Carola Dunn (21 page)

He shook his head forebodingly. “There are very few ships in the harbour, and none of them English. If something does not come in during the next week or so, we may have to wait all winter.”

Rebecca’s heart sank. “If it came to that, surely we could insist on being together? Or perhaps it would be best to sail to Germany, or Sweden. Some country where we should not have to hide from the Russians.”

John’s laugh took her by surprise. He reached out and touched her cheek with a gloved finger. “To think that I was afraid you might fall into hysterics! It may be more difficult to persuade a foreign captain to risk taking us on board, but doubtless it can be done.” He patted his middle, where the money-belt thickened his usually trim girth. “It is certainly worth a try. And if not, I shall not let them keep us apart.”

The promise in his eyes seemed to mean more than his words, and Rebecca was quite glad of the distraction when the carriage jolted to a halt.

A moment later, Hakiinen opened the door. “You stay here, milady. Hurry.”

Before Rebecca quite realized what was happening, she and Esperanza were standing hand in hand at the door of a neat-looking wooden house, and the carriage was rumbling away down the street. A buxom, grey-haired woman urged them in broken Russian to come in quickly.

“I’m hungry,” Esperanza announced in the same language, and marched in. With a final glance after the carriage, Rebecca followed.

Esperanza was soon on the best of terms with their hostess. She did not mind at all when Rebecca, wilting with weariness, retired to bed after breakfast. For the next three days, Rebecca had little to do besides sleep and eat, and she quickly recovered her strength. She managed to put behind her the horrors of her imprisonment, except briefly when the woman insisted on showing her the reason for her willingness to help. One evening she pulled up the shirt of her taciturn son, who lived with her, showing a back ridged and seamed by the scars of a Russian flogging.

Thankful that Esperanza had already gone to bed, Rebecca said faintly, “I understand.”

Despite that incident, there was no recurrence of her nightmares. On the contrary, she dreamed of John, and became less and less certain whether he had ever really rocked her in his arms and whispered loving words in her ear.

If he had, she decided regretfully, it had only been to comfort her. After all, he was a duke’s son, and she was a mere governess though she had stepped out of her rôle for a while. She must learn to love him from afar, for that she did love him she could no longer deny. She knew he was attracted to her, fond of her, but it was plain that he was aware of the gulf between them. Nothing else could account for his alternating tenderness and withdrawal.

Confined to the house, with nothing to read and nothing to do but odds and ends of mending, she thought long and hard on the subject but always came to the same conclusion. Though John might despise his father’s conservatism, his family’s consciousness of superiority to the common run of mortals was born and bred in the bone. Lord John Danville would never stoop to take a wife from the squirarchy.

Rebecca reminded herself firmly of her resolve never to take a husband to rule over her. It was a pity that her heart leaped at the sight of his face when he appeared at the door on the evening of the fourth day, but she would get over it in time.

His exuberant expression was soon explained. “Beckie, they have found us a ship, an English trader. She came in two days ago. They will finish loading her with wood and furs this evening, and she sails with the morning tide. The captain will take us--for a goodly sum,” he admitted with a grin, “if we go aboard tonight. He will not wait, though, for fear of being caught in the ice. It happened to him once, I collect. Are you ready to go?”

“I have kept our things packed up, but Chiquita has just fallen asleep, poor child. Give me a few minutes to dress her.”

“Hakiinen has gone to fetch Annie and Rowson. We have half an hour or so. I’ll come and carry Chiquita down.”

Slumped against John’s shoulder, Esperanza slept all the way to the harbour. She roused only enough to mutter a drowsy protest when she was tucked up again in the cabin she was to share with Rebecca. The
Rochester Rose,
out of London, had ample accommodations for all and Captain Hardy was only too glad to find travellers willing to pay for their passage at this inhospitable season.

Risto Hakiinen, on the other hand, like Rebecca’s hostess indignantly refused John’s gold and brushed aside their fervent thanks.

“Is bad for Russia,” he said simply, “is good for Finland.” He shook hands with all of them and disappeared into the night. Feeling almost as safe as if they were already on English soil, the fugitives retired to their rest.

In the morning, Rebecca wanted to go on deck. “I have seen nothing of Helsinki,” she said, “and there will never be another chance.”

