The Duchess And The Dragon Part 3

"Drake-" Drake's true name hesitated on his tongue, but he held it back. Giving the boy a small smile, he finished, "Drake Winslow. Good to meet such a fine young fellow. You know, I went away to boarding school when I was about your age."

"Really sir? Can you read, then?" The lad's eyes were s.h.i.+ning now with something far better than tears.

"Certainly. Have you had no schooling?"

Danny shook his head. "I wish I could read, though. I would most like to write. My mum says my head is full of stories. I would write them down if I could."

Drake thought back on his prized education at Eton, the private tutors he'd abhorred, something he'd taken very much for granted.

"What was boarding school like, sir?"

Everything from floggings to illicit excursions to Town flitted through Drake's mind. "Well, I attended Eton. The first two years were the worst. The older boys initiate the younger ones, you know. But then, after a time, we grew up and we became the older ones, so it evens itself out. When I was twelve my father sent down a tutor who lived with me to help me with my studies. Aside from learning to read and write, we studied Latin and Greek, arithmetic, literature, English and French and, our favorite, of course, fencing."

Danny's eyes grew wide in admiration. "Are you very good with the sword, sir?"

A bark of rusty laughter escaped Drake's throat. "Pa.s.sably good, I'd say."

"I should like to go to such a school." Danny's eyes held the faraway gleam of childhood dreams. "Pap says we will have our own land in America, a place where anything is possible. Do you think that's true, Mr. Winslow?"

Drake looked into those eyes of hope and felt his spirits rise for the first time. "I hope so, Danny. I truly do hope so."

A SCREAMING WIND rose into the pitch of night, tossing the vessel into deep troughs on the turbulent Atlantic, as if they floated on naught but a pile of matchsticks. Drake clung to his pallet and tried to block out the piteous cries and prayers of his terrified s.h.i.+pmates. They had been on board for eleven weeks and Drake was no longer thankful he had successfully made it out of London.

He heartily wished he was in Newgate Prison instead.

At least there he would be paying for his sin. Here, he just awaited death. Would he be the next to succ.u.mb? Eleven weeks of sickness, starvation, and raspy-throated thirst made the death toll climb. Fever, dysentery, and scurvy ran rampant. Drake often rubbed a thumb against his own gums feeling how swollen they had become. His ribs poked his skin when he inhaled, a peculiar feeling, leaving him lightheaded and woozy whenever he moved suddenly. What really frightened him, though, was his lack of strength. Getting off the cot and walking to the place designated for the men to relieve themselves now brought him to a point of excruciating panting and dizziness.

A sailor came down the rickety ladder bearing a tray of biscuits. He began to pa.s.s them out, greedy hands reaching for something Drake wouldn't have conceived of eating months before. Now, his hand shook in equal antic.i.p.ation. The rations, shrinking with each day, were putrid. The meat was full of worms, the water like sludge and full of worms, the biscuits infested with weevils. That men of power and wealth could treat the desolate so inhumanely was a shocking reality he now faced daily.

Life had become a horror he never dreamed existed.

As he crunched down into his biscuit Drake tried not to think about the fact that he had been one of those powerful and wealthy. Nay, not just one of them. He had been at the top of the powerful and wealthy. Princes from other countries acquiesced to him. And yes, he owned shares in the Virginia Company and the East India Company, profiting from the misery of such as these sharing this dank world with him now.

He laughed bitterly, rolling a weevil around in his mouth, toying with the choice of swallowing it or spitting it out. He finished his only meal for that day in seconds and then, turning to his side, curled into a ball on the lumpy cot. His head ached from all the tortuous thoughts. He imagined drowning and the silent rest that would come with death. Maybe he was going mad. It was a grasping feeling, like he was hanging by his fingertips from the window of a high-storied building-this no longer knowing who he was, no longer knowing his place in the world. He felt like an empty skin that still had to walk and talk and eat . . . but had no soul.

