The next morning the doctor insisted that they find Heer Van Dyck straightaway. Aidan suspected he was anxious to prove to her guardian that he had not violated the gentleman’s confidence. As the city shone in the tangerine tints of the rising sun, they searched the finer inns along the water’s edge and finally located Heer Van Dyck in a thatched-roof chapel near the docks.

Aidan recognized the signs of creative rapture as she and Sterling approached. The old gentleman sat on a wooden bench at the back of the makeshift tabernacle, but his wide eyes were fixed upon the ocean, where the sun had painted everything in its path in a wash of shimmering crimson.

“Look at that!” he whispered as they approached. “Feel that, Aidan! Can you see the majesty of the Creator? Can you sense his whimsical mood this morning? He has placed that single streak upon the horizon to delight my soul, to bring his majesties to mind.”

“God is definitely playing the jester this morning.” Aidan’s voice was as dry as the sandy chapel floor. “As he was last night. Heer Van Dyck, our secret is known to our ship’s surgeon.”

Van Dyck straightened and glanced over his shoulder, then lifted a brow toward the doctor. “Ja? Well then.” He gave Aidan a satisfied glance. “I have a feeling God approves. The doctor should know the truth. You might need the surgeon at some point, and he will be able to treat you privately. You should not be treated like one of the rabble.” Van Dyck returned his gaze to the sun-streaked waters. “Ja. God is good. He is wise.”

Aidan rolled her eyes, slightly disappointed that Heer Van Dyck wasn’t horrified—or at least a little surprised. He took the news as calmly as a man who’d just been to church—which, she realized, he had.

“Well—” Sterling’s gazed arched slowly back and forth between Aidan and her teacher. “Now that I have safely delivered you to your guardian, I should report back to the ship. There are several things I must get from the apothecary while we are at Mauritius, and Captain Tasman wants to speak to me this afternoon.”

“Dank u wel, Dr. Thorne,” Van Dyck answered, his eyes intent upon the sky. His hands twitched against the fabric of his trousers, and Aidan knew the old man literally itched to return to his paints and parchments. “Come, Aidan, and sit here. Look at the ocean, at the sky, and tell me how you would paint this.”

The doctor hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching Aidan’s face, but she merely nodded her thanks and slipped onto the bench beside her mentor, turning her back to the doctor. She watched the surging sea and appreciated the beauty of the water. But her mind’s eye focused on the man who was now walking away, taking her most valuable secret with him.

Could she trust Sterling Thorne? Long experience had taught her that she could not trust any man. Heer Van Dyck, however, seemed to think the doctor an exception. Still, she would keep her eyes open and her mind on her work, not risking either her future or her heart to the handsome surgeon.

Shaking her head slightly, she narrowed her eyes and followed her teacher’s gaze, committing the beach, the waves, and the shimmering horizon to memory.

Two days passed before Sterling found an opportunity to speak privately with Heer Van Dyck. In the course of those forty-eight hours he had supposed a number of reasons why an elderly aristocrat might wish to take his young female protégée on a dangerous sea voyage, and none of his explanations seemed to fit very well. But as the ship’s doctor and a member of the officers’ committee, he felt he was entitled to an explanation—and a reason he should not report this serious infraction to Captain Tasman.

He found the old gentleman standing at the bow of the ship, his eyes fastened to the horizon. The wispy strands of his hair lifted and fell with each breath of the sea breeze. He held a board pressed against his belly as a table of sorts, and with his free hand he sketched the bustling harbor of the Mauritius port.

“Heer Van Dyck,” Sterling began, bowing slightly, “I am grateful to find you alone. I believe there is a matter we should discuss.”

“Of course.” The map-maker gave Sterling a brief smile before returning his gaze to the sea. His pencil moved easily over the parchment as if his hand had a mind of its own. “I wondered when you would approach me. I am only surprised that it took you so long.”

A seaman passed behind them at that moment, his whistle cutting through the muffled sounds of the water, and the two men waited silently while the sailor passed. Sterling leaned his arms upon the railing, idly listening as Visscher spouted commands from the forecastle: “Lay aloft, jump to it, trice up, lay out! Sheet home the mainsail, boys, hoist with a will, now hoist away!”

The deck thundered as seamen sprang to obey, and Sterling squinted up at the dark clouds on the southern horizon. It was beginning to rain in soft spatters that caught in his hair and eyelashes, blurring the sky and sea into one gray mass.

“I have a good reason for my subterfuge, Dr. Thorne,” Van Dyck said, with marked conviction. “The young woman is virtuous, I can assure you. She is not aboard for my pleasure or any other man’s.”

“I had surmised that already.” Sterling settled his hat more firmly atop his head as the raindrops continued to fall. If the old man could stand here in the wet, so could he. “But I cannot see why you would bring a woman of gentle breeding into such a perilous situation. These men are rough and coarse, and the dangers we face are myriad.”

