Heart's Safe Passage (26 page)

A section of skin peeled back, Rafe picked up the circular saw and set it in position. Then he stood motionless, breath trapped in his throat, heart racing like a flock of gulls after dinner, arms paralyzed. He’d have shouted that he couldn’t go through with the operation if his voice worked.

Then Phoebe rested her hand on his cheek, a mere ghosting of fingertips across his jaw, and the tension fled. His lungs inflated, released. His heart settled to a normal rhythm, and his hands felt as steady and solid as the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. The handle moved beneath his fingers, though he remembered nothing of turning it on his own. Bone dust feathered the air. The blade bit deeper and deeper, mining toward permanent destruction or a hope of life. He could only hope, and perhaps pray a little, for the latter result. At the moment, the rest of the world could have stopped turning as the blade spun beneath his hand. He heard nothing of the sea, the wind, ordinary shipboard life. All that mattered lay beneath his hands.

A geyser of blood shot against the protective canvas. The blade caught on the guard, held. They were through. Now, only time would tell.

“If that doesn’t relieve the pressure on her brain,” Rafe said in a voice surely too calm to be his, “nothing will. Phoebe, will you help me clean up here?”

“Mrs. Lee and I can do it, sir.” Derrick removed the trepanning saw from Rafe’s hands. “You sit down and catch your breath.”

“I need to stitch the scalp.” Rafe looked at his hands. “After I wash, I expect.”

“There are two basins of water on the table,” Phoebe said. “But I can manage the stitching.”

She appeared to not be affected in the least by the quantity of blood. Her face remained calm, her hands steady. A remarkable woman.

Her training or her faith, as she claimed? Training, of course, whatever she claimed. His training had taken over there. He’d been as calm without faith.

But with the support of Phoebe and Derrick’s faith and, no doubt, Jordy’s.

Still calm, he allowed Phoebe and Derrick to take over cleaning up. As he washed his hands, he watched her stitch up the scalp, her needlework as fine as anything on an embroidered gown. She then wound a bandage around Mel’s head. Derrick removed the sodden canvas and placed a fresh sheet beneath Mel’s head. Blood would still seep through for a while, but if she lived, the skull would heal.

If she lived.

The water in the basins was red, but his hands were clean. He carried the soiled water to the stern windows and poured it into the sea. It swirled away in the ship’s wake, instantly lost in the creamy foam. Whether or not Mel lived, the memory of the surgery, of trying to save her, would live with him forever.

“I did my best to save our little girl, Davina,” he murmured to the vista of sea and sky before him. “Wherever you are, I hope you know that.”

He suspected Davina was in heaven. She had cried out to God to take her, and one of the pirates had slit her throat to shut her up.

“I think she’ll live, Rafe.” Phoebe stood close beside him. “You might not have noticed, but the blood that came out—much of it was old, clotted, like under a bruise. If the brain hasn’t been damaged from the pressure, or not too much . . . You were amazing.”

“Nay, ’tis only the training. I had a fine instructor in my father and others at university.”

“But you were teachable and more. You were willing to perform this operation, and I’ve never seen steadier hands.”

They weren’t steady now. Rafe glanced down to find his hands trembling like those of an old man with palsy.

“I need to sit.” He sank onto the window seat and covered his face with his hands. “One slip. One fraction of an inch too far. If the brig had rolled. My lass. She should not be here.”

“You shouldn’t be here. You should be back in Edinburgh with patients to visit and your daughter in school.”

“Aye, and a wife by my side. If that had been so, I wouldn’t be here.” The surge of energy brought by thoughts of James Brock’s betrayal sent him to his feet, steadying him, hardening his resolve.

If Mel died, he would hold Brock responsible for that too.

He dropped into a crouch beside the bunk and pressed two fingers to Mel’s neck to test her pulse. Her heartbeats seemed stronger, more regular. Wishful thinking or reality? He leaned over the bunk and pressed his ear to her chest. Definitely stronger.

He wanted to shout for joy, for this flicker of hope. He remained silent, guarding hope close to him before it eluded him. He crouched again and took Mel’s hand in his. “Does your head pain you, lass?” He touched her hairline, wincing at the shorn locks. He glanced up at silent, solid-as-a-mast Derrick, then at Phoebe. “Let us try to get some water into her. She’s as dry as a desert island.”

