Authors: Elin Gregory
“I don’t,” Protheroe admitted. “But honestly, wouldn’t you risk everything, soul and all, to save your friend?”
Kit glared at him, hating him for putting into words some of what Kit was feeling. “Haven’t you got anything to do?”
Protheroe chuckled. “Yes—Lewis!”
Kit scowled as Protheroe ambled off then, with a deep sigh, he leaned on the rail.
When Valliere had told him about what had happened on the Santiago he had been aware of a vast panic welling up inside him. He had felt as sick and shaky and scared as he had as a boy that awful night fighting to save the Isabella off the Scillies. To save Griffin—was that really as important to him now as saving the ship and his life had been then?
Twice, just twice, he and Griffin had stood together. Once Griffin had kissed him and Kit had been horrified at the sudden visceral pleasure of it. The second time Kit had kissed Griffin. It had felt good, and if there hadn’t been more important business afoot, who knows what might have happened?
Not Kit—though he was no innocent and had a fair idea what was involved. Something along the lines of what he had seen men doing with the light lasses in port, or what he had himself paid for on his infrequent visits to bawdy houses. That it could be fun he had no doubt. In his imagination, when he had been drunk enough or reckless enough to allow it free rein, it had been good. But he had always felt contrite afterward and had never imagined any one person touching him or being touched. Some shadowy faceless presence, strong and kind and loving, who would help him to bring them both to bliss. In his most recent dreams that strong lover wore Griffin’s face, and Kit had to acknowledge that his dreams had taken on a new and deeper pleasure.
Wouldn’t you risk everything, soul and all, to save your friend?
Tomorrow he might see Griffin again. Kit set his jaw, refusing to think of what they might find. The very worst thing would be nothing; no sign of Griffin, no idea where he was or how he had met his end. Only slightly better would be to find him dead. Kit had been told about the pistol and the single shot and how many men preferred to end themselves quickly than die of thirst. The thought of Griffin coolly putting the barrel of a pistol to his head made Kit shudder. But the Africa was making all speed. They might be there in time, and if they were—then Kit would think again. How would he feel to find a body? His mind shied away from that. How would he feel to find Griffin waiting with that sardonic smile and a “What kept you, Mr. Penrose?” Kit rubbed his chest where his heart had thumped almost painfully. Yes, Griffin would be alive and waiting. Kit couldn’t—wouldn’t imagine any other outcome!
Chapter Seventeen
“Mr. Kit, sir—I see smoke. Just a thin line of it, sir.”
“Where away?” Kit shouted peering up at the foreshortened blob that was Forrest. Since noon Davy had been perched up in the crosstrees with a glass, and Kit had spent almost as much time staring at him, willing him to shout, as he had sailing the sloop. “A little west of north,” Davy called. “Yes, I see land too.”
Detorres grunted. “We were only a little farther east than you thought,” he said to Kit. “That was good sailing. Another two hours perhaps, allowing for currents and we should be there.”
“Please God and all his angels,” Lewis said with a smile that Kit heard rather than saw, for his eyes were fixed a little west of north seeking out the narrow, gray smudge. “Mayhap, Kit,” Lewis added, “you can get some things ready? I’ll take the tiller.”
Kit swallowed hard. “A good notion,” he said and hurried down to the cabin. With the door closed he leaned back against it and closed his eyes, trying to swallow the panicky lump in his throat and slow the tumultuous beat of his heart. Smoke! No smoke without fire. No fire without a hand to tend it. Griffin was alive.
Once he had a firm grip on his emotions he went to Griffin’s sea chest to make up a small pack of necessities, including a small flask of brandy. He couldn’t think of a day that had passed since he had known Griffin without him drinking steadily. Kit assumed that he would be feeling a need for alcohol almost as great as for water.
Saunders put his head around the door and nodded. “Ah, there you are. I need to speak to you. When you find Griffin”—Kit noticed and appreciated the when—“you must on no account let him have the brandy first. He must drink the water. After, you may allow him one small measure. No more. I’m hoping to wean him off the damned stuff. This is a good, if drastic first step.”
“I’ll do my best,” Kit promised. “Shall I take a couple of lemons?”
“Let me squeeze the juice into the brandy,” Saunders said. “He’ll be more likely to need water than be suffering from scurvy, but lemon juice is always a good thing to have.” As he took the flask he caught Kit’s wrist with his other hand. “I have something else to say—something you won’t much like, but it has to be said. You do realize that Griffin might not survive? Even if we are in time. He may have put an end to himself—I would—or he may be so parched that his body can’t recover.”
