The Bonny Bride

Chapter Five

“Dead?” The captain gave a scratchy chuckle. “Whatever gave ye a daft idea like that, lass?”

Suspecting an unconscious, blood-covered man to be dead hardly qualified as daft, Jenny wanted to snap. Too overcome with relief to get the words out, she settled for casting Captain Glendenning a black look. She continued to stroke Harris’s face in hopes of reviving him. His skin felt cool beneath her fingers—the chill spread to Jenny’s heart.

“What happened?” she finally mastered her voice to ask.

“It was them swill-sucking bottom feeders.” The first mate jerked his head in the direction of the rapidly retreating pirate sloops. “Had the gall to open fire on us when the captain wouldn’t give ’em leave to board.”

Captain Glendenning pressed a bloodstained wad of canvas to Harris’s upper arm. “A ball winged young Chisholm here. Bleeding bad, but not serious. Just grazed the flesh, so we won’t have to cut the ball out. Cauterize it with hot pitch and—”

Jenny winced. “Must ye?”

“Aye, miss.” The first mate bared one brawny forearm to reveal a wicked-looking scar. “The pitch hurts some, but it beats letting the wound go putrid.”

“That’s enough out of ye, matie,’ the captain barked. “Can’t ye see Miss Lennox is getting a mite green around the gills.”

“If the wound isn’t serious, what’s he doing laid out cold on the deck?” Jenny demanded.

“Oh, that…”

“Will this help, Miss Lennox, ma’am?” Thomas Nicholson appeared with a small bucket of water and a cloth.

“Thanks, Thomas.” Jenny lavished upon him her warmest smile of gratitude. “Could ye hunt me up a drop of spirits, as well? It might help to bring Mr. Chisholm around.”

The boy looked doubtfully at Captain Glendenning.

“Don’t just stand there, lad.” The captain fished in his pocket and tossed the boy a heavy ring of keys. “Do as the lady says.”

“I thought the garrison from Halifax had routed out this nest of vipers,” grunted the master when young Nicholson had scurried off. “Either they made a bollocks of the job, or there’s a new crowd moved in. Lucky for us, I brought along a wee surprise for our friends.”

He nodded toward a squat little cannon lashed to the port railing. “Picked her up cheap at a foundry in Glasgow. Only a wee four-pounder, but handy enough against barracuda like that lot. Chisholm was helping haul her into place when he got hit by the musket fire. Took a clout on the head when he fell.”

Jenny pressed a wet cloth to Harris’s face. His grayish pallor alarmed her. “Shouldn’t he be waking up by now?” she asked no one in particular.

“He’ll come to when he comes to.” The captain shrugged far too casually for Jenny’s liking. “This may be as good a time as any to apply the pitch,” he added. “While he can’t feel it. That’ll bring him around, if anything will.”

It seemed to take an eternity for the cook, of all people, to prepare the hot pitch. In the meantime, Captain Glendenning ordered his men to look lively and see the barque safely through Canso before sundown. Jenny was left to keep her solitary vigil over Harris, kneeling on the hard deck with his head pillowed in her lap. Thomas Nicholson had brought her a small jug of rum, but Jenny couldn’t make up her mind to use it. Much as she wanted to satisfy herself that Harris was all right, by seeing him conscious, she shrank from the prospect of waking him in time for Captain Glendenning to cauterize his wound.

Hadn’t the poor man enough scars? Jenny mused as she ran gentle fingers over the puckered pink stripes on his firm jawline. She wondered how he had come by them. From her earliest memory of him, Harris had borne these. Only recently had she come to realize they had marred his character as much as his appearance. A warm tear rose unbidden in her eye and fell onto his cheek. Harris gave a slight twitch but did not wake.

Sailing toward the setting sun, the St. Bride edged out of Canso’s tight passage into a wider waterway. Jenny suddenly realized she’d been too preoccupied to take a good look at her new homeland.

A low moan escaped Harris’s lips, but his eyes never flickered.

“We’re through to the Northumberland.” Captain Glendenning rubbed his hands together in a gesture of self-satisfaction. “Nova Scotia behind us, Prince Edward Island to the nor’east, and New Brunswick to the sou’west. With fair winds we’ll make harbor in Richibucto by first light tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine, Captain,” Jenny said tightly. This morning she would have been enthralled by news of their nearness to the Miramichi. At the moment she could think of nothing beyond Harris. He’d been hurt trying to keep her from harm, and he’d feel more pain before the captain was through doctoring him. The last thing she wanted to do was cause Harris pain.

“Can we get this over with?” she asked from between clenched teeth.

“May as well, while we’ve a bit of light,” the captain agreed. “Matie, hold his bad arm. Bosun, take the other, and Blair, his legs. Thomas, hold his head.”

