DESPITE FINN'S CERTAINTY that they sailed with a traitor, their first day at sea proved to be uneventful. The wind kept up, so they didn't have to rely on steam. The sky remained bright and blue, Richard's expertise on the waters allowing them a shorter route through the islands, shoals and reefs than Captain Tremblay might have dared on his own.
Richard stood by the captain at the helm, pointing out their location, and Tremblay nodded gravely, and complimented him on his knowledge of the sea.
Finn asked him curiously, "What will you do, Richard, when the war ends?"
Richard smiled. "Get a new ship, first. I plan to be a merchant again, and sail the seas where I choose, and when I choose. And hopefully buy a home in Key West. There is a house on Whitehead, not far from Pete's place, that I plan to purchase, and each time I return from the sea, I will go there. I will love that I have such a home, among the banyans, and am able to awaken each morning to feel the sun and smell the sea air. And you?" he asked Finn in return.
"Strange. I barely remember a time when there was peace. I imagine I will stay with the Pinkerton agency, and go where I am sent."
"Maybe it will end soon," Richard said quietly. He looked at Finn. "There has been a rumor that President Davis and President Lincoln have corresponded. There has been talk of a peace conference between the two leaders."
"I know that it was in the planning stage when I left Washington. But I don't know how far the plans went."
"I need to pray that conference takes place, don't I?"
Finn was quiet. "I will see that you are treated fairly. I believe you know that."
"Aye, I do."
"Richard! Mr. Anderson, sir!" Tremblay yelled from the helm. "Tell me, how close do I dare to hug the coastline here?"
Richard went to stand by Tremblay again, pointing out features of the land-and a ragged shoal that they needed to avoid.
Finn went to work among the men. Some tended the sails; some sat about at their leisure, and some were taking the precious time to sleep, all in groups of three or more.
He talked to the men, and there was an amiable air amongst them all. There were no clues as to their adversary to be found there. While the day began with a certain tension, by the afternoon, the comfort of the men seemed to be growing.
By nightfall, a sense of camaraderie had arisen among the crew, and a sense of well-being settled over the ship. Rum rations and the evening meal were enjoyed, but as they moved through the velvet darkness of night, Finn maintained a constant watch. He didn't worry about Tara; she had stayed on deck during the day, reading in the sunlight and the breeze, talking with Dr. MacKay and the captain, or Richard and himself while they ate their evening meal.
As they eased through the night, Finn suggested that Tara go ahead and get some sleep. But she looked at him and told him, "I'll rest by morning, as I'm assuming you will."
Morning came. At the first light of dawn, Finn was both relieved and disappointed. He had been so certain something would happen, something that would at last unmask the traitor among them, that he began to fear that Tara might well be right: the monster would hide in the guise of peaceful patriotism until they reached D.C.
To get close to the president.
Captain Tremblay came from a few hours' sleep to stand watch over the day and the helm. MacKay, who had also slept, joined him. At that point, Finn thought that he dared sleep.
"I'll find Richard," he told Tara. "And I'll have him keep watch over you."
She looked at him with her beautiful hazel eyes and smiled, taking his hand. "You will not," she told him.
"Tara, we're aboard ship, and your cabin is in plain view, and-"
"And this is not like any other ship, and I don't care whether people speculate, or what they have to say, though I doubt that these men will think ill of me. We have been through too much together. Not that I haven't been the object of scorn or ridicule at any other point in my life. I am suddenly respected for my ability to stand my own ground and slay a common enemy. I have no illusions that society will change, but you're not leaving me alone."
He smiled. "I'll warn Richard that we are resting."
Tara went to her cabin. Finn found Richard near Tremblay; he had been describing some of the dangers of the northern Florida coast. Drawing him aside, Finn warned him to shout out like a banshee if there should be any trouble.
Richard looked at him gravely. "You'll be with Tara?"
He nodded. He was surprised when Richard lowered his head, his smile deepening.
"She'll be safe," Finn said.
Richard looked at him. "Yes."
"I mean her no harm."
