The Governess Swap

Chapter Two

Lucien held on to her as the roiling water pushed them into its depths along with pieces of the broken mast, barrels and other rubble.

Nearly twenty years at sea in all kinds of weather, all kinds of battle, he’d be damned if he’d perish from crossing the Irish Sea in a packet boat.

A large piece of wood smashed into them, hitting her on the head. She went limp, but Lucien hung on to her. He let the sea do its will, pulling them deeper and deeper. With luck it would release them. His lungs ached, but he forced himself to wait. He hoped she was not breathing in too much water.

After an eternity, the sea let go. He kicked them to the surface. When his face broke through, he gulped in air. Lady Rebecca remained limp.

Was he too late?

Lucien resisted panic. Their lives depended upon him remaining calm.

Part of the mast floated nearby. Still keeping hold of her, he swam to it and laid her over it. He blew into her mouth, a trick an old sailor taught him years ago. She coughed and spewed water and mumbled something unintelligible.

He expelled a relieved breath. She was alive.

It was fortunate the debris that had hit them had knocked her unconscious. She might have struggled otherwise. He might not have been able to keep hold of her.

A piece of rope floated nearby. Lucien grabbed it and tied her to the mast, doing his best to keep her face above the water.

A bolt of lightning lit the sky and he could see the ship a distance away heading towards the rocky shore. The sea pulled them further from it, but into calmer waters. He looked around him for anything that might be useful. A small floating barrel. A large piece of canvas sail. More rope. A hatch door appeared, a piece large enough to hold them both. He took a chance she’d be secure enough on the mast and swam to the door, pulling it back to her. He strained to place her on the door. He gathered the other items he’d collected before climbing on to the door himself.

The storm had cleared, but the shoreline narrowed into no more than a thin line against the sky. He wrapped them both in the canvas sail and held her against his body to keep her as warm as possible. They’d be on the water all night, he guessed.

Lucien doubted anyone would search for them, but perhaps some vessel would sail near enough to find them.

He gazed down at her, still unconscious, but breathing. She had a lovely, refined face.

How ironic that, of all people, he should have saved the granddaughter of the Earl of Keneagle, the Earl who’d cheated his mother’s family of their fortune, impoverishing them and changing the course of their lives. His mother’s life.

But what of the governess? Had she survived?

Lucien hoped so.

* * *

Morning dawned to clear skies. Lucien’s arms ached from holding Lady Rebecca the whole night. She’d struggled against him, but never gained full consciousness. The night had been dangerously cold, but soon the sun would warm them.

Before it, too, became an enemy.

At least he had the piece of sail to shade her.

She seemed to be merely sleeping now. She’d been lovely enough in her travelling finery when he’d encountered her in the companionway, but she looked more appealing to him now, with curls gone and her expression vulnerable. Was she the lady with the lovely laugh? It could have been the woman with her, the governess. He hoped her running back to find someone else had saved her. He could not have held on to them both.

He glanced away. He’d never been tempted by aristocratic ladies, those few he’d encountered. They seemed shallow and silly, too eager for pleasure and too ignorant of how the rest of the world lived. He’d seen privation and could never forget how wretched life could be. As a boy, he’d heard the story over and over, how the Earl of Keneagle had impoverished his mother’s family. How his mother had lost the chance to marry a title. How she’d had to settle instead for his father, a mere captain in the navy, like Lucien was now. Even though his father had risen in rank and had provided well enough for her, his mother preferred the company of the local Viscount when his father was away at sea—which he’d been for months, even years, at a time.

Lucien had grown up feeling a responsibility to his Irish relatives. They had been the reason he’d sailed to Ireland, to provide financial help to his uncles, who struggled to make ends meet. Lucien could afford to help them. He’d squirrelled away almost all of his prize money over the last twenty years. Thank God it was safe in Coutts Bank in London and not at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

Like he and Lady Rebecca might be if the sea claimed them.

His lids grew heavy and the rocking of their makeshift raft lulled him.

‘No!’ Lady Rebecca pushed against him. ‘No!’

Fully awake now, he tightened his grip on her. ‘Be still,’ he ordered. ‘Do not move.’

Her lovely eyes flew open. ‘What? Where am I?’

‘You are safe, my lady.’ She would panic, certainly. He kept her restrained. ‘But we are on the open sea.’

‘On the sea?’ Her voice rose in confusion and she struggled. ‘No! Let me go!’

‘I cannot. Not until you are still.’ He forced his voice to sound calm. ‘You are safe if you remain still.’

The waves bobbed them up and down and slapped water on to the raft. The canvas covering them fell away and Lucien blinked against the blazing sun.

Her head swivelled around and her voice became more alarmed. ‘No! Why am I here?’

‘Do you remember?’ he asked. ‘We were on the packet from Dublin to Holyhead. There was a storm—’

She raised a hand to her head. ‘I was on a packet ship? Where is it now?’

He didn’t want to tell her it had probably crashed into the rocks and that some people would not have survived. ‘We were swept away from it.’

‘But someone will find us, won’t they?’ she asked. ‘Someone will be looking for us?’

