The Bonny Bride. Deborah Hale
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down into the darkness, Jenny retrieved one of Harris’s boots.
“I have the other.” She heard him call as though from a great distance.
She sensed his contortions, trying to pull on the tight boots with an injured arm.
“We’ve got to get on deck,” said Harris.
Before they could scramble out of the berth, the St. Bride once again fetched up against something solid. This time Harris fell on Jenny. As the breath burst from her lungs, she felt the soft scratch of his unshaven cheek against her forehead. One of his knees pinned her legs apart. When she raised her hand, it brushed the warm flesh of his chest through his open shirtfront. Some lunatic impulse within her wished they had hours to roll around on this narrow berth.
As the barque strained between the force of the storm wind in her sails and the pressure of the sandbar on her hull, Harris clambered up and hoisted Jenny to her feet. She gasped to feel water soaking into her shoes. There must be a good three inches of it already seeped through the floorboards, and rising fast.
“This way.” Harris grasped her right hand and latched it to the waistband of his trousers. “Don’t let go, ye hear? No matter what happens.”
They staggered toward the cabin door. Jenny hoped that was where they were headed, at any rate. It was impossible to make out anything in the dense darkness of the barque’s hold. Jenny fought to master her mounting panic at the thought of being trapped below decks. At least she had Harris with her this time.
She would trust him with her life.
As Harris pulled the cabin door open, someone fell through from the companionway.
“Have a care what ye’re doing!” cried a voice. Jenny recognized the gruff, bass rumble of Mr. Tweedie, the cobbler from Wigtown. With a splash, the man regained his feet and fought his way out into the passage once more.
Harris followed, towing Jenny along behind him.
The tight companionway boiled with frantic shouts and grunts and the press of bodies anxious to escape the seawater flooding the lower decks. Jenny clutched Harris for all she was worth as he plunged ahead. They stumbled up the steep stairs, bursting onto the deck at last.
After the suffocating squeeze of the companionway, Jenny gulped in deep drafts of the briny wind, grateful to be out in the open at last.
“We must get to a lifeboat!” Harris bellowed.
His words barely penetrated the howl of the wind and the frantic babble of voices around them.
After a few faltering steps, Jenny felt the solid bulk of the ship’s railing. Clinging to Harris with her right hand, she closed around the railing with her left and followed him.
“It’s just up ahead!” Harris called back to her as a great billow hit the barque and doused them both with seawater.
Coughing and sputtering to catch her breath, Jenny lost her hold on the railing.
Another breaker followed, driving the St. Bride against another treacherous sandbar. Jenny’s feet slid on the slick boards of the deck. She felt herself tumble against the rail and over into a black void.
At the last instant, she loosed her hold on Harris. She owed him better than a watery grave with her.
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