"I don't believe that harm is what you intend," Richard said. "Of course, I suppose I should say here that, if you were to hurt her in any way, no matter what your strength, no matter that I'm a prisoner and you hold the power, I would find a way to call you out-to challenge you, kill you or die in the effort."
"I mean her no harm," Finn repeated.
"So, I guess at this point my question is, just what are your intentions?" Richard challenged him.
From what he knew of Tara's friendship with the man, Finn shouldn't have been startled by the question, but he was. And for a moment, he wasn't sure what to say. "At the moment? My intentions are survival, and ferreting out the man I came to find."
"And when this is all accomplished?"
"When it's over," Finn said softly, "well, that will depend on Tara." He took a deep breath, and realized that he did know his intentions. "Tara began her voyage with you because of her dreams regarding President Lincoln. I intend to introduce the two of them. I believe that two of her father's children-two more like her-are still in Washington, D.C. I intend to find them for her, and see that they are able to meet. And then...then, as I've said, it's up to Tara."
"Am I to assume that means your intentions are honorable?" Richard asked.
Finn hadn't thought out the future; the present had been far too pressing.
But Richard's words forced him to put his life into perspective. No, they forced him to think about his feelings for Tara, and they were actually easy to discern. "I have never met anyone before who could seduce me from any direct goal, who could look at me and distract me from the business at hand."
Richard laughed, and Finn was taken aback.
"You're going to have to do much better than that, Agent Dunne," Richard told him. "Are you going to tell Tara that she's a lovely distraction?"
Finn was amazed to feel a flush of color come to his cheeks.
"No, of course not!"
"Then?"
"Let's survive, then we'll think of pretty words," Finn said. He gritted his teeth, aware that Richard was chuckling as he walked away.
He tapped on Tara's cabin door. She bid him to come in.
The cabin was dark. His eyes adjusted almost instantly and he saw her stretched out on the bunk beneath the covers. She leaned upon an elbow and patted the side of the bed. "That took a bit of time."
He walked over to the bunk and sat down awkwardly.
"What is it?" she asked him. He found himself mesmerized by the hazel brilliance of her eyes, shining even in the poor light that made its way through the draperies covering the little cabin windows. It was dawn's light, touched by a shadowed palette of colors, and her hair gleamed sleek and entrancing.
"I have just had a lecture that's given me a bit of pause," he told her.
She laughed. "Richard?"
"Indeed," he said, and he felt a throaty rasp in his voice.
She eased up, and he realized that she had stripped naked. When she slipped her arms around him, he was instantly aware of her bare flesh against him, and he burned inwardly.
"Richard is my friend, and my brother," she said softly. "But he is not my keeper."
He wanted to speak again, but he couldn't. Her lips teased his ear with liquid heat, and he drew her harder against him, finding her mouth. Her kiss at first was a tease, a featherlight touch against his lips, and then it seemed that she was fused to him, and his tongue was in her mouth and each second of time passing seemed to ignite something harder and more urgent and desperate within him. They eased down to the bed together and the caress of his lips and tongue moved down the length of her silken nakedness. He knew that one thing was true; he had never felt like this, never felt about a woman as he did Tara.
He tried to tell himself that the act of making love was a natural one and craved by those who were living and able, but he knew that this was different. He wasn't sure if this was because they were essentially the same, but he knew somewhere inside that it had nothing to do with their bloodlines, that it had everything to do with her as a woman. Her flesh was different, so sleek and soft. Her eyes were different with their hazel fire. Her hair was like tendrils of flame that had taken root within him. And there were those things that tore at his heart-the loyalty until death she showed those she loved, the desperation to save a man she had never met, her vision on the world and those around her. She had seeped inside of him, not just into his natural needs and desires, but into his mind and his soul.
Then he thought no more.
She smelled of sweet cleanliness and of herself; her flesh eased and moved against him, and each light brush was like a pinpoint of lightning and fire. He rose, anxious to rid himself of boots and hose and clothing, and desperate to lie down beside her again with the length of him feeling the vibrant energy within her limbs, the erotic feel of her bare breasts and the twine of her limbs. She kissed him in turn, and moved along his length, the press of her mouth on him like bolts of fire ripping down his flesh. She tormented him, lips here and there and everywhere, teasing around his growing erection, centering upon him until he thought that the world would explode.
