Love Inspired Historical November 2014 (29 page)

Father, if it's Your will that I die tonight, I'm ready.

A moment later, he heard the door click open.

“Shut it, Conant,” he ordered. “Or we'll drown.”

“No one will drown today, Mr. Howard,” Allegra said.

Clay's eyes snapped open. In the dim light of the brass lantern teetering atop the cabinet between the berths, she stood in her wool cloak with her friend Ms. Stanway beside her. Neither had donned a hat, and their unbound hair streamed down around their faces, bright blond and midnight black, the strands glistening with the rain.

He tried to sit up, despite the protest of his stomach that persisted in heaving along with the waves. He hadn't done more than yank off his boots before falling into bed and pulling up the covers, but he didn't want Allegra to see him like this.

She darted forward. “None of that, sir. Lie down, if you please, and let Ms. Stanway have a look at you.”

“I'm a nurse,” her friend reminded him, venturing closer. As Clay lay back, she felt his forehead, the touch cool and moist. “Give me your hand, Mr. Howard.”

Clay pulled his fingers out from under the blanket and was ashamed to see them shaking. Ms. Stanway didn't so much as raise a brow as she pressed her own fingers against his wrist, holding it steady. Around her, he could see Allegra watching, her white teeth worrying her lower lip as if she was concerned.

It had been a long time since anyone was concerned about him. Warmth bathed his frozen limbs.

Ms. Stanway released him and straightened. “No sign of a fever, though his heart seems to be beating a bit fast,” she reported to Allegra before turning to Clay. “Are you in distress, Mr. Howard?”

“I'm fine,” Clay assured them, then had to clamp his mouth shut a moment as his stomach threatened to climb out of it. “There are others worse off. Go tend to them.”

The ship rolled, and Allegra and her friend grabbed the wooden posts of the berths to keep from toppling over. Clay felt the bile rising with the waves.

“Out!” he ordered.

“Basin,” Ms. Stanway countered, hanging on to the bed with one hand and pointing with the other.

Allegra allowed herself to fall across the cabin onto the bench, then braced herself against it to wrestle open the bottom compartment on the cabinet. Inside lay a porcelain-lined cast-iron pot.

Again the ship rolled, and she tumbled against the cabinet. Her face twisted with the impact.

“Just go!” Clay begged.

She ignored him, tugging up the pot and pushing it across the floor to his side.

Clay tightened his lips, hands pressing against his gut. He was supposed to be the strong one. He knew how to best the odds. He'd crossed the continent, twice. He'd survived the illness, hardship and treachery of the goldfields. He'd helped build dozens of businesses in Seattle. He was here to support Allegra, not the other way around. Even his bunk mate, the reporter Roger Conant, was out helping the moaning women.

“You'll feel better if you let it go,” Ms. Stanway advised.

He knew he'd feel much worse.

“It's all right, Clay,” Allegra murmured, shifting across from the bench to kneel beside him, one hand braced against the wall to hold herself steady. “I've tended Gillian when she was sick, and after Frank went to war, I helped at the hospital. I don't mind.”

She should. Tending the sick might be a noble calling, but she hadn't been born to it. She should be arranging dinner parties, skating arm in arm with a handsome suitor on the pond at Boston Common, dancing the night away, not kneeling at his side. Yet he knew another minute and he'd have no choice but to accept her help.

“Please go,” he told her and nearly winced at the pleading tone in his voice.

Her gaze was as unyielding as the sea pounding the ship. “I am going nowhere, sir, until I know you're all right.”

He wanted to tell her to forget about him, that he'd done just fine alone up until this point, that he didn't need anyone and preferred it that way.

But his stomach had other ideas.

“There, now,” she said after he'd finished coughing over the pot. Her hand rubbed strength into his back. “You'll feel better shortly.” As if the sea agreed with her, it calmed a moment, and Ms. Stanway took the fetid basin to toss its contents into the waves.

Clay lay back and closed his eyes. Gentle fingers smoothed the hair from his brow.

“Take deep breaths,” Allegra murmured. “Everything will be all right now.”

Her voice was so soft, so tender, he felt as if she'd wrapped him in fine wool. He wanted to snuggle into it and never come out. “Forgive me,” he managed to say.

She gasped, and he opened his eyes again. She was staring at him as if he'd asked her to swim to the bottom of the ocean. “For—for what, sir?” she stammered.

He realized too late that she would remember he needed forgiveness for more than his sorry display a moment ago, but also for leaving Boston, and for abandoning his family and her. He was only glad when Ms. Stanway blew in the door again and shut it firmly behind her with a shudder.

