Have no fear, Fairchild. Dear Uncle Gates will take care of our precious girl.
Her stomach pitched and rolled, sending her to the floor in search of the chamber pot. She pulled it out in time to heave into it, though there was nothing in her stomach to come up again.
“’Tis the strangest case of seasickness I have ever seen.”
Gwyneth nearly shrieked at the voice, too deep, too masculine. Then she sat up and saw the captain and Mr. Wesley. When had they come in?
“Has she slept at all this week?”
Gwyneth rested her head against the side of the desk. The captain never bothered speaking directly to her anymore, only about her. Perhaps because she could never wrap her tongue around coherent answers.
Her eyes slid shut. She was tired. So very tired.
“Not to speak of.” Mourning filled Mrs. Wesley’s tone. As if Gwyneth had already been lost. As if she somehow knew Papa had been too. “How long until we reach port, Captain? She cannot survive this much longer.”
“Not long now. If the winds remain with us, it should be but another few days. We—”
“Sail ho! Captain Stokes, she flies an American flag!”
Gwyneth opened her eyes in time to see the gray-haired captain lurch for the door. “Stay in here together.”
Mr. Wesley stopped him with an outstretched hand. “You will not engage, will you, Captain?”
The man tugged his coat down and straightened his spine. “I swore to the general I would see his daughter safely to Annapolis. I will do nothing that would endanger her. We will outrun this vessel.”
As he strode from the cabin, the world tipped again and doubled. Gwyneth had little choice but to wrap her arms around the leg of the desk and shut her eyes.
Now blurred into forever, with nothing but the ever-increasing ache in her muscles telling her time passed. At some point shouts rang out and echoed, turning to a deafening roar from which she could pluck no single word. Hands touched, urged, but when she felt the prickly tick of the bed under her, she choked on a scream, lunged away, and fell yet again to the floor.
Tomorrow. The whisper came from within her but made little sense. She tried to focus on the promise of reaching port, as if that would make the nightmares cease. As if that would make sleep come peacefully. As if land would steady the roiling of her world.
But it wouldn’t. She knew that. Seasickness was not her malady. Could one die of heartsickness? Of fear? Of insomnia?
Tomorrow.
The shouting changed in timbre, and thunder split the world in two. A scream rent the air. Fog overtook her vision; cursing blistered her ears. Papa would be furious if he heard such words uttered in her presence. He would…
He would do nothing. Because he was gone.
The door crashed open, and its collision with the wall made her vision snap back into alignment and the echoes cease. When two unfamiliar men charged into the room, Gwyneth pushed herself to her feet, though she had to put a hand upon the surface of the desk to keep herself steady.
Mrs. Wesley slid an arm around her waist. Mr. Wesley stood in the center of the cabin, a pistol leveled at the intruders.
One of them smirked. “Put that away, old man. The captain has surrendered.”
“No.” Voice quavering, Mr. Wesley lifted the gun another inch.
Gwyneth took a step forward, though her knees wobbled. “Mr. Wesley, please. Do nothing foolish.”
The pirate’s eyes softened. “You’ve nothing to worry about, sir. We are Americans, not monsters. Our interest is in the ship. We will deliver everyone safely to Barbados, and you can write home or arrange new transport.”
Write. Her brow furrowed, her thoughts pounded against one another. Papa. The letter! Where had she put the letter, the one he had given her just before…the one she was to present if taken by American privateers? It was…no, she had put it in her reticule. It must be still in her reticule. Which was…
She turned, slowly lest the dizziness strike again, her gaze moving about the cabin in search of the small bag. Mrs. Wesley said something, but she could not spare the attention to discern what. All her concentration was needed to stagger over to the trunk wedged between the bed and the wall.
She lifted the lid, her ears buzzing at a sudden loud noise. There, right on top, lay her reticule. She grabbed it and turned back too quickly, and then wished she hadn’t when the world kept spinning after her feet had come to a stop. When her eyes refocused, she saw the muzzle of a gun inches from her face.
Her throat went tight, paralysis seized her limbs. All she could do was clutch the bag to her chest and stare at the man before her.
Oddly, he looked more exasperated than angry. “What in blazes are you doing, miss? I told you to stop.”
“I did not hear you.”