Redeeming Gabriel (12 page)

“I hear you.” When she curled her hand around his wrist, he felt it down to his bones. “Gabriel, I’m scared for Jamie, and I’m scared for my papa.”

He dropped his hand, breaking her hold on his wrist. “You’ve got good reason to be scared. But I think I can help. Let’s see if we can find—” he consulted the pass given to him by Major Hallonquist “—Colonel Powell.”

Though she would never have admitted it, Camilla had been shaken by those two soldiers handling her so familiarly. When Gabriel introduced her to the garrison commander as the sister of Captain Beaumont, she nodded and faded into the background, allowing Gabriel’s glib tongue to finagle a small rowboat to take them out to Jamie’s ship.

On the water again, Camilla sat in the bow of the boat and watched Gabriel pull the oars. He had removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves, and the bunching and stretching of his muscles gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t help thinking about the way he’d looked at her after he’d protected her from those men outside the fort. He must be a successful agent for the United States. He seemed to have an uncanny knack for getting what he wanted.

And what he wanted, among other things, was information about that fish boat. Camilla sighed, trailing her hand in the water.

Gabriel caught her gaze. “How long has your brother been running the blockade?”

“It’s his third run. He got through easily the first time, but the second was a close call. The blockade’s tightening.”

“You’d think food and supplies would be less readily available if the blockade was really effective.”

“What do you mean?”

Gabriel flexed his big shoulders. “I wonder if there’s some kind of collusion between the blockaders and the runners. By all rights, your brother ought to be at the bottom of the gulf.”

“You’re heartless!” Camilla glared at him.

He lifted an arm to wipe the sweat off his nose. “I told you, there’s a difference between war and medicine.”

“That’s absurd. Jamie’s not a Confederate officer. He’s just a merchant captain. Why should he be under attack?”

Gabriel gave her a dry look. “Surely you don’t think the only thing on that ship is food and clothing.”

“Maybe not, but—” Camilla floundered, then brightened. “Look, we’re almost there!”

She could scarcely sit still as they neared the
Lady Camilla.
The sixty-foot light-draft vessel had a twelve-inch hole right above her waterline. Her boats were shot-riddled; the fore topmast and fore gaff were cut away, and the rigging sagged like a toy some child had thrown down in a tantrum. She appeared to have been hulled again and again. It was amazing the ship had survived the attack.

As she and Gabriel hauled up alongside the
Lady C,
several excited and scruffy-looking sailors leaned over the lower deck rail. A rope ladder plopped over the side. Camilla scrambled up it, glad of her male attire. Managing skirts and crinolines on such a venture would have been next to impossible. As it was, she nimbly landed on her feet on deck and shook hands with a grinning mate, leaving Gabriel to his own devices.

“Miss Camilla!” The mate’s rust-colored hair was bound out of his eyes with a bandanna. “What are you doing out here? Cap’n Beaumont didn’t say nothing about you coming!”

“How is he, Rudy?” Camilla scanned the gaunt face of the
Lady C
’s first officer. “How are you?”

“Gettin’ better, thank you, miss. The cap’n ain’t doing so well, though. And he’ll hide me for lettin’ you on board. We’ll be under quarantine for another week at least.”

Gabriel interrupted. “I think he’ll be glad to see us. We brought quinine.”

Camilla caught his sleeve, pulling him forward. “Rudy, this is Gabriel Leland. He purchased the medicine and escorted me from Mobile.”

Rudy Van Zandt frowned, despite his obvious pleasure in seeing Camilla. “Your papa knows where you are?”

“Of course he does. Reverend Gabriel is a friend of the family.”

“Hmph. We’ll see what the cap’n has to say.” Rudy led the way to the captain’s stateroom, muttering to himself and sending Gabriel dark looks. Camilla’s heart nearly stopped when she saw that the cabin wall had been smashed by a shell, then roughly patched. Had Jamie been wounded?

Rudy knocked on the door and waited for an answer. At Jamie’s “Come!” the mate stuck his head in. “Visitors, sir!”

“Tell them to get off this ship immediately!”

Camilla shoved past Rudy and faced her brother, who sat at a small desk making notes. “I’ve come all the way from Mobile to bring you some medicine, Jamie Beaumont. You’d better find your manners, whether you’re dying or not!” She held on to her anger to keep from sobbing at the sight of his pale and exhausted face.

