himself again. ‘How is it possible that she survived a night like that in the sea?’
‘She was caught by ropes and the broken mast kept her head above water,’ Stefan said. He bent down and gathered the unconscious woman into his arms. ‘I shall take her to my cabin until we make land.’
Below in the cabin, which was the best on board, Stefan laid the woman on his bed. He looked at Hassan over his shoulder as he followed him into the room.
‘We must get her out of what remains of her clothing and wrap her in as many blankets as we have. I have some strong brandy wine in my sea chest. When we have her dry and warm, we shall give her some. Once we are home, Ali will help her—but she may not survive the journey.’
‘It is fortunate that we found her in time,’ Hassan said. ‘Allah must have meant it, for otherwise we should have passed her by. He has given her to us, my lord. From now on her life is in our hands.’
‘As Allah wills it?’ Stefan shot him a suspicious look. ‘Yet you would have denied them earlier, for I saw it in your face.’
‘They are ignorant fools, for they would do nothing to help her. Allah has sent her to us, but her fate is in our hands; if we did nothing, left her to live or die as God wills it, as they would given the chance, she would die.’
Stefan’s face was harsh as he bent over the young woman. He rubbed her skin with a drying cloth until she felt dry to the touch and some warmth started to come back to her body, and then he wrapped her in every blanket and cloak he could find. He would not argue with Hassan on the subject of religion, for he did not believe in God. Once he had been Christian, but now he had his own faith, which was to give justice for justice and hurt for hurt. He had been forced to live by the sword and he knew that in time he would die by it. There was no room for softness or religion in his life. However, he was not a cruel man and he did not take life without good cause. He had pulled this young woman from the sea more alive than dead, and he would do all he could to make her live.
Harry came to himself to find a young sailor bending over him. He groaned because his head ached. For a moment he could not think what had happened to him, and he stared at the sailor blankly.
‘What happened to me?’
‘Someone hit you as we struggled to stop you jumping into the sea last night,’ the sailor said. ‘You would have gone after her, sir, and it was hopeless. She must have gone down like a stone when she hit the water, for there was no sign of her.’
‘Anne!’ Memory came flooding back. Harry sat up in alarm, his aching head forgotten as a deeper pain took hold. ‘My sister…she was swept overboard by a huge wave and I could not help her. What have I done? My father will blame me and he will be justified; I should have taken better care of her. She wanted to stay on deck while the storm raged, because she thought it exciting, but I should have made her go below. She is lost and I am at fault.’
‘No one could have seen it coming,’ the sailor said. ‘We rode the storm out because we headed inshore and sheltered for the night, but for a while it was touch and go whether the ship went down. Had your sister been below she would then have gone down with the vessel, as many others would. You were as safe on deck as anywhere until those freak waves hit us. If that had not happened, your sister would not have been swept overboard.’
Harry shook his head. He felt stunned, racked with guilt and despair at the thought of his younger sister going to a watery grave. He wished that the sailors had not stopped him going into the sea. At least he could have searched for her, made certain that there was no hope of her being found alive.
Harry wished that he had not thought of bringing Anne with him. He had forgotten how dangerous the sea could be for the unwary. But the waves had been so huge. Harry had never experienced anything like it himself, though he had been to sea many times. Who could have imagined that a summer storm could come from nowhere and be so fierce? It was a miracle that the ship had survived! He knew that if he had not been lucky enough to catch hold of that iron ring himself he, too, would have been swept into the raging sea.
He would rather it had been him than his lovely sister! Harry had not been as close to Anne as to his twin Catherine, but he had loved her—he still loved her and mourned her. He was not sure how he would find the strength to go on with his purpose. How could he court Claire when his heart was so heavy?
Harry had written to her father and was honour bound to complete his journey to the Comte’s chateau. Yet if there was even a slight chance that Anne might have survived he would leave no stone unturned to find her. Occasionally, sailors were pulled alive from the wreckage of a ship, but Anne was a frail girl. It was unlikely that she could survive a night in the cold waters of the Channel.
If there were any chance that Anne had been plucked from the sea, dead or alive, he owed it to her and his family to discover it. He would set agents to search from port to port. He held little hope that she would be found alive, but, if her body had chanced to be washed on shore, he could at least make sure that she was decently buried.
Harry’s grief lay over him like a dark cloud. He knew that the news would also sorely grieve his parents, and he was not certain whether it would be best to write at once and send the letter back to England with the ship or wait.
Perhaps it would be best to wait for a while. If her body could be found, he might at least offer some comfort that she had been properly buried. However, it was more likely that she was lost at sea and nothing remained. No doubt their family would want to mourn her and hold a service of remembrance, but that was for the future. Harry would leave no stone unturned in the hope of news of Anne, though he knew it must be a hopeless cause.
Chapter Two
‘Is there any change?’ Stefan asked of the physician as he entered the bedchamber where the young woman lay in the great wooden bed. They had brought her to Chateau de Montifiori ten days earlier. For eight days the fever had raged as her skin heated and she tossed restlessly on the pillows; her long hair was matted by sweat and salt, for they had not dared to wash it. Ali Ben Hammed had suggested cutting it at one time, but Stefan had resisted, despite the physician’s insistence that her hair was taking her strength. However, on the ninth day the fever had waned and the girl seemed less restless. As yet she had not opened her eyes. Stefan walked to the bed and laid his hand on her forehead. Her temperature seemed normal. He looked at the Arab physician, a man skilled in the arts of medicine, and a friend of some nine years since he had rescued him from Sir Hugh Grantham, who had ordered his execution at the stake. Had Stefan not intervened, Ali would have been burned to death. He looked at the physician. ‘Why does she not wake? She no longer has a fever.’
‘I cannot tell,’ Ali replied, his face wizened by the hot sun of his native land and the passing of years. ‘I know that sometimes the mind lies dormant so that the body may heal. I believe that she is past the worst, my lord, though when she will awake I know not. She may not remember anything when she does, for the trauma she has experienced will be hard to bear, especially if she has lost loved ones.’
‘She would not have been travelling alone,’ Stefan said. ‘If the vessel was sunk, it is likely that all the others perished. It was mere chance that she was caught by the ropes to that mast and survived the perils of the ocean.’
‘As Allah wills,’ Ali said, steepling his hands and bending his head. ‘It was meant to be that you should find her, my lord. If you save a life, that life is yours. You are bound to her and must protect
