The Wicked Redhead. Beatriz Williams

two full glasses on the ship. Watched you do it.”

      Without so much as a blink, he says, “We’re back inside United States waters now.”

      And all at once, I am filled with fury. I fling that bottle into the water. Take him by the arm and strike my good left fist against his chest, over and over, while the boat makes this crazy lurch and the first mate dives for the wheel.

      “Why? Why? We were safe, Anson, we were safe at last, and you head out to some ship and near enough get us killed!”

      He pulls me right up against his chest while I keep screaming.

      “Was it worth it? Was it? That fellow nearly killed you, and for what? What the hell did we learn that was so important as that?”

      “We learned that the game’s about to change, Ginger. Learned that more people are going to get killed. More blood’s going to spill.”

      I have nothing to say to that. Just fall back into my seat. The engine’s roaring, the boat lurches across the water. Blue sea jumps and spins before me. I think I might vomit. I turn my head over the side and I do vomit, heave the sparse contents of my stomach over and over into the horizontal draft. When I’m finished, when I’m collapsed on my seat, Anson’s hand lands gently on my back.

      “All right?” he says.

      “I’ll live. You?”

      He pats my back once more. Caresses my hair swiftly. Returns his hand to the wheel and says, “So long as you’ll live, I’ll live.”

       16

      THE SUN’S long set by the time we arrive back at the villa in the blue Packard, and for an instant I’m bemused to see a small figure running from the shadow of the house, calling my name.

      Patsy. I plumb forgot my baby sister.

      I sink on my knees in the gravel and take her sobbing body against mine. Tell her it’s all right, I’m here, everything’s fine, what’s the matter?

      “She wouldn’t go to bed until you came home,” says Mrs. Fitzwilliam, who stands nearby in a pale dressing gown like a ghost, doing her best not to sound reproachful.

      I don’t dare look up at her face. The one pressed against mine is bad enough, cheeks all wet and hot, breath coming in tiny, desperate pants. She sticks to me like a burr, like a marsupial, like I am a kangaroo and she is my kangaroo baby enclosed to my chest and belly by some invisible pouch. Her small back shudders under my hand. I keep saying I’m here, I’m fine, I would never leave her, but my words ring hollow, don’t they? Not once did the thought of Patsy enter my head as I took off across the dangerous blue sea with Anson. Not once did I think of her left behind. Not once did I imagine some kindly person telling Patsy that her sister has been split clean apart by a Rum Row pirate, and she has no kin remaining to cherish her.

      “W-where w-were you?” she hiccups out.

      “I was with Mr. Marshall. Out in a boat.”

      “Why didn’t you take me with you?”

      “Because …” Because I forgot all about you, cherub. Because it was too dangerous, anyway. Because there is no sister in the world so bad as I am, nobody in the world less capable of looking after you, poor baby, poor darling, I’m so sorry.

      I start to pull away from her, because I can’t stand the weight of her terror, and also I’m starting to cry myself, tears leaking out the corners of my eyes at this terrible, terrible day that started out in such peace. My arm hurts, my back hurts. Maybe every bone in my body hurts, every tendon and joint, every fingernail. A weight falls next to my left shoulder. Anson, crouching beside us in the gravel.

      “Patsy,” he says quietly, “do you know what your sister did today?”

      She peers out over my arm.

      “Your sister saved my life.”

      “She did?”

      “She saved my life, and her own life, and the lives of a shipful of men. In fact”—he takes his finger and carefully parts her damp hair from her face, one side and then the other, so he can look in her eyes—“I think your sister’s about the bravest person I know.”

      “That so?”

      “That’s so. Ginny’s the kind of sister who will do anything to keep you safe.”

      I let my arm fall away, so Patsy leans against me, turned toward Anson.

      “But who’s going to keep Ginny safe?” she asks, terribly small.

      “Well, I guess that’s my job, isn’t it? As best I can.” He holds out his arms. “And now I think it’s time you went to bed, sweetheart. You and Ginny, you need your sleep.”

      Patsy goes so willingly into his embrace, I think my heart stops. Lays her head on his shoulder while he lifts her up with one thick, exhausted arm and takes my hand with the other. By the time we reach the stairs, her eyes are already half-closed, and her wet eyelashes stick together at the tips, and I can’t help recollecting the way we entered this house not twenty-four hours before. Just like this, except we have fresh, new bruises and hurts atop the old ones, and though the house is exactly the same, pale and peaceful, and our hosts make identical noises of relief and welcome, I am overcome by this swift, terrible vision that we are stuck on a wheel, the three of us, a nightmare Ferris wheel that turns over and over and never lets us off.

       17

      I STAY WITH Patsy until she falls asleep in her bed in the room she shares with Evelyn. The wee Fitzwilliam sprig doesn’t even stir throughout this disturbance, just lies there under her white counterpane, sweet cheek turned to the moonlight. I stroke Patsy’s hair and count the beats of her breathing. The house around us has gone still; even the slight, worried murmuring of the doctor and his wife has died into silence.

      My own room is the one next door. I slip inside and climb under the covers, which smell drowsily of lavender. The window’s cracked open, releasing all the heat of the day, and for some time I listen to the strange, wild music of the Atlantic Ocean and recollect the night I spent in Southampton, when that same water beat against my shore in exactly the same key. Isn’t this supposed to lull you to sleep? Lavender sheets and the ocean noise? Well, it doesn’t. I turn on one side and the other. Stare at the blank ceiling and see visions of violent death, of lifeless faces, though I tell myself I’m safe and sound, safe and sound, nothing to fear.

      Start to get angry.

      I’m the lucky one, aren’t I? Survived all this trouble to find myself lying in a soft bed by the sea. I ought to be happy. Ought to be sleeping the sleep of the fortunate.

      I sit upright. Stare at the billowing curtains. Throw off the counterpane, slide from the bed, and take my dressing gown from the hook on the door.

       18

      HOWEVER DEEPLY I am attached to Oliver Anson Marshall, I am not bound to him by anything so respectable as marriage. He sleeps virtuously, therefore, on the other side of the villa, in some kind of guest quarters that exist on the other side of the courtyard.

      You might be in Italy as you steal through the French doors from the dining room and across the paving stones of that courtyard, breathing in some exotic scent of citrus and spice while a stone fountain rattles happily in the moonlight. The air is soft and still warm, blowing in from offshore, and I can taste the wholesome salt on the back of my tongue.

      There is just enough glow to guide me to Anson’s door, which opens directly into this enchantment, and—to my vast surprise—the handle turns easily. Wouldn’t a fellow like Anson lock his door as a matter