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  “Are you hurt?” he shouted, and until then she hadn’t been aware of the tremendous noise about them.

  “What’s wrong? Are we sinking?” She snuggled against him, so very glad to touch him once again.

  “It’s only a storm,” he shouted down at her. “There shouldn’t be much danger since we’ve been preparing for it for days. I want you to stay here, do you understand? I don’t want you to take it into your head to go on deck or to the other passengers. Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded against his shoulder, clinging to him, thinking that perhaps the reason for his absence for the last few days was his preparation for the storm.

  Bending, he lowered her to the bed, gave her a look she couldn’t fathom, and then kissed her, possessively and forcibly. “Stay here,” he repeated, touching the corner of one of her swollen, red eyes.

  With that he was gone, and Regan was left alone in the dark cabin. She was much more aware of the rolling of the ship after Travis left. To keep from being thrown from the bunk, she grabbed the sides as best she could. Water seeped in under the door, coating the cabin floor.

  Even as she struggled to keep her balance, she began to imagine what was happening on deck. If the water was coming into her cabin, it must be washing over the sides of the ship. Her imagination, always active, began to conjure a picture of horror. Once, when Regan was hardly more than a child, a scullery maid of her uncle’s had received a letter saying that her young husband had been washed overboard during a storm, and later a friend of his had come to tell her the full, gruesome story. Every member of the staff, as well as Regan, had gathered around the sailor and heard every gory detail.

  Now the story did not seem like a story because above her head were actual waves as tall as a house, waves of such force that they could take a dozen men with them when they returned to sea.

  And Travis was up there!

  The thought rang through her head. Of course, Travis would never believe he could come to harm. No doubt he was sure even the sea would obey his commands. And it wasn’t as if he were a real sailor either. He was just a farmer who’d been on a whaler as a boy, and now he had to work to pay his passage.

  An especially violent toss of the ship sent Regan flying out of the bunk again. Travis! she thought, struggling to stand. Perhaps that was the wave that tore him from the decks.

  A massive sound of cracking wood above her head sent her eyes upward. The ship was breaking apart! With both hands on the bunk edge, she managed to stand, and she started the long passage toward her trunk, which was fortunately bolted to the floor. First she had to find a cloak, and then she had to somehow make her way on deck. Someone had to save Travis from himself, had to persuade him to return to the comparative safety of the cabin, and if he wouldn’t, someone had to watch out for him. If he were washed overboard, she planned to throw him a rope.

  Chapter 9

  NO STORY EVER TOLD COULD HAVE PREPARED REGAN FOR the blast of wind and sharp salt air that tore into her body as she opened the door under the quarterdeck. It took all her strength to push the door open wide enough to allow her onto the deck, and it slammed hard behind her. A wave of salt spray soaked her immediately, making her wool cape cling heavily to her slight frame.

  Bracing herself against the stair railing, using her strength to keep upright, she blinked against the cold, piercing water that seemed to want to drill holes into her and tried to see if she could find Travis. At first she couldn’t distinguish men from the parts of the ship, but her interest in the safety of Travis was stronger than the pain caused by the violence around her.

  Gradually, her eyes adjusted, and, blinking rapidly to clear the water away, she made out the shadowy figures of men in the midst of the long, wide deck. Before she could make a decision about how to get to that part of the ship, a sudden lurch sent her sprawling, and, like a piece of driftwood, she was knocked down and rolled across the deck. As her body slammed into the side of the ship, she grabbed what was nearest to her—the wooden support of an iron cannon.

  When the wave was past, she began to pull herself upright again, and as she did she heard the cracking sound again; only this time she could tell that it was coming from overhead. One of the masts must be breaking. Starting slowly, taking each step by inches, she began to move toward the men and the breaking mast.

  Every crewman and, she was happy to see, Travis also, was holding on to a part of the ship and looking up at the splintering wood.

  “Get up there, I say!” the captain bellowed, his voice even louder than the fury of the sea.

  Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Regan could see the sailors take a step backward, and it took her a moment to realize that the captain was ordering someone to climb the rigging. She had half a mind to tell him what she thought of his request, but of course she must keep quiet and not let Travis know she was there.

  But one quick look at Travis, and she saw that he’d already seen her and was making his way toward her. The look of rage on his face put the sea to shame, and without thinking Regan started back toward the door under the quarterdeck; her courage had quite suddenly vanished.

  Travis’s big hand caught her shoulder before she’d gone two steps. He didn’t say a word, and since everything was written on his face, he didn’t need to.

  As the ship lurched and another wave threatened to capsize them, Travis flung his body over hers, pinning her against the railing, holding her securely with his superior strength.

  “I may beat you for this,” he shouted into her ear when at last the ship righted itself.

  But their attention was caught by another, louder, shout from the captain. “Isn’t there a man among you?”

  It was at that moment, with Travis holding her arm in a painful grip, that Regan saw David and knew immediately that he’d followed her onto the deck. Even in the dim light, through the pounding spray, she could see the bruises on his face where Travis had hit him. Her eyes locked and held with his for a moment, and a wave of guilt passed through her because she saw that he knew she’d used him, that he knew he’d made a fool of himself.

  A smaller wave washed across them and broke their eye contact, and when it receded she saw that David had moved forward—but he wasn’t looking at her. Walking as straight as he could under the circumstances, he went toward the captain.

  Stopping just opposite Travis, he shouted, “I’m a man. I’ll climb the rigging.”

  “No!” Regan screamed, clutching at Travis’s arm. “Stop him!”

  David held onto the fife rail at the base of the mast and turned his head to Travis. Travis, seeming to understand David’s silent plea, nodded once before clasping Regan’s hands in his and stilling her.

  Regan struggled against Travis, wanting to go to David, to stop him, knowing that what he wanted to do, this attempt at what amounted to suicide, was her fault.

  When she saw that there was nothing she could do, she became very still, like the crew. Travis braced himself between the rail and a cannon carriage, holding Regan tightly, but his eyes never wavered from David’s slight form.

  The captain, glad to finally find someone brave enough to climb the rigging, was shouting instructions to David while wrapping rope about his waist. From gestures and the few words that could be heard, it was clear that David was to climb the swinging rope rigging to the first and longest yardarm, crawl along its narrow width about halfway until he was suspended over the turbulent water, and bind the splitting yardarm.

  Regan could only gasp in disbelief, too astonished even to make a further protest. She knew for sure that she was watching a man go to his death. With fear, she buried her face against Travis, but he pulled her head around and made her look at David, who was poised at the base of the mast, waiting only for Regan to give him a parting glance.

  Lifting her hand toward him before dropping it helplessly at her side, she stood straight, her back against Travis’s chest, and watched as he grimly started the climb.

  His inept