And then he could bear no more. He swept her high against him, met the copper glow of her eyes and rolled with her upon the bed. She gave him a gaze of triumph and wonder, and he smiled, kissed her lips. When she would have welcomed him with open arms and limbs, he kissed her again, and ran his kisses down her length. He heard a muffled cry escape her and felt the tug of her fingers in his hair, and his mouth found hers again as he thrust into her at last. They looked into each other's eyes as they slowly melded into one, and then began to move with hunger and urgency until there was nothing but the two of them and the erotic and carnal ecstasy of soaring toward the point of climax when the world itself exploded with a burst of light so shocking they might have been drowned in the light of the sun.
Shuddering, shaken by spasms of aftermath, he eased down beside her, and he could hear their hearts, like thunder, almost in beat, and the ragged expulsion of their breath. The cabin came back into view, the damp sheets clung to their flesh and he drew her close, lest she feel the chill that seeped in, now that the explosive fire of their movement had ceased.
He lay in silence, and she moved against him, rising slightly on an elbow to search out his eyes. He touched her face, and he smiled slowly, admiring the line of her jaw and, as ever, the exquisite green and gold and fire within her eyes.
"Richard actually likes you, you know," she told him.
He eased to his back, and heard a slight edge to his voice. "And I actually admire your Mr. Anderson, but I'd just as soon not be discussing him here."
She didn't take affront at his tone. She studied him gravely. "I don't know what Richard said to you. But whatever it was, remember that it didn't come from me. We're here, now. And I do nothing that I don't choose to do, but don't let any thoughts of the future disturb you. You're not beholden to me. I make my own choices."
He shook his head, surprised that he was oddly shaken by guilt, and irritated by it. "Miss Fox, none of us really makes our own choices in life. A great deal is handed down to us, and there are always matters at hand that are far greater than you and me."
"And I do believe we're both trying to deal with those matters at hand," she told him. She started to rise. He caught her arm, pulling her back to him.
"I didn't mean to anger you," he said.
"You didn't anger me. I am my own person, and that is all."
"Tara, we do live in this world, and even if we're at war, and even if we face an insidious enemy, the world will go on, and eventually, God help us, the war will end, and-"
"Don't you listen!" she said angrily.
"I'm trying to say-"
"Well, there's the difficulty right there. I believe you should cease talking!"
"Tara-"
She started to pull away again.
"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.
"I'm getting up-it's day."
"You haven't slept."
"I don't need much sleep."
"You need some...?."
"The cabin is feeling quite crowded at this moment!"
He held her tight; she struggled against him for a moment. "Please, take this time, get some rest," he told her.
She stared at him with anger still flashing in her eyes. Again, he felt the rise of desire that she could so easily inflame. Her eyes touched his, and he knew that she felt it, too.
"Stay, please," he said softly.
"On one condition," she said primly.
"And that is?"
"You stop talking!" she told him.
He smiled slowly. "What if I were just to say something like...I believe I would die if you were to leave me in this moment. The tiniest streaks of golden sun are slipping through, and slight as they are, they make spun flames of your hair, and create emeralds and rubies in your eyes, and you feel like the most precious satin against me, and-"
"I'd say, sir, that you were nearly as full of hot air as a politician."
But she was smiling, and she laughed. He pulled her back into his arms, and the instinct and desire that had begun so unwittingly with anger flared hotly. They became lost again in the wonder of each other's arms. He forgot her anger, forgot the world he had reminded her existed, and in moments they were entangled and sensations overcame and overwhelmed them, until they lay panting again.
But she didn't stay. When he held her, she resisted, and he had no real choice but to let her go.
"Tara," he said. "You still haven't slept."
"Please, don't be concerned. I'm not a sailor, not the captain, nor the ship's physician. I'm a prisoner, remember? I can rest at will."
She dressed quickly, and stepped out into the daylight.
He closed his eyes. Rest wouldn't come. He rose himself, and went out to face the new day, wondering again when the next attack would come.