You're worthless. No one wanted you and no one ever will. Just look at you. You are nothing.

Drake put his arms up over his head, covering his ears. He no longer had the strength to fight the voice that told him who he was. He could only curl up against it. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, shaking the groaning vessel. The storm was taking a nasty turn.

Danny, several bunks away, called to Drake, fear in his tone. Drake turned toward him, desperate for a distraction. Danny had proved his salvation more than once on this h.e.l.lish voyage. He saw the boy through the dim light. His thin frame draped in ragged clothes, hanging onto his cot, eyes wide. Drake's stomach turned. Watching the children endure this suffering required a different kind of bearing up than he'd yet experienced. The numbers haunted them all-only twenty-one of the original forty children were still alive.

Drake held tight to the beds on the way to Danny's cot as the s.h.i.+p jerked about anyone who tried to walk. Grasping the boy's thin-boned hand, Drake squeezed, panting to catch his breath so he could shout above the gale. "Is this not a grand ride, Danny?"

"My stomach hurts and I think I'm going to throw up, but there isn't anything in my stomach to come up." Danny grinned at his own joke, the skeletal smile making Drake's stomach twist harder. He remembered his breakfasts of coddled eggs and ham and toast, and how he'd thought it his due as a human, never mind as a duke. What he wouldn't give to have that golden, b.u.t.ter-smeared toast to give to Danny right now.

How different he could have been! Drake's chest heaved with the sorrow of it, but he rallied, became bright and encouraging, because he didn't have anything else to give Danny but hope. "Well, in that case, it's a good thing your stomach is empty. Now let us see if we can get your mind on something else. How is your reading lesson coming?"

Drake had written out the alphabet for Danny some days ago, helping the lad memorize them and the sounds they made.

"I'm up to letter p, sir." He put his lips together, forcing air out, making the p sound. He stopped suddenly as a violent cough racked his emaciated body. Drake put a comforting hand on the boy's back. When the spasm subsided, Danny blurted out, "Will you really give me a book once I 'ave it all down?"

Another dip rolled Danny into Drake, nearly knocking them both to the floor. "Of course. A gentleman always keeps his word." Drake rushed the statement, seeing the boy's eyes fill with terror as he righted them, settling the child back into his blankets.

Suddenly, a loud creaking sounded above them, which turned into a thunderous crash. Drake covered Danny's body with his own, waiting for the ceiling to cave in on them, the water to flood in. When it didn't, he looked up to see a sailor coming down the steps, water pouring into the hold.

"You there! And any other able-bodied men! We need help!"

Drake patted Danny's arm. "Hang on tight, Danny. We're men of the sea now. We can overcome this." The boy nodded, hero wors.h.i.+p in his eyes as Drake turned from him and scrambled up to the deck, panic imbuing him with renewed strength. The s.h.i.+p had righted itself, but the damage to the main mast was ma.s.sive. Every man available scrambled to the huge, wooden pole with its tattered sails flapping like wind-blown laundry. Drake shouldered his part of the load as they struggled to raise the beam. The wind tore at them and the weight, too much for their combined weakened state, knocked the beam out of their hands.

Again and again they tried to raise it, creaking and groaning, the men grunting and heaving, but finally, they gave up and laid it back down on the deck. They could only try again after the wind died down.

Drake's dread grew. Without the main sail it was impossible to steer the s.h.i.+p, which now tossed upon the gray, foaming waves like some giant child's toy. The thought of going off-track and losing time sobered them all. Rations were already slim; they couldn't afford to lose their way.

Soaked to the bone and s.h.i.+vering violently, Drake abandoned the attempt and, with the other defeated men, stumbled back down into the cesspool of stench that was their home.

Nothing was left to them but to wrap sodden blankets around themselves and wait to see if, come morning, they were among the living.

FOURTEEN WEEKS AND five days in the pit of a vermin-infested hold. Fourteen weeks of soul-robbing hope. Fourteen weeks of living minute by minute, and then-as a rainbow appearing-a shout was heard, echoing though the hold.