“I have some leftover tea here.” Phoebe fetched a cup from the table.

“I’ll fetch some freshwater.” Derrick departed.

“I’ll hold her up.” Rafe lifted Mel to a half-sitting position as though she would break with the lightest touch. Phoebe held the cup to the girl’s lips and dribbled tepid tea into her slack mouth, then rubbed her throat.

And Mel swallowed.

“Praise God!” Phoebe flung her arms around Rafe’s neck, sending the teacup spinning across the carpet and causing him to reel off balance.

He closed his arms around her to right himself, to join in this tiny victory. He couldn’t speak. He pressed his cheek to hers and felt the dampness of tears. He raised his hand to her face. “Do not fash yourself, lass. ’Tis not a weeping matter.”

“I’m not crying.” She drew back and gazed at him from clear, dry eyes.

The tears were his.

15

Moisture dripped from the shrouds and limp sails like tears, the ceaseless patter nearly the sole sound aboard the brig. Everyone lay under the pall of the fog, the stillness, the orders to maintain as much quiet as possible. Belowdecks, men and women spoke in murmurs, dined on dried fruit, cheese, and stale bread so no smoke of fires drifted from the vessel. To move, they padded barefoot over the sanded planks. Sound traveled too well through the clouds that crushed the surface of the ocean into glassy calm. Many a vessel had been taken because betraying noise gave them away to an enemy who hovered close, then swept down upon the unsuspecting crew the minute the wind kicked up again.

Thus far, after two days, the wind showed no sign of honoring the
Davina
with its presence. Too restless to remain in the cabin at Mel’s side a moment longer, so intent on the tiny signs of returning life that his body felt as taut as a backstay, Rafe prowled beneath the limp sails, the hulking gun barrels, the unwavering compass. Oh, they were drifting. With his years of experience, he felt the minute vibration of the movement, caught the infinitesimal sound of water rippling against the hull. Too many currents ran through the Atlantic for a ship to remain truly motionless. But the direction remained the same—east by northeast. Not northeast enough. On their current trajectory, they would end up too close to the Bay of Biscay, prey to any Frenchman and likely one or two Americans along the way.

His men would fight and fight well. They always had. That he remained alive and free attested to that. But he didn’t want a fight with the ladies and his daughter aboard. His still-ailing daughter. A daughter who improved daily. She took in a diet of broth and tea. She squeezed their hands in response to questions. She’d even smiled once or twice. Her limbs weren’t paralyzed. He’d pricked her extremities with a needle, and she’d whimpered in protest.

Those whimpers had been the only sound she’d made. His gregarious, lively child lay nearly silent and too still.

Because someone had tried to kill him, knowing Rafe had been the one planning to take the top watch that morning, but Mel let him sleep and went up herself.

Rafe paused at the rail and grasped the ratlines, then began to climb. Within moments, the deck lay no more visible than a suggestion of solidity beneath the gray blanket. So dense grew the cloud cover he had to feel for each handhold, each line onto which he set his feet. He tested the ropes too, leaned his weight on every one of them before trusting his body to their support. Again and again he performed this task, as he had every day since Mel’s fall. Not a single line or cable, stay or hawser yielded more than it should have. The man had struck once and not tried another time, making catching him impossible. No one had seen, heard, or detected anything amiss. Yet a would-be killer lurked aboard the
Davina
.

Certain he was annoyed enough to chew nails into pulp, Rafe slid down a backstay and climbed to the quarterdeck. Jordy stood there, watching the compass, the barely drifting fog, the wheel for signs of turning.

“’Tis all quiet,” he greeted Rafe in the murmur that didn’t travel as far as a whisper. “Too quiet for my liking.”

“’Tis inevitable this time of year. I’m thinking ’twill lift in another day.”

“Aye, with an unpleasant storm.”

Rafe studied his old friend, his mentor, one of the remnants from his carefree boyhood. “You seem blue-deviled today. Is it the fog or something more?”

“What do you think, lad?” Even in an undertone, Jordy’s irritation rang through. “That precious lass was nearly killed, may ne’er be the same again, for what was meant to harm you. And we cannot for certain lay blame at any mon’s feet.”