TARA KEPT CLEAR OF RICHARD, speaking with Captain Tremblay, and then finding Billy Seabold, who was preparing a meal of dried beef and the ubiquitous beans and mushy hardtack of sailing vessels.
Billy was cheerful, whistling while he worked. He spoke to Tara about the island of Key West.
"I never minded," he told her. "The men complain so much about the mosquitoes and the heat, but I find that I love the heat compared to the snow, and I think I might try to find my way down there and buy property-when the war is over, of course. They say that we'll not pull out of the fort until that time, and I don't mind at all. Of course, I love the sea. I love sailing and being aboard the ship, and I hope that I can buy myself a fishing vessel, and make a new life there."
"Where are you from originally, Billy?" Tara asked him.
"Originally? Oh, that's hard to say, miss. My parents were wanderers. I've lived many places." He turned to ring the bell, signaling that the meal was ready for the sailors with leave to dine first. "When the war broke out, I was working in a printing company in Maryland. I joined up quickly, when I found I could enlist as a seaman."
"Have you spent much time in D.C.?" she asked him.
"A bit. We were close, you know, to the capital."
"Ah, beans!" Dr. MacKay said, joining them toward the aft, where Billy had set up his mess operations.
"Beans, yes, but with some excellently salted and dried beef!" Billy said.
"A fine meal, lad, a fine meal," Dr. MacKay said. Apparently, the good doctor was hungry. He was ready with his plate and fork, and helped himself from the large pot. "Miss Fox, shall I make a plate for you?"
Before she could answer, they heard a loud bellowing from the crow's nest. "Ship on the horizon!"
Tara and MacKay quickly looked to the man. She hurried toward the helm where Captain Tremblay had his glass on the horizon.
Finn stood by him. He was tall and straight, striking in his posture, and his eyes were fixed on the sea, narrowed slightly.
Tara swallowed down the emotion that seized her as she watched him; she didn't know exactly what she was feeling, why she felt that she was in such turmoil. I do what I choose! she reminded herself. And she had done what she wanted, but the problem was that she wanted to feel him constantly by her side, to know more and more about him...?.
And to believe that he would be in her life, that there would be more than this time when life and death and tension seized them constantly. Blinking, she reminded herself that they were both concentrated on preserving the life of Abraham Lincoln-a man she had yet to meet. And still...
"She's Union," Finn said.
"You can see that already?" Tremblay asked him.
Finn nodded. "I see her flag."
"Fire a shot! Recognize her position!" the captain bellowed. "Bring her around to rendezvous."
Tara stood behind him as the men hurried to follow orders. As the Union ship came closer, she could see the seamen on the other ship arranging to draw near. The men busied themselves on both ships, and more orders were called, ropes where thrown and the ships were brought flush together.
Captain Tremblay greeted his counterpart across the few feet that divided the two ships. "Tremblay, sir!"
"Gazersin, Captain Tremblay. With news from the front."
"Aye, sir!"
"I believe, sir, that you'd been apprised that President Lincoln and the rebel Jefferson Davis had planned a peace conference. Southern delegates had been chosen to meet with President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward, but you must be aware that the conference will not now take place. Mr. Davis demanded that the United States recognize the sovereignty of the Southern nation, and the president will not meet under such circumstances. Be aware, sir, that all possible negotiations for peace have fallen through. Any Confederate ship you encounter remains an enemy ship, and you are to capture or disable any such vessel, and take prisoner any survivors."
"Aye, then, sir! Thank you for your information," Captain Tremblay said. "Is there anything else, sir?"
Captain Gazersin hesitated a moment, frowning as he noted the group surrounding Captain Tremblay. "General Sherman has routed the forces in South and North Carolina. The land has been laid waste. War efforts continue in the West, but General Grant is harrying the troops in Virginia, and major action is expected there."
"Where do you travel now, sir?" Tremblay asked him.
"Back to Florida. I bear army personnel to help rout the Cow Cavalry there, sir!"
"God be with you," Tremblay said.
"A strange meeting," Finn murmured to Tremblay. "He has stopped you to tell you that we are not at peace. None of us expected that we were."
