The Bonny Bride

“Thanks, Thomas.” Jenny lavished upon him her warmest smile of gratitude. “Could ye hunt me up a drop of spirits, as well? It might help to bring Mr. Chisholm around.”

The boy looked doubtfully at Captain Glendenning.

“Don’t just stand there, lad.” The captain fished in his pocket and tossed the boy a heavy ring of keys. “Do as the lady says.”

“I thought the garrison from Halifax had routed out this nest of vipers,” grunted the master when young Nicholson had scurried off. “Either they made a bollocks of the job, or there’s a new crowd moved in. Lucky for us, I brought along a wee surprise for our friends.”

He nodded toward a squat little cannon lashed to the port railing. “Picked her up cheap at a foundry in Glasgow. Only a wee four-pounder, but handy enough against barracuda like that lot. Chisholm was helping haul her into place when he got hit by the musket fire. Took a clout on the head when he fell.”

Jenny pressed a wet cloth to Harris’s face. His grayish pallor alarmed her. “Shouldn’t he be waking up by now?” she asked no one in particular.

“He’ll come to when he comes to.” The captain shrugged far too casually for Jenny’s liking. “This may be as good a time as any to apply the pitch,” he added. “While he can’t feel it. That’ll bring him around, if anything will.”

It seemed to take an eternity for the cook, of all people, to prepare the hot pitch. In the meantime, Captain Glendenning ordered his men to look lively and see the barque safely through Canso before sundown. Jenny was left to keep her solitary vigil over Harris, kneeling on the hard deck with his head pillowed in her lap. Thomas Nicholson had brought her a small jug of rum, but Jenny couldn’t make up her mind to use it. Much as she wanted to satisfy herself that Harris was all right, by seeing him conscious, she shrank from the prospect of waking him in time for Captain Glendenning to cauterize his wound.

Hadn’t the poor man enough scars? Jenny mused as she ran gentle fingers over the puckered pink stripes on his firm jawline. She wondered how he had come by them. From her earliest memory of him, Harris had borne these. Only recently had she come to realize they had marred his character as much as his appearance. A warm tear rose unbidden in her eye and fell onto his cheek. Harris gave a slight twitch but did not wake.

Sailing toward the setting sun, the St. Bride edged out of Canso’s tight passage into a wider waterway. Jenny suddenly realized she’d been too preoccupied to take a good look at her new homeland.

A low moan escaped Harris’s lips, but his eyes never flickered.

“We’re through to the Northumberland.” Captain Glendenning rubbed his hands together in a gesture of self-satisfaction. “Nova Scotia behind us, Prince Edward Island to the nor’east, and New Brunswick to the sou’west. With fair winds we’ll make harbor in Richibucto by first light tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine, Captain,” Jenny said tightly. This morning she would have been enthralled by news of their nearness to the Miramichi. At the moment she could think of nothing beyond Harris. He’d been hurt trying to keep her from harm, and he’d feel more pain before the captain was through doctoring him. The last thing she wanted to do was cause Harris pain.

“Can we get this over with?” she asked from between clenched teeth.

“May as well, while we’ve a bit of light,” the captain agreed. “Matie, hold his bad arm. Bosun, take the other, and Blair, his legs. Thomas, hold his head.”

“I’ll hold his head,” said Jenny in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“Have it yer way, lass.” The captain shrugged. “He may thrash around a bit when I apply the pitch.”

“I’m strong. I can hold him.”

The captain lifted the improvised bandage from Harris’s arm. With a thin slat of wood, he drew a generous gob of thick, black resin from the cook’s cauldron. Ominous tendrils of steam rose from it. Jenny couldn’t bring herself to watch. She turned her head and clamped her eyes tightly shut.

Harris returned to life with a mad bellow of pain. His head jerked up, catching Jenny in the chest and knocking the wind out of her.

“What the…?” A torrent of curses issued from his lips, the gist of which was—what had happened, where was he, and why had they seen fit to torture him?

Beneath the acrid stink of pitch, Jenny smelled Harris’s burning flesh. Her stomach seethed.

“Hush, now.” She bent close over him, touching her cheek to his as if hoping to leech some of his pain. “Ye were struck with a musket ball from the pirate guns. Ye fell and hit yer head. Ye’ve been out for ever so long, Harris. I worried for ye. The captain said he had to doctor yer wound with hot pitch to keep it from going bad.”

