Beyond Sunrise (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

From his position at the prow of the HMS
Barracuda,
Alex Preston watched the trades catch the
Sea Hawk's
sails and send the schooner-rigged yacht skimming across the waves. He had seen, through his glass, Ryder's skill as he maneuvered the native outrigger canoe through the treacherous southeast passage. Seen, too, the way Miss India McKnight had taken control of the primitive vessel after Ryder's collapse and brought them safely to rendezvous with that treacherous, lying little Polynesian, Patu.

"Why?" Alex asked, when Simon Granger came to stand at his side, the captain's attention, like Alex's, lifting to the string of palm- and shrub-covered atolls spreading out in a line, directly in their path. "Why would a gentlewoman such as India McKnight help a scoundrel like Ryder?"

The captain swung his head, his eyes crinkling with quiet amusement as he threw Alex a quick, enigmatic glance. "One presumes she believes in his innocence."

"But how can she?"

Simon Granger raised the spyglass to his eye. "Did you see her? On the beach at La Rochelle?"

"Yes," said Alex slowly, not understanding where the captain was going.

"She didn't strike you as looking... different from the woman we first met at Rabaul?"

Alex let out a sharp laugh. "She'd just spent the better part of three days being dragged through the jungles of Takaku as a hostage. Of course she looked different."

"That's not what I—" Granger broke off, then swore long and crudely under his breath. "The sonofabitch. He's not bluffing. He's going to try to lose us in the Gods' Pathway."

Alex lurched forward to grab the rail. "But... he can't mean to sail into that! It's a ships' graveyard."

A peculiar smile tightened the ends of the captain's mouth. "No? Just watch him."

Side by side, the
Barracuda's
first lieutenant and his captain stood at the prow and watched as the little yacht swung sharply between a palm-studded, sandy atoll and a long, surf-frothed reef. Alex kept waiting for Granger to give the order to break off the chase. Frigate birds wheeled overhead, calling, their great wings outstretched against the vivid blue of the sky; the trades blew warm and strong, kicking up little whitecaps on the swells and flapping the sails overhead. The atoll-studded reefs loomed before them, mysterious and beautiful and deadly. The order to veer never came.

Finally, when he could control himself no longer, Alex said, "You can't mean to follow him in there, sir."

Granger kept the spyglass to his eye, his attention all for the
Sea Hawk.
"Why can't I?"

"Because this... this is a corvette!"

"I know that, Mr. Preston."

"But..." Alex's hands tightened around the rail before them until his knuckles turned white. "We could sail directly to Rakaia and await him there. We have no need to follow him through those reefs."

Simon Granger lowered the glass slowly, although he kept his gaze on the yacht ahead. "And if Ryder doesn't go to Rakaia?"

Alex felt a sick clenching, deep in his gut, because he knew what the Admiralty—and his own family—would say if the
Barracuda
broke off pursuit now, only to wait, futilely, ridiculously, off the sandy shores of Rakaia for a fugitive who never appeared. They would say that Granger had deliberately let his quarry get away. That the captain of the
Barracuda
had allowed his past friendship with Jack Ryder to interfere with the performance of his duty. And that Alex Preston had done nothing to stop him.

Swallowing heavily, Alex watched the surf curl and break over mile after mile of hidden reef. "And if we tear the bottom out of the ship? What will the Admiralty say then, sir?"

To Alex's shock, the captain laughed. "If we drown, we won't need to worry about the Admiralty, now will we? And if we're only damaged... Well, then we'll patch her up well enough to limp back to La Rochelle for repairs. And then we'll go to Rakaia."

The
Sea Hawk
sailed up the narrows on a close haul. To windward lay a chain of sandy islets strewn across the turquoise sea like a line of giant rosary beads, while the submerged, milky-jade shadow of a reef lurked quiet and deadly off their starboard side.

"Holy moly," shouted Patu, his eyes widening as he turned from trimming the main. "They're coming in here after us."

"What the hell—" One hand tight on the wheel, Jack slewed around to see the
Barracuda
doubling one of the chain's small islands, her prow sending out a broad, foam-flecked wake as she cut through the waves. Her sails were reduced, but she was still flying more canvas than was prudent with so little sea room. "Sonofabitch."

