Chapter 4 #2
But so focused was he on reassuring her that he had not been paying attention to the waves, and a large swell forced him to swallow a mouthful of sea water and he retched piteously.
Nerissa smiled, and shook her head. “Are you meant to be rescuing me, or is it the other way around?”
“‘Tis a little difficult to swim when you are layered in clothes,” he snapped, the familiar fire returning to his voice. Nerissa was surprised to find that she quite enjoyed hearing him irritated at her.
“What do you think I am wearing, a lace handkerchief?” She retorted, choking slightly. “I do not think that – ”
“And I was more concerned about you,” he interrupted, his eyes flickering across her face, his breath sharp. “Are you well, able to swim?”
Nerissa rolled her eyes as the storm raged around them, feeling a rasping in her chest as she tried to keep breathing over the salt. “No, Anthony. I am drowning.”
Her deadpan response was enough to spark a smile in him, and shaking his head he spluttered, “Remind me never to get in a boat with you again.”
“Absolutely fine by me,” she managed to reply, but her voice trailed off as she saw something just over Anthony’s shoulder that made her mouth fall open.
A small boat, a tiny rowing boat, with four men in it – the captain, and his three crew members.
“Hie there!” Nerissa called, attempting to get their attention. Anthony stared at her for a moment, confused, but as he turned his head and managed to avoid swallowing more of the ocean, he cried out too.
“Ahoy there – hie there, captain!”
But their cries went answered. Nerissa was unsure whether they were ignoring them, or whether they simply could not hear her over the noise of the storm. Either way, the four men rowed frantically towards Port Royal and, in less than a minute, were gone from sight in the crashing waves.
Panic was now starting to flutter at Nerissa’s heart, no matter how much she tried to push it away. She could swim, certainly, but Port Royal was a long way from here and Anthony’s idea of striking out of the nearest shore still meant plenty of hard swimming.
“They – they told me that there was no other boat?” Anthony was spluttered, outrage clearly visible across his features. “The absolute brigands, they lied to me!”
Nerissa choked down the panic that was rising, and said instead, “They lied to me too, and I have known them for years! But that is not the most important thing – we need to start swimming, we will exhaust ourselves if we just wait here.”
“Someone will come,” Anthony said wildly, a look on his face that looked more as though he was pleading her than informing her. “Someone will come, will they not? The sailors, they will send someone to help us?”
Nerissa did not know what to say, but the truth. “Not if they think we have already drowned – and we will do, if we do not start moving!”
He looked around them, as though expecting another ship to arrive and take them to safety, but in less than a few seconds, he seemed to make a decision.
“We will make for that patch of land – you see, that there?” He tried to indicate with a hand, but it just made him dip lower into the water, and Nerissa nodded. “‘Tis the closest. If we are going to make it…”
The end of his sentence hung in the roaring gale.
“We will be miles from Port Royal,” said Nerissa hopelessly.
“Better miles on land than miles by ocean,” he said. “Look, Nerissa – and I think in the circumstances, I should be permitted to call you by your first name. I know that you are frightened, and cold, and probably angry at me for some unknown reason that is in no way my fault.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but seawater filled it, and besides, there seemed to be a sparkle in Anthony’s eye.
“But the best thing that we can do is try to get to dry land. We can worry about who hates the other more when we can feel sand beneath our feet.”
Despite herself, Nerissa had to admit that she was impressed. She had not imagined that he had it in him, this ability to calm her, to think of others. It was not the Count Anthony that she had met in the court room, nor the man who had teased her on the Sea Scout.
No, this was a caring Anthony. One that thought about others before himself, a man who was aware of another’s feelings.
This, she thought with a wry smile, was a man whom she could truly care for.
“‘Tis agreed then,” he said quietly. “Follow me.”
It felt like an eternity to Nerissa, striking out as they did for the small piece of shore that they could make out. The thunder and lightning still roared, and the rain was distracting, falling continuously on them as they tried to swim against the current.
Whether it was ten minutes, an hour, or half a day, Nerissa could not tell. All she knew was that by the time that her feet managed to touch sand and she staggered onto the beach in the twilight of the day, she was absolutely exhausted.
“We…we made it,” she managed, half sitting, half falling onto the golden sand that was sticking to her. “We are alive.”
“We are indeed.” Anthony collapsed beside her. “This has got to stop happening to me, really, it is all too ridiculous. Two catastrophes in three days, and the Marietta really was a disaster, and I still have no idea why it sunk…”
They looked out together at the storm. It was already starting to wane, having blown itself out across the bay. They could see lightning forking down and touching the sea, but all the strikes were closer to the horizon now.
Nerissa swallowed, and tasted salt. It was sticky on the beach, the air hot as it always was. Her gown, thin and light to keep her cool, was already starting to dry.
“There,” said Anthony with a smile that she did not return. “Did I not tell you that we would make it here, to this part of Jamaica?”
Being alive and being grateful that she was alive did not stop Nerissa from feeling irritation, and it welled up slightly now as he spoke.
“We are still hours away from civilisation,” she pointed out. “Hours that we do not seem to have today. It will be tomorrow before we can return to Port Royal, and my…my father will think…”
She did not have to continue. Her poor father: after losing the love of his life to the ocean, would tonight look out and think that he had lost the only other precious woman in his life.
“Civilisation is overrated,” Anthony grinned. “But for you, Nerissa, I will attempt to be civilised.”
She felt a flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with the exhaustion she felt in her bones from the exertion of swimming so far. Did she even want him civilised – or did she want him raw, animalistic, hungry for –
“Are you hungry?”
Nerissa blushed as Anthony’s words cut right into her thoughts, and she smiled as she nodded.
Anthony stood up wearily and held out a hand to her. “And I do not suppose that you brought any food or sustenance with you on your travels? No hidden pockets of food anywhere that you would like to own up to?”
Nerissa smiled as he pulled her to her feet. “Not in this gown.”
He sighed, and offered an arm mockingly to her. “Well in that case, we shall simply have to make do with the best we have. Miss Fairchild, may I escort you?”
There was a strange tingling across her body as she took his arm, but instead of attempting to ignore it, Nerissa revelled in it. Here was a man that could make her feel something, feel something incredible. The question was, how far was she willing to explore it?
“Count Anthony, it would be my pleasure.”