“I see no harm,” John agreed. “Captain Hardy has all his clearances and even if we are seen there is no reason anyone should have the slightest idea who we are. By the sound of it, they are already raising the anchor.”

Esperanza, a seasoned traveller, was not at all interested in seeing the sights. John and Rebecca hurried up to the open air.

Screeching seagulls battled the brisk, bitter wind, swooping after a bucket of scraps thrown overboard. The ship was inching away from the quay. Rebecca hugged her cloak about her and gazed out over the town. There seemed to be a lot of building going on, though most of the houses were still of wood. She turned to look at the harbour mouth.

Across it spread a handful of islands. They bristled with fortifications, cannon trained on the narrow waterways. Rebecca was about to comment when Captain Hardy approached them.

“A fine wind, ma’am, my lord. A good nor’easter is just what we need to get us started. Hey there, what’s toward?” He stared past them at the quay.

Rebecca and John swung round. A troop of horsemen in scarlet uniforms was galloping along the quay. They pulled up just short of the edge, one or two horses rearing, and their leader hailed the ship.

“Postoy!”

The captain shrugged and leaned over the rail to call, “I don’t speak Russian. No speak Russki.”

Rebecca clutched John’s arm. “They must be after us!”

“Undoubtedly.” John’s face was grim.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Captain Hardy assured her. “I’m not about to turn back for a bunch of rascally Russkis.
Nicht verstehe!”
he answered in German another demand to stop.

“But what about the guns on the islands?” Rebecca asked him.

“Trouble with putting your defences on a bunch of islands is it don’t make communicating too easy. It may work well when the enemy comes from the sea, but it’ll take those fellows longer to get word to them than it’ll take us to sail past. Raise sail!” he bellowed at his crew.

As they hastened to obey, the officer on the quay also shouted a command. The troopers swung rifles from their shoulders.

“Get down!” ordered John sharply, forcing Rebecca full length on the deck. He sprawled beside her, half on top of her, sheltering her with his body as a ragged volley of shots rang out.

Bullets whined overhead. One nicked the wood six inches beyond Rebecca’s outstretched hand, between her and the prostrate captain.

She heard John grunt, felt him jerk.

“Are you all right?” She tried to sit up, desperate to see if he was hurt.

“Keep down. They have to reload but we may still be in range. Don’t move, Beckie.”

“Are you all right?” she repeated urgently.

“The sons of bitches winged me. Nothing serious hit. Ouch! Dammit, keep still, woman. They are bound to fire again.”

Rebecca lay still, tears streaking silently down her face. He was hurt, and yet he thought only of protecting her.

“Hell and damnation,” swore the captain. “We’ve made just enough sail to keep underway. I daren’t raise more till we clear the channel.” He began to crawl towards the helmsman, who stood at the wheel with a pipe between his teeth, nonchalantly steering the
Rochester Rose
towards the island fortresses.

The crack of the rifles sounded again, more distant this time. As far as Rebecca could tell, the bullets did not reach the ship. John rolled off her and lay on his back, groaning and clutching his arm.

She knelt beside him. There was a dark patch just below the shoulder on the left sleeve of his greatcoat. It was spreading ominously and he was very pale.

The most important thing was to stop the bleeding. She undid the top buttons of his coat, then ripped the flounce from her petticoat and thrust it down into the sleeve. His neck-cloth was the ideal bandage. He lifted his head, smiling faintly as she pulled it off and bound it as tight as she could about his arm.

“Better get below,” he muttered, struggling to raise himself with his good arm.

She helped him sit up, but he was far too big for her to lift to his feet. She glanced round for help. Rowson was hurrying towards them.

“Head going round,” said John thickly. “Going to cast up my accounts.” He leaned forward and was thoroughly sick.

His forehead was alarmingly clammy under Rebecca s supporting hand, and he sagged heavily against her.

Rowson joined them. “Best go below, Miss Beckie. The captain’s sending the carpenter with a stretcher. We’ll bring his lordship down to you right and tight.”

“Is there a surgeon on board?”

“I didn’t think to ask, miss, but I doubt it, this not being a man-o’-war.”

