Cadence

Seventeen

Seventeen

 

Sheets of rain cascaded over the decks as though the heavens had unleashed the tears of the angels upon the Heavenly Mistress, perhaps in mourning. From her vantage point just inside the companion-way Cadence peered through the downpour in search of her husband. She could not believe him indifferent to all they’d shared. It quite simply hurt too much. But, for just a moment the guard had slipped from his eyes and she’d glimpsed the raw agony and self-loathing buried deep within him. I can’t love you, he’d said, not I don’t love you, or I won’t love you, but I can’t love you. Cannotas though he were somehow incapable.

And now she had to find him.

At long last she did. Standing in the middle of the downpour his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the mast his face turned to the rain. The sight broke her heart. Pulling the hood of her cloak over her head she opened the door and ventured into the rain.

“Curtis!” she called out. The din was deafening. “Curtis!”

“What are you doing out here?” He uncrossed his arms and took a step toward her. He was thoroughly drenched, his hair plastered to his forehead, his clothes molded like paper mache to his body.

“I could ask you the same thing?” Cadence replied, licking the rainwater from her lips. “It is freezing out here.”

“Which is why you should go back inside,” Curtis took her arm and steered her back toward the door.

“Not without you!” she had to yell over the heavy pounding of the rain.

“I like the rain.”

“But you’ll catch your death out here!”

“I don’t think so.” Curtis cast a dark glance toward the water and mumbled, “The devil and I have an understanding.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean!” They’d reached the door and he shoved her back into the dry confines of the ship. “Damn it, Curtis!”

He turned back to her, his expression a blank mask, and followed her into the companionway. For a long moment he did nothing, just stared at her with empty eyes. “Go inside and get warm.” He turned back to the open hatch.

“You’re wrong,” she blurted, and he stopped. “I’m not the one who is lost, Curtis Langston, you are.”

If it was a response she was looking for then it was a response she got because he closed the door with a vicious kick.

“And I—I…” How she wished her voice wouldn’t tremble, “I think you need me.”

With a disgruntled sigh he turned and as though battling something within himself and leaned forward to press ice cold lips to her brow. “Cadence, I have a couple of things to check on and then I’ll come to see you. We’ll talk then, all right?”

“Will you at least be inside?”

“Yes.”

Cadence returned to their cabin, and doffed the rain soaked cloak. She paced about the room for a few minutes, looking at the miscellaneous charts and ledgers that Curtis had scattered about the room.

She elected to distract herself with the copy of Persuasion she’d found in London, leafing through the pages, locating the place where she’d left off. It was rough going but eventually she managed to become engrossed in the story. She’d plowed through a good thirty pages before Curtis finally made an appearance. Without a word he stripped off his sopping clothes, donned an old pair of trousers and a plain shirt. Cadence decided to let him come to her, as pushing for answers had done little good to this point. But however good her book was getting—Anne Elliot had just found the letter from her captain—she couldn’t concentrate, not with this gaping void between her and her own captain.

“You know I wasn’t even eighteen when I joined the Confederate Army.”

Cadence looked up in surprise, giving her head only a tiny nod as he haltingly began to speak.

“Young, stupid, arrogant—you name it that’s what I was.” He leaned against the desk and looked at his hands. “I did terrible things, Cadence. Raided trains, stole information, killed people.”

Unsure how to respond she tucked her feet beneath her and murmured, “Curtis, it was war, our homes were invaded.”

“War.” The word rolled acidly around his tongue. “War,” he growled for a second time, “is not an excuse for what I’ve done, and does not absolve me of my evils.”

A silent chill swept her spine two fold, there was something sinister in his words. The devil and I have an understanding, clamored through her mind. “What do you mean?”

He said nothing.

“What did you do?”

Still he remained silent.

Frustration, anger, and more than a little fearflared within her. “I am your wife. Therefore I have a right to know what you’re talking about, and what you have done!”

He shied physically away from her. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “It’s just better if you don’t know, and it probably would have been better if you’d never found me.” Without looking her in the eye he stood and, for what felt the umpteenth time that day, turned his back to leave her.

“But you found me! I was in danger and you saved me.” Her voice cracked. “In London, I was lost and you found me, searched for me! You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for, Curtis.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

When he left, she could no longer ward off the bitter tears. Hopelessness welled up inside her. She was losing her husband before they’d even begun. What had he done to be so guilt ridden?

*       *       *

Curtis leaned against the bulkhead, listening to her cry, the sound ate at him until he could feel himself dying just a little bit more inside. For all his effort to make things right and avoid hurting her it was not working. He didn’t know what to say, talking had never done him much good, and now he was punishing her for his past. But not only that, he could feel the small bit of solace he’d allowed her to give him slipping through his fingers.