“Even a velvet glove may conceal a fist of iron,” Van Dyck answered with a wry smile. “I can assure you, Doctor, that the young lady is quite capable of fending for herself.”

Sterling nodded. He’d seen as much in the tavern—and in the inn, when she flashed a dagger before his eyes and promised to use it. “She told me her parents are dead,” he said, watching the older man carefully. The cartographer’s face remained as impassive as stone. “I am assuming, then, that you are her guardian?”

Van Dyck inclined his head. “In every sense of the word.”

“Is she a relative? Your niece, perhaps? Forgive my curiosity, sir, but if I am to keep this secret from Captain Tasman and the other officers, I feel I must understand the reason for it. Unless the young lady was in greater danger in Batavia than here on the open sea, I cannot possibly fathom why you should subject her to this expedition—”

“She was in danger,” Van Dyck interrupted. His distinguished face became brooding as he stopped sketching and stared into the sea. “She was in great danger of neglecting her gift, which is quite considerable. If I had left her behind, she would have done nothing with it. And the world would have sorrowed, Dr. Thorne, the world would grieve and not know why. She is quite extraordinary, far above the common realm.”

Sterling paused, respecting the storm of emotion that crossed the artist’s face. “Is she so different from a hundred other young ladies who take art and music lessons?”

“Yes,” he said, turning to look at Sterling with an expression of pained tolerance. “How can I explain it?” He looked about the deck for a moment, then pointed to a bucket that collected rainwater on the deck.

“Do you see that bucket of water?” he asked, holding his sketch board close to his chest as he folded his arms. “If you lowered your hand into the bucket and then pulled it out, would anyone ever be able to tell? No. You and I are ordinary, Dr. Thorne; we are conventional mortals. But if young Aidan put her hand into the bucket and then pulled it out—figuratively speaking, of course, she would leave something behind. Her life would leave a trace in the water. Mark my words—that young woman’s life will color the world.”

Sterling struggled to comprehend the man’s message. “Why is she so different?”

Van Dyck’s mouth twisted in bitter amusement. “I think it is because she suffers,” he said simply. “She bleeds into the water.”

The old man paused a moment, then cleared his throat and turned back to the railing. “She really is unlike any other young woman, but I don’t expect you to understand that. All right, then, perhaps you can appreciate this: My protégée is an heiress worth at least twenty thousand of your English pounds. I could not risk leaving her behind.” He lifted a bushy brow. “Does that answer satisfy your inordinate curiosity?”

Sterling blinked and retreated a half-step. Aidan, an heiress? By heaven, no heiress he knew would resort to such a drastic action! Then again, he reflected with a rueful smile, he did not know many heiresses. If fortune-hungry suitors were relentlessly pursuing Aidan in Batavia, perhaps this was not such an extreme plan. After all, her faithful maid had been murdered in the street and the girl had no parents or brothers to protect her.

“Do you not think,” he said, lowering his voice as he edged closer to the rail, “that Captain Tasman would understand your motivation in this case? Surely he would forgive your action and allow the girl to abandon her disguise.”

“Captain Tasman,” Van Dyck said, grinning, “knows his seamen better than you, Doctor. An unattached woman on this ship, particularly one as lovely as my ward, could no more return to Batavia with her virtue intact than a lawyer could feel compassion gratis.” His lips twisted into a cynical smile. “And if you know men like I do, Doctor, you’ll understand why the disguise is necessary. Keep her secret, I beg you. Her life and honor depend on it.”

Sterling nodded slowly. “All right, Heer Van Dyck,” he said, returning to the rail as the older man regarded him with a level gaze. “You have my word on it.”

Captain Tasman spent nearly a full month on Mauritius refitting his ships, restocking fresh water and supplies, and ordering his men to do a thorough scraping of the ships’ hulls. And as she did odd jobs for the seamen, Aidan learned a great deal about sailors’ superstitions. Part of the hull scraping, she learned, was necessary to rid the ship of barnacles, weeds, and remoras, small fish only seven or eight inches long. The stubborn sucker-fish attached themselves to any flat surface and could only be dislodged with great effort. Despite the fish’s small size, the seamen believed remoras capable of dramatically impeding a ship’s progress.

When she was not coiling rope or mending canvas below deck, Aidan spent her time sketching ashore. She discovered many strange and new sights in this part of the world, including the infamous dodo bird. ’Twas a pity, she thought as she sketched a hen atop a nest of eggs, that the animals were too slow-witted to escape those who sought to snare them.

One morning, on a quest for some new adventure, Aidan accompanied the doctor into town for another of his visits to the apothecary’s shop. Not finding anything unique upon the streets of Mauritius, she implored the doctor to walk with her along the beach in an uninhabited part of the island. He agreed, a bemused look on his face, as she led him out of town, past the ramshackle houses and thatched huts that reminded her too much of dreary Batavia.