Her explanation must have satisfied him somewhat, for Harris quit cursing. He clenched his lips in a tight, rigid line. A sheen of sweat blossomed on his forehead. Then Jenny remembered the jug of rum.

“Have a drink of this,” she coaxed. “It’ll dull the pain.”

He swallowed the modest measure Jenny had dribbled into his mouth, gasping at the potency of the raw spirits. Before he could object, she poured more rum into him. Nodding over his work with approval, Captain Glendenning bound Harris’s arm with a fresh strip of canvas. Once Jenny had dispensed several more doses of rum, the captain signaled his crewmen to release their hold on the patient’s limbs. Harris struggled to his feet. With the hand of his sound arm, he snatched the rum jar from Jenny.

Tendering a clumsy bow that almost sent him sprawling back down on the deck, Harris addressed the captain. “Thank ye for the medical attention. If ye’ll all excuse me, I’ll retire to my cabin to recover from the day’s adventures.”

Jenny detected a twitch in the captain’s lips. A quick glance at the crewmen told her they were also hiding smiles. She could cheerfully have throttled the lot of them.

“I’ll help ye down the companionway, Harris.” She cast the men a furious look that dared them to make anything of it. That look had often quelled her brothers, and it worked equally well on the crew of the St. Bride. A few began to talk noisily among themselves, while others grew suddenly busy with any little chore that might remove them from Jenny’s sphere.

Whether still dizzy from the blow to his head, or already feeling the effects of the captain’s rum, Harris weaved and tottered dangerously as he moved away. Jenny overtook him easily, sliding his good arm around her shoulder for support.

“I’m feeling a mite faint from all the excitement, myself.” She spoke loudly, that the crew and other passengers might hear. “Since ye’re going below yerself, perhaps ye might see me to my cabin, Mr. Chisholm.”

“Oh, aye,” Harris muttered. The taut set of his mouth suggested he was keeping to his feet, however unsteadily, by will alone.

They managed to stagger to his cabin, where Harris promptly collapsed on his berth. Jenny began wrestling with the knot of his stock. He batted her hands away.

“What are ye trying to do, strangle me?”

“I’m trying to undress ye for bed, so ye’ll rest more comfortably,” Jenny snapped. In truth, her nerves were more than a little frayed by the events of this afternoon. She half wished she’d taken a swig from Captain Glendenning’s rum jar. “If ye’ll just cooperate, it’ll go easier for both of us.”

“Ye can undo my neck linen, I suppose, and haul off my boots. Leave the rest be, do ye hear?”

“Fine. Fine.” Jenny was prepared to humor him. The removal of his stock and boots would go some way toward making Harris more comfortable. She wasn’t anxious to manhandle him out of his shirt, while trying to spare his wounded arm. As for his trousers, she had no intention of meddling with those.

With some difficulty, she managed to pry off his boots. Setting them neatly by the foot of his berth, she drew the blankets up over him. Spotting a short, three-legged stool in the corner, she pulled it nearer the bed, wilting onto the seat with a deep sigh.

Harris opened his eyes a slit. “What are ye about, now?”

“What does it look like? I’m settling myself down to stay the night and tend ye if ye need anything.”

“What about yer fair reputation?” Harris’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “How will ye explain it to yer fiancé, Mr. Douglas, when he gets word that ye spent the night in my cabin?”

Casting that up to her after all these weeks, was he?

“I’ll tell him the truth, of course. That ye were sore hurt and I was taking care of ye.” Jenny could feel her cheeks smarting with an angry blush. “I’ll also tell him ye weren’t in any condition to make advances.”

“What about ye, Jenny Lennox?” Harris asked. “Is my virtue safe from yer advances?”

“I’ll make every effort to restrain myself.” Jenny tried to match his mocking tone.

Harris gave an arid, joyless laugh. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

What on earth did he mean by that? Jenny wondered.

His eyes fell shut again. “Go away, Jenny. Leave me in peace.”

If Harris Chisholm thought she was going anywhere, he had another think coming. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to say on yer tombstone—Rest in Peace?”

“I haven’t any intention of dying on ye, lass. I may not look it, but I’m made of sterner stuff than that. I just want to be left alone.”