"Land!"

The word lifted them out of their desolate places.

"Land . . . ho!"

It awoke them from the depths of their despair. It was the sweetest word they had ever heard.

Drake opened his eyes, scarcely daring to believe. Land. Had they really reached it? Sitting up slowly to avoid the constant dizziness that tormented him, he listened, hoping to hear the word again-hoping he hadn't dreamed it. Others around him roused, looking like walking, crawling corpses with fanatical excitement on their faces. It was true, they'd all heard it.

Staggering to the ladder he waited in the sudden line, men and women with crazed expressions and sudden energy pulsing through their gaunt frames. They climbed the ladder with legs that shook and then stumbled across the deck to the railing. Drake recoiled from the bright dawn, their new dawn, pain shooting through his head until he thought he might collapse, but his spirit rose within him, urging the frail flesh to the rail. Behind them, a glorious sunrise pinkened the sky, was.h.i.+ng the deck of the s.h.i.+p in a rosy glow. But no one spared much energy to appreciate it. They focused, as one desperate being, toward the dark line of land on the western horizon. Drake tried to hold his emotions in check as his s.h.i.+pmates fell apart around him-women and men wept with relief, falling to their knees in raptures of joy, grasping at the rail, unwilling to tear their gaze from the land, thanking G.o.d in loud voices that belied their weakened state. They'd reached land. They'd reached their promised land.

Drake felt a tear trickle down his hollow cheek and blinked to rid the water from his eyes so he could focus on the dark blur approaching. He found his mind repeating a lunatics' litany. Have we really made it? Have we really found it?

Suddenly he was kneeling. The sunlight sent bolts of pain through his eyes and into his head, but he squinted, staring at the dark coastland, willing it to arrive as nausea and excitement rolled deep in his belly. Not much sea left, his mind reminded him in a muddled fog. After so many weeks on water, land seemed a new anomaly. All he could remember now was the sea. Gray, deep, dark, unfathomable water.

He pulled himself up, clung to the rail and licked his dry, cracked lips. He watched the gentle, gray-green waves lap the s.h.i.+p's hull. To drink full and deep of clean, cool water. What did that feel like? Thoughts of water tormented him, memories of crystal goblets br.i.m.m.i.n.g with it was a dreamy image in his head, not that he ever drank much water. But now, now that he couldn't have any, he obsessed about it-its thirst-robbing authority, its crystal clarity. It even dogged his dreams. That it was all around him, and he couldn't drink it had nearly driven him insane.

Daniel McLaughlin walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. "How you be feelin' now, Drake? Fever gone yet?"

Drake squinted up from his hunched position at the only man on board he had really liked, the red-headed Scotsman, and the kind of man you would want covering your back in a fight. Drake was glad he had taken the risk and gotten to know the man.

"Not gone yet, Daniel," he croaked out, "but as soon as I can get some water, I shall recover. That is all this body needs." Drake's fever had burned hot for the last three days.

Daniel grinned, showing white teeth against an auburn beard. "Some decent food wouldna hurt much either, would it now? With land in sight, I think we just might get off this floating h.e.l.l and get a little of both." He swept his hand toward the hazy coastland, his voice turning soft with conviction. "Freedom and a good life are just over those waves. Hold on for a few more hours, my friend."

Drake struggled to stand upright, and Daniel helped him back to his cot. Another day, Daniel promised-just one more day.

Pray G.o.d he survived that long.

Chapter Five.

PHILADELPHIA.

Serena Winter stood at the bottom of the ladder in the dark hold, blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light and for her sense of balance to return in accord with the rocking motion of the s.h.i.+p. Mary Ann, younger by two years, stood just behind her. "Are there many?"

"I do not know yet. I cannot see a thing." Moving a couple of hesitant steps forward she s.h.i.+fted the heavy basket on her arm. "I will take this side and thee can go over there."

