Chapter 17 Chivalry is Never Dead
The rasp of a strangled scream jarred Caleb from the pleasurable trance Desi’s kiss had placed upon him.
Yet more than a trance, something deep…eternal.
Shaking it off, he spun and drew his blade, charging up the sand before he even saw the beast who held her.
Beast was a good description for the man who stood at least two heads above Desi and whose hairy arm coiling around her throat was as thick as a mast.
Terror streaked across her wide eyes as she clawed the man’s iron grip.
Caleb leveled his blade upon him. “Release her at once!” Rage and terror knotted in his chest. Wasn’t it enough that he’d caused the deaths of so many in this place? He could not allow another innocent to suffer!
The beast chuckled as another man emerged from the foliage, a sinewy copy of the first, save for the toothless grin upon his lips and the cudgel in hand.
“Aw, weren’t that sich a sweet sight, Claude?” The beast addressed toothless. “Hyde and his lady friend enjoying a lovers’ kiss right here in the spot where he murdered me wife.”
“You’ll pay, Hyde!” Claude barked. “My brother bled in your mission.”
“We should kill her first, let him watch and suffer the way we did.”
More terror than Caleb had felt in a long while almost choked him. “Leave her be. She has naught to do with this.” Blade held high, he rushed forward.
Claude leapt in the way and struck Caleb’s sword with his cudgel, nearly tearing it from his grip. Backing up, Caleb leveled his blade at the two men. “Quit hiding behind a skirt and fight me with honor.”
The first beast’s eyes blazed with fierce hatred. “Have it your way. Just so you know, we’ll do away with you first, then we’ll kill the lady.” Releasing Desi, he shoved her to the ground and drew a long knife. She gasped for air but seemed otherwise unharmed.
Snarling and cursing, both men charged Caleb.
He braced, quickly shifting his thoughts, will, and emotions into a state of battle, a state of survival.
Claude swung his cudgel. The beast thrust his knife toward Caleb.
Spinning, he leapt out of the way of both, but the heavy cudgel struck his shoulder. Burning pain seared down his side. He brought his blade up in a quick slash that caught Claude’s thigh, carving a line of blood across his breeches.
Howling, he stumbled back. “Kill him, Armand!”
But Armand didn’t need any encouragement. With teeth bared and knife raised, he barreled toward Caleb.
“I’m sorry you lost family!” Caleb shouted as he met the man’s blade with his own and shoved him, sending him reeling backward.
“’Twas not my intention.” Yet somehow deep inside, he didn’t blame them for their fury.
A fleeting thought crossed his mind. You should allow them their revenge.
You deserve to die. But one quick glance at Desi stiffened his resolve.
If either brute reached her again. Nay! He would not let it happen.
“Go! Get to safety!” he shouted, but she stood there, shaking her head in defiance, both anger and fear burning in her gaze.
Claude limped toward him, cudgel in hand. Armand joined him, long knife pointed at Caleb’s heart. Though the men’s lumbering size worked against them, hatred coupled with revenge formed an overpowering force.
The cudgel hammered down toward Caleb. He ducked, slashing upward, steel meeting flesh. Armand roared and lunged again, driving Caleb back toward the beach.
?
Desi knew she should listen to Caleb and run to safety.
But she could no more leave him than tear out her heart.
Both men looked more like Sumo wrestlers than French villagers, tall, brawny, angry.
Yet Caleb moved with such speed and skill, it stunned her.
He’d managed to injure one of them and shove the other to the ground, and she got the impression he made every attempt not to hurt them.
But the men were persistent. They would not give up until Caleb was dead.
Armand swiped his knife this way and that, inches from Caleb’s chest. And all the while Caleb’s cutlass flashed in the sunlight, every stroke precise, every defensive move flawless. His blade sliced Armand’s arm, and the man shouted a thundering curse and barreled after him.
Parrying with precision, Caleb blocked each of Armand’s attacks, all while dipping and spinning out of the way of Claude’s cudgel. If she wasn’t so frightened, she might be enamored by his skill and courage.
Claude shoved his cudgel toward the side of Caleb’s head. Leaping out of the way, Caleb slammed the hilt of his blade against the man’s temple. He dropped to the ground, unconscious. Before Caleb could recover, Armand drove his long knife into Caleb’s shoulder.
“No!” The cry ripped from Desi’s throat.
Staggering, Caleb gripped the wound, an advancing army of blood saturating his white shirt. Still, he managed to bring his cutlass to bear on Armand’s next attack.
