After an endless moment, the ship topped the crest of the wave, rode it for an eternity, then began its dive toward the trough. With gravity now swinging her body toward the bow, Harriet managed to hook her legs on the footrope and haul herself up. She shook the rain out of her eyes, her shoulders rose and fell as she took deep breaths, and she got back to work.
Nick exhaled. His heart began beating again, so erratically it made his hands shake even with his stranglehold on the tiller. That took far too long for his sanity.
Shortly after, the crew had furled enough canvas that the mainmast stopped shuddering. Nick’s heart was still thundering in his chest.
Bos’n and Zach worked frantically to keep up with repeated changes to the main and forecourse necessitated by the changing wind, while the topmen secured canvas. Eventually all the crew was back on the deck, everything but the forecourse and mains’l tightly furled. It was all the canvas Nick dared carry in this blow.
The storm continued to roar, impossibly high waves threatening to flip the ship aft over fore on one side of the swell, and swamp the stern on the other. Everyone held fast, safety ropes tied around their waists to keep from being washed overboard.
Nick soon had them shorten the forecourse, and then the mains’l as well, then returned to the regular watch schedule and released the larboard watch to go below and rest. There were sufficient hands in the starboard watch to handle the canvas in play now.
Once Harriet went below with the lads and closed the hatch, she hurried to Nick’s cabin, ignoring the splat of wet clothing hitting the deck and refusing to look as her watchmates changed out of their sopping clothes. With the cabin door closed, she helped herself to a towel from Nick’s wardrobe and began drying off and changing her own clothing. It was surprisingly difficult to unbutton and unlace. Slowly, she realized her hands were shaking.
Of course they were shaking. She was cold and soaked to the skin.
What had she just done?
Good heavens, what had she just done?
Climbed to the topmost footrope on the tallest mast and secured a sail.
In a raging storm.
Her knees buckled and she sat on a chair, her descent to the seat more of a barely controlled fall. She stared at her trembling hands, but what she saw was the roiling ocean viewed from high above, in the brief moments she could see it through the lashing rain that sometimes blinded her. She saw the crazy tilted angle of the deck when her foot slipped. She would have plunged to her death had she not been able to hook her arm over the yardarm.
She let out a chuckle at her rhyme. Ignored the hysterical edge to her voice.
The ship had eventually pitched the other way and she had been able to climb back up. Get on with the job at hand, just like Jack beside her and the other crewmen, though through the heavy rain she hadn’t been able to make out more than their vague, blurry outlines.
She’d done it.
She had not only overcome her fear of climbing the tall mast, she’d climbed it in a storm.
She had helped defend the ship.
Defended it in a battle with the elements rather than an opponent like Ruford, but more sailors died because of storms than gun battles or committing acts of piracy. Going aloft in foul weather was the last sailor’s task that she hadn’t yet attempted, and now she’d done it.
She’d done it!
Her palms burned. Icy needles coursed through her veins as feeling and warmth returned now that she was out of the weather. She blew on her cupped fingers, then reached for the towel.
Soon she was able to get the rest of her wet clothes off and hanging up to dry, toweled her body off briskly to restore sensation, and dressed in her spare set of clothes.
Just weeks ago she couldn’t bring herself to put on a pair of men’s breeches, and now she could do the work of a man, while wearing masculine attire. Well, the work of a new sailor. A landsman. She had no delusions about her fledgling sailing skills being anywhere near on par with the lads in the crew, who all had years if not decades of experience. But now she was confident she could practice each skill required of a member of the crew and increase her proficiency.
The salve eased the burning on her hands. She considered checking on Luigi and getting a bite to eat from the galley—triumphing over one’s fears and cheating death certainly stirred one’s appetite—but the bunk and blanket beckoned. The surfeit of energy that had helped her work the sails and carried her aloft had utterly deserted her, and now her eyelids were too heavy to keep open.
* * *
Hours later, the storm was dying out. Gradually Nick was able to get the ship heading once more north-northeast. As soon as there was a break in the clouds, he’d get a more accurate fix on their position.
Nick handed off to Jonesy and went below, intending to have sharp words with Harriet for how she had risked her life and scared ten years off his.
He found her sprawled flat on her back in the bunk in his cabin, sound asleep. One bare foot peeked out from under her Portuguese blanket, one arm flung out, her damp braid off to the side on the pillow. Her wet clothes were hanging up to dry, a towel on the deck beneath them to absorb the dripping water, and she’d left the tin of salve on the table. The cabin smelled faintly of seawater, damp wool, and lavender.
He toweled off, changed and hung up his own wet clothes, then stood motionless beside the bunk, watching her chest reassuringly rise and fall with each soft breath. At last he cradled her ankle and tucked her foot under the blanket. As he lifted her wrist to tuck her arm in, he stroked his fingers over her reddened palm, and felt the silky residue of the salve coating her calluses.
So different from the hands of Miss Chase who had boarded the ship in London. So many things had changed. He couldn’t let her marry Zach, no matter how charming the rapscallion could be. She deserved someone steady, who would treasure her, and not desert her on a whim for a boxing match or a months-long jaunt to the Continent.