"All right." Mary Ann giggled. "Watch thy step, sister. Remember the last time we played nurse. Thy shoes were nearly ruined."

Serena remembered. All too well. She grimaced and nodded at her sister. This was their sixth time playing nurse, as Mary Ann liked to call it. When a s.h.i.+p of indentured servants arrived in the Philadelphia harbor and there were known sick on board, the Society of Friends was quick to respond. The older girls of local families had all been trained in rudimentary nursing and they rotated s.h.i.+fts to help the needy. Sometimes they went to the poorhouse or homes of the elderly, but Serena had a special place in her heart for the indentured. There was a woeful faith about them that made her want to help them succeed. She knew they came out of desperation with the hope that after their term of indenture was over they would be able to make a good life for themselves in this wild, new world. But the journey and their treatment often left them too weak to even care that they had finally made it. As Serena nursed them back to health, she also cared for their dreams, praying for them, hoping for them, encouraging body and soul back to health.

Picking her way carefully between the bare cots, Serena looked for someone in need of care. Most of the indentured were up on deck waiting to be allowed to go ash.o.r.e. Many had called out for water and food as she and Mary Ann pa.s.sed by, but Serena ignored them. Those too sick to leave their cots down in the hold were most in need of the meager provisions she and Mary Ann had brought with them. It was hard to ignore anyone, especially the thin, filthy children, but worse was the knowledge that oftentimes these poor people had to wait days or even weeks until all the advertising and sales were completed and they could go to their new homes, unless the soul-drivers came-and G.o.d help them if that happened.

A groan drew her attention. Serena turned, and there, in a shaft of the dim light cast from a porthole, slept a man. Serena picked her way toward the cot and leaned over him.

Her breath caught in her chest. His longish, dark hair was lank, and a dark beard covered most of his face. Even so, he was striking-beautiful really-hollow cheeks and all. A sudden thought rose to her consciousness: G.o.d took special care when He fas.h.i.+oned this man. He was thin and weakened from his journey, sick and flushed with fever, but something about him radiated greatness and strength. A strange sensation overtook her, making her want to reach out to him. She watched, detached from conscious movement, as her hand, small and pale, did just that. Her palm gently cupped his cheek, stroking up to his forehead, and found it burning hot. With the backs of her fingers, she smoothed his hot temple and brushed back a lock of dark hair.

Suddenly fingers as strong and tight as a manacle grasped her wrist. She reared back, about to cry out, when he mumbled incoherent words and released her. Taking a shaky breath, Serena stared. Was he delirious with fever, then? She had heard of it happening but had not seen it. She reached into her basket and brought out a cool, damp cloth, which she laid on his forehead. Taking a water bottle, she uncorked it with a soft pop and poured cool water into a tin cup. Carefully, she lifted his head. "Please, sir, drink this."

There was no response, so she tipped the cup, letting the tiniest trickle of clearness spill into his mouth. He swallowed. She smiled, caught by the moment, and tried again. He swallowed a little more, his throat moving under the growth of his beard. Again and again she fed him drop after drop of the water, exhilaration at each small success filling her, until the cup was nearly empty. Her arm ached so that she could no longer hold up his head, so she eased him back to the thin pillow and tried to make him more comfortable. Taking another damp cloth she ran it down the column of his neck and into the opening of his s.h.i.+rt where dark hair curled on his chest. His skin was hot and dry, heating the cloth so quickly that she had to pour a little of her precious store of drinking water onto it before starting the process again at his forehead. He grew restless, mumbling sentences that made no sense and then suddenly. "Don't call the doctor, Crudnell, he knows all. Cannot trust the man."

She had no idea what that meant, could only stare at his chiseled face and wonder if the fever would break or take him further into unconsciousness. But, more than anything she could ever remember wanting, she wanted him to open his eyes and see her.

