'Anna and Grace' - for want of anything better!
an excerpt

Church Cove – Dawn – January 15th 1784

“Grace, take care. The rocks are too slippery!”
Ignored, Anna watched her younger sister disappear into the swirling fog, clambering over seaweed covered boulders as the sea lapped at her feet and skirts.
“For God’s sake, Grace, just think a little, won’t you?” she muttered, turning her attention to the beached white bodies thrown anyhow on to the sand. A box of oranges had burst open and the coloured balls lay scattered amongst open palms and staring faces, like the final act in an outrageous game of catch.
“Treve, over here,” she called. All dead, she thought. No survivors.
Bodies piled onto the open cart, steaming horses straining and sweating to drag them up the cliff for the Rector to bless them and bury them overlooking the sea that claimed their souls.
Besides, Anna acknowledged, it saved the parish burial fees and losing precious ground in the churchyard. There had been so many wrecks this winter – so many deaths.
A shout filtered through the fog.
“Over here. Man alive. Over here.”
Heads swivelled and then a rush to gently haul a battered body across the rocks. Anna watched Grace hovering closely as a young man was lifted into the back of the cart and then taking off her own cloak to cover the white, limp body. Before he was wrapped in its black, woollen folds Anna had time to notice the pink-stained shirt and blue tinge to his lips. She shuddered at his closed eyes and open mouth, at the way his limbs fell empty and useless beneath the covers, just as another body had lain …
Grace’s voice, in control and in command, “Take him to Alys Ferren. My sister and I will take care of him. John, run to the surgeon and fetch him to the house – tell cook to give you breakfast when you’ve done.”
John scampered eagerly past Anna and disappeared into the cloud.
“Anna,” Grace called. “Here, walk with me. We’ll go ahead and get the room ready for him.”
Automatically, Anna fell in step beside Grace. She felt her sister’s icy hand taking her arm, pulling her close, perhaps drawing warmth.
“He’s alive,” Grace whispered. “We’ll keep him that way.”
A face appeared in Anna’s mind. “The cost of the surgeon, Grace,” she began, “we can barely afford …”
The tightening of Grace’s hand silenced her. Somehow, they’d manage. Didn’t they always?
Neither spoke. Behind them, Anna could hear the creaks of the wooden cart and leather harnesses, the metallic striking of iron wheels and horseshoes against stones and sighing beneath everything the constant whispering of the outgoing tide.
“The only survivor, it seems,” remarked Anna. “Do we know the name of the ship?”
Grace hesitated. “No. All that’s known is what we’ve seen here this morning. Everything else has gone down.” She gestured back to the wooden crates, some split and overflowing, so that oranges, lemons, bottles of wine and flasks of oil spilled across the sand. Already many were disappearing - on ponies, in baskets or simply picked up and carried.
“The Excise is slow this morning. Where is he? Usually he’d have the whole lot under lock and key by now.”
Grace shrugged. “He’s still sore after the attack last week. John said he was bedridden until Tuesday and is thinking of sending his family away for safety.”
“That’s dreadful,” Anna exclaimed. “It’s not right the man should be hounded for doing his job.”
Grace looked at her curiously. “Whose side are you on? You know all those goods washed up this morning belong to the finders.”
“Even so, I still don’t think it’s right to injure and terrify the innocent.”
“Oh, well, sister of mine, now’s your chance to show some of your precious concern. Here’s the man himself.”
From out of the fog loomed a figure on a sweat-flecked horse. He rode one-handed, his other arm bandaged and strapped across his chest.
“Ladies,” he bowed his head briefly, reddened eyes flickering across the emptying beach below and the laden cart lumbering up the path behind them. “Any survivors?”
“Only this one,” Anna half-turned and gestured.
The man nodded. “Looks like there wasn’t much washed ashore,” he added. “Or much left of what was washed ashore, anyway.”
Neither Anna nor Grace answered.
“The constable around by any chance?” he continued.
An image of the parish constable, a box under each arm and his three little girls with their pinafores overflowing with oranges, passed through Anna’s mind.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”
She willed herself to look up and meet his gaze, to see the resignation and weariness in his face.
“Oh, well,” he said, “best see what there is left for His Majesty.”
“How are….” Anna began, but he was gone. She heard his horse’s hooves slipping and sliding on the wet stones.
“See,” Grace said, only half-smiling. “Now you know whose side you’re on.”
The hoofbeats stopped. “Where are you taking this man?” called a voice through the mist.
Anna sighed. “Home,” she called back. “To Alys Ferren house.”
“What d’you tell him that for?” Grace snapped. “Now he’ll up there sniffing and snooping about looking for all sorts of things and wanting to speak to that poor sailor.”
“For heaven’s sake, Grace, we’ve hardly got anything to hide, have we? And why shouldn’t he speak to the sailor? We’d all like to know who he is, what ship it was and where it came from, wouldn’t we?”
Grace didn’t answer. Her pace quickened until she drew away into the distance, while Anna lagged behind.
“Well, wouldn’t we, Grace?” she muttered softly. “Unless….”

The surgeon had called, pronounced the unconscious sailor intact, and been paid very well for his time and expertise. John had been fed breakfast by the cook, in return for the story of the wreck and the piles of bodies thrown ashore.
Anna and Grace together washed the man and his wounds. Bruises sprang livid purple, grazes and scratches swelled red, while the cut on his head oozed straw coloured liquid.
“He’s young,” remarked Grace, running a soft dry cloth down the length of his arm.
Anna nodded agreement, trying her hardest not to notice the firm muscles beneath his skin, his broadening shoulders and narrow hips. She tried hard not to contrast this fit, powerful body with the coarse, broken body of Charles, his neck oddly twisted from where he’d fallen from her own grey mare.
“If I were to marry,” Grace went on as she picked up a fresh white shirt, “I would have to choose a man like this.”
“You don’t know what he’s like, Grace,” Anna answered. Her body uncurled and stirred at the thought. “He might be ignorant and horrible to you. He might already be married.”
“He isn’t ignorant,” Grace denied. “He was very gentlemanly in his manner.”
Anna straightened up and stared. “Why? Was he awake then, when you found him? I thought he was unconscious.”
Grace blushed deeply. “He was awake very briefly,” she said. “Long enough to show he’s a gentleman