“The lot o’ them are better off at the bottom o’ the deep than in chains,” he said. “The crew daren’t launch their longboat even to save themselves. That she’s lying bow to sea might keep ’er from breaking up.”
Shaken, Esmée turned away from the struggle. Two of the lights had gone out. She rekindled them, fighting a swelling dismay as the wind lashed the tower with renewed force. It had been constructed with a bit of sway for hurricanes. Would it hold?
In a quarter of an hour the Guineaman was lost from view, the night thick and black as tar. Cosmos was still on watch, spyglass in hand.
Esmée nearly started again when he said, “Best return to the cottage and ready for worse.”
“Worse?”
“The wind’s mounting, the waves with it. There’s nae telling what the storm’s tide will do.” His Scots burr was so thick she stumbled over his words. He raised the spyglass again. “At best, the Guineaman will run aground. At worst, she’ll founder.”
She looked out again as darkness pressed nearer. “God help them, then.”
He looked straight at her. “If the hurricane doesna abate, the surf will be o’er this part of the island, washing into the cottage and even the bottom o’ the lighthouse. Ye’ve got two bairns below, aye? Best bring them to the tower out o’ the worst o’ it.”
She nodded, wasting no time in heading for the stair. But was it wise to bring the babies into the wintry blast? Had she no choice? The fumes from the pan lamps alone were an abomination.
She fought her way to the cottage, pushed and shoved all the way. Once inside, she found Lucy and Alice huddled by the hearth’s fire, the babies swaddled and sleeping between them.
“Ye look tuckered out, Miss Shaw.” Lucy stood as if wanting to help in some way. “I feared the wind would blow ye into the water.”
“It nearly did.” Gathering her wayward hair into a knot, Esmée secured it with the few remaining pins. “I come with hard news. Cosmos believes the water will soon rise and reach the cottage. ’Tis best if we all go to the tower.”
Lucy shuddered. “Up those stairs to sit at the top with the light?”
“I’m afraid so. When the storm tide surges, we don’t want to be here below.”
“But, mistress, I’m nigh terrified o’ heights. And what if the tower should fall into a heap o’ rubble? Would we not be safer right here?”
Esmée’s encouraging smile felt feeble. “Warmer but not safer, sadly.” She began to move what she could atop tables and shelves. “Wrap yourselves in your warmest garments. I’ll take Ruenna and lead you there.”
She leaned over the baby’s drawer bed, hating having to disturb her. Ruenna slept on peacefully, unaware of the danger. As Esmée picked her up, she marveled what a sennight’s change could bring. Ruenna felt heavier, with no sign of the scourge that plagued her parents. Her prayers for both Quinn and Eliza seemed unending, her thankfulness that their daughter was out of harm’s way ongoing, and now this . . .
She held Ruenna close against her bodice, her cape shielding them, head down in the wind and rain. Sand and shells stung her face and neck as she hastened to the lighthouse door, Alice and Lucy following with Alden. Cosmos was still in the light tower while the other crewman stayed on the ground, boarding up the cottage’s windows and hammering with all his might.
Finally in the tower, Esmée tried to reassure Lucy, who stared at Cosmos and the lit pan lamps with trepidation. They’d begun to smoke badly, sending black tendrils into the air around them.
“You’ll need these to cover your nose and mouth,” Esmée told them, taking clean handkerchiefs from her pocket. She was glad for the benches where they could huddle together for warmth. Still holding Ruenna, she looked toward Cosmos, who was standing stalwart at the glass but likely couldn’t see in the pitch blackness beyond.
“The Guineaman’s closer,” he said at a near shout above the wind’s fury.
Ruenna began to stir, and Esmée took a seat, rocking her as best she could. In minutes Alden began to howl, the tense sound reverberating in the closed space and boxing their ears. No matter what Alice did, naught would quiet him. Soon Ruenna joined in, sending Cosmos down the stairs and out into the storm, whether from the noise or another matter Esmée knew not.
In the ghostly, flickering light, Lucy’s face was drawn. Dear, steadfast Lucy who never complained but accepted her lot whatever befell her. Conversation was pointless with the din within and without. Another windy blast had Esmée trimming and relighting wicks, nearly overcome with smoke. Alice was crying quietly and trying to nurse Alden while Lucy soothed Ruenna as best she could.
Hands trembling, Esmée prayed, her words lost to the wind.
CHAPTER
fifty-five
As daybreak crept over the unsettled but vastly improved sea, Esmée felt alone in the tower. Alice and Lucy were half-asleep, huddled with the babies on benches. Cosmos and the other crewman were below. Just where, she didn’t know. She stood at the glass and looked east, hoping for a flicker of sunrise, anything to temper the somber silver of water and sky. But she needed no sunrise to see the wreckage below.
Downed trees. Rocks and sand where there had been none before. The cottages stood stalwart though missing shingles. Her gaze trailed to the storm-scrubbed beach. Pressing her face nearer the glass till it fogged beneath her breath, she spied the two crewmen on the sand, paying attention to what seemed to be the hull of a ship, or what was left of it.
Nearly tiptoeing past the women and sleeping babies, Esmée descended the stairs, an eerie calm greeting her as she opened the door. Lungs and head clearing, she stepped outside. On the beach, shells and sea urchins amassed with tangles of seaweed. The air held a just-washed smell, briny and clean, but at her feet was wreckage. Soon she traversed shattered glass, trying to take in all she saw from the shipwreck.
Broken bottles. An intact green hourglass. A small chest. Rigging and wood. Coins. Even a tortoiseshell comb and buckled shoe. An apothecary’s cup. She moved in the opposite direction of the men, along the south shore of the beach, her senses assaulted by the devastation. At least the wind and waves were spent, no longer a roar but a worn-out sigh.
“Miss Shaw.” Cosmos stood behind her. “I urge ye to go inside. Captain Lennox would say the same.”
She looked at him. He had been up all night like she, his bewhiskered face and bloodshot eyes holding a warning. True, Henri would not want her on the beach. She needed to return to the tower and tell the women to take the babies to the cottage.
“If ye’ve ne’er seen bodies wash ashore, I’d spare ye the horror.”
She flinched. “From the Guineaman, I suppose.”
“Aye. Expect it for days. Best keep to yer hearth’s fire.”
Nodding and heartsick, she turned back toward the cottage and lighthouse.
Though the cottage had been spared the storm tide, waves had licked the doorstep, leaving the wood frame wet. The brine seemed to penetrate the damp, cold interior but was quickly remedied by robust fires in the hearths. Lucy and Alice went about their tasks singing, the babies alert and content despite so long a night. Even Tibby seemed to have weathered the worst of it though was thoroughly soaked.