“No!” Desi cried again and reaching down, grabbed a handful of sand and hurled it into the man’s eyes.
He cursed, reeling backward, clawing at his face. Caleb kicked him in the belly, and he fell, struck his head on a boulder and crumpled on the spot.
For a moment, all Desi heard were the waves slapping the shore, retreating, and then rushing in again, as though the sea itself marked the end of the duel.
Darting to his side, she pressed her hands over his wound, heart thundering. The cut was deep, blood soaking his shirt. She fought back tears. “Hold still, please. You’ll bleed out.”
“’Tis nothing.” He grunted. “I’ve known worse.”
Of that she had no doubt. But her modern instincts screamed to call 9-1-1, get him to the hospital for stitching up and antibiotics. But this was 1718.
“I’m merely glad you are safe.” His voice was low and husky as his eyes found hers.
Ignoring the sensations running through her, she tore a strip of fabric from her skirt and pressed it over his wound.
He neither flinched nor moaned. “You should have run.”
She blew out a sigh. “No way.”
“No way?” He quirked a brow.
“Never mind.” She smiled. “Besides, you needed me.”
He chuckled. “Indeed. So it would seem.”
Tearing off another strip of cloth, Desi leaned closer, tying it around his shoulder as best she could.
She needed to get him back to the ship, to Dr. Brandt as soon as possible.
But his nearness, the salty musk of him, the heat of his body, tangled her heart in knots.
Finishing her work, she looked up at him and found his stormy eyes steady upon her.
And for a fragile moment, the world hushed. The fallen men, the danger, even the blood—faded, leaving only the two of them, bound together by threads neither time nor fate could sever.
?
Desi sat on a stool beside Caleb’s bed, her skirts spread around her, and a cool cloth in her hand.
Patches snuggled up beside her master’s feverish body as if doing so would make him well.
Caleb moaned, and Desi reached over to dab his forehead and neck.
An infection, Brandt said. The knife wound in his shoulder had not been too deep, but he’d lost a lot of blood.
And even though the doctor had cleaned the wound and applied a yarrow poultice, Caleb’s fever still rose.
“You should get some rest,” Alden said from his spot standing at the stern windows. Moonlight shifted over him with the gentle roll of the ship, coating him in silver. “There’s not much we can do except pray.”
Desi dipped the cloth into a pail of water and wrung it out. “I’ll leave that to you. I’ve never been much for praying.”
The quartermaster spun around, lantern light revealing a hint of shock on his face. “Faith now, everyone prays, but not all to the right God.”
“Actually, I’m not even sure He exists. If He does, He must not like me very much.” She patted the cool cloth over Caleb’s feverish brow.
Snorting, Alden gripped his baldric. “Then you don’t know Him at all.”
Desi leaned back. “How can you even know a God you can’t see or hear or touch?”
“Ah, but Miss, we can do all those things, just within our spirit.”
She dropped the cloth in the pail and ran a sleeve over the sweat on her forehead, not wanting to have this conversation.
“You should ask Caleb.” Circling Caleb’s desk, Alden leaned back on the top.
“Until recent events, God used Caleb powerfully against evil.” He smiled, his eyes drifting away in memory.
“One time, the Sentinel had been caught in a raging storm. Her hold was nearly flooded. We’d lost the foremast yards and were listing heavily to larboard.
With all the confidence of Poseidon himself, Caleb leapt onto the bulwarks, clung to the backstay, and shouted. ‘In the name of Jesus, be still!’”
Alden clapped his hands. “And just like that, the seas calmed.”
Desi stared at him, baffled. Ridiculous. “The storm was probably just over.”
Alden grinned. “That quickly? From foaming waves as high as mastheads, a black sky growling like a bear, to a sea of glass and blue heaven in a mere minute?”
Frowning, Desi studied Caleb, the way his black, moist hair clung to his feverish skin, the twitch of his eyes beneath his lids, his constant jerking as if he couldn’t find peace. And all because of her. He couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.
“Then, there was the time we anchored at Barbados for supplies,” Alden continued with a chuckle.
“And a young lad of no more than six fell overboard from a fishing boat in the harbor. The father’s screams careened over the waters as loud as cannon fire, but it was too late.
By the time they found the boy, he was not breathing. ” Alden shook his head with a sigh.
“You wouldn’t believe it unless you’d seen it yourself, but Caleb marched down that dock where they were hoisting the lad’s body onto the wooden planks, his father wailing like a sea lion. And Caleb took that boy’s hand and said, ‘In the name of Jesus, rise.’”