After doing all she could to cool him down, she tucked the thin blanket around his shoulders and scanned the area for others. Her eyes had now adjusted to the light and she could see three more men on her side of the hold. Moving quickly to them, she a.s.sessed their condition. One was dead, the hollowness of his body showing starvation to be the likely cause. Serena pulled the blanket over his head. She would tell the captain and make sure he arranged for a decent burial. If not, the Friends would come and take the body to ensure the man had a place of rest. It wouldn't be the first time a s.h.i.+p's captain had s.h.i.+fted the responsibility. The other two were sleeping and, when awakened, were very grateful to find freshly baked bread, thinly sliced but thick with b.u.t.ter and water-enough water to quench weeks' worth of thirst. With healthy nourishment, Serena thought, they should be back on their feet in a few days.

Serena went over to Mary Ann's side. "How many are there?"

"Five women, one about to give birth, I think, and another with a three-year-old who is very sick. Oh, Rena-" she looked down at the floor of the hold, trying not to cry-"'tis so hard to see the little ones suffer."

Mary Ann was too softhearted to be an effective nurse, but she did her best, in between the sighs and the tears. "It is well that we are here to bring them comfort, then. Hast thou given them water?"

"Yes, and some food. They are all awake and very grateful."

"Take me to the child." Serena followed Mary Ann through the maze of cots and knelt down next to a woman and her child.

The mother lifted her head and offered a weak smile. Two of her teeth had rotted and her gums were bleeding. "Thank ye, dear ladies. I haven't been much help to little Harry here, but ye are like angels come from above. I thank G.o.d for ye."

Serena smiled at her, all the while a.s.sessing Harry. His fever was high, but he was awake and able to talk. There was no rash, which was excellent. Serena leaned toward Mary Ann. "Mostly I think they are all starved and thirsty."

Serena focused again on the mother. "Has he had loose stools, ma'am?"

"Oh my, yes. Vomiting before and the loose bowel now. Poor little chap can't keep nothin' in his stomach."

Serena reached into her basket for a jug of blackberry root tea. Dysentery was common and so she carried the tea with her on these trips. The little boy drank greedily of the sugared tea. "I will leave this here with thee," she said to the mother, "but it is for him only. Give him a cupful every two hours. I will leave plenty of good water for you and the rest of the women."

The woman smiled, nodding, and whispered her thanks as Serena moved on, Mary Ann following at her heels, to the pregnant woman.

"She says she is in her eighth month," Mary Ann whispered at Serena's back.

After a.s.sessing and talking with the woman, who was also feverish, Serena turned to Mary Ann. "She needs to be examined by Beatrice. She is such an excellent midwife. Would thee run and fetch her?"

Mary Ann nodded, relief in her eyes at the prospect of escape. "'Tis fortunate we brought Henry along as escort, else I would not be able to!"

Serena waved her away with a smile. "Yes, 'tis fortunate indeed. Let us hope our good fortune continues and Beatrice will be found at home and not out delivering a baby."

As soon as Mary Ann left, Serena's mind turned back to the man she first helped. Who was he? He seemed, somehow, so out of place here among the starving. There was an elusive beauty about him that made her imagine him in an elegant manor house, a crystal cup in his hand upraised in a toast, a troop of fawning, elegant people at his table. She had the sudden desire to paint such a scene. And him. She closed her eyes, envisioning him dressed in her watercolors. A sudden coughing made her eyes snap open. It was him. She found her feet turning, walking toward the shaft of light pooling around his bed. Mayhap he'd been caught in an earthbound spell that robbed him of his true ident.i.ty.

She stared down at his face, studying it. Noting the delicate bone structure beneath the skin, she saw the deft strokes her brush would make as she painted his eyebrows, his eyelashes, his beard . . . the contrast dark and beautiful. Her gaze drifted, like a stroke of paint, down his jawline to his squared chin. A bit too thin for perfection but elegant, even delicate, with a cleft that only the careful observer would see perfectly centered under the dark growth of hair.

