Merline Lovelace (20 page)

L
eaning a shoulder against the window casement, Victoria stared through the open shutters at the moon hanging low above the garden wall. Exhaustion dragged at her limbs and dulled the edges of her mind. She hadn’t slept, hadn’t so much as closed her eyes. They felt gritty, dry, like patches of sand.

Was it only six or seven hours ago that she’d waited so eagerly for Sam to come home? Only twelve since the possibility that she carried a child had burst on her?

All the confusion, all the surprise and joy and wonder of that amazing possibility was gone. The news from Siboney had buried everything under a thick layer of fear.

Mary was down with fever.

And Sam had gone to her.

Victoria knew in her heart what he would do. He
wouldn’t let Mary die in the contagion ward. He’d bring her out, care for her himself, try to save her no matter the cost. She was his friend, his good friend.

All through the long night, Victoria had agonized over whether or not she, too, should make the journey to Siboney. The very prospect filled her with terror. Not for herself, not for Sam. For her baby.

Oh, God! Her baby!

She wrapped her arms tight around her middle. The torment of her choices almost ripped her apart.

She had to think of her child. Had to consider its health and safety. If there
was
a child.

Against that possibility, she had to weigh Mary’s life. Victoria had spent weeks at Siboney. She wasn’t as skilled as the trained nurses, certainly, but those long days and nights had taught her a great deal more than Sam could possibly know about caring for fever patients.

Hugging her middle, she closed her sandpapery eyes. What should she do? What could she do?

She was still at the window when a rooster crowed, announcing the thin, gray dawn. Still agonizing when she heard the sounds of the household stirring. Still torn when Max Luna left for the governor’s palace.

Sam reached the outskirts of Santiago an hour after dawn. Concealed behind the rubble of what
had once been a farmhouse, he held Mary against him and surveyed the formidable coils of concertina wire the Spanish had thrown up in anticipation of an invasion. There was no going around the wire, or bluffing his way past the marines guarding the checkpoints.

He’d have to go through it, Sam decided, eyeing the glistening coils. He knew a spot on the western perimeter, close to the harbor, where some enterprising troops had cut a swath through the wire and enjoyed a wild night in town before being marched back to their units for appropriate discipline. If he timed it just right, he could get Mary through the wire between patrols.

He had just turned his weary mount off the main road when a distant rattle of wheels brought his head around. Squinting through the hazy gray drizzle, he made out the shape of an open carriage. It approached the checkpoint and halted for the marine sentries to verify the driver’s pass before rolling through. Cursing, Sam nudged his mount back behind the rubble. He’d gotten Mary this far. He wasn’t about to allow them both to be detected within sight of the city.

Cradling her limp form against his chest, he watched through narrowed eyes as the driver flicked the reins and urged the single horse in the harness to as fast a clip as the muddy, rutted track would permit. Suddenly, Sam stiffened.

“What the hell…?”

A poncho was draped over the driver’s head and upper body, but the red-gold tendrils flying out from under the hood identified her as surely as a signpost.

Sam’s stomach clenched. He guessed immediately where she was headed. His mind racing, he tried to decide whether or not to remain hidden and let her drive by. When he’d ridden out of Santiago yesterday, he hadn’t stopped to weigh the risk of infection against the ties of friendship. Exposing Victoria to that risk was another matter altogether, however.

Sam had counted on her boarding the
Sea Cloud
this morning. Had intended to wait until she was safely gone before bringing Mary into the house. Even then, he’d planned to keep the sick woman isolated and care for her himself until her fever broke. Now it looked as though Victoria might miss the steamer. She was heading not for home and safety, but straight for Siboney.

With another curse, Sam kicked free of the stirrups, hooked a leg over the saddle horn and slid down. A few quick kicks cleared a spot in the rubble. Gently, he deposited his burden on the ground. Peeling back the blanket, he saw that fever had her again. Sweat pearled her face. Eyes dulled to a flat black gazed up at him unseeing.