“Have you the ginger, Allegra?” she asked, returning the pot to its place beside Clay as if she expected a repeat performance.

Her question obviously reminded Allegra of why she'd come. “What the cook would part with,” she admitted, pulling a pale, plump root from the pocket of her cloak. She broke off a piece and handed it to him.

The spicy scent struck his nostrils, and Clay pressed his head deeper into the pillow to escape it.

“It's all right,” she assured him as if he were a child afraid of a spider on the wall. “It's just ginger. Father always made us chew some before sailing out to the islands. He said it settles the stomach.”

He'd tried buffalo and rattlesnake as he'd crossed the country, so ginger couldn't be so bad. Clay accepted the chunk, his strong fingers brushing hers before he ate the ginger. As if she'd been the one to take a bite, she swallowed as she leaned back. The taste reminded him of the cookies the Howards' chef used to bake in the fall.

“Now, lie back,” Allegra advised, and he was obeying before he thought better of it. She pulled the blanket up, smoothed it over his chest. Either her hands were trembling, or the ship was rocking again. Her eyes were certainly as deep and stormy as the sea. He could easily drown in her gaze.

“Take slow, even breaths,” Ms. Stanway instructed. “In and out, and count to four between each.” She put her hand on Allegra's shoulder. “We should go. There are others who need help.”

Allegra nodded. She rose, then suddenly bent and put her hand to his cheek, her face soft, but voice firm. “Don't be concerned, Clay. Everything will be all right. God won't let the ship go down.”

She was up and out the door before he could ask her how she could be so sure.

Chapter Six

I
t was another day and night before the
Continental
reached gentle seas again. Leaving Gillian in Maddie's care, Allie worked with Catherine and others who hadn't been affected to ease the discomfort of those who had. Some took quite a while to gain their sea legs, as Mr. Debro called their condition.

If Clay suffered again, he refused to show it, for he was up and about by the next morning. In fact, he recovered so quickly that Allie could almost think she had dreamed the night in his stateroom.

Still, she could not forget the way he'd clung to his pride, or the way he'd looked afterward. She'd never thought to see Clay Howard vulnerable, yet those green eyes had pleaded for understanding, for acceptance of him at his worst. She'd felt the brush of his fingers, and it had shaken her.

Why? She was a widow. She had gained her independence. She didn't need a man in her life. Why had she wanted to throw herself into his arms? Just because Clay Howard had softened for a moment didn't mean she had to follow suit.

She was almost thankful that there was nothing soft about the man who emerged from his bunk. He answered the breakfast gong with few others, but Allie noticed he didn't take more than tea and then only with a grimace.

“You don't look well, Mr. Howard,” the widow Hennessy remarked, patting his hand. “Why don't you return to your berth?”

As a passenger in the finer part of the ship, he had every right to pass his time sitting safely in the upper salon, Allie knew. But Clay shook his head. “I'm fine, ma'am. Thank you for your concern.” His gaze met Allie's down the table. “And thank those who came to the rescue last night.”

Her face felt hot, and she dropped her gaze to the biscuit she was breaking apart to share with Gillian.

She was glad Catherine requested her help after breakfast, for surely such work would keep her mind off Clay. But everywhere she went, she ran into him. He brought water from the galley for Dr. Barnard and his wife, both of whom had been felled even though the dentist kept trying to rise. When Allie peered in on the widow Chase and her two children, all of whom were ill, she found Clay sweeping out their stateroom for them.

It wasn't only the passengers he helped. Allie and Catherine were clinging to the walls of the first-class accommodations in a rising wind when she spotted Clay right there among the crew, wrestling with a pair of longboats. The vessels had apparently broken loose in the roaring waves, and the crew was trying to save them before they were pulled out to sea.

That night at dinner, the other women named him their hero.

“There's not a family aboard ship that doesn't owe you thanks,” Maddie proclaimed, raising her cup of tea in salute.

“I think they're more thankful for Ms. Stanway and Mrs. Howard,” Clay countered with a smile to Allie. “Fetching and carrying is easy work compared to nursing.”

She could not argue with him there. She had the utmost respect for Catherine's brisk, no-nonsense manner, her calm approach to the groaning passengers. Allie found it hard enough to leave Gillian in Maddie's care while she helped her friend where she could. How could she not respect how readily Clay turned his hand to help those in need?

Of course, some of the other men also offered help. Mr. Debro, the purser, was willing to answer any question she put to him, whether on the workings of the ship or the stages of their journey. Young Matt Kelley, an orphan from Boston who was traveling on a scholarship, watched Gillian when Allie and Maddie were both needed.

