The voices behind the door are silent. They’re waiting. There’s a crack in the wood as wide as her finger. She puts her eye to it, but the room is so dark she cannot see anything. She puts her mouth to the crack, calling softly, “Jack?”
There’s a shuffling and a groan in a man’s voice—another man, she thinks, not Jack. She calls again, louder, “Jack?” and now someone is coming to the other side of the door and the hold of the ship starts to spin. She’s dizzy with hope and yearning, and then his voice is there, less than an inch away, behind the wooden planks of the door.
“Isabel?”
She thought she would never see him again. She thought he would die. She’s crying and laughing at the same time, she’s soaring—her heart is soaring. It’s like swimming, like an effortless floating, the ocean holding her up. “Jack, it’s me,” she says.
He’s laughing, too, saying, “I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Isabel.” Her name is like a sigh. “How? How have you managed it?”
Soaring, falling. “Jack, the things they said about me—about me and the sailor, they aren’t true.”
“Did you think I cared about that? All of London could’ve bedded you and I’d still desire you.”
Legs weak with relief, she leans against the door. “I’ve come to get you out,” she says, and with those words, the reality of the situation dawns on her again. Jack is here, but she has yet to get him out. Grabbing the doorhandle with both hands, she twists and twists, the iron digging into her fingers.
Jack says, “Isabel, listen. It’s locked. You won’t be able to open it. And there’s a guard. He’s gone to get our supper, but he’ll be back any moment. You must leave at once.”
“What? No! I’ve come to get you out.”
“If he finds you here, if they learn you were there when I killed Sowerby and that you were on the ship when we carried contraband, they’ll put you on trial, too. If they hurt you or worse…I couldn’t forgive myself. Listen to me, please. I don’t know how you did it, coming here, but you must go, Isabel.”
“Don’t be absurd. How many of you are in there?”
“Eight besides me, but—”
“Jack! I haven’t come all this way to—”
Jack cuts in. “Listen to me.” He speaks quickly. “We haven’t got time. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you; I love you. I should have put it in the note, but it’s better to tell you now. It’s a miracle you’re here and I got to tell you. It makes me trust that God exists. I’m ready now, or as ready as a man will ever be, I reckon.”
“Stop, please! I beg you.”
Ignoring her plea, he continues. “I wish it wasn’t like this. It’s going to hurt you. I never meant for you to have to go through that again. I’m sorry, Isabel. I just need you to know I love you. I’ll love you to the very end. I’m so grateful I got to tell you, but now youmustgo.” A pause; she cannot speak. He says urgently, “Promise me you’ll go.”
“Stop it! Stop saying those things.” The words burst out of her. “I’ll get the key. Jack, I’m not going…I won’t leave you here.” She’s weeping again. She swears and this makes him laugh softly against the door.
“Such language. I suppose you learned that on theRapide,” he says. “Go. I’m prepared now. I only needed to tell you; it was the one thing keeping me. You will be all right.”
“I won’t be. Not without you.”
“You’re stronger than you think, Bucca’s daughter.”
The uselessness of her tears makes her swear again. Her mind rushes on. Then she feels the meat knife between her hip and the door, and just like that, the plan is there, fully formed in her head. She got confused seeing the prison unguarded, that’s all. She always knew it may not be as easy as simply finding the brig. Of course the door would be locked. It’s a prison, isn’t it, or a storeroom made into a prison—of course there’d be a guard.
Harriet was right to tell her to take a weapon. She’ll hide behind the coil of rope and use the knife to force the guard to open the door. Or she’ll hurt him and take his keys if she must. She hopes she can. It’s a hard, dark hope.
Words tumbling over each other, she says, “Jack, I’ve got a plan. I wasn’t thinking—there wasn’t anybody here, but I’ve got a plan. I’ll go, but I won’t be far. I’ll get you out. Trust me. You only have to—”
A sound behind her, something between a clang and a thud.
“Isabel!” Jack cries, and then she slams into the door a second time, this time with her right temple. Her head throbs as she turns to face a pistol.
Chapter Nineteen
The man holding the pistol looks like he eats hobnails for breakfast. He’s only an inch or so taller than her, but his muscled arms look ready to tear through the rough-spun linen of his shirt, his roped neck through the tightly laced collar. The man’s beard is as red as that of Red Will of the mizzen topmen, and despite the lack of light his bald head shines with perspiration. By his feet stands a large iron pot. The sharp smell of cabbage mixes with the stink of the bilge water.
She expects the man to shout at her, but his voice is unexpectedly soft when he says, “What are you doing down here with the rats?”
She has to strain to hear him above the creaking of the ship. Her back flush with the door, she places her palms against the wood. Jack is just behind it. He stays silent, so as not to betray the connection between them. She says, “I’m terribly sorry. I’m new, I’ve only just come aboard. The captain has taken me on as a ship’s boy. I was trying to get up on deck and must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.” Her voice dips and lifts. It’s not difficult to sound scared when she says, “It’s awfully dark down here. I’d be grateful if you could tell me how to get back up to the deck. I never meant any harm, I swear.”
