Page 1 of Only By Grace
CHAPTER 1
Were it not for the dreadful pounding in her head, Grace would have enjoyed the wedding. For her, it had come as quite a surprise that Patience and Major Stuart had fallen in love. They had always seemed to be bickering more like siblings. But love was a funny notion, and now they wished to be married in a most unusual way due to their experiences that brought them together. It was most romantic, actually, being wed on a ship. At least, it seemed like it would be romantic if it were her own wedding and her head did not feel as though someone was stabbing it with a thousand knives…and if she hadn’t taken the draught that her maid had given her which now made her drowsy.
“You do not look very well. Are you seasick?” her sister, Joy, remarked with her usual candour while simultaneously petting one of the kittens that her cat Freddy had recently borne. There were others hidden within the pouch that she wore for that purpose.
“I do not feel very well, thank you very much. The Battle of Trafalgar is happening inside my head at the moment.”
“A megrim? The ceremony is over. No one will notice if you go have a lie down,” Faith, the eldest sister, suggested as she overheard what Grace and Joy were saying.
The thought of finding a dark corner of the ship and closing her eyes was so appealing that Grace gave no other consideration as to what it might entail.
“You know nothing else works but to sleep it off. Here, take Theodore for company. He is very sweet.” Joy handed the black ball of fur to Grace, and he began purring immediately as she held him to her chest.
“You are certain this one is a boy?” She somehow had the presence of mind to ask, not that it mattered.
“I know what to look for now.” In their naïveté, they had thought for some time that the mother cat, Freddy, was a boy. Until she gave birth to kittens, that was. Joy then took her hand and asked one of the crew where Grace could go to rest. Grace followed blindly, because it hurt too much to think.
He led them across the deck and down a narrow ladder to a wood-panelled corridor with a few closed doors.
The central one at the end was labelledCaptain. He opened the door to the right of that, which revealed a small, but tidy, room with a bed, a desk, and a cupboard.
“No one will bother you in here, miss. It’s the first mate’s cabin and he is not with us this trip.”
Grace needed no further encouragement as Joy helped her climb into the berth. After discarding her bonnet, she lay back and closed her eyes as Joy removed her slippers and pulled a coverlet over her. A purring kitten was tucked next to her chest as the darkness and the gentle swaying of the ship allowed her to slip into oblivion.
Sometime later, when Grace tried to open her eyes, she felt a little strange and was not quite sure where she was or what day it was. She was in a dark room that smelled odd—a salty, sourodour mixed with metal and wood. Her hands felt around her to a strange bed that was most certainly not her own. Her body rocked and swayed against a wave and she sat up suddenly. She was on the wedding ship!
At least her headache appeared to be gone. The room had not been that dark when she’d gone to sleep, she would swear it. How long had she been down there? Whenever this happened at home, sometimes she would not arouse until the next day. Joy knew that. Had she forgotten to wake her?
Squinting in an attempt to get her bearings, she saw there was absolutely no light. As she moved to sit up, the kitten woke and stretched and began attacking her feet.
“Stop that!” she scolded as she swung her legs over the side of the berth and swayed on her feet as they hit the floor. She felt around for her slippers and slid her feet into them. “We must hurry.” The wedding party must be over by now, but she could sense the ship was still moving.
She gathered Theodore into her arms and felt for the door before lifting the latch and opening it. It was pitch black in the corridor. She stood there listening for sounds of her family only to be met with silence. There had been too many people present for it to be this quiet. The realization that she must have been left behind sank into her bones. But the ship was moving, she was certain. Had her family yet realized she was gone?
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Surely they would not have left me. There must be some mistake.” Mayhap they were only moving the ship somewhere else to dock.
Normally, her bashfulness would have prevented her from going to the deck alone, but her panic at being stranded in the middle of the water overrode her good sense.
Bravely, she decided to climb the steps to the deck and look around, only to find it empty with full darkness overhead, save the moon and stars and a majestic sail taut against the wind. Shehurried over to the railing, but they were not close enough to land that she could see it. The boat was cutting swiftly through the water which was not at all good news.
Was there no one about? She may not be an expert, but even she knew that ships did not sail themselves. However, she did not wish to confront the crew alone. Where were they going? To London? Back to Ireland? How long did such a journey take? Ireland was not all that far, but she’d never considered it before. Even though staying inside the small cabin was more appealing than speaking to the crew, she must ask them to turn the ship around. If it became public knowledge that she’d been gone unchaperoned overnight, she would be ruined. None of her family would ever divulge such a thing, but secrets had a way of spreading amongst servants and beyond.
She took a deep breath, then turned around to search for whomever was sailing the ship. As she climbed some steps up to what looked like a half deck, she saw the wheel for steering and assumed someone would be there. Strange voices in another language met her ears.
Even though she did not speak any of the Celtic tongues, she deduced it must be the language as Carew’s crew was most likely Irish. It held a soothing lyrical tone much like the accent when they spoke English. Interestingly, Carew’s English diction was perfect, but she’d heard him slip on occasion.
They still had not noticed her presence. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sirs.”
“What the devil?” an angry, rough voice asked. She could see by the light of the moon that the voice belonged to a sailor of indeterminate age, whose skin was leathered and wore a thick grizzled beard. The other wore a scarf over his head with bright gold hoops in both of his ears. Was this really a pirate ship?
Grace took a deep breath and steeled herself to speak to these men instead of running in fear back to the cabin. “I seem to havefallen asleep and missed disembarking the ship with the others. Is it possible to turn around and return me?” she asked as politely as she could, doing her best not to appear as intimidated as she felt.
Crude laughter met her request. Why was that funny?
“You’ve no more chance of that then to squeeze blood from a stone.”
“Why not?” she asked, rather than cringe from the crude expression as she struggled to make out the words in the strong-accented brogue.