"What else, sir? Is there something that you need from us?"
Tara felt a palpable tension. She looked at Finn, who was staring intently at the other captain. Always the detective, she thought. He sees a man, and knows that there is more.
She found herself wondering how he saw her, and she bit her lower lip.
Obviously, the man didn't see everything.
Which was good. She didn't want him knowing how she felt. The strange bond they had formed was one thing; the exquisite sensual relationship they shared was another. But she didn't want him ever believing that she was growing dependent. She didn't need him. She was strong, and she had lived her life with Richard as a brother and Pete as a mentor for years.
But she had never imagined this feeling. A very different kind of need.
Ah, yes! And it did seem that he could so easily turn from the handsome, smiling lover to the ruggedly stone-faced agent, ever a man of duty! He continued to stare hard at the other captain, waiting.
Captain Gazersin was silent a moment. Then he said. "Coffee, sir. Our store of coffee was in a barrel that leaked, and it is filled with maggots. My men would be heartily grateful for a store of coffee."
"Coffee?" Tremblay said quietly to Finn.
Finn shook his head. "Captain, note that there are only a few men topside. Where is the rest of his crew? There is something not quite right."
"Sir, where have you sailed from?" Captain Tremblay asked.
Captain Gazersin stared at him blankly for a moment.
"Call the men to arms!" Finn warned quickly. "Now!"
As he spoke, men suddenly burst out from belowdeck. There was a cry from a man in the crow's nest, and he came leaping down to the deck.
"Swords, men, to your swords!" Tremblay cried.
In droves, men appeared on the attached ship; the first three tried to leap the distance from ship to ship, but Tremblay's crew was ready.
Tara scrambled for a weapon, as did the others. As the crew of Captain Tremblay's Freedom gave fight, she saw that Finn intended to leap across the way to the other ship.
"Finn!" she cried, but he didn't hear her. He intended to ferret out every last man from their attacking visitor.
She couldn't let him go alone. Seizing her sword, she ran to the edge of their vessel, and as she leaped past a man, she realized she recognized him. She couldn't remember from where-and then she knew. He had come from the Union fort on Key West, and he had disappeared in the midst of the fighting on their first night in Key West.
Shouts and screams abounded from both decks. The men on the Freedom seemed to be holding their own, and the enemy was cut down while trying to board. Every man on the Freedom knew what to do, and when one man downed an enemy, another stepped forward to make sure that the head was severed. On board the grappled vessel, Tara quickly realized that the enemy was newly turned. They were not adept at daylight, nor were they possessed of exceptional strength. She and Finn soon faced each other over a pile of six or seven corpses, and the ship was still, while on board the Freedom, the last of the cries were dying down.
"Dunne! Agent Dunne!" Captain Tremblay shouted.
"Aye, Captain!" Finn called back.
"Come back aboard. I'm blowing her out of the water! We'll see that no infection travels again so cruelly in the guise of a Union ship!"
"Aye, sir, give me ten minutes!" Finn shouted back.
"What are we doing?" Tara asked him.
"You're going back to the Freedom. I'm going below." She stared at him and he said, "Tara, if there's an experienced vampire aboard this ship, he'll survive an explosion, and even days at sea. You know that."
"You're not going alone."
"Good God, Tara, I've been at war. I know what I'm doing."
"And I've been learning."
"Tara-"
"We've got ten minutes," she said, setting her jaw.
"Stay behind me!" he warned fiercely, his voice almost a growl.
She wasn't going to argue the point; he started for the stairs below and she followed. They moved carefully, and found that none remained in the quarters here.
She started suddenly, hearing a muffled cry.
"Finn, there's someone below...ballast deck!"
He listened, and they both stood there quietly.
They heard it again, a cry that began to rise on the wind, along with a thudding sound and finally the scream of a single word.
"Help!"
"It is coming from the ballast...?. Someone needs help!" she pleaded.
"Vampires kill. They don't take hostages," he told her harshly.
"Finn, listen, please, we have to see!"
They heard the desperate rapping against the hull again, and then another cry.