He helped her lay John down on the deck. She hated to leave him, lying so still with his eyes closed and his face a ghastly white, but there were preparations to be made to receive him. She smoothed his dark hair, lank with cold sweat, back from his forehead and hurried below.

Hot water, linen for bandages, a well-warmed bed—what else could she do for him? A gunshot wound was far beyond her experience. Teresa’s medicine chest was lost, but surely the captain must have a few basic remedies. She prayed the bullet was not still in John’s arm.

For the next half hour she was too busy to worry. Rowson and his assistant laid John on the sheet-covered table in the saloon and cut away his sleeve. The bullet had gone straight through the fleshy part of his arm, leaving a ragged exit hole. Though the bleeding was already slowing, he had lost a lot of blood. He seemed scarcely conscious.

Annie kept the frightened Esperanza in her cabin while Rebecca and Rowson washed John’s arm. The ship’s carpenter claimed to have been apprenticed to an apothecary before going to sea, and on his advice Rebecca bathed the wound in vodka, there being no brandy aboard. She refused, however, to let him bleed John. Popular remedy for all ills it might be, but enough blood had been spilt.

As she put the finishing touches to the bandage, John opened his eyes. “Cheer up, Beckie, I shan’t stick my spoon in the wall.” His grin was crooked and when he reached out to her with his good arm he let it drop half way through the gesture. “Dash it, I’m weak as a newborn kitten though.”

She laid her hand on his forehead in what appeared, she hoped, to be a professional manner. “Yes, I daresay you will live to be a hundred,” she said with attempted lightness. “At least you neither look nor feel like an iceberg now.”

“I’d best get his lordship into bed now, Miss Beckie,” Rowson said firmly. With the carpenter’s aid he carried John into his cabin, and shut the door in Rebecca’s face.

Resisting the longing to sink into the nearest chair, she began to clear up. The mess in the small saloon was indescribable and Esperanza could not be kept confined in the even smaller cabin much longer. Annie tired easily these days. She was always willing but it would not be fair to expect her to take sole charge of the active child, nor to nurse John. There was no time for Rebecca to give way to the megrims.

The carpenter came out of John’s cabin and carried off the red-stained debris. Rowson followed a few minutes later.

“He’s asleep, miss, and comfortable enough for now. I’ll make so bold as to tell you, you was splendid. Even our Miss Teresa couldn’t have managed it better.”

“Thank you, Rowson.” No praise could have been more welcome to her ears. She wished John was there to hear it.

“And so I told his lordship,” Rowson continued.

There was a spring in her step as she went to release and reassure Esperanza and Annie.

* * * *

Rebecca was sitting by John’s bed when he awoke. He was as angry as his weakness allowed.

“We are not on a Finnish ship now!” he pointed out. “These people are all going to London, they speak English, and there is bound to be talk. You are not to come into my cabin alone, understand?”

‘Yes, my lord.” She smiled at him, glad that he was alive to upbraid her, and glad of his care for her reputation.

As the days passed John gradually regained his strength. Once he felt well enough to get up it was impossible to keep him abed all day. He was quite willing to sit quietly in the saloon, his arm in a sling, making up stories for Esperanza or talking with Rebecca about every subject under the sun.

The better she came to know him, the more she loved him and the harder it was not to show it.

The wounds were healing well and she was pleased with his swift recovery. It was a shock, therefore, when she left her cabin one morning to find Rowson awaiting her with a grave face.

“His lordship’s a mite feverish, Miss Beckie. Will you come and see him?”

John was hot and uncomfortable and, above all, cross. “Don’t fuss so,” he complained. “I’ll wager I just have a touch of the grippe.”

“Let me see your arm.” Before Rebecca took off the light dressing that had replaced the bandage she could see that the area around the wound was red and swollen. She forced herself to stay calm. “I believe I shall ask our friendly apprentice apothecary to take a look.”

Her patient glared at her. “He will just want to bleed me.”

“Since you are not half dead from lack of blood, perhaps I shall let him this time, if only to keep you quiet. Do lie down, John, and stop looking daggers at me.”

He obeyed, laughing at her fierceness. “Very well, ma’am, but I do not promise to allow that carpenter to cup me.” He twisted restlessly.