“I know,” Kit snapped. “I know what a death from thirst can be like, but forgive me, doctor, if I prefer to look on the bright side.”
“Grand!” Saunders gave him a slap on the shoulder. “You do that, my lad, but forgive me if I prepare for the other. The best part of four days without a drink is a bloody long time.”
He took the flask and went on his way. Kit took the drawers and a pair of breeches that weren’t too tattered and bundled them up with a clean shirt. He obtained some bottles and a small cask and filled them with water, bagging the bottles and clothing. Then he returned to the deck, anxious to oversee the Africa’s approach to the little island.
Detorres was at the tiller when he arrived. “Ah, Kit,” he said. “I believe that from the west we may sail quite close. There’s good deep water in the bay according to the chart. I suggest that you take in sail now and be ready to drop anchor.”
Kit could have taken offense at Detorres’s tone of command, he reminded himself that Detorres was more familiar with the approach to the island, so he swallowed his pride. It took longer than they had thought to feel their way into a safe anchorage, and by the time the anchor chains were rattling through the hawse, Kit was feeling ill with worry.
“The fire,” Davy said. He slid the last few feet down from the mast and landed with a thud at Kit’s side. “It’s gone out. The smoke got less and less, and now I can’t see it at all.”
“Right,” Kit said. “Volunteers?”
“Let me and Lewis come with you?” Protheroe suggested. “We can help if Griffin is too ill to walk, and if they were daft enough to leave him with a flask of brandy and he wants to fight everyone, I for one won’t worry about knocking him down. I’ve done it before.”
“You have?” Kit stared at him.
“Aye, but he didn’t bear a grudge,” Lewis said with a grin.
The Africa’s jolly boat had been on tow, so they drew her alongside and Lewis jumped down into her to hold her steady. Kit passed down the bag and followed him.
“Wait, Kit,” Saunders leaned over the rail and tossed him the brandy flask. “Remember, water first,” he said. “In fact don’t even offer the brandy unless he begs for it. It will do him no good.”
“I won’t forget.” Kit tucked the flask out of sight in the bag. “Denny, do you want to come?”
Denny was leaning on the railing, shading his eyes with one hand. “Are there whores? No? Then I’ll stay here and sing,” he said. “And dubbin the captain’s shoes. He’ll like that.”
The waves were streaming onto the shore in great smooth swells. They were sheltered from the wind by the island, what there was of it, and the rowing was easy with three strong backs bending in unison. Kit glanced over his shoulder from time to time, marveling at the long low island with its coating of palms and scrub. To the northwest was a small hillock of rock, and the sandbar had formed down the current from it. Such islands were unstable. The merest shift in current or a severe storm could wash most of it away, but for now it seemed solid enough. Some of the trees were old enough to be bearing fruit.
“Are we on course, cariad?” Lewis asked and had to ask again before Kit realized that the Welshman was addressing him.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “The smoke has died away. It could have been coming from anywhere.”
“Then you go north and we will go south,” Lewis suggested. “The place is not so big that we won’t hear you shout.”
Kit agreed and prepared to ship his oars as a wave caught the boat to coast her up the beach. He was the first over the side, his jaw set so tightly that his teeth ached. He and Protheroe ran the boat up onto the sand, and Lewis clambered out as well. Lewis began to pass things to Protheroe while Kit went a few paces up the beach, craning his neck to try and see through the screen of undergrowth.
“You go on, lad,” Lewis said. “But you might want to take this? And this.” He offered a bottle of water and a pistol.
“Thanks,” Kit muttered and pushed the pistol through his belt as he headed for the trees.
Once out of sight of the two Welshmen he felt more able to allow his feelings to show. He began to run, beating his way through the foliage. “Griffin?” he called, tilting his head, hoping to hear a reply, then ran on. The island was bigger than he had thought, but it wasn’t long before he heard the regular hush of surf. “Griffin!” he called again and this time heard a weak reply.
He jinked to the left, running parallel to the beach. The trees and bushes had thinned, and beyond he could see the light on the ocean with great breakers rolling in from the east. But not far ahead was an open space, and there, in the sparse shadow at the foot of a tree, a body lay silhouetted against the sunlit sand.
