The Sea & The Storm

six

Aidan

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Aidan Gerrard-"

"I will not let you speak to me this way," I growled, rising from my chair. Sarah was unrelenting in her scolding.

"You will respect her, Aidan." Tom's voice was surprising to hear, given that he hardly ever used it. And it angered me further because he lived under my roof and was employed by none other than myself as well, and by the sheer fact that if he hadn't failed so miserably at becoming a lawyer and providing for his family, I wouldn't have had to stoop so low as to give the man my father's business. And yet, he, of all people, had the nerve to chide me to respect his wife, when he didn't have the common decency himself to marry her after he had a firmer grip on life.

I shot him a look that kept him silent from then on, but it only spurned Sarah on.

"Do not raise your voice at me, Aidan Joseph-"

"And I won't have my younger sister telling me how I ought to behave, especially not in the affairs of-"

"Your kitchen maid?" She looked disappointed at the words. "Oh, Aidan. Mother would be so ashamed, that a son of hers would treat a woman like a piece of property-"

"Does she not belong to me?" I cocked my head, sitting down and lowering my voice to salvage my pride.

Sarah looked as if she was about to strike me to relieve my stupidity. "You are a fool if you believe any woman belongs to you, brother, especially Natie."

"Natalie did what she chose to do. There is nothing more to be said on the matter-"

"Oh, but there is, sir. And how did you respond, pray tell? Christ alive! You let her go, in the rain and the cold!" She wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon, I knew. Here we were, four days past and she was still talking my ear off about it. We'd called the doctor in twice already, because Sarah was sure Natalie was near death at every waking moment.

I was afraid at first that she was right. I brought Natalie back shivering and sopping wet. Her hair was pasted to her cheeks and she was blue with cold.

Now, she rested in my bed, an arrangement my generous sister set without asking to "partially relieve my guilt" over the situation. I felt no better. The doctor said she'd recover quick enough, she was young after all. But even he didn't seem sure. It hurt me still, to think she could die because of my idiocy, and I didn't need Sarah to tell me so every goddamm moment of the day.

I got up then, to leave before she berated me with more.

Behind me, I heard her call my name, but I ignored her. Respect, be damned. I had had enough for one evening.

I climbed the stairs quickly, heading immediately for my room until I remembered that I no longer inhabited it. But the door was open, and it was too late to pretend when I saw her murmuring deliriously in her sleep. She was writhing from side to side and tears stained her cheeks.

Without a second thought, I walked in and before I knew it, I was crouched beside her, brows furrowed and confused.

"Jamie," she sobbed. "Jamie, don't leave me. Please. Don't leave me with him. Don't...don't..." Her words were clipped and her arms thrashed about above her head. In the soft candlelight, she was glowing. She was red in the face and the fever ran hot when I touched a palm to her cheek. The soft skin was boiling beneath my fingertips.

Natalie flinched ever so slightly at my touch, and she began to sob louder.

Decidedly, I reached out and shook her in an effort to wake her. "Natalie. Natalie."

She squirmed under my touch and it seemed to have no effect besides agitate her more.

"Natalie, wake up. You're dreaming. You're only dreaming." I shook her with more intention this time, something like heartache pressing into my chest as I realized who she was dreaming of. Her brother, James Braye, had abandoned her, and by the details the doctor had given me her father had given her the stripes and bruises across her back.

Without realizing, I had sat myself beside her and propped her up on my arm. I watched as her dark lashes dipped sleepily and her eyes opened. Her face was damp with moisture and her expression seemed almost childlike in its anguish. She held onto me, her weakened arms wrapped around my neck unconsciously.

"It's alright," I whispered into her hair, and she hiccuped a sob. "It was a dream, Natalie. Only a dream..."

"Oh, Aidan," Natalie murmured, pulling away and resting against the wall. My name, it sounded right on her lips. She bit the fist she had balled up to keep from hiccuping. Her eyes were wide and afraid, and I there was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to protect her from the world. "I was...I was so afraid...my father..."

I brushed the hair from her face gently and brought her chin up to look at me. I meant what it when I told her, "I won't let him hurt you, I promise."

Her eyes filled with tears and she muttered something I could only decipher as, "The doctor, he saw?...Did you?"

The mark of a whip across her back. The pink tissue that the doctor had described to me painstakingly. It needed medication and the fever was from infection and neglect.

"He did," I offered loosely. "But I wouldn't think much about it. Doctor Patterson is an experienced medical practitioner. As for me, I didn't see, but it doesn't hurt me any less."

She blinked in surprise, and there was something in her eyes when they rested on me again. Sitting there in her nightgown with her waist tucked in the sheet, she looked more vulnerable than I ever thought she could. Her hair was a mess, roiling in black waves across her head, and her cheeks were stained pink with color. Her head was tilted to the right curiously and her eyes held a note of hesitation as she appraised me and my words. And only now I realized why.

I called on her everyday for the past couple months, and she sat by, wordlessly. And yet, I wouldn't let anyone else have her, because she "belonged" to me. I was wrong, Sarah had been right, but she belonged here with me. Because I cared for her, in a way I never thought I would. Because she was every bit as beautiful as Louisa, sitting there in my quilt.

And...And she felt the same way, and what everyone said was true. That I might just care for Natalie Braye.

_________________

Natalie

His eyes fixed on me with an intensity that left my stomach flipping.

In his eyes, I saw a decision flicker, unwavering in the candlelight. The house had long since gone to bed, so too had the shadows of my father and my brother before him. Suddenly, I was awake, more so than before, because I was acutely aware that he was thinking of me, of what everyone said about us at the docks and in town, that Master Aidan was fond of me. The priest in town had barred communion from me because of it, because I had committed a sin in working for Aidan. It wasn't the truth, and I knew it as well as anyone, and yet, now I wasn't sure.

I broke my eyes away first, gaining some control of my feelings once again. It wasn't the truth, and I wouldn't let it become so. Because if things elapsed the way people had suspected, I'd be out of a job and out of means, and Aidan would be here, pride bruised but safe from the world.

I didn't have the resources to be stupid.

"You should go," I noted offhandedly. "Thank you...for everything, sir."

"Right," he agreed. I didn't glance up when he got up from beside me. I brushed the hair falling into my face, and I watched out of my periphery as he glanced back for just a moment.

We were in more trouble than I had thought.