she clung to the starboard gunwale, leaning forward to look into the dark hull.

The damn thing was a disaster waiting to happen, on the brink of breaking up, the priest looking so exhausted that he couldn’t stand, let alone help himself.

“How many, Father?”

“Two. And a babe.” The priest had a child in his arms, maybe a boy, Lucas’s size.

“Where are they?” Jared asked, not seeing anything else in the boat.

“She’s under the seat, holding on like I told her to do. And the babe’s basket is tied to the bench.”

“You’re coming out of there first, Father,” Jared said, hoisting himself up onto the gunwale and taking hold of the man’s bone-thin elbow. “Let’s get him to the cliffside.”

“Give me the child, Father,” Kate said, taking the bundle and wrapping him in her arms as though they were the warmest of cloaks.

“He’s Michael,” the priest said, as though baptizing the boy on a quiet Sunday morning.

The bow pitched and rolled and Jared finally reached in and lifted the chatty old man from the boat.

“Take them both, Jared. I need the rope and they need your strength and your weight to make it across the flats to the other rescuers.”

Damn woman was right. “You stay here, Kate. Don’t move a muscle.”

Kate knew she couldn’t keep her promise, but agreed
anyway, anything to get Jared going. Anything to bring him back in time.

He’d been a kind of miracle himself.

Her handsome Neptune, guiding her safely out of the sea, there on the shore to catch her when she fell.

She held dutifully onto the bow and let him get far enough away that he couldn’t see her well through the dark and the spray, then stepped up on a rock and hoisted herself over the gunwale into the boat.

“Hello, there? Come out. You’ll be on dry land in just a moment.”

“I’m too c-c-cold.”

She barely heard the little voice, but it was a bright beacon to her in the shadows. A little moonlit face peered out from under the middle bench and she grabbed her up, wondering how she had survived the trip with so little meat on her bones.

“Damn it, woman, I told you not to move.” Jared was half a leg over the gunwale.

“Here, Jared.” Kate clawed her way up the thick, shuddering ribs of the inner hull to the bow with the little girl tucked under her arm. “Take her.”

“Come out of there.”

“Please, Jared.” She raised up the child and he finally took her, his eyes hot in anger. “There’s one more. The baby. I saw the basket tied beside the oarlock. Quick, before we lose the boat to the next wave.”

“Stay put, Kate. Please.” He disappeared into the spray with the girl in his arms.

And then Kate heard the terrifying scrape of the hull against the rocks.

A grating, sliding backward sound. As though the
ocean was suddenly draining out of the bay, sucking them downward.

“Hold on, little baby.” She balanced herself and slid toward the bench, trying not to drive the boat backward any faster. She had to loosen the basket.

Or the baby.

He was a bundle of soaking wet blankets, a band of sheeting keeping the blankets inside the basket. She wrenched at the basket, but it clung to the bench. She finally yanked off the band and lifted the bundle from the basket.

“Come now, little love.” She clutched the baby against her chest, riding out the force of a dousing wave against her back, wishing the child would move or cry, fearing the wet chill that seeped from the blankets.

“You’ll be warm and dry soon. I promise.” But just in case, she jerked the rope that was around her waist up far enough to secure the bundled child to her chest.

Before she could start for the bow, the sea disappeared suddenly. The boat lost its purchase on the rocks and slid backward for what seemed like hours.

The rope around her chest went slack and then just as suddenly taut as the stern finally smacked against the ledge below, throwing her to the floor with the baby.

“Kaaaaaate!” Jared’s dark face appeared fifteen feet above her, the other end of the rope in his hands, wrapped around his waist. “For God’s sake, hold on.”

She heard the ocean surge from behind her, felt the boat begin to rise again. But this time the bow dipped and scraped along the rocks as it rose.

The wave shifted and the water swirled, wedging the
prow into a gap between two rocks. The surf gave another surge, sending the stern up and over Kate’s head, and Kate into the churning water.

She closed her body around the baby, grabbed her knees and held her breath as the sea scraped her over the rocks.

Bring us up, Jared. Please, my love!

The last thing she remembered before the blackness blinded her with a slamming pain in the side of her head was the rope growing taut and a deep, bellowing voice.