More likely they’d think they’d perished. ‘Many ships cross the Irish Sea. Chances are good we’ll be rescued.’ Chances were at least as good as finding a needle in a haystack.

She scanned the horizon again as if a ship might magically appear.

‘I don’t remember being on a ship,’ she finally said accusingly.

Perhaps that was a godsend. ‘Best not to remember.’

She looked at him with hysteria in her eyes. ‘You do not understand. I don’t remember the ship. I don’t remember anything.’

‘You suffered a blow to the head. It happens sometimes to have difficulty remembering.’ Or perhaps it was the trauma itself, of the storm, of being swept into the sea. He’d heard stories of soldiers in battle forgetting where they were. No one had suffered a similar affliction on his ship, though, and they’d been through plenty of trauma. ‘Try not to worry over it, my lady,’ he reassured.

She peered at him. ‘Why do you keep calling me “my lady”?’

He gaped at her. ‘I was told you are Lady Rebecca Pierce. Was I misinformed?’

‘Lady Rebecca Pierce,’ she repeated in a whisper. Her voice rose. ‘Is that who I am?’

He searched her face. Her distress seemed genuine. ‘You do not remember your name?’

‘I do not remember anything!’ she cried. ‘My name. Why I am here. Why I was on a ship. Why you are here.’

None of that mattered at the moment. They were in a battle with the elements. If the wind stirred the sea again, they might be tossed off this makeshift raft. If they could not shield themselves, the sun could burn their skin. And if they survived today, would they survive another cold night? They had no food, no water. How long could they last without water?

But he did not tell her any of that. He held her closer. ‘Try not to fret. It will not help. It is important to stay as calm as you can.’

She leaned against him and turned quiet again. He knew she must be cold so held her closely.

After a time she spoke. ‘Do I know you?’

‘We met briefly on the ship. I am Captain Lucien Roper. No reason for you to know me.’ Except that her family had ruined his mother’s family, but what use was it to tell her that? ‘I am bound for London.’ Or will be if they survive.

She stirred a little. ‘I wonder where I am bound.’

Claire pressed her cheek against his warm chest. She was cold and her head ached and her situation terrified her. She was adrift on the sea with a stranger, a man who stirred some unsettled emotion inside her, an emotion she could not name.

Was she to die in the arms of a man she did not know, without even knowing her own name? Her past?

Was she Lady Rebecca Pierce, as he’d said? The name meant nothing to her, but then, her mind was a blank when she tried to think of something, anything, about herself.

There was only this man. His chest was firm and warm and his manner confident and able. He’d covered their heads with the canvas again, but she could glimpse the sea from beneath it. The vast empty sea.

The sun’s reflection on the water hurt her eyes, but when she closed them the rocking of their raft seemed even more pronounced.

Would they die here? she wanted to ask him. But that was one question the answer of which she feared the most.

Had other people died? Had there been someone on the ship she knew? Someone dear to her? She tried to conjure up a feeling of attachment to someone, anyone, but there was only this man. Only he seemed real.

Maybe he knew. ‘Was I with anyone on this ship?’

He hesitated before answering. ‘I saw you with another woman. She was in the cabin with you.’

‘Who was she?’ A mother? A sister? Did she belong to anyone? If so, had they survived?

‘I did not learn her name.’ He sounded regretful about that.

‘Was she related to me?’ She wanted to belong somewhere, to someone.

‘I do not think so,’ he replied. ‘She was dressed plainly and I was told she was a governess. I never saw more than a glimpse of her.’

A governess? Was she connected to this governess in some way?

Was there anyone who cared for her? Who would search for her? All she could conjure up was a feeling of being alone. She lifted her arms, wanting to press her fingers against her temples. On one of her arms dangled a lovely but sodden red-velvet reticule.

She stared at it. ‘Is this mine?’

‘I remember now,’ he said. ‘The woman with you handed it to you as we left the ship.’

Who had she been? Why would she hand her a reticule?

Claire strained to remember, but nothing came.

She shook her head. ‘What happened to her?’

‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘She hurried off to find someone else and we never saw her after that. We climbed up on deck.’ He paused. ‘Then the wave came.’

The wave that swept them into the sea? How could one forget such an event? How could she not know who’d sailed with her?

How could she not remember her own name?

She shivered and stared at the water. How easy it would be to slip beneath its surface and join the void, so like the void in her mind.

Lucien Roper tightened his arms around her again, stilling her trembling, reminding her that she was someone, even if she could not remember who.

And, no matter what, she wanted to live.

‘Do you know anything about me?’ she asked him.

He paused before answering. ‘Very little. That you sailed from Dublin. Your name. That you are sister to the Earl of Keneagle.’ His voice stiffened.

She did belong to someone! ‘Do you know the Earl of Keneagle?’

He shifted his body a little. ‘He is an Irish earl, that is all I know.’

‘Then someone will look for me.’ She relaxed against him again.

‘These waters are well travelled,’ he said.

He did not sound convincing.

The waves beneath them rocked them like a bumpy carriage ride and the air smelled of brine. Her skin itched from the salt. They’d lapsed into silence. Only the slapping of the water against their raft made a sound.

