“Of course.”
“How did you escape the prison ship?”
Hecate blinked. She’d taken that for granted, but Augusta hadn’t. An excellent point.
Finn shook his head. “I didn’t. The damn thing foundered.”
“Oh good Lord,” gasped Hecate. “Where? When?” She reached for his hand without even thinking about it, needing to touch him, to know he really was safe there with her in the parlour, telling of his dreadful experiences.
“We had been on board a few days…perhaps a week after the ship put to sea. I don’t need to tell you how bad conditions were. But it was soon apparent that the vessel was not well maintained. There were leaks, obvious problems in the hull. We spent a goodly amount of time up to our knees in water.” He shivered as he recalled those days. “I’d been taken aboard in my uniform, because my civilian clothing had yet to be completed. And it was probably a good thing, since I got slightly better treatment because of it and the other prisoners mostly left me alone.
“How terrible,” said Dal. “It is unbelievable what one human can do to another.”
“Callous in the extreme,” agreed Augusta.
“I cannot argue that,” said Finn. “But once convicted and sentenced to transportation, prisoners assume some sort of less-than-human identity. They becomethings. The conditions they are forced to endure do not matter. But…in my case…” he pulled himself together and continued, “a storm blew up. We could hear the rigging screaming in the wind and the waves must have been massive. They threw the ship around as if it was a cork in a bathtub.”
Silence fell as he paused, everyone holding their breaths for the final part of Finn’s story.
“We must have been driven too close to shore, because the weak timbers were no match for the first couple of rocks we hit. Everything sort of shattered, including the system that chained us prisoners. In the chaos, I found that my shackles were loose and I managed to free myself before the hull filled completely. It only took a few minutes for the ship to break apart, and I clung to a large piece of wood. It rode the waves to the shore. Now I realise it must have been near here, and we were either heading to or from Ireland down the Bristol channel.”
“And the other men?” Augusta breathed the question.
Finn shook his head. “I do not know, Lady Augusta, and I’m not proud of that fact. But many were weak, some I believe were ill right from the start of the voyage…I have no idea who survived and who didn’t. I managed to get myself to shore, but collapsed there on the sand, clutching my bag, which for some reason I’d managed to seize before the ship sank, and weak as a kitten. And from then on, it’s rather blurry. I believe I was ill myself by that point.”
“The typhus. Of course,” said Hecate. “A prison ship would be the place for such diseases to run rampant.”
He nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I was lucky that whoever put me in there left me with my clothes and bag, such as it was. They’d cleaned out everything worth anything, of course. Now, in hindsight, I suppose they couldn’t afford to leave even a hint of my presence in London. I was supposed to vanish. And the fact I had nothing of value annoyed two ruffians who accosted me on the beach, if you can imagine that. Now, looking back on it all, I would guess they were scavenging the wreck.” He lifted a hand to the back of his head. “A handy piece of driftwood, and they probably thought I’d joined the rest of the dead and would be no threat to them. But Fate intervened.”
“Thank Heaven for that,” said Hecate with relief.
He smiled down at her. “Yes, indeed, but I think it’s morethank Hecatethan thank Heaven.”
She looked up at him. The warmth in his eyes spread through her body and she continued to cling to his hand. This man, this moment…all the pieces of the puzzle that was Finn Casey started to come together. And the picture they made—well, she finally acknowledged beyond any doubt that he was her destiny.