“Kaaaaaate!”

K
ate had wild, terrifying dreams of swimming against the thundering wind, of bundles bobbing just out of reach.

And Jared calling to her.

Of his arms and his mouth.

Of being held back, restrained by harsh bands of rope, when there were children floating down the chalk streams.

Or were they fish? Bright-sided schools of rainbow trout, sunning themselves.

So very cold and then hot as a fire.

Pinpoints of light and deep darkness.

“Kate.” The sound warmed her ears and her arms and lifted her.

And came again sometime later. Warmer now.

“Wake up, Kate.”

That’s the trouble,
she wanted to tell him.
Jared, my husband, my eyelids don’t work.

“Sleep, Father. I’ll watch her.”

Somebody’s father? Hers? Papa? Oh, she’d love to see him again. And talk to him about her wayward husband, what to do with him. Because she loved the stubborn man, for all his faults. Now, if she could only open her eyes before her father could float away from her, too.

If she could just move her arms.

She worked on this problem of making her limbs move again until she heard a steady, mechanical noise coming and going from somewhere nearby.

It came softly in the warmth and then went away again. Coming and going. Soothing, familiar.

Like snoring.

It
was
snoring.

Jared!

Kate opened her eyes to a blinding pain in her head and a whirling dizziness. And a bank of soft pillows.

She was in bed? Where? Then she remembered and her heart stopped cold.

There’d been a storm. And children in a boat. Dear God, where were they? And Jared?

She sat up slightly, peered into the near darkness and then understood. This was her own little bedchamber at Hawkesly Hall.

And there was Jared! Safely sprawled out asleep in a rocking chair right beside the bed, his legs propped on an ottoman, the entire, long length of his frame covered in a counterpane that bulged oddly above where his arms crossed below his belly.

But thank God, he was safe. Sleeping. She wanted to kiss him, to throw her arms around him and make sure he was real and alive, to get a better look at him.

She carefully raised the counterpane, surprised at how badly she ached and in so many places that even the shifting of her nightgown hurt. Undaunted, she slipped her legs over the side of the bed.

The movement cleared her head of its fog, sharpened the details of her memory, the terrifying storm and the helpless baby.

Dear lord, where was the poor cold thing? And the other children?

And Father Sebastian?

“You’re a damn fool, Kate.” Jared’s deep voice crossed the short distance between them, and circled her heart with relief. He was looking at her from the chair, not moving at all, his eyes open and narrowed at her.

And whatever had landed the blow to the side of her head must have addled her brains, because under the bulging counterpane he looked as though he were…with child.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, Jared.” He made a low, disapproving sound in his throat. “What happened at the cliffs? Where is everyone?”

“Convenient that you can’t remember.”

Her stomach wrenched, remembering the child she’d tied to her chest. “Where’s the baby?”

“You could have been killed, Kate.”

“Tell me, please.” His evasion terrified her; he was hiding something from her, some terrible truth. She scooted closer, her heart pounding and her head swirling. “What
happened to the boat? To Father Sebastian? The baby! What are you hiding under there?”

She pointed to the counterpane and he moved his hand slowly up to the center of the lump, spreading his fingers wide. “The luckiest damned baby that ever was born of woman.”

“The baby? Oh, Jared!” Kate slid her stiff fingers over his warm hand and felt the roundness. “You have the baby here? Dear God, then he’s all right?”

“
She
is.” He glared at her as though the storm had been her doing, and she happily glared right back.

“Can I see her?” Kate reached to pluck aside the corner of the blanket, but he caught her hand gently.

“Not till she’s warmer.” He put his lips to the back of her hand, placed a tender kiss there. “Doctor’s orders. The little thing is still sapping the heat out of me by the bucketful.”

Then she wasn’t out of the woods yet. “Was she hurt badly? What about the other children?”

“Not a scratch anywhere. Thanks to you. Except that…Christ, Kate, there’s nothing to them.” He sighed and leaned his head back against the chair, his movements slow and careful. “Twigs for bones, not an ounce of fat.”

Tears stung the corners of her eyes, clogging her throat, putting a quaver into her voice, a powerful, too familiar blend of sorrow and outrage.