The emptiness was driving her mad. She needed memories, any memories.

Even his would do. ‘Will you tell me about you, Lucien Roper?’

He stirred a little. ‘I am in the navy.’

‘The navy?’ Keep talking, she wanted to beg. He was her only reality at the moment. He and some brother she could not remember. A governess who’d been her companion.

And probable death. ‘What do you do in the navy?’

He shrugged. ‘I am a captain.’

‘Do you have a ship?’ Captains had ships, she somehow knew.

His ship, his home, was likely scrap by now. ‘Not at the moment. I’m bound for the Admiralty to be given a new ship.’

How could she know what the navy was and nothing about herself?

Maybe if he kept talking...

‘Are—are you on half pay?’ she asked.

* * *

Half pay, Lucien thought. She obviously knew what half pay was.

He nodded. ‘Until I’m given a new ship.’

‘You had a ship? What happened to it?’ she asked.

‘The war is over. The navy does not need so many ships. It was sold.’ He could not bear to tell her the Foxfire would be broken up. The ship had more life in her.

‘How sad for you.’ Her voice sounded genuinely sympathetic. ‘What was the name of your ship?’

‘The Foxfire.’

‘A lovely name,’ she remarked. ‘What kind of ship was it?’

‘She was a Banterer-class post ship with twenty-two guns.’

‘How impressive sounding,’ she said. ‘I know nothing of ships—at least nothing I can remember—but I know of the war somehow. I know it is over. Is that not strange?’

Strange that she remembered some things and not others? ‘I suppose it is.’

‘I—I cannot remember anything to do with me.’ She said this quietly, but he heard the pain of it in her words. She moved enough to look him in the face. ‘Would you tell me more about you? About being in the navy, perhaps? I need to know that there is more than us drifting on this water. I need to know someone has memories.’

His heart resonated with her pain. The fact that they were drifting on these boards in the middle of the sea would be terrifying enough without amnesia on top of it. She might be a spoiled aristocratic lady, but at the moment she did not know even this. And, although he would not say it to her, she must realise they faced probable death.

If talking about himself would ease her anguish, he would talk about himself.

‘My father is an admiral,’ Lucien said. ‘My grandfather was an admiral. I was always meant for the navy, as well. It is in my blood. And I’ve done well in it.’

‘How long have you been in the navy?’ she asked.

‘Twenty-one years. Since age twelve. At fifteen I was in the Battle of the Nile. At twenty-two I was at Trafalgar and, since then, countless encounters with French, American and Danish ships. Mostly in the Adriatic Sea and the Mediterranean.’

‘You did well in the war, then.’ Her sympathy seemed genuine.

He gazed out to the horizon. ‘I also sent good men to their deaths.’ He closed his eyes and saw the carnage of battle. He saw his quartermaster blown apart. His midshipman, a mere youth, set afire. Why had these memories come and not the glory of capturing enemy vessels?

‘Did you earn prize money.’

There it was. He should have known she would ask about his money. A man’s monetary worth was of prime importance to aristocrats.

‘I did well enough.’ Good enough for him to retire, if he chose to—if they ever made it to shore again. Good enough for him to pay his uncles’ debts and set them up more securely. They should have no financial worries now.

‘And you will be given a new ship?’

‘So I have been told.’

If they survived, that was.

* * *

As the day wore on, the sun warmed them as he’d expected. It dried the canvas and most of their clothes. Lucien scanned the horizon for ships, to no avail. Lady Rebecca remained calm, eerily calm, as if detached from the danger they were in and the suffering they would endure if rescue did not come soon. She must be as hungry and as powerfully thirsty as he was, but, unexpectedly, she did not complain. Instead, she asked more questions about his life and Lucien found himself telling her things he’d never shared with anyone.

Like being left to his own devices as a young boy in a village outside Liverpool. How his mother, in her loneliness when his father was at sea—which was most of the time—sought amusement elsewhere by pursuing the local Viscount, who took his pleasure from her when the fancy took him. His mother was always too preoccupied by this love affair to bother much with a little boy or to make certain his nurses attended him. Lucien told her about how he’d been left to his own devices, sometimes to cope with situations he was too young to understand. His mother seemed happy when he was sent to sea.

He told her how his life changed after that. He’d loved the structure of rank and the discipline the navy required. Every man had his place and his duty and together they conquered the enemy and the sea itself. The sea, which so often was beautiful. A beautiful, if often treacherous, mistress.

Lucien shared with this woman what he’d never spoken of with anyone else. How he loved the sea.

He didn’t tell her that he’d be happy to die at sea and be sent to his rest beneath its depths.

Not yet, though. He wanted to live. He wanted her to live.

The sky darkened as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. Lucien continued talking, recounting his experiences at sea and his ship’s victories. He left off the close calls of horrific storms and the carnage of battle.

She listened and asked questions that showed some knowledge of naval matters, not entirely without memory of facts, at least.

He’d thought about telling her of the connection between their families, of how her grandfather had cheated his grandfather out of his property and fortune, but what good would that do? She had enough agony without him adding to it.