“Camilla! What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I brought you some medicine.”

“Well, turn around and go home the same way you got here.” Jamie went back to his notes as if the discussion were over.

“I can’t. They won’t let us back into the fort.”

Jamie stood, hanging on to the back of his chair. “What idiot gave a lone woman a pass into the fort?”

“I’m not—”

“She’s with me.” Gabriel moved to stand beside her, an amused quirk to his mouth.

“And who are you?”

Gabriel reached around Camilla to extend his hand to Jamie. “Gabriel Leland. Your reputation speaks highly of you, Captain Beaumont.”

Jamie shook hands, but his expression remained suspicious. “Mr. Leland.”

“
Reverend
Leland,” Camilla put in. “The new Methodist minister. He arrived a day or two after you went to sea.”

Jamie wobbled. “Excuse me if I sit, Reverend Leland. Still a mite weak at the knees.”

“Call me Gabriel.”

Jamie nodded. “We can use the medicine, but I must say, I don’t appreciate your exposing my sister to infection.”

“Have you ever made your sister stay put when she wanted to go somewhere?”

Jamie laughed. “Only once that I can think of.”

Camilla scowled. “And you paid dearly for it, didn’t you?”

“Sounds like a story I’d like to hear.” Gabriel looked down at Camilla, eyebrows raised.

She shook her head and hopped up onto Jamie’s desk. “It’s not a pleasant memory.” She laid her palm gently against her brother’s bearded face. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m past the worst of it, but several of my men were killed by the Federals, and many more are still ill from the fever. I’ve done what I can for them, which God knows wasn’t much.” He leaned his head in his hand.

“You need rest.” Camilla squeezed his slumped shoulder. “You should stay in your bunk and let Rudy take command.”

“I’m captain.” Jamie straightened, his gray eyes hardening. “I brought us through the blockade, and I’ll take us into port.”

“How did you slip through?” Gabriel asked.

Jamie smiled. “Would have been easy as pie, if it hadn’t been for that dang rooster we picked up in Cardenas.”

Camilla leaned back on her hands, giddy with relief now that she was sure Jamie wasn’t going to expire before her eyes. “What were you doing with a rooster on board?”

“We’ve got a hold full of chickens. Mr. Chambliss—”

“He hires the ship,” Camilla informed Gabriel. “You met his daughter, Fanny.”

“Right. Anyway,” continued Jamie, “he was convinced he could make a killing off chickens and eggs, so he insisted we buy some when we stopped in Bermuda. I forgot about the rooster until we’d just entered the Gulf Stream, and were almost past the blockaders.”

Gabriel’s smiled broadened into a grin. “How long did it take you to wring the bird’s neck?”

“About thirty seconds. Then, danged if we didn’t hear another cock-a-doodle-doo a minute later. It was so dark we’d killed the wrong bird!”

Camilla laughed. “From the looks of the
Lady C,
the Federals resented their early wake-up call.”

Jamie sobered. “I’m just sorry my guns weren’t rigged to return fire.”

Gabriel looked interested. “Why weren’t they?”

“We had less than eighteen hours to transfer guns, ammunition and equipment from a British schooner just off the coast of Nassau.” Jamie snorted. “I was already down with the fever and couldn’t be everywhere. Little things like rammers, sponges, sights, locks and elevating screws got left behind.”

Camilla regarded her brother with horror. “You were virtually defenseless!”

“Remarkable that you got through,” Gabriel murmured.

Camilla thought of his conspiracy theory. But Jamie wouldn’t be in collusion with the Yankees any more than—well, come to think of it, her own loyalties were divided. Anything was possible. She met Gabriel’s sideways look, then glanced away.

“The good Lord was on our side.” Jamie got to his feet, looking weary. “Since you came all this way with that medicine, we might as well put it to use. Where is it?”

“Left it with your first officer,” Gabriel said. “Seems to be a capable chap.”

“Best of the best.” Jamie nodded. “He’ll know what to do with it. Not to be inhospitable, but you’d better get my sister home.”

Camilla caught his hand. “But, Jamie—”

Jamie shook his head. “Tell Father I’ll be home in a sennight, thanks to you and the preacher.” He nodded at Gabriel, then paused, a sudden frown between his sandy brows. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

Gabriel smiled. “I don’t see how. My family’s all from Mississippi.”