“I’ll hold his head,” said Jenny in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“Have it yer way, lass.” The captain shrugged. “He may thrash around a bit when I apply the pitch.”

“I’m strong. I can hold him.”

The captain lifted the improvised bandage from Harris’s arm. With a thin slat of wood, he drew a generous gob of thick, black resin from the cook’s cauldron. Ominous tendrils of steam rose from it. Jenny couldn’t bring herself to watch. She turned her head and clamped her eyes tightly shut.

Harris returned to life with a mad bellow of pain. His head jerked up, catching Jenny in the chest and knocking the wind out of her.

“What the…?” A torrent of curses issued from his lips, the gist of which was—what had happened, where was he, and why had they seen fit to torture him?

Beneath the acrid stink of pitch, Jenny smelled Harris’s burning flesh. Her stomach seethed.

“Hush, now.” She bent close over him, touching her cheek to his as if hoping to leech some of his pain. “Ye were struck with a musket ball from the pirate guns. Ye fell and hit yer head. Ye’ve been out for ever so long, Harris. I worried for ye. The captain said he had to doctor yer wound with hot pitch to keep it from going bad.”

Her explanation must have satisfied him somewhat, for Harris quit cursing. He clenched his lips in a tight, rigid line. A sheen of sweat blossomed on his forehead. Then Jenny remembered the jug of rum.

“Have a drink of this,” she coaxed. “It’ll dull the pain.”

He swallowed the modest measure Jenny had dribbled into his mouth, gasping at the potency of the raw spirits. Before he could object, she poured more rum into him. Nodding over his work with approval, Captain Glendenning bound Harris’s arm with a fresh strip of canvas. Once Jenny had dispensed several more doses of rum, the captain signaled his crewmen to release their hold on the patient’s limbs. Harris struggled to his feet. With the hand of his sound arm, he snatched the rum jar from Jenny.

Tendering a clumsy bow that almost sent him sprawling back down on the deck, Harris addressed the captain. “Thank ye for the medical attention. If ye’ll all excuse me, I’ll retire to my cabin to recover from the day’s adventures.”

Jenny detected a twitch in the captain’s lips. A quick glance at the crewmen told her they were also hiding smiles. She could cheerfully have throttled the lot of them.

“I’ll help ye down the companionway, Harris.” She cast the men a furious look that dared them to make anything of it. That look had often quelled her brothers, and it worked equally well on the crew of the St. Bride. A few began to talk noisily among themselves, while others grew suddenly busy with any little chore that might remove them from Jenny’s sphere.

Whether still dizzy from the blow to his head, or already feeling the effects of the captain’s rum, Harris weaved and tottered dangerously as he moved away. Jenny overtook him easily, sliding his good arm around her shoulder for support.

“I’m feeling a mite faint from all the excitement, myself.” She spoke loudly, that the crew and other passengers might hear. “Since ye’re going below yerself, perhaps ye might see me to my cabin, Mr. Chisholm.”

“Oh, aye,” Harris muttered. The taut set of his mouth suggested he was keeping to his feet, however unsteadily, by will alone.

They managed to stagger to his cabin, where Harris promptly collapsed on his berth. Jenny began wrestling with the knot of his stock. He batted her hands away.

“What are ye trying to do, strangle me?”

“I’m trying to undress ye for bed, so ye’ll rest more comfortably,” Jenny snapped. In truth, her nerves were more than a little frayed by the events of this afternoon. She half wished she’d taken a swig from Captain Glendenning’s rum jar. “If ye’ll just cooperate, it’ll go easier for both of us.”

“Ye can undo my neck linen, I suppose, and haul off my boots. Leave the rest be, do ye hear?”

“Fine. Fine.” Jenny was prepared to humor him. The removal of his stock and boots would go some way toward making Harris more comfortable. She wasn’t anxious to manhandle him out of his shirt, while trying to spare his wounded arm. As for his trousers, she had no intention of meddling with those.

With some difficulty, she managed to pry off his boots. Setting them neatly by the foot of his berth, she drew the blankets up over him. Spotting a short, three-legged stool in the corner, she pulled it nearer the bed, wilting onto the seat with a deep sigh.

Harris opened his eyes a slit. “What are ye about, now?”

“What does it look like? I’m settling myself down to stay the night and tend ye if ye need anything.”

“What about yer fair reputation?” Harris’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “How will ye explain it to yer fiancé, Mr. Douglas, when he gets word that ye spent the night in my cabin?”

Casting that up to her after all these weeks, was he?

“I’ll tell him the truth, of course. That ye were sore hurt and I was taking care of ye.” Jenny could feel her cheeks smarting with an angry blush. “I’ll also tell him ye weren’t in any condition to make advances.”

“What about ye, Jenny Lennox?” Harris asked. “Is my virtue safe from yer advances?”

