“It’ll come to blows then,” Lieutenant Sowerby says. “For an arresting party is on its way also. They’ll be here any moment, but I won’t let them have the pleasure of arresting you. The moment theSwallowpulled in and Lieutenant Sullivan informed me theRapidehad returned, I came for you, Carlyon.” Voice rising, he says, “It’ll be a nice surprise for Captain Hamer when I give him news of the captain of theRapide’s arrest and subsequent death as he tried to escape.”
Bile rises in Isabel’s throat, sweat pours down her back.
“I have a right to a trial,” Jack says tensely.
“I’m sure you believe you do, as a smuggler. It would suit your purpose just fine. You’d be acquitted in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you? But you don’t get a trial as a traitor, sir. I won’t bother with the noose this time. You aid the French in a time of war, you and your friend here.” He indicates the space behind Jack in the hallway.
He hasn’t recognized her, she realizes suddenly. His nearsightedness—to him she’s only a figure in breeches and a man’s shirt. She looks down at her feet, letting her hair drop in front of her face, and shuffles closer, one tiny step at a time.
Jack, meanwhile, moves his hand, slowly, slowly, to the pistol he carries in his belt, but Lieutenant Sowerby shouts, “Don’t move! Lift your hands up!” And then, icily: “Turn around.”
He raises the pistol to Jack’s face now, taking aim, using his left arm to steady the weapon. Jack is still facing him. Lieutenant Sowerby snaps, “Turn around, Carlyon, damn you!”
Isabel takes a deep breath, swallowing down the bile, and then she’s running, and before Lieutenant Sowerby can pull the trigger, she half pushes, half slips past Jack. She flings herself in front of him, arms wide, crying, “You shall take me before him!”
Shock, frozen, on Lieutenant Sowerby’s face. He briefly lowers the pistol before he lifts it again to point at Jack’s forehead. “Mrs. Henley? How…? I…No it will not do; it won’t do at all! You were led astray, surely—you still are. And the way he has clothed you! You devil!” He spits the words at Jack, looking ready to pull the trigger. “You debauched, deviant rogue!”
“Lieutenant Sowerby,” she says quickly, making her voice soft and pleading. “Please, do not shoot Ja—Mr. Carlyon, sir. Please, I beg you. Please,please,lower your pistol.”
Lieutenant Sowerby studies her. “You are not yourself, madam. After everything he’s put you through, it’s no wonder. Let me assure you, you are perfectly safe now. You don’t need to defend this criminal; he cannot hurt you anymore. I have come to save you from his clutches.”
“He’s not a criminal or a devil,” she says. “He’s my fiancé.”
“Isabel—” Jack says warningly, but Lieutenant Sowerby cuts him off.
“What?” he gasps, shock morphing into hatred. “He’s…you…you smuggler’swhore! And I believed you were…”
The muzzle of the pistol moves. Jack shoves her aside hard. She stumbles and falls, the side of her head hitting the gravel. All motion becomes silent and slow. She watches Lieutenant Sowerby’s pistol trace her fall to the ground slowly; she watches it slide back in his hand, as if something has kicked it, also slowly. A shot rips the air. Dirt flies up, inches from her face, all of it slowed.
She’s looking at the dirt, stunned. He tried to shoot her. How…why…Lieutenant Sowerby, an officer of the law—tried toshoother.Her mouth forms the wordWhy,but all that comes out is a ragged gasp.
“Isabel!” Jack is crouching by her side, pistol in hand.
She wants to say,I’m fine,but her tongue moves uselessly in her mouth, because behind Jack, Lieutenant Sowerby is reloading his pistol. He’s fast. He has done it in fifteen, maybe twenty seconds at most, and then he’s raising the muzzle of the weapon again and she screams, “Jack, watch out!”
A second shot rends the morning air. This one seems even louder than the first. The sound of it echoes in her head, banging off the bone of her skull. She waits for another spurt of dirt to fly up, but instead Lieutenant Sowerby’s face does a funny thing, pulling sideways, almost as if his expression is leaking away. He jerks backward and there’s a noise, like a gurgle, which turns into a terrible choking sound as he falls onto his back, tearing at his shirt, which is turning red, far redder than Jack’s was when he got shot a month before. Lieutenant Sowerby’s legs kick violently, once, twice, and then he is still.
“Isabel.” Jack puts his pistol on the ground and helps her up. She’s dazed, too dazed to think, too dazed almost to stand. “Are you hurt?” He’s dabbing at her head with a handkerchief. There are drops of blood on the handkerchief, as red as Lieutenant Sowerby’s shirt, but there are only a few. Her mind slowly clears.
“I’m fine. Oh, Jack!” She sounds like a seagull, she thinks, voice shrill, rising and dipping on his name,Ja-a-ack.
He picks up the pistol, reloads it, and pushes it back into his belt. Then he puts both hands on her shoulders. They smell of something sharp and bitter—gunpowder. “Isabel, listen to me carefully. You must go home at once. Don’t talk to anybody. They don’t know about you—about our connection. With some luck, Lieutenant Sowerby won’t have mentioned you. And if he has, he believed you innocent. You must use the cut on your head as proof of my violence toward you. Tell them that—”
“No! Jack, no. Never!”
“Tell them I threatened you, that I forced you to aid me with thesmuggling and how I hurt you when you didn’t comply. Show them that cut. They’ll believe you, but they may not even come to you—he may not have said anything about you. Don’t go to the ship or try to meet with any of the crew, at least not for some time. They may be watching you as Lieutenant Sowerby did. Go now. They must not find you here.”
“Jack, I can’t…I couldn’t do that.”
“You will do it, for me.”
“But—”
“I have to go.”
“Jack, no. I’m so very sorry. Please, please forgive me. This is my doing—I led him here—God knows I did not mean to, but—”
“I know you didn’t. Don’t worry on that account. Isabel, Ihaveto go. Go home.Now.”