“I have my suspicions same as you.” Rafe allowed his gaze to drift forward with the fog, but he saw no one clearly, only walking shadows. “I should have tossed all the mutineers overboard or back onto Bermuda at the least. The British Navy would have been more than happy to take them aboard.”

“But we cannot sail the ship without them.”

“Aye, ’tis one reason why I kept them on.” Rafe gave Jordy a tight-lipped smile. “And the old adage to keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer. I cannot watch them if they could be coming up behind me aboard another vessel, even if I could have replaced them.”

“Humph.” Jordy sounded dubious.

Rafe wished he could argue. Of course he should have put them all ashore. He should have remained in harbor until he could replace them. He’d waited nine years to lure Brock into his trap. He could wait another few weeks.

Brock had nearly sprung the trap too soon. Or perhaps intended to spring his own trap. Phoebe had foiled him with running away from Rafe.

Phoebe. Rafe should have left her ashore too, yet he was glad he hadn’t. She’d been invaluable in caring for Mel. At the same time, the mere thought of her left him feeling as substantial as a cream custard in the region of his heart, a heart he thought he’d hardened against mankind—and women. He’d poured so much love into Davina as a youth who barely understood that women were a different and exotic species, the pain of losing her ripped apart any thoughts of caring about a female again. Then Phoebe Carter Lee landed on his deck—

He gripped the rail to stop himself from bolting below to join her in the great cabin. She needed time alone with Belinda, Phoebe had told him, to persuade her to undergo another examination.

“She’s complaining of pains again,” Phoebe had confided in him, more inclined to do so now that she knew his background. “I know this is normal, but how can one be quite certain without looking?”

“You cannot. But I admit I ken little more of childbirth than you and possibly less. We worked more with disease and serious injury than childbearing, though I have used the forceps upon occasion.”

“Oh, do tell me about that.” Her green eyes had glowed, her face animated.

Rafe slammed the door on that part of his life and left the cabin to the women and his daughter. He must, must, must not want Phoebe Carter Lee—in any sense of the word.

“I should have sailed straight back to Bermuda,” he told Jordy. “Brock is likely setting a trap for me now, and we’ve a killer aboard and—” His throat tightened with confessions he didn’t know how to make to the man who had helped raise him, to even himself. Certainly not to the God who had left him far behind.

“As soon as the fog lifts, lad, let us change course and sail for the Firth of Forth instead of the Nore. You can marry that beautiful lass below and return to your practice.”

“As though nothing has happened? Take nine years of this life and toss it away?” Rafe gripped the rail hard enough to cut his palms with the rough edges. “Let that man continue to get away with his lying and cheating and murdering? He’s hiding behind investing in American privateers now, and they love him for his contributions to their cause. What if he comes after me? What if—”

The notion slammed into his head like a mallet. Stars danced before his eyes, an explosion of dawning light.

“Nay, nay, I’m mad to think it.” He rubbed his temples, trying to eradicate the idea.

“Think what?” Jordy asked.

“Naught. It isn’t possible.” He strode away, his feet silent on the damp deck planks, his mind screaming with ideas. One idea shouted the loudest—talk to Phoebe. She was sensible. She would disabuse him of the knowledge in a heartbeat.

He descended the ladder to the great cabin and listened to gain an idea of what lay behind the door. No voices penetrated the thick wood. He scratched on the panel. No one responded. He turned the handle. The door remained locked.

“Phoebe?” He kept his voice low and feared she wouldn’t hear him.

The door opened an instant later. She stood in the sliver of the opening, her face flushed, her eyes a brilliant glass-green in contrast. “What?”

“Oh, aye, I am begging your pardon?” The depth of the bow he gave her matched the sarcasm of his tone.

She smiled. Her posture and face relaxed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my temper out on you.” She stepped over the coaming and into the companionway, drawing the door closed behind her. “Don’t ask me what’s wrong. I’m sure you can guess it’s Belinda. How George Chapman can love her as much as he apparently does doesn’t speak highly of his character or judgment of people.”

“Considering who one of his investors is, I concur about his judgment of people. But what of Mrs. Chapman?”

“She’s as childish as a newborn kitten and as mean as a rabid dog. Except with your daughter. She’s as kind as a—a—”