“I’ll make every effort to restrain myself.” Jenny tried to match his mocking tone.

Harris gave an arid, joyless laugh. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

What on earth did he mean by that? Jenny wondered.

His eyes fell shut again. “Go away, Jenny. Leave me in peace.”

If Harris Chisholm thought she was going anywhere, he had another think coming. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to say on yer tombstone—Rest in Peace?”

“I haven’t any intention of dying on ye, lass. I may not look it, but I’m made of sterner stuff than that. I just want to be left alone.”

“Why?”

Harris struggled to sit up. “Why?” he echoed her question. “Because my arm hurts like hell, and my head hurts like hell, and I feel queer—like I don’t know what I might say or do next. I want to rest, without ye gawking at me and fretting every time I feel a twinge.”

Contrary, stubborn fool of a man! Jenny could feel herself shaking with the effort to contain her vexation. No one had ever made her feel with the intensity Harris Chisholm did. Whether it was rage or pity or…anything else, he always provoked such explosive emotions in her. She hated it.

“Ye’re too proud to give in to yer pain before a woman? Is that it? Well, go right ahead, for I don’t care. Moan. Groan. Bawl like a wee babby if ye want to. I swear I won’t think any the less of ye for it.”

“Because ye couldn’t think less of me than ye do already?”

Jenny hesitated a moment before replying. The words that came out surprised her. “No,” she said softly. “Because I think the world of ye, and nothing’ll ever change that. First ye made my dreams possible, by letting me come on the St. Bride.”

Though she knew she should speak of Roderick Douglas at this point, Jenny’s lips refused to form his name. “Then ye taught me how to read. Ye’ve no idea what a gift that’s been to me. I owe ye so much. Let me do this one wee thing by sitting with ye tonight.”

He collapsed back onto his pillow so abruptly, Jenny started toward him in alarm. “What is it, Harris? Are ye all right?”

She leaned over him, relieved to hear his breath coming rapid but even. Then, before she knew what was happening, Jenny found herself encircled by Harris’s sound arm, and being pulled down to him. She didn’t struggle, for it might reopen his wound. At least that was what she told herself. His lips blundered over her lower face until they found hers.

Her first true kiss from a man.

Jenny and Kirstie had discussed this vital subject often in recent years. On those rare occasions when she’d lingered awake for a moment before falling into an exhausted sleep, she’d imagined herself being kissed by Roderick Douglas. This was nothing like the gallant, tentative salute she’d dreamed of. Harris kissed her deeply, voraciously, the way a man dying of thirst would consume cool, fresh water.

His mouth tasted of rum. It felt hot. So hot, that when his lips touched hers, Jenny half expected to hear them sizzle. His kiss, his arm tight around her, and the oddly pleasurable feel of her bosom mashed against his chest, made her body tingle with strange, intoxicating sensations.

Then, as unexpectedly as it had begun, it ended. Harris wrenched his lips from hers and pushed Jenny back. She staggered away from his berth, breathless and disoriented. Fortunately, she managed to light on the stool. Her body throbbed with frustration and the stirring of a slumbering hunger.

All was quiet in the cabin, save for their ragged breathing.

At last Harris spoke, in a voice hardly above a whisper. Raw. Bitter. And dead weary. “That’s the only payment I want from ye, Jenny. I know ye’d never give it to me, so I’ve gone ahead and taken it. Yer debt’s square now. No need to hang around here any longer smothering me with yer pity.”

“Pity?” Jenny fairly shrieked. Anger was the only safe outlet for the combustible mix of emotions she barely understood. “Of all the things I feel for ye at this minute, Harris Chisholm—and I don’t recognize half of them myself—I can assure ye there is not a scrap of pity in the lot.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised, and more than a little curious. “What all do ye feel for me, at this minute. The bits ye recognize, I mean.”

“Rage,” Jenny spat, “and in-dig-nation, for a start.”

“That’s all?” he asked, his tone bleak and hollow.

No. There was more, much more, and Jenny longed to tell him so. After that kiss, she did not dare. No matter what her intense, confused feelings for Harris Chisholm, it made no difference. She meant to marry Roderick Douglas and nothing was going to stand in her way. It would be cruel to encourage Harris to think otherwise.

“I’m grateful to ye, of course.” Safe enough to admit that much. She’d be a hard-hearted little wretch to feel less. And maybe that’s what it was, after all. A profound sense of gratitude and the habit of spending day after day in close company. Jenny could almost make herself believe it.

“Gratitude.” Harris sighed. “That’s almost as dry a crust as pity.” His voice grew hard. “Stay then, if ye won’t go, Jenny Lennox. But mind ye leave me be or I won’t be responsible for my actions. If ye come near this bed again, like as not I’ll kiss ye again. And I might not stop there.”

