Chapter 8
Theo was swimming in the sea of jumbled, confused memories.
His shoulder hurt. Burned. A voice cut through the pain—light and melodic, like an angel’s, telling him to hold on, even though he didn’t remember the exact words of encouragement. He wanted to hold on. If that voice could stay, everything would be fine.
Then the pain abated, letting the memories seep through.
Jean-Baptiste sat across the campfire from him, the pitiful flames fighting against the rain.
“Damn weather,” his cousin muttered. “If the rain doesn’t let up in a day, I’m turning back and going home.”
“Then I’ll have to come with you,” Theo said, even if they both knew leaving wasn’t an option.
“And that would be the first smart decision you’ve made,” Jean-Baptiste replied with a teasing smile and tone of a sibling’s barb.
Uncle hadn’t wanted Theo to follow Jean-Baptiste either, but he had to come.
Brothers did such things together, even if brothers, in this case, were only cousins.
Blood was still blood, and debt still debt.
Unfortunately for them, so far, Jean-Baptiste’s touted adventures in the army had boiled down to walking, camping, and more walking.
For two months.
“Ah, never mind.” Jean-Baptiste plucked at the broken, sad feather on his cap. “We stay. Think of how the ladies will swoon when we come back in our uniforms.”
“These?” It was Theo’s time to tease now as he pulled at his dirtied blue coat. “You’ll have to get all the mud out first.”
Jean-Baptiste chuckled, but the last note of his laughter grew distorted, as if the memory was fading.
Theo brought out his silver locket and tilted it toward the fire so the light caught the engraved initials.
Peace wasn’t going to last forever—especially in war.
He clutched the locket in his fist and closed his eyes.
Protect us.
Shouting, steps, more shouting. Something whizzed over his head. A horse neighed, rearing above him—wait, why would the horse be attacking him? All the horses at the farm loved him—and then pain, the pain again—
“Theo. Theo!” Something slapped him on the cheek. He opened his eyes. Jean-Baptiste’s face, dirty and scratched as it unblurred, hovered above him. “Good. You stay awake.”
All right, I will, Theo thought, even as he closed his eyes again. He could be awake without looking.
“Lost the battle … found a fellow … get us to a ship … go home easier that way …”
Home? They were going home already? It didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t focus anymore …
His bed swayed beneath him, then tossed him onto the hard, cold floor. But why was it so cold? And why was it spraying his face?
He gulped, desperate for air—and instead got only water. It woke him up, at least, and he sat, spitting out more water, then gasping. The curved wooden walls around him creaked as the wind wailed outside.
He was on a ship.
And it was flooding.
He stood up and shook the wet hair off his face.
“Theo!” Jean-Baptiste descended the ladder, landing in a few inches of water.
“What’s going on?” Why were they on a ship? No, wait, he remembered his cousin telling him …
“Let’s just say”—Jean-Baptiste waded through the water to him—“we should’ve gone home before the rain got biblical.”
“Are we evacuating?”
“No use in these winds. We’ll be worse off in the lifeboats than on the ship.”
“Then I have to help. What can I do?”
“Nothing. You’re wounded. Lie back down and—”
“Let me help!” If the ship was flooding, he wasn’t going to stand by and watch.
Jean-Baptiste shook his head in surrender. “Fine. Come on deck. The boys need help with the rigging. But promise you won’t get seasick!”
Theo nodded and followed his cousin, flinching as his shoulder stung when he climbed the ladder. A quick glance at it revealed a bandage, soaked with dried-up blood. Had he been stabbed? Shot?
The gale was almost unbearable on deck. Massive waves tossed the ship left and right, as if it were but a leaf, helplessly fallen off a tree. The men ran from the stern to the bow and back again, and Theo and Jean-Baptiste were quickly roped into helping furl a sail.
“We’ll have something to tell Father, huh?” Jean-Baptiste yelled over the wind, even though they were shoulder by shoulder.
“You know he’s never letting us leave after this,” Theo responded in the same volume.
“Eh … I’ll take a year or two at the farm.”
A man shouted at them. Jean-Baptiste turned to him. “What?”
The man shouted again and waved to a point behind their backs.
A bang followed a loud whizzing sound, and the entire ship shook as pieces of broken wood sprayed outwards from the hull.
That’s not the storm.
Theo turned around, shielding his eyes from the pouring rain. The shape of a giant, three-masted frigate loomed in the dark, swaying on the rattled ocean.
Coming straight for them.
Theo came to with another gasp, surprised that water didn’t flood his lungs. He was surrounded by pure whiteness. Was this death? The afterlife?
He blinked, and small details began to emerge. A corner of a wall. A dot on the ceiling. A small, bare room with whitewashed walls. Not the ship, but not home, either.
Where on Earth was he?
Voices drifted in from behind the closed door. He frowned, trying to make sense of the gibberish, until he realized it wasn’t nonsense. They were speaking English.
Did he get captured?
That jolted him up into a sitting position.
A pitcher of water and a bottle of dark liquid stood on a bedside table next to him.
His coat was gone, and he wore a simple but clean shirt.