Quick-moving shadows of clouds skimmed over the barren beach, while the distant mountains provided a scalloped border to the western horizon. Aidan felt a beauty in the desolate spot, a quiet solitude unknown along the crowded wharf. The great blue bowl of sky stretched above her, and slanted sunlight shimmered off the glowing foliage that grew beyond the beach, marked by a line so dramatic she could almost believe God had set the boundaries of sea, sand, and forest with his finger.

She left the doctor on the shore and walked down to the water’s edge. Slipping out of her soft shoes and stockings, she stepped into the sand, feeling her weight sink as the beach shifted to accommodate her presence.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the sun, relishing its warm caress on her face. Her skin was probably as tanned as a native’s, and she’d undoubtedly have to take six months of milk baths to restore it to a ladylike shade of white. But she could not rise to nobility overnight. It would take time for her engravings to be published, discovered, and appreciated. And during that time she would continue to learn and work with Heer Van Dyck. One day—she exhaled happily at the prospect—Gusta would be forced to admit that Aidan had indeed made a lady of herself.

But until then, there was time for living. She opened one eye and squinted at the rolling, crashing waves. She had never visited the beach of Batavia, had never felt free to wander the island. But Heer Van Dyck would encourage her to swim if he were here; he’d tell her to devour the sea, to taste it and spit it out and sketch it.

“Feel like a swim?” She tilted her head mischievously toward the doctor. Shock flickered over his face like summer lightning, then he grinned at her.

“Surely you jest,” he called, resting his hands on his hips. “The water is much colder here than in Batavia.”

She did not listen, but tiptoed into the water, feeling its icy touch through the fabric of her breeches.

“You aren’t, ah … ” Sterling’s voice faltered. “Aidan, you can’t do this.”

“Why not?” she called over her shoulder. Her clothes would soon be sticky with salt and seawater, but later, back on the ship, she could rinse them out in a rain barrel. Right now she wanted the water to tingle her skin and her face; she wanted to feel the waves lift her from her feet. With her shirt sleeves flapping about her arms, she ran further into the water, then squealed in glee and retreated from a crashing breaker.

“Come on, Aidan,” the doctor called, an imploring note in his voice. “You forget yourself!”

“Perhaps you ought to forget yourself,” she called back, gauging the next breaking wave. If she waited until it broke, she could run full bore in the surf and reach the place where the waves rocked in a gentle rhythm. Laughing in sheer delight, she ran in, splashing wildly, until the cold water rose up to her rib cage, pressing the breath from her lungs, enlivening every sinew and particle of her flesh.

“Aidan! Come out!” the doctor called, moving toward her. “You do know how to swim, don’t you?”

“It’s all right.” Aidan turned and lifted a wet arm to wave in reassurance. Her soaked shirt was like a second skin; she felt like one of the legendary kelpies her mother had described in nighttime stories. As a creature partly of the sea, partly of the land, she could live forever in the water.

“Aidan!” The doctor’s voice had a sharp edge now. “Come out! I am losing patience!”

“It’s all right, I can touch the sand,” Aidan yelled, standing erect to demonstrate. “It’s right—oh!” A wave caught her off guard, lifting her from the sandy bottom, breaking over her head and arms, then carrying her forward in its curling momentum. Aidan thrilled to the power of the surge, feeling herself borne up and away, but when she sought the surface, she panicked when she could not find it. She opened her eyes, felt the sting of the salty water, and reached out to grasp nothing but a watery expanse.

Blood pounded thickly in her ears as she fumbled to find her footing. How foolish she was, so intent upon devouring the sea that she had allowed it to devour her! She listened, straining to hear some sound that would set the world aright again, but she could hear nothing but the muffled sounds of the sea and her own frantic heartbeat.

Her lungs began to burn. If she opened her mouth to scream, water would rush in, and until she felt either the emptiness of air or the solidity of the bottom, she was helpless.

So this is how drowning feels. Aidan stopped thrashing and closed her eyes, hoping that in surrender God might have mercy and take her quickly. She would have to open her mouth and breathe in water. It could not be avoided; her chest would cave in if she did not fill it with something—

An iron vise gripped her arm, pulling her upward with surprising force. Aidan opened her mouth and gulped wonderful, sweet air as sheets of water streamed from her shirt and her hair. An arm braced her shoulders now, probably an angel’s. He’d come to escort her into the presence of the Heavenly Judge …

“You are a wondrous fool, girl.” Relief and ridicule mingled in the voice that addressed her, and Aidan opened her eyes to see Dr. Thorne, not Gabriel, standing before her. Like her, he was drenched, too, his doublet, breeches, and shirt stained dark by the seawater.

