Stone Barrington 06-11

unnecessarily.
    “Good,” Stone said. “What’s up for the day?”
    “Oh, you’re coming sailing with James and me,” she replied, taking James’s arm in a proprietary way. “James is just learning to sail.”
    James nodded, clearly her prisoner.

    “Great; what time?” Stone asked, longing to return to his eggs before they got any colder.
    “Five minutes,” she said. “We’ll meet in the mud room and get you some gear.”
    “Great,” Stone replied, returning to his eggs. They wandered away.
    Monica appeared with two cups of coffee and sat down on the rug at his feet. “Good morning,” she said. “I hope you’re feeling better rested today.” Her voice dripped with meaning.
    “Yes, thanks. I’m sorry about last night,” he said, accepting the coffee and setting it on a small table beside him. “It must be the jet lag.”
    “We’re going sailing shortly,” she said.
    “I heard.” He was shoveling in breakfast as fast as he could. He set down his plate and picked up the coffee. Black. He hated coffee without sugar, but he forced himself.
    “I do hope you won’t wear yourself out too much today,” Monica said, archly. “Perhaps a nap in the afternoon?”

    Outfitted with a slicker and a pair of rubber sailing boots, Stone climbed into a Range Rover with Monica, Sarah and her James, and Lance and Erica. Sarah drove like a madwoman, tearing down a narrow, winding track until she skidded to a stop at a dock, where a yacht of forty feet or so lay waiting on a pretty river.
    “This is the Beaulieu River,” Sarah said over her shoulder to Stone. She pronounced it “Bewley.” “Up there a ways is the village of Beaulieu, and the other way is the Solent.”
    Everyone climbed aboard, Sarah started the engine, and there was much scrambling with lines and sails. As Sarah motored down the Beaulieu, Stone began hoisting, first the mainsail, then a medium genoa, assisted by James, who clearly didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t seem to be getting the hang of it. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the river into the Solent.
    Sarah set a course to the east, and Stone trimmed the sails. “Anybody else on this boat know anything about sailing?” he asked.
    They all shook their heads as one person.
    “Swell,” he muttered under his breath.
    The sky was a mix of blue and clouds, and they beat into a stiff breeze of close to twenty knots. Stone zipped up his slicker and wished he had a hat. What with the breeze, it was chilly. They sailed up the Solent, Sarah pointing out the sights, until they were abreast of a town and harbor to starboard.
    “That’s Cowes,” she said, “England’s capital of yachting; maybe Europe’s.”
    Everyone looked glumly at Cowes. Sarah seemed to be the only person really enjoying herself.
    Stone thought it wasn’t too bad. Then Sarah bore away, and he had to let out the sails to go downwind. Off the wind, headed west again, the breeze seemed to diminish, and everyone was more comfortable, even though the yacht was rolling enthusiastically. James climbed out of the cockpit, knelt at the rail, and tossed his breakfast into the Solent. He seemed to feel better then, and he went and stood on the afterdeck behind Sarah, holding onto the backstay to steady himself.
    Stone began to enjoy the sail. He hadn’t been on a yacht since his trip to St. Marks some years before, and he had never sailed in England.
    “Have you done much sailing?” Monica asked.
    “At summer camp as a kid,” Stone replied. “And I spent three summers in Maine, as a hand on a yacht. We did a lot of racing up there.” He looked up at the mainsail and saw a slight curl as the wind flirted with it. They were sailing dead downwind, and the boom was fully extended.
    Stone leaned over and said quietly to Sarah, “You’ll be sailing her by the lee in a minute, if you’re not careful. You don’t want to gybe her.”
    “I know what I’m doing, darling,” Sarah shot back. Then, as if to prove that she didn’t, she gave the wheel a slight turn, and the rear edge of the mainsail began to flap.
    “Watch it,” Stone said, trying not to reach for the wheel to correct her, and then it happened, and fast. The wind got behind the mainsail, and the yacht gybed. The boom whipped across the deck, catching James on the side of the head and catapulting him overboard. He disappeared into the water.
    “Christ!” Sarah yelled, fighting the helm. “Gybing back!” She put the helm over.
    It