"How fearfully and wonderfully thou art made." She breathed the thought aloud and then turned. Had anyone heard her? She exhaled a silly smile, laughing at herself. She'd never behaved so or thought thusly in all her life. What was wrong with her?

Using great care, so as not to wake him, she sank down on the narrow edge of the cot, reaching for his forehead. It was still burning hot, making the cloth warm and dry. Exchanging the cloth for a fresh one from the basket, she pressed it against his brow, allowing her fingers to brush his temple and then back into his hair, repeating the motion until it became a gentle ma.s.sage. She leaned closer still, now willing him to wake up. A fanciful thought flitted through her mind that he had been waiting for her touch to bring him back to life, that she held some power over his recovery. She smiled at herself and him, but she believed it.

His hair was black as ink, blue-black almost, and fell long and straight away from his forehead. Her fingers slid into it seemingly of their own will. Silky and inky. She imagined him with a fuller face and shaven clean. He would most certainly be handsome, but more than that, he was . . . n.o.ble. "Who art thou?"

The soft question seemed to stir something in him, for he scowled at her and answered, most imperious: "Drake Weston, fifth Duke of Northumberland, of course."

Serena gasped. "Thou art no duke!" Was he mad?

He seemed to have lost his momentary lucidity and didn't respond. Serena shook her head, staring at him for a time, then exchanged the cloth, laying a fresh one on his forehead. As she leaned back toward him she whispered, "But thee can dream of such things for a while longer, and then thee must wake up and see me."

Her husky voice sounded strange to her own ears. Her hand seemed to have a mind of its own as she touched his cheek, feeling the coa.r.s.e whiskers under her thumb. It had been a long time since she had touched whiskers, and those only of her father's as he tickled her with them when she was a little girl.

The man took a long, shaking breath and seemed to sink into a deeper sleep. Her hand trailed down his neck toward his chest- She froze. What was she doing? She wanted to touch him, and the urge had no connection to nursing. What was wrong with her? She stood, but again his hand shot out and grasped her wrist.

"Stay with me." The words croaked past dry lips.

Serena sat back down, easily conquered, reaching for the water jug for something to do. Pouring cool, clean water into the tin cup, she lifted his head to drink.

"Yes, I will stay by thy side if thou wilt drink."

He drank more this time and then dropped back onto the pillow with a sigh. She sat beside him, hands clasped in her lap to keep them from touching his face and hair, allowing herself only to watch him sleep. Her gaze fell on his lips, and she remembered the ointment in her basket. She bit her lower lip. Dare she?

A small smile formed on the man's mouth, and Serena reared back. Could he read her mind? Of course not, she chided herself. He was probably just feeling better-he'd certainly needed the water he had been able to ingest. Slowly, so as not to disturb his sleep, she leaned toward the basket on the floor and rummaged through it until her fingers wrapped around a little clay pot. It was in her lap and opened before she realized she had made her decision. She looked down at the ointment. Normally, she would have given it to the patient and allowed him to apply it himself, but this man clearly could not manage that. She dipped her finger into the pot before she could convince herself otherwise, the soothing smells of lemon and beeswax filling the s.p.a.ce around them. Her hand stretched out toward his face, her heart pounding. What if he woke? How would she explain what she was doing?

She dabbed a bit on his lower lip and sat back to see what response he would have. Nothing. He slept on. She nodded. She was a nurse; she could do this. Leaning in again, she quickly spread the ointment across his bottom lip. He moved his head away, as if avoiding a fly, but didn't wake. Determined to finish the job, she reached for the upper lip, which wasn't quite as chapped. It was softer and curved, dark rose in color with an indention in the middle that must be sinful, it was so well shaped. Her heart pounded in her chest and her breath quickened as she spread the ointment across the top of his upper lip. She halted, realizing how close she had leaned in, how deep her breathing had become . . .

When had she closed her eyes? Heaven help her, she wanted to kiss him.

"You can, you know."