Allie had just finished checking on the condition of one of the older widows and was coming out of her first-class stateroom when she nearly collided with another gentleman. He immediately caught her arm to keep her from falling, his walking stick clattering to the deck.

“Forgive me, madam,” he said, releasing her to bow. “I should not have interrupted your errand of mercy.”

“And I should watch where I'm going,” Allie insisted. Indeed, some of the passageways on the ship were so narrow the ladies who preferred steel crinolines had been forced to abandon them to storage in the hold and hemmed up their skirts to fit over petticoats instead.

He tipped his top hat to her. “Josiah Reynolds of San Francisco, at your service.”

“Mrs. Howard,” she returned. She purposely did not state her hometown, but he immediately brightened.

“Of the Boston Howards, I presume. Charming family.”

Allie's smile felt colder than the wind. “So I have heard. If you'll forgive me, Mr. Reynolds, I should go. I have other passengers I must see.”

“Of course.” He bent and retrieved his walking stick. “Good day, Mrs. Howard.”

It seemed for a time that good days would be difficult to find. But at last the waves quieted, the skies cleared. The passengers ventured out onto the deck again, and the officers relaxed enough to smile and chat before going about their duties. Allie hung out her cloak to dry after her many soakings and tried to turn her mind to her daughter and their future once more.

But even there Clay intruded, for it seemed Gillian could not get her fill of him.

Allie knew she should not have been surprised. There didn't seem to be an unmarried female aboard who was immune to his charm. The widow Hennessy, who had to be approaching her seventieth year, would pat the chair beside her at meals and insist on his company, and he would always join her with a pleasant smile and a friendly word.

Maddie had offered to do his laundry, and without charge, though she was putting aside pennies from the other passengers for similar services.

“But would he take my offer, oh no, not him,” Maddie told Allie as her friend swept their stateroom, Gillian standing at the ready with the little wooden dustpan. “He says he'll settle up with me when we reach Seattle.” She leaned against the broom as she glanced at Allie. “The darling boy has the money, doesn't he? He wasn't having me on?”

Allie paused in making the bottom berth. “He had money enough to pay for Gillian's and my passage as well as his own.”

Maddie smiled. “Well, if he had money once, sure'n he'll have it again. That's good enough for me.”

It ought to have been good enough for Allie, too, but she couldn't help wondering. What did Clay do for a living now that he no longer had the Howard income to fall back on? And where exactly did he live? Questions about him continued to pile up, but she couldn't get answers if she persisted in speaking to him only when spoken to. Besides, she found plenty to keep her busy aboard ship. Clothes always needed mending, it seemed. Maddie asked her assistance with the laundry. She'd noticed several of the passengers reading, so she'd offered to set up a schedule for trading books, a suggestion that had met with approval on all sides. Truly, did she have to involve herself with Clay?

Gillian made the decision for her. No matter where Allie set out to go on the ship, her daughter tugged her in Clay's direction as unerringly as a compass pointing north.

Whenever they came upon him actually sitting on one of the deck chairs for a moment between tasks, Gillian would lean against his knee until he set her on his lap and told her stories. When he took his exercise around the deck, as he did each morning and late afternoon, she'd walk behind him until he noticed and hefted her up on his shoulder, where she perched like a parrot and called out things she could see from her vantage point.

“That cloud is dark,” she'd say, pulling one hand from his head just long enough to point to the offending puff above them in the wide expanse of sky. “I think it will rain.”

“On your ocean?” Clay would say. “Never! See if you can find us a mermaid to consult on the matter, Captain Howard.”

Captain Howard. It was a silly name, for her tiny blonde daughter resembled a fairy more than she did the captain of a ship. But his pet name for her never ceased to brighten Gillian's face, and for that, Allie could only be grateful.

So, though she found it hard to be in Clay's company without quizzing him or having him quiz her about things she had no desire to discuss, she allowed herself to be drawn to his side because her daughter so obviously enjoyed being with him.

“I can't very well forbid her to see him,” she explained to Maddie one evening as they were sitting on the bench in their nightgowns, Gillian asleep on the bunk beside them. “He is family, and I did promise to allow him to become better acquainted with her.”

“Seems a bit odd he knew nothing of her birth, so it does,” Maddie mused, arms wrapped around her knees where she'd pulled them up under her red flannel hem. “Did no one think to write him?”

Allie shrugged. “I don't suppose they knew where he was. He just disappeared from Boston one day and reappeared on the dock.”