“Mary? Can you hear me?”

Her forehead creased. With a small moan, she fought her way through the mists in her mind.

“Sam?”

“I have to leave you for a moment. Only a moment. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He couldn’t tell if she understood him or not. Her lids fluttered down again.

When the carriage swept past a mound of rubble and a gaunt, mud-brown specter materialized in the road directly ahead of her, Victoria’s heart jumped straight into her throat.

Gasping, she sawed on the reins with one hand. With the other, she fumbled open the valise on the floor beside her feet. Her fingers yanked open the flap on the revolver’s holster at the same instant she recognized the mud-covered figure.

“Sam!”

Sagging with relief, she fought to bring the carriage horse to a prancing halt. Sam jumped forward to assist her. Wrapping his fist around the leads, he stilled the skittish mare and pinned Victoria with a fierce stare.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

“Max told me you went to Siboney. He said you received word Mary was down with fever. When you didn’t return last night, I had to come and see if I could help.”

Gripping the reins, she forced herself to ask the question that had haunted her all night.

“How did you find her?”

“Ill. Very ill. But alive.”

“Is it— Is it Yellow Jack?”

Sam noted the catch in her voice, understood the fear behind it. His own skin still crawled with the memory of brushing past so many infected patients to get to their nurse.

“No. Malaria. But between the fever and the chills and utter exhaustion, I doubt she would have survived another day in the contagion ward.”

The dread squeezing Victoria’s chest like a vise eased its vicious hold. Closing her eyes, she uttered a quick prayer of thanksgiving. When she opened them again, she searched Sam’s face beneath the dripping brim of his hat.

“So you brought her out.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered, anyway.

“Yes, I brought her out.”

She crossed an arm over her belly. She was fighting her fear, Sam guessed, just as he had.

“Where is she?”

“Over there, in the ruins.”

Sam half expected her to shrink back against the seat again, and had opened his mouth to assure her that Mary was his responsibility and his alone. To his surprise, she blew out a long breath, wrapped
the reins around the brake and started to climb down.

“Well, between us we shall make her well. How fortunate that I brought the carriage. We can—”

Sam stepped in front of her, cutting off both her descent and her rapid patter. “Get back in the carriage. I won’t have you exposed to infection.”

“You said she’s down with malaria.”

“She’s been in contact with yellow fever patients.”

“So have you now,” Victoria shot back, “but I would no more abandon you than I would Mary!”

The fierce response took him aback. With a sigh, Victoria tried to explain the tangled mix of emotions that had brought her out of the city.

“Mary looked out for me those weeks at Siboney, Sam. She made sure I ate. Forced me to rest. Reminded me constantly to take my quinine pills. She took care of me, just as she took care of all those wounded and ill soldiers. How could I possibly turn away from her now that she needs caring for?”

That brave speech cost her more than he would ever know. Setting her teeth, she fought to keep from wrapping her arms around her stomach again.

She still wasn’t positive she carried a child. Hadn’t had the chance to discuss the possibility with Sam. Now she
couldn’t
tell him. Not with Mary lying only yards away, desperately in need of
help. Putting aside every thought but that one, she reached for the valise.

“Thank God I brought this with me, just in case. If we’re to get Mary past the sentries, we’ll have to get her out of her hospital garb.”

“Victoria—”

“Please! Let’s not waste any more time arguing. Show me where she is.”

E
ven with Sam’s warning that she would find Mary much changed, Victoria wasn’t prepared for the near skeleton she found wrapped in a thin gray blanket.

Mary’s eyes had sunk deep into their sockets. Her skin hung in loose, sallow folds. The once-glossy black hair was a tangle of sweat-drenched rattails, and the starched white apron and gray uniform dress she’d taken such pride in looked as though they’d been used to mop up floors.

Trying desperately to hide her shock, Victoria sank to her knees amid the rubble and groped for her hand. The bones felt as thin and fragile as a sparrow’s.

“Mary? Mary, it’s Victoria. Can you hear me?”