She was a square-rigged, three-masted warship, the
Barracuda.
With her flush deck and single tier of guns, she was smaller than a frigate, but larger than a brig. She'd been outfitted with engines, but she didn't look to have any steam up. Coal was expensive and hard to get in the South Pacific; a captain could go months at a time without it—even a captain ordered by the Admiralty to apprehend a man held responsible for the death of the Prime Minister's cousin.

India came to stand at Jack's side, her dark hair flying about her head, her cheeks touched with a rosy glow by the salty morning breeze. He watched her eyes narrow in thought, her lips parting as she sucked in a quick, deep breath. "Simon Granger must want you very badly."

"His career depends on it."

She brought her gaze to his face, her features pinching with sudden concern. "You look terrible."

Jack huffed a low laugh, then regretted it when a fiery hot coil of pain whipped around his chest. At least his head was clear. For the moment.

"How long will it take them to come up with us?" she asked.

"If Simon has the balls to keep flying that kind of sail, not long." Jack glanced up at the telltales fluttering from the shrouds. "Ever done much sailing?"

"Some. Why?"

"Because the only way we're going to lose that corvette is by dodging in between these islands and reefs. And that's going to take more than just Patu handling the sheets."

Her gaze traveled over the rigging. "I believe I can do it," she said in that calm, no-nonsense way she had, and Jack felt a wry smile twist his lips.

The wind had blown a heavy lock of hair across her eyes, and he watched her bring up one hand to catch it. She tried to rake her hair back from her face, but it was in a hopeless tangle. Her finely tucked man's shirt was smudged with dirt and seawater, her split tartan skirt ripped, and stained with his own blood. She looked bedraggled and hard-used and, in that moment, utterly sexless. And yet he felt a swelling of emotion that left him feeling winded and awed.

He'd been aware, for some time, of the disconcerting drift in the nature of his feelings for this woman, as admiration and raw desire had begun to mingle, unexpectedly, disastrously, with his earlier exasperation and vexation. He'd known it, and yet he hadn't been prepared for
this,
this sudden, gut-clenching, heart-stopping realization that what had happened to him went beyond lust, beyond desire, beyond even liking, far beyond, into that mysterious, unfathomable realm of the eternal and the sublime.

He couldn't have said why this revelation had come upon him at this moment. He only knew that it filled him with a fierce determination to be done with this endless round of running and hiding, and a profound regret that he hadn't faced up to the charges against him long, long ago.

"They're gaining on us," said Patu, chewing the inside of his cheek.

"Ready to fall off?" Jack said, his gaze narrowing as he caught sight of a break in the long, foam-flecked reef. India nodded.

He spun the wheel, and the
Sea Hawk
fell off hard to starboard, Patu and India scrambling to trim the sails to a close reach as the hull heeled to leeward. The little yacht leapt forward, her sails spilling the breeze astern.

They cut through a passage in the reef with such clear, crystal blue water that Jack could see his boat's shadow pass over the sand some five fathoms or more below. The air filled with the sounds of the ocean, the gurgling
swoosh
of the bow slicing through the waves, the tapping of the halyards against the masts. Then they were clear of the coral, an atoll rearing up ahead of them, its sun-soaked, sandy shores licked by a lazy surf, a scattering of coco palms waving in the freshening breeze. Jack swung the
Sea Hawk
back to port until they were on a close haul again, running up the lee side of the reef.

Only, by now the wind had shifted, swinging around so that it was coming almost straight out of the east and putting them closer to windward than he would have liked.

"If you're not careful," shouted Patu, "we're gonna be pinching."

Jack's head fell back, his eyes squinting against the sun as he watched the jib for the first signs of a luff. It wasn't going to be easy, short tacking in this narrow stretch of water to windward against a foul tide. And he was starting to get dizzy again, his hair damp with a strange cold sweat. If he weren't gripping the wheel so tightly, he thought he'd probably fall over.

"How well do you know this section of islands and reefs?" India asked, her breath coming hard and fast.

Jack flashed her a quick grin. "What makes you think I know it?" He threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the
Barracuda,
her crew still scrambling to trim her sails as she swung around into the smooth, bubbled water of the
Sea Hawk's
wake. "Aw, hell."