Captain Griffin barely moved when Kit dropped to his knees beside him. His eyes flickered open and his cracked lips quirked at the corners. “Kit.” His voice was a barely heard breath. “I thought I told you not to come.” He was lying on his side, his arm curled under his head. He had lost his shirt, and the exposed skin of his back and torso was scarlet with sunburn. Kit winced at the heat of it as he put his arms around his captain and lifted him to rest against his shoulder. “You left me in charge,” he said, his voice shaking with relief. “And that order made no sense. I ignored it.”
“Insubordinate,” Griffin murmured and turned his head to bury his face against Kit’s neck. His arms rose to wrap around Kit’s chest and he held on, his hands closing on Kit’s shirt. “Bless you.”
Kit let out a breath then took another before he lowered his head and let his cheek rest against Griffin’s hair. “You need to drink,” he whispered. “I brought water. No—you can’t have brandy.” Griffin grumbled quietly, and Kit smiled as he uncorked the water bottle. “Come—sip a little.”
Griffin sighed and turned enough to allow Kit to put the bottle to his mouth. He swallowed, coughed, and swallowed again. “Enough,” he said. “I just…let me just…” He put his head on Kit’s shoulder again.
“You found him!” Kit looked up to see Lewis and Protheroe hurrying toward them.
Protheroe set the bag Kit had prepared down by the ashes of a fire and knelt to peer into Griffin’s face. He took his hand and scowled.
Kit stared at him. “What?” he said.
“We must get him back to the Africa,” Protheroe said. “I don’t like the look of him.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Griffin murmured. “But Kit—I could look at him all day.”
He moved a little, his lips grazing Kit’s throat. “I’m glad you’re here. Could you—just a kiss? Can’t you bend that stiff neck? A kiss, Kit. You can’t go to hell for a kiss.”
“No,” he said, his stomach turning over with anxiety. Griffin didn’t look that bad to him but… “You can’t. Not for a kiss.” Slowly he bent his stiff neck and pressed his lips to Griffin’s cheek.
“A kiss,” Griffin protested. “I’m not your spinster aunt.”
Kit snorted but smiled as he kissed Griffin’s shrunken lips. “And now we will take you to the Africa,” he promised. “Saunders will know what to do.”
“You’ve given me the will to live,” Griffin said with a breath of laughter and nuzzled down Kit’s neck. “Though the water I had before you got here helped.”
“What water?” Lewis was peering at the mess around the ashes—several empty bottles, one of which was broken, a couple of sword blades, a disassembled musket. Kit frowned at them then let out a whoop of laughter. A bottle of seawater in the ashes would boil and the steam would enter the broken bottle and condense in the barrel of the musket, running into another bottle, which he saw had a scant inch of liquid in it.
“An alembic!” Kit laughed. “You made an alembic.”
“Benefits of a university education,” Griffin said with a creaky chuckle.
The crew cheered as Griffin’s feet hit the deck, and Denny was waiting with a silver tray and one of the long-stemmed glasses filled with what Kit hoped was diluted brandy. Griffin took it, tossed it back, and replaced the glass on the tray. “Thank you, boys,” he said. “One and all. Now—let’s get on our way. Valliere, the helm. Kit, we need a course for Grenada. I,” he caught Saunders’s eye, “will be in conference with my physician. Excuse me, if you please.”
Kit grinned as Lewis helped Griffin below then turned to the crew and clapped his hands. “You heard the captain,” he said. “Let’s be about our business.”
As he was looking at the charts in the chartroom, he was very aware of the mutter of voices from the cabin. Detorres had crammed in beside him. He studied the charts, made suggestions, and finally said, “Your captain was lucky.”
“I know,” Kit said. “His fire went out and he was unable to start it again. If we hadn’t come…”
“Yes,” Detorres nodded. “And it was my doing. He owes me his life. I will think of a suitable recompense.”
Kit glanced at him. “You won’t find him ungenerous.”
“No—not when all I truly desire is to cut the heart out of Jago Stockley’s breast? They are friends, are they not?”
“Not since Jago marooned him.” Kit grinned. “I think you may have to take your turn. I too plan to make the man’s life shorter.” He considered Wigram and Probert and some of the other unlovely articles it had been his misfortune to meet on the Africa. “And that of others,” he added. “I’m not sure that Jago would have abandoned him without encouragement. So perhaps we can agree that whoever gets a clear shot takes it and all debts paid?”