Her lids twitched. Slowly, so slowly, she opened eyes glazed with fever. “Victoria?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Shouldn’t…have…come.”

“Nonsense.” She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “How could I leave you to Sam’s clumsy attentions? Dear God, you’re shaking all over. Let’s sit you up, shall we, so we can get you out of this wet uniform and into something dry.”

While Sam held her propped against his arm, Victoria tugged at the sash of the soiled apron with trembling fingers, then went to work on the buttons of her gray blouse. Moments later, she peeled away the sodden outer garments.

Shocked all over again by the widow’s emaciated state, Victoria saw that her under linens were just as wet. Sacrificing Mary’s modesty to expediency, she ripped open the valise and snatched out a clean camisole. Her hand shook as she folded the soft linen and splashed it with tepid canteen water, but she forced a cheerful note into her voice.

“You’ll feel better when we’ve washed the dirt and mud off and bundled you into dry clothes. I’ve brought you a red silk dress to wear. And a black lace mantilla. They’re rather fine, if I do say so myself.”

Gently, she removed layer upon layer of sweat and grime.

“The dress will no doubt wrap around you twice, but that can’t be helped. We’ll tuck it up as best we can. There, you’re as clean as we can manage
right now. I’ll give you a proper bath once we’re home.”

Frowning, Mary swiped her tongue along her dry, cracked lips. “Home?”

“Yes, home. Sam has a house in the city. It’s quite comfortable and…”

Victoria’s voice trailed off. Frowning, she tossed aside the soiled rag and plucked another camisole and a pair of drawers from the tapestry bag.

She’d left Santiago with no thought but to go to Siboney and offer whatever assistance she could. Now that Sam had removed Mary from that swamp of pestilence and fever, maybe Victoria should indeed take her home. Today. On the
Sea Cloud.

Frowning, she instructed Sam to hold Mary upright and turn his head away while she eased her out of her wet underclothes into dry ones. The red silk dress came next, followed by a fringed shawl that draped from shoulder to knee.

“I’ll take her things and bury them,” Sam said.

“Under a pile of rocks. We don’t want a dog to dig them up.”

Or anyone else. Mary showed only symptoms of malaria, but she’d been in contact with yellow fever patients. It would be better to burn her clothes, but they didn’t dare start a fire here.

All the while she worked, Victoria’s mind spun fast and furiously. The war with Spain was done. The troops would begin pulling out of Cuba soon.
Although the War Department had ordered that the yellow fever patients be the last to leave, Mary had done her duty by them. More than her duty. She should go home.

When Victoria drew Sam aside and suggested as much, however, he immediately rejected the proposal.

“It’s too risky. If you try to board in the company of a nurse who’s just come from Siboney, the captain will refuse to take either of you aboard.”

“Then we don’t tell him she’s a nurse, or that she’s just come from Siboney. We’ll say she’s my friend. Or my companion. That’s it. My companion. A duenna you’ve hired to protect the reputation of your virginal fiancée during the voyage home.”

Shaking his head, Sam pointed out the flaw in her scheme. “And how will you account for the fact that this duenna is burning with fever and so weak she can’t hold up her head?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t gotten that far!”

“Obviously.”

“All right. Let me think a moment.”

Kicking aside a crumbled adobe brick, Victoria took two paces, whirled back.

“We’ll say she was stricken by the heat. Or she twisted her ankle getting out of the carriage and fainted.”

The sudden intent look in his eyes told her she’d caught his interest. “It might work.”

“We’ll make it work! Think, Sam. Think! You were so insistent that I leave Cuba when the rains came. If it’s unhealthy for me to remain here during the rainy season, it’s doubly so for a woman down with malaria.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“It might be weeks yet before the army clears her to go home.” Throwing a glance over her shoulder, Victoria lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “She might not last that long in this climate. I’ll take her home. I’ll care for her until she’s well enough to care for herself. I owe her that much and more. I owe it to you, too.”

