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God, he might not catch her.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Grace!”
Grace stood at the rail, watching the shore slide past. She’d seldom been on the Thames, and tried to take an interest in seeing this part of London from the water. There were warehouses and other large buildings, some in states of dramatic disrepair as they crowded close to the banks. Smaller vessels skimmed by the ship, yet she paid them little heed as the reality of her situation delved deep. She was truly leaving England and any possibility of seeing Sebastian again.
“Grace!”
Ah, damn, she wanted to see him so much she was hearing things. She shook her head, trying to banish the illusion of his voice.
“Grace! Damn it, Grace! Down here!”
She looked, then looked again.
Impossible.
“Sebastian?”
He stood at the nose of a boat, waving his arms overhead as the smaller vessel drew up alongside her ship. Surely she had to be imagining things—but would her imagination conjure an image of him so very changed? For one thing, she had never once pictured him with a beard, but now he had somewhat wild whiskers, and his garments looked as though they belonged to a man who weighed a stone more than Sebastian.
Somehow, some way, he was here now. This was no fantasy.
“I must tell you something!” Sebastian shouted to her.
“What the devil is he doing?” Mason demanded, appearing beside her with Captain Collins.
“Please, Captain,” Grace said, gripping his sleeve, “dock the ship.”
Captain Collins shook his head. “Impossible, my lady. We are underway.”
“You can’t be serious, Lady Grace,” Mason protested.
Desperation clutched at her. “We must get him aboard.” She gazed at the assembled sailors who’d gathered to see the spectacle. “Can anyone help? Please.”
Murmurs rose up from the sailors. They shifted from foot to foot, clearly torn.
“Throw that man a line,” Captain Collins barked.
“Aye, Cap’n!” Two of the crew hurried to the side of the ship and tossed a rope to Sebastian as he stood on the smaller vessel.
For a moment, he stared at the rope as if in disbelief that he might attempt something as utterly mad as scrambling from one moving vessel to another. The people in his boat clapped him on his back in encouragement.
He straightened his shoulders, gripped the rope tightly, and climbed.
Grace clutched the railing as she watched him, her breath seizing in her throat. His feet left the deck of the boat as he ascended, hand over hand, using his legs to help propel him upward. Sweat shone on his forehead and he bared his teeth from the effort. His limbs shook, and his spectacles fell into the churning water. But he didn’t stop.
Passengers and sailors cheered him on.
“That’s it, gov!”
“Nearly there!”
“The man is insane,” Mason said in a disbelieving mutter. “But determined.”
She could not speak, her gaze fastened on the sight of Sebastian getting closer and closer.
“Hang on, lad,” a sailor called to Sebastian. “We’ll haul you up.”
Several members of the crew took hold of the rope and pulled. Finally, Sebastian was high enough to grab hold of the railing and clamber onto the deck.
She ran to him as he bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. He’d turned an alarming shade of red.
But he was here. On the ship.
“My God, Sebastian.” She reached for him, but he held up a hand.
“Why . . . didn’t you . . .” he panted.
“Why didn’t I what?”
“Marry . . . him . . . ?” His gazed turned to Mason, who wore a stunned expression, then went back to her. “Become . . . Fredericks’s . . . wife?”
Tears gathered hotly in her eyes. She pushed words out past the constriction in her chest. “Because,” she said, her throat raw, “I love you.”
Hope lit his eyes. “You . . . do?”
“I do.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “I love you, Sebastian.”
“Thank . . . God.” He straightened. His face was radiant, even with his impressive beard. “I love you, Grace. So much.”
“So much that he boarded my ship like a damned pirate,” Captain Collins muttered.
