He wipes the blood from the side of his head and they swim, keeping pace together. Dick returns to the beach. When they reach the point they can stand, they wade to the shore. Dick grabs hold of Isabel’s arm, and it’s only then that she realizes she’s stumbling with weariness. In her mind is still the voice she heard in the water.Swim. Come home.The water calls to her, blue-soft and cool. The sun dazzles.Come home…
Dick snaps her out of it. “Where’s Will?” he says.
“I last saw him on deck.” She wipes water, strands of hair, the tug of the sea from her eyes.
“I’ve got her,” Jack says, wrapping his arms around Isabel. It’s not cold, but she shivers.
Dick says in a rush, “All the others got off, apart from Kimbrel. Couldn’t swim, the poor bugger. And Will.”
“Damn,” says Jack, shielding his eyes as he looks at the frigate. “They’ll have gotten him now if he didn’t get off. Thank God they’re not aware he’s a smuggler.”
“He tried to escape,” she says. “He was hurt.”
“They’ve got a surgeon on board. Hopefully they won’t punish him for trying to escape—it’s what every impressed hand would do and they sorely need men. There’s nothing we can do now, in any case; he’ll be back in the brig until the ship sails. Come. That boat will be here any minute.” As they hurry up the beach, he looks back at her and calls, “Are you all in one piece?”
She calls back that she is, closing her hands into fists, trying not to wince. It’s difficult to climb back up to the path with the cuts in her hands and in her bare feet. Jack asks if she’ll manage without shoes and she nods.
“Where to, Captain?” Dick asks when they reach the top of the cliff.
Before Jack has the chance to answer, she says, “Harry Tremayne has theRapideready to sail from Nelly’s Cove.”
Dick stares at her as if she has just told him Harry Tremayne is ready to take them to the moon.
“Do you mean it?” Jack says.
“Harry said he’d have her ready tonight. There’s a horse waiting for us at the Shipwrights Arms. Only one, though.” She looks back at theHornet.The boat that’s after them is halfway between the ship and the cove.
Jack folds his arms around her, kissing her wet hair. “You’re a marvel.” Another kiss, then, “I think we should forego the horse. It won’t be able to carry three and we’d be forced to take the road. Let’s go through the wood instead.” He’s speaking quickly. The boat is pulling closer. “What do you think, Isabel?”
The wood receives them as the water did before, sucking them into a sea of green. They crash through the undergrowth. Isabel keeps her hands close to her sides, the cuts in her palms burning, her breath heaving. She wishes she had time to loosen her stays. Twice she stumbles as a pebble presses into the sole of her foot. Jack keeps looking back at her, as if he cannot believe she’s there.
Her hands ache and her muscles scream and her mind keeps turning back to the guard, crumpled in the hold and the knife gleaming red in her hands, and the image is making her cold despite the warmth of the summer evening and yet—and yet. She doesn’t remember having been happier. In spite of it all. Even the first night with George, after their long, blustery wedding day in October, she didn’t feel this. Even the day he came back from a year at sea. Not even the last night she spent with Jack in the hammock aboard theRapidedid she feel anything approximating the desperate joy coursing through her.
The spaces between the trees grow blue, then gray, then dark as they go, their trunks black silhouettes against the incoming night. They never see their pursuers. Once, they hear voices behind them, but they’re distant, like an echo of words spoken long ago.
After two exhausting hours they burst from the wood. Bone weary, they cross the field to Nelly’s Cove more slowly, the half-moon lighting their way. As they close in on the edge of the cliff, she sees the ship: a shadow against the sea, sails like old blood furled on the masts; the wooden hull dulled to a deep ash gray. The moment the three of them appear at the top of the cliff, a rowboat launches from theRapide.Thirty minutes later, they clamber onto the deck and there’s Harry, embracing each of them in turn, saying, “Captain, we thought you lost,” and, “Mrs. Henley, it’s an honor to sail with you again.”
“Isabel,” she says, smiling. “It’s Isabel, Harry.”
Jack says, “Will didn’t get off the ship. Do we have enough crew to sail?”
“There’s eight of us, including the three of you, Captain.”
“Good.” Raising his voice, Jack calls, “Stations for making sail! Lay aloft sail loosers!” followed by, “Lay out and let loose!”
“Raise the anchor!” Harry calls in the wake of Jack’s commands.
Jack says, “Is every man aware we sail without papers? They’re willing, regardless?”
Harry grins. “They would be for you, Captain, but there’s no need.”
“My papers were revoked. I have none, now.”
Harry exchanges a glance with Isabel. “I beg to differ, Captain. There’s a neat little set of them waiting on your desk.”
Jack has been watching the sails come down. Now he looks at Harry. “How do you mean?”
“Have a look, Captain. I think they’ll suit our purpose.”