“That’s how they always come to me, Jared.” He said nothing in reply. She stood up on the bed step, wobbling on her legs and surprised that the room could dip like the sea.

He held tightly to her wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To see the other children.”

“They’re in good hands. It’s three o’clock in the morning. Get yourself back into that bed immediately or I’ll tie you to the headboard. I swear, I will.”

He would probably try and was probably right; swooning on the stairs wouldn’t help anyone. She sat back down on the edge of the bed, suddenly wanting to hold the little girl.

“Has she eaten?”

“Four ounces of Rosemary’s milky gruel. Went right off to sleep afterward.”

Jared Hawkesly looked nothing like the scoundrel she had married. Nothing like a man who could give away orphans willy-nilly.

Especially with his oddly bulging belly.

No wonder he’d been such an easy man to love. He had so much to give, if he’d only try.

She wanted to run her fingers through his inky dark, newly washed hair, to tuck the stray strand behind his ear. But he seemed so protective of his special cocoon, as though he believed he were the only one capable of saving the child. The warmest chest. The strongest arms.

He was probably right.

“You’ve made a lifelong friend there, Jared.” He only grunted and rocked the chair a little. “And you’ve made a friend here, too. You were pretty darn remarkable, husband. You saved us.”

“Saved your fool neck.” He turned his head and
gave her that look again: glaring and distinctly arrogant, but clearly pleased. “I owe you a paddling.”

Kate tried not to smile at the notion of that. “And I suppose I owe you a thank you.”

His glower deepened its fire. “A long, heartfelt, on-your-knees apology.”

Never. Some things just had to be done any way they could. “What about you? Were you hurt?”

“Thrashed.” Now she could see the red abrasions across his cheek, glistening with Mrs. Rooney’s ointment. He must have more injuries elsewhere. “Just like you.”

“Like me?” Of course. She could feel Tansy’s bandages on her elbows and knees without even searching them out, and the sore stiffness on her temple. “How do you know where I’ve been injured?”

“Believe me, wife. I know everything about you.”

“How do you mean?”

He turned his eyes to the ceiling, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “There’s not an inch of you that I didn’t take careful stock of tonight.”

“You saw me without my clothes?”

“Completely naked, my dear. More beautiful than I had imagined. Though sadly we were not in the moonlight. And you were in no condition to dance.”

Her own private rogue of a husband. “If you’re trying to shock me—”

“I’m beginning to think that I’m the only one in this family capable of being shocked.”

“Well, good. Because I’m not.” She was, in fact, thrilled. Her pulse taking a sudden leap, before crashing into the bump on her head. A small price to pay.

Unable to resist him any longer, she sifted her fingers through the dark hair on his forehead. “Are you comfortable there, Jared?”

“We’re fine.”

We.
How she loved the sound of that. He’d better watch out—for a hard-edged old crank, he was becoming extraordinarily attached to his little charge.

“Because there’s plenty of room for you and, oh,…did Father Sebastian tell you her name?”

His breathing had deepened—the snoring man of her stormy dreams. “The good father didn’t know.”

“Then we’ll have to name her.”

She was going to ask if he wanted to have the bed, but he was snoring again, lightly, giving off his generous heat to the little one snuggled beneath the counterpane.

Enchanted by the heartening change in her husband’s disposition, Kate pushed reluctantly back into the pillows, but couldn’t stop looking at him.

“I love you, Jared.”

She hoped her whisper made it all the way into his heart where it might do a little good.

She slept like a rock, and woke to the sun rimming the heavy curtains covering the tall windows. Jared was still asleep in the chair, the baby higher on his chest, a shock of blond curls tucked under his chin. And a hank of her own hair captured in the crook of his index finger.

He must have been awake at some time during the night; there was a new bottle resting on the side table—doubtless Rosemary’s careful tending.

Feeling much healed and restless and satisfied that Jared and the baby were doing well, Kate carefully dis
entangled his finger from her hair, slipped out from between the covers and padded silently down the hall to the girls’ deserted dormitory, with a change of clothes.

Anxious to see how Father Sebastian and the two new arrivals were faring, she dressed quickly in a proper skirt and shirtwaist, tamed her hair into a relatively organized plaited knot near the top of her head, and hurried off to the sickroom.