“Just in time to sail away with us.” Maddie frowned. “I'm thinking you'd best be keeping a closer eye on him. We wouldn't want him disappearing in the middle of the ocean!”

Allie laughed at that, but she knew she had no choice but to keep a much closer eye on Clay. Gillian would have it no other way.

The very next day Allie had no sooner set her daughter's booted feet on the planks of the deck for a constitutional than Gillian scampered toward the first-class accommodations, where Allie now spotted Clay leaning against the whitewashed wall.

Gillian dipped a curtsy, cream-colored wool skirts spread wide. “Good morning, Uncle.”

Clay saluted her. “Good morning, Captain Howard, ma'am. I am happy to report your ship sails well and to the south as directed.”

Gillian did not so much as look at the water as Allie drew to her side. “Thank you. Please, will you tell me about Seattle?”

Besides searching for mermaids, quizzing her uncle seemed to be Gillian's favorite game. Allie supposed it was a step forward from the passive waiting that had marked her daughter up until now, but she wondered what Clay thought of the frequent, often disconnected questions.

She also continued to wonder how he knew so much about a city he'd only visited. It was becoming clearer all the time that either he'd learned to tell tall tales or he was quite intimate with Seattle.

He chuckled at Gillian's question. “More about Seattle? You must be an expert by now.”

“What's an expert?” Gillian promptly asked.

“Something your uncle appears to be on any number of subjects,” Allie replied for him. “Especially on Seattle. And why would that be, Mr. Howard?”

“You're asking why a Howard could be an overblown windbag on any subject?” Clay shook his head. “Madam, I thought you were better acquainted with my family than that.”

Even though she was too acquainted with his family, Allie couldn't help her laugh. She turned to Gillian. “What did you want to ask your uncle, sweetheart?”

Gillian stood very tall, up on the toes of her black boots, as if she was trying to meet Clay's gaze. “Are there any girls in Seattle like me?”

Clay bent to ruffle her curls. “I doubt there are many girls like you anywhere in the world, Captain Howard.”

“Are there any boys to play with, then?” Gillian asked as Allie took the deck chair nearby, resigned to a lengthy conversation between the two. Besides, if she listened, she might hear a few answers herself. Clay was more cautious with Allie, but he responded to Gillian's questions quickly enough.

“Oh, there are a few boys and girls,” he replied, straightening, “but they're mostly on the outlying farms. You'll be something special, Captain.”

Allie smiled at that, but to her surprise, Gillian puffed out a sigh as if she didn't like the answer.

“Is Seattle big?” she asked.

He didn't question the change in topic. And once again, he had a ready answer.

“Depends on what you mean by big,” he replied, rubbing his chin with one hand. “It's got hills higher than Beacon Hill in Boston, but only a few houses and none so grand as your grandmother's house.”

Gillian wrinkled her nose. “I didn't like Grandmother's house. People were mean there.”

Clay frowned, but Allie's heart ached. All she'd wanted was for Gillian to forget that dark time. She reached for her daughter, pulled her onto her lap and held her close.

“They didn't mean to be unkind, Gillian,” she said, mindful that she was speaking about Clay's family and servants. “They were used to raising boys. They didn't know how to take care of a sweet little girl like you.”

“I imagine not,” Clay rumbled, pushing off from the wall. “After all, I was quite a handful.” He bent to meet Gillian's concerned gaze. “What do you say, Captain Howard? Shall we go look for mermaids again?” He opened his arms, and Gillian all but dived into them.

How could Allie protest? Clay knew just how to make Gillian happier, and though Allie had yet to hear her daughter laugh, she had hopes that that glorious sound was not far off. Perhaps his care for Gillian was the reason she listened when Clay knocked on their door a few nights later and asked to speak to her.

They were all still dressed, Gillian in her plaid dress, Allie in blue and white and Maddie in green, their hair held back from their faces by matching ribbons. Allie set aside the book she'd been reading with Matt Kelley and bid Clay to enter.

He nodded in greeting, then frowned as if surprised to see the young orphan perched on the bench beside Allie. She could see Matt's closest ear turning red where it stuck out of his thatch of thick brown hair.

“Good evening, Mr. Howard,” Allie said. “Did you know Mr. Kelley shares our love of literature?”

Matt ducked his head, but Clay's frown cleared. “A fine thing, books. ‘The very stuff of dreams and fire.'”

She recognized the quote from Vaughn Everard. It seemed Clay still loved the old poets. She wasn't sure why that so warmed her.

Matt didn't seem to know what to make of the statement. He scrambled off the bench. “I best be going.” With a nod to Allie and Maddie, he hurried past Clay and out the door.