Stubbornly Jenny held her place. He only meant to frighten her away with his talk, she was certain. Still, the notion of him kissing her again, and following it with even more intimate liberties, made her cheeks smart.

Her heart raced in time to the brisk bounce of the ship. Evidently that sou’wester the captain smelled on the morning breeze had blown up.

Time passed. Jenny did not know how much.

Wind screeched through a hundred tiny chinks in the upper hull. The timbers creaked in chorus, as though each sought to part violently from the others. On the deck above Jenny’s head, footsteps fell in a heavy, lurching rhythm. It took her back to that first night on the St. Bride, when she’d cowered in her berth, certain she’d never survive the night’s storm.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have without Harris. She recalled the gentle dispatch of his touch. The soothing timbre of his voice so close to her ear. The comforting fact of his presence.

“I’m sorry, Harris,” she murmured to herself. “I never meant to lead ye on, I swear it. I’d not hurt ye for the world.”

“Don’t fret yerself, lass.”

She nearly jumped a foot when his words of reassurance pierced the din of the storm. She’d assumed he was asleep.

“I’ve a heart of shoe leather,” he continued. “Like as not, I only fooled myself about how I feel. Ye’re the first lass who’s been more than civil to me. What with all the love talk in Mr. Scott’s books and ye being such a bonny wee thing…”

“Aye, that’s likely all it is,” Jenny hastened to agree. “The next lass who passes the time of day with ye will make ye forget all about me.”

Somehow, that thought did not sit well with her, though she could not puzzle why.

Just as Jenny had decided to put the whole matter from her mind, the rapidly moving ship came to an abrupt, shuddering halt.

She plowed across the narrow cabin and onto the berth with Harris. He gave a sharp hiss of pain as she landed on top of him. The lamp went crashing to the floor, where it sputtered for a moment before going out.

“Damn!” cried Harris. “We’ve run aground.” Pushing Jenny off him, he groped for the floor. “Where’ve ye put my boots?”

With a muffled report of rending wood, the barque lurched forward again.

Reaching down into the darkness, Jenny retrieved one of Harris’s boots.

“I have the other.” She heard him call as though from a great distance.

She sensed his contortions, trying to pull on the tight boots with an injured arm.

“We’ve got to get on deck,” said Harris.

Before they could scramble out of the berth, the St. Bride once again fetched up against something solid. This time Harris fell on Jenny. As the breath burst from her lungs, she felt the soft scratch of his unshaven cheek against her forehead. One of his knees pinned her legs apart. When she raised her hand, it brushed the warm flesh of his chest through his open shirtfront. Some lunatic impulse within her wished they had hours to roll around on this narrow berth.

As the barque strained between the force of the storm wind in her sails and the pressure of the sandbar on her hull, Harris clambered up and hoisted Jenny to her feet. She gasped to feel water soaking into her shoes. There must be a good three inches of it already seeped through the floorboards, and rising fast.

“This way.” Harris grasped her right hand and latched it to the waistband of his trousers. “Don’t let go, ye hear? No matter what happens.”

They staggered toward the cabin door. Jenny hoped that was where they were headed, at any rate. It was impossible to make out anything in the dense darkness of the barque’s hold. Jenny fought to master her mounting panic at the thought of being trapped below decks. At least she had Harris with her this time.

She would trust him with her life.

As Harris pulled the cabin door open, someone fell through from the companionway.

“Have a care what ye’re doing!” cried a voice. Jenny recognized the gruff, bass rumble of Mr. Tweedie, the cobbler from Wigtown. With a splash, the man regained his feet and fought his way out into the passage once more.

Harris followed, towing Jenny along behind him.

The tight companionway boiled with frantic shouts and grunts and the press of bodies anxious to escape the seawater flooding the lower decks. Jenny clutched Harris for all she was worth as he plunged ahead. They stumbled up the steep stairs, bursting onto the deck at last.

After the suffocating squeeze of the companionway, Jenny gulped in deep drafts of the briny wind, grateful to be out in the open at last.

“We must get to a lifeboat!” Harris bellowed.

His words barely penetrated the howl of the wind and the frantic babble of voices around them.

After a few faltering steps, Jenny felt the solid bulk of the ship’s railing. Clinging to Harris with her right hand, she closed around the railing with her left and followed him.

“It’s just up ahead!” Harris called back to her as a great billow hit the barque and doused them both with seawater.

Coughing and sputtering to catch her breath, Jenny lost her hold on the railing.

Another breaker followed, driving the St. Bride against another treacherous sandbar. Jenny’s feet slid on the slick boards of the deck. She felt herself tumble against the rail and over into a black void.

At the last instant, she loosed her hold on Harris. She owed him better than a watery grave with her.

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