“Katie, girl, you shouldn’t be up!” Father Sebastian frowned at her as she poked her head through the sickroom doorway.

“And you’re a wicked sight yourself, Father.” Kate threw her arms around his neck. “But you’re alive and I’m so grateful.”

“Takes more than a frothy bit of ocean to drown an old boot like me. It was the children I feared for this time. And you, my dear. Taking chances like that. Look at you! A bruise on your temple, your hands scraped to pieces. Your husband was beside himself.”

“And I keep telling you, Father, that crossing the Irish Sea in the
Fairheart
is a damn fool thing to do, even in good weather.” She glared at him as she straightened the sagging shoulders of what must be a borrowed coat. “You’ll take the mail packet home.”

“You’re a hard woman.” He grinned and scratched the thatch of gray hair that fringed his temples. “So, how’s the little babe?”

“Still asleep on Jared’s stomach.”

“A good place for them both. I found her just in time, lass.”

“Jared says she doesn’t have a name?”

“Put into my arms by a young stranger as we loaded the boat. The lad said she was all alone in the world.”

“Well, she’s not anymore, Father.”

He nodded toward the door to the hallway. “He’s a good man, your Jared.”

“The best, I think.” But will the obstinate man know it himself before time runs out for them? “Are the other children doing well?”

He smiled and tugged on the end of his too-long sleeve. “Michael and Rachel are doing well enough to be in the kitchen with that mother bear, Rosemary and her sisters.”

“Thank God.” Kate sagged into a chair, her bones aching. “Did the
Katie Claire
arrive in Dublin on time?”

“Did indeed, my thanks to you. Mrs. Archer put her soup kitchen crew right to work and had fed nearly a thousand by the next day.”

“Good, then the
Katie Claire
must be on her way back to Portsmouth for another round of grain running.” And to think that Jared was a spy. Good thing he would never be interested in anything as piddly as a little grain pilfered from Lord Grey and his fellow devils.

Because the man would never see the justice in her choice of pilferees.

“You rest yourself, Father. I’m going down to meet the new ones.” She took off down the back stairs but stopped herself from bursting through the kitchen door and frightening them. Instead, she straightened her clothes and entered quietly.

“Lady Kate!” Glenna was at the worktable, set for
the two children, obviously supervising. “Good morning.”

Dear God, Kate would have known who the new ones were by their dreadfully hollow cheeks, the darkness under their dull eyes. Little faces, little arms, slumping shoulders. Even the spoons they held so tightly seemed too heavy to lift.

They had been scrubbed, and warmed by the Miss Darbys, their hair checked for lice, and now were dressed in clean clothes and bundled in blankets so that they looked like woollen bumps in the big chairs.

She swallowed back the lump of sadness and smiled at them. “Welcome to Hawkesly Hall. You’re Michael, aren’t you?”

Kate stooped beside the boy and received a worried nod before a smile crept into the corners of his eyes.

“I am so glad to meet you.” She turned to the girl on her right, dull, shaggy blond hair, pale cheeked. “And you’re Rachel,” holding the girl’s hand, to comfort and to judge her strength.

Her little grin seemed to sap her energy.

The three Miss Darbys weren’t far from the table, armed with oatmeal and applesauce and a pot of warm milk at the ready. They had become as knowledgeable about feeding the starving as Kate had.

Too much food and the wrong kind would bring agony, too little was just plain cruel.

“Aren’t they looking just fine, my lady?” Myrtle said, leaning between the two children to add an inch more each to their empty milk cups.

Kate laughed, then gently patted the boy on the shoulder and then his arm, feeling for the thickness of
his bones. “I’d say so, Myrtle. Especially considering that wild boat ride last night. You were all so brave.”

“You were too, Lady Kate!” Glenna was beaming at her, her hair covered with her new embroidered cap. “And his lordship! Father Sebastian told us.”

“Well, we had a high old time out there, didn’t we, Rachel? But next time let’s wait till summer comes. We can all go out to the beach together, in the sunshine, pull off our shoes, and put our toes into the sea. No more riding the waves against the rocks, eh, Michael?”