Jamie moved to close the door. “You look a lot like a wild-eyed half-breed my cousin Harry used to run around with in medical school. Small world, I suppose.” He winked at Camilla. “Tell Van Zandt if he lets any more visitors on board he’ll be demoted to cabin boy!”

“Major Hallonquist said after we left Jamie’s ship we weren’t to come back to Fort Gaines.” Camilla gave Gabriel a troubled look as the ferry shoved off into the choppy late-afternoon waters of Pelican Bay, which separated the two forts. In concession to the sun, rapidly falling in the west but still shooting a blinding glare off the water, she’d taken refuge in a canvas chair under the canopy.

Gabriel leaned against the rail. “We’re going to skirt around the fort—the major will never see us. Besides, we couldn’t give anybody yellow fever if we wanted to.”

“But we were right there with all those poor sailors—and Jamie was still sick as could be.”

“You don’t get the fever from people, Camilla. It’s carried by mosquitoes.”

“Everybody knows it’s one of the most contagious—”

“Everybody
doesn’t
know it. If you asked your erudite Dr. Kinch, he’d tell you he’s been trying for years to prove a theory advanced by one of his former medical students.” He shrugged. “Who knows what blunders he’s made in his experiments.”

Camilla’s pretty mouth was ajar. “Are you telling me you were a student of Dr. Kinch? And you can prove what causes yellow fever?”

“I was on my way to proving it. But there was a…scandal that discredited my work. For two years, Professor Kinch ridiculed my theory. Then, before I left medical college, he confiscated my papers. I don’t know what he did with them.”

“How is it that he hasn’t recognized you?”

“I had a full beard and mustache then, and much longer hair. I was younger and skinnier.” Gabriel lifted his hands. “You have to understand, too, that I was the charity case. You should’ve seen my clothes. Kinch was the dean of the college and did his best not to see me.”

Camilla sat silent, staring at the water. Despite the heat, she’d replaced her cap and still wore her baggy coat. Faint dewy drops lay on her upper lip, and her eyelids drooped. She’d endured tremendous discomfort in the past twenty-four hours for her brother’s sake.

And they weren’t home yet, by any means.

She looked up at him, frowning. “Did Harry know about your theories and experiments?”

“Harry was more interested in doing what was necessary to graduate than messing around with mosquitoes in a laboratory.”

“That would be Harry.” Camilla smiled faintly.

“He didn’t laugh at me, like most people did, but he had other things to occupy his time. Your family, for one thing.”

“He was at our house a lot, of course, but he was always bringing someone with him. Why didn’t you…”

“He invited me, but I chose not to accept.” Gabriel smiled at her discomfort. “You saw my uncle’s house. I didn’t have the money or the inclination to dress or behave in a way that would have been acceptable to your family.”

“I’d have welcomed any friend of Harry’s.”

“You were a schoolgirl at the time.” He cast her an assessing look. “Your big brother once put me in my place, you know.”

She leaned forward, elbows on knees. “He seemed to recognize you.”

“Probably would have, if I’d been wearing the war paint they smeared all over me that night.”

She drew a sharp breath. “Jamie wouldn’t be so cruel!”

“It was a joke.” He shrugged. “To give your brother credit, he tried to get the others to stop. But he and I were both about thirty pounds lighter, and—it was over pretty quick.”

“Where was Harry?”

Her patent horror sent a rush of gratitude flooding through Gabriel. “Poking feathers in my hair. He thought the whole thing was hilarious.”

Camilla closed her eyes and swallowed.

“Look.” He took her wrist and surprised them both by dropping a brief kiss on her knuckles. She stared at him wide-eyed. “I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened to me, because it made me strong and self-reliant. Nothing and nobody surprises me anymore. Remember this, Camilla Beaumont—you can’t trust
anyone.
” He couldn’t quite trust her, either. Yet he’d given more truth to her in the past two days than he’d given to another living soul. He dropped her hand. “I wish I could have proved the mosquito theory.”

“Didn’t anybody believe you?”

“People believe what they want to believe.”

“You could still prove it—”

“Dr. Kinch or somebody else eventually will.” Gabriel turned his gaze toward the reddening sun, against which the sandy beach of Dauphin Island and the flags of Fort Gaines began to appear. “We’ll be docking in a few minutes.” He started to rise.

“Gabriel, are you a believer?”