His shoulder stung, but it was a different, easier sort of pain—the kind a healing, not infected, wound emitted.
The new bandage was pristine, and as he gingerly rolled his shoulder, the pain didn’t worsen.
The door opened, and a young woman ran in. “You’re awake!” She stopped at the foot of the bed, clenching the frame as if only that was preventing her from jumping straight onto him.
Theo blinked. The voice—he knew it. Light, melodic.
The angel. She looked like one, too. A smiling face with full, pink lips, a button nose, and freckles spread across the cheeks; crystal-clear blue eyes in a slight almond shape, and thick black hair, bound up, but with a few curls framing her face.
Very well—she looked nothing like the angels, not in Caravaggio’s, or Botticelli’s, or Titian’s paintings—but she still was one to him, and her voice echoed in his memory. Everything is going to be all right.
But it explained nothing.
“Who are you?” he asked, automatically switching to English.
Her eyes widened.
“Poor boy must still be confused.” Another woman stood in the doorway—older, and dressed in simpler gray clothes, hair covered with a frilled white cap. “Don’t worry, my lady, he’ll get his bearings,” she said to the younger woman.
“Mrs. Atkins, would you mind giving us a few minutes? I’m sure he doesn’t want to be overwhelmed.” The younger woman’s eyes flashed from Mrs. Atkins to Theo, slightly panicked.
“Certainly, my lady.” Mrs. Atkins nodded and closed the door behind her.
The woman sat down on the edge of the bed. “What do you remember?”
He turned his head to the side. Her accent was strange, but her English was perfect. How much could he trust her?
“Very little. I was wounded.” That seemed like a good, neutral enough answer.
“Yes, you were. We have to work out that story.” She lowered her voice as she glanced at the door.
He narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”
“I told them you were my servant—before you say anything, it’s the best for both of us. They wouldn’t have helped you otherwise, and as for me … well …” She waved her hand. “The important thing is, you’re fine now.”
He was feeling better. But why was that so important to her?
“Where are we?”
She tilted her head. “You truly don’t remember anything?”
He remembered enough. He just didn’t feel comfortable saying it.
“We’re in Dorset. Near the coast.”
Dorset. He was in England? He scrambled to get out of bed, nearly overturning the glass on the bedside table in the process.
She gently touched his shoulder. “Please, don’t exert yourself. Mrs. Atkins said you still have to rest.”
He couldn’t afford to rest. Everything was wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be in England—well, not yet. And where was Jean-Baptiste? What happened to the ship?
The storm. The cannon fire from the frigate …
Nausea brewed inside him, turning into dread.
The woman inspected his face, but not with suspicion. With … sadness?
“I apologize,” he said. “Thank you for taking care of me, but I need to leave.”
“No!” She leaned in closer—much closer than a stranger, or even an acquaintance, should. Theo didn’t know why he was drawn to look at her lips—or why, for a split second, a desire awoke within him. He shook it off. He was probably still befuddled from whatever his ordeal had been.
“I know who you are,” she whispered. “I found you on the beach, nearly drowned. I’ve seen your uniform. The others have found it, and all kinds of rumors are spreading around, but they don’t know it’s yours.”
“Is that why you told them I was your servant?”
“Kind of. It was before—well, it doesn’t matter.” She scooted an inch closer. “I won’t tell them who you are, I promise. Will you support my story in turn? I can’t explain yet, but please, just for now?”
Mrs. Atkins had called her ‘my lady.’ She looked like nobility, too: a well-made dress, sleeves bordered with lace, and a simple but precious pin with a single pearl tucked in her hair. Perhaps she didn’t exactly behave like an aristocrat, but she spoke like one.
Why would she drag him into some ridiculous story? Was she bored?
“All right.” He still didn’t know enough about his situation. Playing along might be the best option for now. “What do I do?”
“Recuperate. That’s all. Then we’ll talk.” She gave him a smile, rose, and headed for the door.
“And what do I call you?” he asked.
She turned around. “I suppose the appropriate name would be Miss Grey,” she said. “But you can call me Emmeline.”
Emmeline. It didn’t stir a single memory, but it did sound nice. Poetic.
“Theo,” he said. Nothing wrong in giving his name, although he made sure he pronounced it the English way.
“Theo.” She repeated it as if she was learning the name itself for the first time. “All right. Have a good rest.” And she left.
Theo propped up a pillow and leaned on it. Since he was in England, he should contact Lord Wescott, but at the moment, it was hard to focus on his duty. Dread solidified in his guts, threatening to weigh him down and make him sink.
Like the ship did.
It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Escaping the aftermath of the battle, they were on a ship in a storm—somewhere in the Channel, surely, if Jean-Baptiste had found a passage from the coast of the Netherlands back to Brittany.
I found you on the beach, nearly drowned.
They got attacked by a British gun-ship. Their own ship went down. Perhaps, in the storm, they got carried close enough to the coast he washed up on the shore. But it was only him. No mention of Jean-Baptiste or anyone else. Not even a mention of the wreck.
He reached for the locket around his neck.
It was gone. He’d lost it.
So instead, he only clenched his fist, leaned his forehead on it, and silently cried.