The edge in her voice caught him by surprise. He shrugged. “It’s the usual practice. Arabella was distraught at the suggestion, but I thought she’d come around. Instead, she left without even telling me she was going.”
Wordlessly, Kat Boleyn eased her pair around a brewer’s wagon obstructing the road. Hendon let his gaze rove over her high cheekbones, the impish line of her nose, the sensuous curve of her lips. He’d always thought she had something of the look of Arabella. And then, from somewhere unbidden came a powerful sense of disquiet.
“Why did Emma Stone give you these miniatures?” he asked again.
“Emma Stone is my aunt.”
Hendon opened his mouth to deny it, to deny everything she was suggesting. Then he shut it again. If any other young woman had come to him with such a claim, he would never have accepted her statements at face value. But this woman of all others had no reason to claim him as her father and every reason not to.
“My God,” he whispered. “I always thought you resembled her, but I never imagined…” His voice trailed off. He stared across the tops of the elms in the park, their leaves suddenly so brutally green against the blue of the sky that he had to blink several times.
“What are you going to do?” he asked at last.
“Tell Devlin. What else can I do?”
He studied the beautiful, hauntingly familiar face beside him. He had always thought of her as his adversary, the woman he had to fight to prevent her from ruining Devlin’s life. He found that he still thought of her that way. He had to think of her that way. He could allow himself nothing else. Not now. “You could simply go away,” he suggested.
“No,” she said fiercely. “I won’t hurt him like that again. Not a second time.”
“Then let me be the one to tell him.”
He thought at first she meant to refuse him. She drew in a quick breath, then another. And it was only then that he realized she was fighting back tears.
“Very well,” she said, drawing up before the palace. “But you had best tell him right away, because the next time I see him, I will tell him if you have not.”
Outside, the sun shone brightly on the last of what had been a fine September day. Sebastian could hear the sound of children laughing and calling to one another as he walked into his library and laid the
The voyage’s first weeks out of India had been uneventful, and he skimmed them quickly. Some captains kept extensive, chatty logs. Not Bellamy. Bellamy’s entries were terse, impatient—the hurried scribblings of a man who kept his log to satisfy his ship’s owners rather than himself. He made only brief lists of his passengers, officers, and crew. Sebastian ran through the names, but there were no surprises. There had been twenty-one crew members. There, near the bottom of the list, Sebastian found the name
He flipped through the days, the long layover in Cape Town, the fine sailing as they headed up the west coast of Africa. And then, on the fifth of March, Bellamy had written:
2:00 a.m. Strong gales with a heavy sea. Clewed up sails and hove to.
6:00 a.m. Strong gales continue from the WSW. Carried away the main topmast and mizzen masthead.
3:00 p.m. Shipped a heavy sea, carried away the jolly boat and two crewmen.
There was only one scrawled entry for the next day, 6 March.
10:00 a.m. Gale continues. No idea of our position at sea. Reckoning impossible in storm.
Two days later, Bellamy wrote:
8 March, 7:00 p.m. Shipped a heavy sea, washed away the long-boat, tiller. Unshipped the rudder. Cabin boy, Gideon, suffered a broken arm. Plucky lad.
As bad as things had been, on the ninth of March they got worse.
11:00 a.m. Pumps barely able to keep water from gaining. Crew restive. Cargo thrown overboard, but ship still lying heavy in the water and listing badly to starboard.
2:00 p.m. Ship suddenly righted though full of water. A dreadful sea making a fair breach over her from stem to stern. We are surely lost.
5:00 p.m. Gale dropped to strong breeze. Employed getting what provisions possible by knocking out bow port. Saved twenty pounds of bread and ten pounds of cheese, some rum and flour, now stored in maintop.
10 March. 6:00 a.m. Isaac Potter slipped into hold and drowned before we could get him out. Committed his body to the deep.
10:00 a.m. Crew restive. It is obvious that if we don’t spot a ship soon, the
11 March. 2:00 p.m. Crew mutinied and abandoned ship, taking most of remaining provisions and water. Officers and passengers left aboard. God save our souls.
13 March. 5:00 p.m. Stern stove in. I know not how we stay afloat. Made tent of spare canvas on forecastle. Able to salvage a bit of rice and more flour from below. Rationing half a gill of water each per day, but even at this rate it will not last long.
14 March. 7:00 a.m. Small shark caught by means of running bowline. Sir Humphrey rigged up a teakettle with a long pipe and a stretch of canvas to fashion a kind of distillation. But it affords only one wineglass of water a day each, barely enough to maintain life. Gideon feverish.
16 March. 10:00 a.m. Sir Humphrey has improved upon his distillation process. We can now manage nearly two wineglasses each per day. Barnacles gathered from side of vessel and eaten raw, but they will not last.
23 March. Suffering much from hunger. Gideon hanging on, though I know not how. No nourishment now for seven days.
24 March. 2:00 p.m. Saw a ship to windward. Made signal of distress, but stranger hauled his wind away from us.
25 March. 7:00 a.m. I like not the mutterings amongst the passengers. They have been awaiting the death of the cabin boy, Gideon, intending to feast upon his dead body. But he has not died, and now there is talk of killing him.
5:00 p.m. A dark day for us all. Over the objections of myself and Mr. David Jarvis, the passengers and ship’s officers voted to hasten Gideon’s death. Mr. Jarvis sought to protect the lad, but the others rushed him
