Page 30 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
“I have been pleased to see,” Anne said, “that this vessel is proving to be more seaworthy than the original pirate ship Misery.”
“I have a feeling that our previous difficulties lay less with the ship and more with the crew manning her. I recall one incident in particular—”
Anne rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You would bring that up.”
“—in which our fearless admiral screamed in a manner unbecoming His Majesty’s Royal Navy.”
“We sail under the black flag, so let us leave His Majesty out of it. And you know very well that there was a spider, a great, black, hairy spider, that had crawled upon my leg!”
Michael shook his head, every bit as unimpressed by this explanation as he had been at age nine. “And that scream was accompanied by the most comedic flailing of arms, to which no description could possibly do justice. Perhaps I should demonstrate.”
“I should very much like to see that,” Anne said, gesturing for him to proceed.
Michael sighed. “And she’s called my bluff.”
“Indeed, she has,” Anne said cheerfully. “Besides, you were the one who caused us to capsize, with your ostensible attempt to ‘help’ by charging into my end of the boat.”
“So you’re saying it was my fault? I suppose next time I’ll leave you to the mercy of the great, black, hairy spider.”
She smiled sunnily. “Of course you won’t. To do so would go against every fiber of your nature as a Cranfield. You’re not happy unless you’re bashing some evildoer over the head with your battle-axe.”
He laughed, hauling at the oars. “You have me again.”
“So,” Anne said, “do I finally get to learn what it is you’ve been doing in Canada?”
Michael glanced around. The water was deserted. “I suppose you do.”
Anne leaned forward. “Well?”
Michael let off rowing for a moment, allowing the boat to drift. “You may recall that three years ago, my Uncle Charles was stationed out on the Canadian frontier.”
“I remember it well. That would have been just before his brigade was transferred to the Continent. We had the pleasure of Major-General Cranfield’s company for several months while they resupplied.”
“That transfer was the reason for my mission. You see, a coded message was intercepted indicating that the French knew my uncle’s brigade was to be recalled to the European theater. It further indicated that a traitor within our ranks had been dispatched to Canada to present him with a false set of orders, instructing him to lead his men deep into the Canadian wilderness.”
“Oh, my gracious!” Anne frowned, tilting her head. “But how did any of that involve you, Michael?”
“The traitor bearing the false set of orders was my uncle’s former batman. A man by the name of Jeremiah Derrickson.”
“Ah,” Anne said, her brow unfurling. “Your uncle would have trusted him.”
“My uncle would have trusted him,” Michael confirmed. “There’s no one you can confirm your orders with, out there on the frontier. Given two sets of contradictory orders, and one is coming from your former batman, well, it’s not difficult to imagine which set he would have followed. They needed someone he would trust implicitly.”
“So that’s why they sent you.”
“Indeed.” Michael gave a couple of pulls at the oars, to keep them from drifting into the bank. “I had to depart quite hastily. Father pulled me out of Oxford midterm, and the next day I was on a ship. I was six days behind Derrickson. I’ll tell you the whole story another time, but the long and short of it is that after weeks of hacking my way through the wilderness, I managed to beat him there by six hours.”
“You did it.” Anne’s smile was a touch tremulous. “You had an adventure, a real adventure. A quest, even!”
It struck Michael that Anne understood better than anyone how much that moment had meant to him, the moment he had staggered into his uncle’s camp at one in the morning, more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, but equally exhilarated to have succeeded.
Anne laughed as she dabbed at her eyes with the back of her glove. “It’s everything you’ve always wanted.”
Michael said nothing as he leaned forward to offer her his handkerchief. It was bittersweet even now, to think about that moment. At the time, it had felt like the culmination of a dream.
But he could not now think of that triumph without immediately recalling what it had cost him: a future with the only woman he had ever loved, the only woman, he felt certain, he would ever love.
At least, he had thought it had cost him that future. It turned out the Fates had seen fit to give him this second chance.