He reared back. “You don’t owe me this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“For what?”

“For doubting you. For doubting myself.”

She stepped up to him and gripped his arm in an effort to make him understand the tangled emotions she was only now beginning to make sense of herself.

“I love you, Sam. And I know you’ve come to love me. What you feel for Mary doesn’t alter that, or diminish it in any way. In fact—”

She summoned a smile, wanting him to understand, needing him to know
she
understood.

“You couldn’t be the man you are if you didn’t possess the capacity to love us both.”

Silence strung out between them—short, tense, charged with the tension that gripped them both.

“You know,” Sam said at last, “a month ago I might have agreed with you.”

“You don’t agree now?”

“Now, my darling, I have to say that’s as big a pile of horse manure as anyone’s ever shoveled, myself included.”

“I beg your pardon!”

Grinning at her offended expression, he dropped a swift kiss on her mouth.

“You fill me, Victoria. Every part of me. My head. My heart. My deepest, most private thoughts. There’s no room inside my skin for anyone but you.”

“Oh. Well.”

“If we’re going ahead with your crazy scheme, I’d better carry Mary to the carriage. We’ve only a few hours before the
Sea Cloud
sails.”

If Sam harbored any doubts about Victoria’s scheme, they disappeared when the carriage approached the checkpoint. He needed only a glimpse at the marine who strode out of the guard shack to swear a silent oath that he would get Mary out of Cuba on the next boat.

It ate a hole in his gut that he’d had to spirit her away from Siboney in the dark of night. That the army she’d volunteered to serve couldn’t protect
her. He and the rest of the American forces had come to Cuba to fight the Spanish. Now, because of the near hysterical fear of yellow fever, the face of their enemy had changed.

“Sam?”

He glanced across Mary’s limp form and saw Victoria watching him with wide, worried eyes.

“I don’t recognize that marine,” she whispered. “He’s not the same one who waved me through a while ago.”

“The sentries do guard mount at nine.” He squinted at the sky, trying to gauge the time. “The new detail must have posted.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“We’ll soon find out.”

Surreptitiously, Victoria tightened her arm around Mary’s waist and reached up with her other hand to twitch the black lace. To her astonishment, the woman beside her seemed to sense what was required. Slowly, her spine stiffened. Just as slowly, her chin came up. Victoria barely had time to marvel at her incredible fortitude before Sam reined in at the checkpoint and the sentry snapped a smart salute.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, sergeant.”

“May I see your pass?”

The well-handled bit of paper almost came apart
in the sentry’s hands. Gingerly, he unfolded it and tried to decipher the rain-washed writing.

“You’re on General Wood’s staff, Captain Barrett?”

“It’s Captain Garrett. Yes, I am.”

“And these ladies?”

The tale they’d concocted in the rubble of the farmhouse would serve as well as any.

“This is Miss Parker, my fiancée, and her companion.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t see their names on the pass.”

Sam stiffened, sensing what was coming. Although both the United States and Spain had agreed to the negotiated terms for peace, neither side had as yet ratified a treaty or signed the actual protocols. Two hundred thousand Spanish troops still occupied the northern part of Cuba. Seventy thousand Americans had dug in along the southern coast. Technically, the two armies were still at war, and the United States Marines manning Santiago’s perimeter defenses took their sentry duties very seriously. Deferential but determined to do his duty, the sergeant handed back the shredding paper.

“I’ll have to get my lieutenant and ask him to authorize—”

“Really, Sam!” Victoria clucked her tongue. “I swear this rain has turned all our brains to mush. Have you forgotten? My pass is in my valise.”

He shot her a swift look. At her small but insistent nod, he reached between his legs and ruffled through the contents of the bag. Slowly, his hand closed around the leather holster partially buried under a nightdress.

“No!” Victoria gasped. “That’s not it! Look—Look in the top notebook.”

Shoving the revolver back under the nightgown, Sam pulled out the notebook she indicated. The press pass she’d been issued to witness the surrender ceremony slipped into his hand.