The corvette was close enough now that he could see the man who stood at the prow, a speaking trumpet in hand, his voice drifting across the wind-ruffled, vivid blue water. "Ahoy,
Sea Hawk.
Lower your sails and bring to instantly, or by God, I'll sink you."

Jack glanced at India, and it was as if the wind had died, and the earth stilled. "It's your call."

She brought her solemn gaze to his face. "Why mine?"

"Because you have no reason to risk dying."

Her eyes were wide. She was still breathing hard, but a quiet came over her, and she smiled. "Yes I do."

Reaching out, he took her face between his palms, his gaze caught fast with hers as he dipped his head and brushed her lips with a kiss. Then he swung back to the helm.

"Heading up!" he shouted, and veered hard to port.

They pivoted into the eye of the wind, their sails fluttering, the
Sea Hawk
briefly losing momentum as her bow swung through. Then her sails billowed out, and they began to pull away from the wind on a starboard tack through a break in the reef.

This passage through the reef was narrower, shallower. Through the gloriously clear waters Jack could see jagged heads of coral, every color from amethyst to cadmium yellow. Then the colors dimmed and began to blur together, and he had to grit his teeth against a dark wave of dizziness. He was beginning to realize this wasn't one of his ordinary headaches, that India was right, he
was
concussed.

He took in a deep breath that made his cracked ribs ache like the bejesus. Then they were through the passage, and bearing down fast on the long, gently curving string of sandy atolls. "Heading up," he shouted again, and the
Sea Hawk
swung sharply to starboard, heeling low as Jack fought to bring the prow around for a run along the inside of the channel.

But the wind was capricious, the scattering of islets redirecting the breeze so that it eddied and shifted. Suddenly, the freshening wind swung about again until it was coming out of the southeast, and Patu was jumping to let out sail as the wind came over their beam.

Too late, Jack saw the dark head of coral rearing up off their port bow. He spun the wheel, but the
Sea Hawk
was lurching out of control, her hull scraping briefly against the jagged rock with a jolting grind before swinging away into clear water.

Behind them, the
Barracuda
wasn't so lucky. Plowing through the break in the reef, she was caught by the veering wind, her sails filling to send her surging straight across the narrows, toward a coconut-studded strip of sun-sparkled sand. She tried to claw off, to turn to windward, but her bow was only beginning to respond sluggishly to her helm and she went end on for shore.

The corvette gave a violent lurch, her sails shuddering against the blue sky as a grinding screech rent the morning air. She came to an abrupt halt, spars shivering as she heeled sharply offward. They could see the men on her decks jumping to douse the sails and rush to the pumps.

Fighting now for breath, Jack eased the
Sea Hawk
to larboard, curving her around the island to head out into open waters. His eyes burned and his bones felt all loose and disjointed, so that it was only by a sheer, jaw-clenching act of determination that he kept himself standing at the wheel, his hands gripping the spokes tight. He told himself that if he could just make it clear of the Gods' Pathway before he passed out, India and Patu would be all right.

"Shouldn't we go back and help?" India said, her gaze caught fast by the stricken ship, her voice echoing strangely, as if it were floating to him from a long ways off.

Jack grunted. "They're grounded at low tide on a beautiful, sunny day a few hours' sail from Takaku. Even an incompetent idiot could get his men to safety in these seas. And Simon is no idiot."

He could see the open sea now, stretching out purple and wide before the yacht's prow. He let the breath ease out of him, felt the darkness stealing over him, taking him. "Can you handle the wheel?" he said.

India swung her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Can I
what
?"

"Can you take the wheel," Jack said. And then he stumbled, the mastheads whirling against the blue sky, the deck rushing oddly up to meet him as the darkness slid over him. This time, it would be days before he awoke.

He dreamt of craggy island peaks wrapped in misty moonlight, of feathery cocos silhouetted against a soft night sky, of snow-white shores and pale green waters filled with rainbow-hued coral and bright small fishes that glowed from within. The trades were warm against the sun-soaked naked flesh of his body, the air sweet with the scent of gardenia and orange blossom and sandalwood. He heard the crash of the breakers against the offshore reef, and the endless rustling of palm fronds mingling with the hiss of the tide washing in and out over the beach.