Despite the cold, Aidan felt heat stealing into her face. “Thank you,” she whispered, her teeth chattering as he held her upright. They were beyond the breakers, standing in chest-deep water. “I—I don’t understand what happened.”

“Undertow,” he answered, his brow still creased with worry. “It catches you and pulls you under. I didn’t think you’d know how to escape it.”

“I never knew such a thing existed,” she answered, suddenly grateful for the warmth of his hands on her shoulders. “I have never swum in the sea. I only knew I had to try it once.”

The smile he gave her was utterly without humor. “And now that you have tried it, will you come away? You should not have gone into the water. Do you obey every inclination that fills your imagination?”

“Not usually.” She stared up into his face. He had just risked his life to save her. And here they were, safely out of the treacherous current, yet his hands still remained on her shoulders, warming her through the light fabric of her shirt.

Was the yearning that showed in his face as apparent on her own?

“Are you hurt?” His gaze slid from her eyes to her neck. “Sometimes a person can be scraped against the bottom—”

“This person,” she whispered, lightly placing her fingertips upon the soaked fabric of his doublet, “is fine.” A gentle rounded wave pushed forward and lifted them, as one, for a dizzying moment, and Sterling brought her close, holding her safe until the wave dropped them back to the sandy bottom.

His nearness made her senses spin. She’d been around men all her life—drunks, lechers, pickpockets that put Lili’s girls to shame, egregious con men and card sharks, but never a man like this. His strength wrapped around her like a warm blanket, and suddenly Aidan wished she was a kelpie, that she could pull him under the water to live with her forever in the sea.

The dull rumble of thunder broke into her thoughts. “Rain,” Sterling said, loosening his grip slightly as he glanced out toward the sea. She looked and saw sullen masses of clouds on the horizon, briefly veined with lightning, bringing in an afternoon storm.

She pressed her hands to his chest, reluctant to have the moment end. “You know how to swim,” she said matter-of-factly, desperate to continue the conversation. “How did you learn?”

“My brothers and I swam in a lake near our farm.” Gently, he took her hands in his own and led her through the water. “And now we must get ashore, and you must dry off.” A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. “Though I know you fancy yourself invincible, I am of the opinion that a cool wind and wet clothing bring on the ague, and I’d hate to see you get sick.”

He released her hands as they passed the breakers and stumbled up onto the sand, but she pulled at his wet sleeves, unwilling to let the magic moment pass. He had accused her of obeying her slightest inclinations, and a particularly strong one now gripped her imagination.

“Doctor,” she said, digging her heels into the sand.

“Yes?” He bent to pick up his cloak from where he’d dropped it on the beach, then looked at her with patient amusement. “Are you cold? Here, let me put this around you.”

Expertly, he snapped the sand from his cloak, then unfurled the garment around her shoulders, tying it below her quivering chin. Aidan studied his face as he worked; then, without thinking, she laced her hands behind his neck and searched his warm eyes. They stood together for a long moment, breathing each other’s breath, then Aidan closed her eyes as Sterling Thorne gently bent his head and kissed her. His tender lips were warm and salty, and his mouth moved across hers with a hunger that belied his outward calm. For a long moment they stood there, two souls joined by the sea, then his lips left hers and moved across her cheek. He pressed her head to his shoulder, his fingers entwined among the loose hair above her braid.

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice trembling. He would not look at her, but placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “You are a fine lady, and I have forgotten myself.” He looked past her toward the looming clouds in the distance. “Please, let us forget this ever happened. This will be a long voyage, and I am betrothed to another woman.”

She listened with rising dismay, then turned away and staggered up the beach. She had seen enough of the real world to know how men acted when they desired a woman. The men she knew from Bram’s tavern would not have hesitated to take her body, heart, and soul in the instant she put her arms around them, yet she had never offered herself to anyone else. She was fool enough to yearn for this man, and he did not want her. He could make all the excuses in the world about treating her like a lady, but the fact was he didn’t want her.

The rejection stung Aidan’s soul, and she shivered, suddenly chilled as the sun disappeared behind the encroaching clouds. The heavy sand pulled at her knees and ankles, slowing her down. But she could not delay, for Sterling Thorne’s faint shadow stretched behind her.

“Do not fear my attentions, Doctor,” she snapped, not looking back over her shoulder. “I doubt that I will have cause to be in your company again. ’Tis certain I will not choose it.”

Humiliation coursed through her, and she tugged at the string of his cloak, loosening it until it fell from her shoulders. Without its weight, she moved more quickly. As she hurried away, she pulled her heavy braid over her shoulder and squeezed it, hard. She’d like to squeeze Sterling Thorne’s heart right now. But she’d get more seawater from her clothes and hair than she could get blood from his heart.