“I think you’ll find the pass quite in order,” she told the sergeant. “It’s signed by General Shafter himself.”

His brows soared. “So it is.”

“Now, if you don’t mind…” Victoria said with a weary smile. “My companion and I are rather tired. We’ve had to travel for hours to catch our boat.” A note of fluttery panic crept into her voice. “Oh, dear, I do hope we’ll make it. It sails in less than an hour, Sam!”

Picking up his cue, he answered with patient assurance. “We’ll make it.”

“We must. All our trunks are already on board. Do hurry!
Please!
”

“All right, all right. Don’t fret. I’ll get you to the harbor in time. Sergeant, have you finished with that?”

The marine hesitated, gave the general’s signa
ture another glance and handed Sam the document. With a hasty salute, he waved them on.

“Well!” Victoria exclaimed with fierce satisfaction. “Thank goodness for General Shafter’s ridiculous edict requiring passes for members of the press!”

Shafter’s signature worked the same magic at the next three checkpoints, but Victoria was strung too tight with tension by the time the carriage finally clattered onto the dock to appreciate the irony any longer.

“This could well be the most difficult part,” Sam muttered as he reined in a short distance from the
Sea Cloud
’s gangplank. Climbing out, he lifted Mary from the carriage and waited while Victoria scrambled down.

“Here, let me cover her face.”

With Mary shielded from too curious eyes, Victoria dragged off her poncho and made a futile attempt to tuck up her own straggly hair. Mud soiled the hem of her gray skirt, but her white blouse and short-waisted traveling jacket weren’t too disreputable. The gold locket pinned to her lapel gave her at least the appearance of a lady.

“Can you manage the valise?” Sam asked.

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“All right, let’s see if we can pull this off.”

Victoria led the way up the gangplank. They
were so close. So very close. Her blood pounded loudly in her ears, almost drowning out the screech of the gulls crying overhead. But not the shriek of a winch. Flinching at the shrill squeal of metal on metal, she gripped the rail and watched as a huge net filled with crates of mangoes was lifted from the quay.

The
Sea Cloud
was a cargo steamer, one of the dozens that had made windfall profits for its owners by hauling supplies and equipment to the American forces in Cuba. Soon, Victoria suspected, it would bring in more profits by hauling the same equipment home.

Breathing in the odors of wet rope, overripe fruit and bilge water, she took the last few steps. A sailor dressed in canvas pants and a red-striped shirt reached out a horny palm to help her step down onto the deck.

“Miss Parker?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Joshua Hawkins, chief bos’n’s mate. Cap’n said I was to keep a watch for you. I’m to show you to your cabin.”

“Thank you.”

She moved aside, making room for Sam to step down. The seaman’s gaze took in the officer’s muddied uniform before fixing on the woman in his arms.

“This is my companion,” Victoria informed him
with a charming little pout. “It’s quite ridiculous, I know, but my fiancé insisted on hiring her to accompany me on the voyage home.”

“The cap’n didn’t say nothing about no companion.”

“Miss Parker and I just came to an agreement on the matter this morning,” Sam said with perfect truth. “I’ll speak to your captain about the cost of her passage after I see the ladies settled in their cabin.”

“What’s wrong with her?” the mate asked, frowning.

“Unfortunately,” Sam replied, “she tripped and sprained her ankle just before we left our residence.” Hefting her higher in his arms, he snapped out an order. “Lead the way, man.”

Still Hawkins hesitated. Victoria was searching wildly for some distraction when Mary dragged her head up. Drawing on her incredible well of inner strength, she gave an embarrassed twitter.

“You must forgive me,
capitán.
To be so clumsy and trip as I did! I…I die of mortification!”

“Yes,” Sam said gruffly, “it was certainly clumsy. But we would prefer you don’t die just yet, if you please.”

Victoria didn’t suck in a complete breath until Hawkins showed them to the small cabin, said he’d
let the captain know two ladies had come aboard instead of one and left.