“As pretty a sight as these eyes have gazed upon,” agreed MacTavish soberly, taking in the flushed young girl with golden skeins of light tangled hair flying in the sun. But he looked worried when he glanced back at Raile.
At once, as if they had been waiting on cue for this moment, the ship’s officers appeared, led by André L’Estraille, the ship’s doctor, who executed a dazzingly low bow despite the sudden roll of the ship.
“Your servant, mademoiselle. Mon Dieu, you shine like sunlight!” he exclaimed. “A veritable princesse/”
But Lorraine was not to be fooled by such jollity. Rather I am the one who looks like a servant, and you the master of the house! she thought wryly, for the splendor of his full-bottomed fawn-colored wig and scarlet satin coat heavily laced with gold braid almost overwhelmed her.
She returned him a low curtsy.
“Thank you,” she said in as cool a voice as she could muster.
She nodded to the others and would have beat a hasty retreat had not Derry Cork’s booming voice stayed her.
“Ah, ’tis the beauty!” he roared. “We’ve been watching for ye, colleen. Ye stayed long abed. Mistress Lorraine!” This was accompanied by a sly wink that brought color flooding into Lorraine’s cheeks.
She had been about to make some excuse and flee to her cabin, but now she stood her ground and returned the big Irishman a haughty look.
“I was tired,” she stated.
“Sure and I thought you were afraid of us,” he suggested mischievously.
“I am afraid of nothing!” cried Lorraine, stung.
“Is that so, indeed?” Derry Cork grinned and cast a merry look at Raile. “Sure, we’re eager to learn more about the brave colleen who could shoot the cap’n down in such a short engagement,” he said shyly. “Perhaps ye’ll favor us with your life story when we sup?”
Lorraine was furious at Raile who had catapulted her into this embarrassing situation. Well, she would just pay him back for all this humiliation—one lie was as good as another!
“I’m afraid dinner will have to wait,” she said airily.
“For me at least. I expect to be taking my meals in our cabin, for I must look fresh and rested for our wedding.”
“Wedding?” echoed Derry Cork, amazed, and the Frenchman leaned forward in fascination. Even MacTavish’s iron jaw dropped, while Jakob Heist stood bemused.
Lorraine gave them all a winsome smile. “Why, yes,” she said. “We’d not time to be wed in Providence, with all my tall cousins in hot pursuit. We’re going to have the words spoken over us on some likely island—aren’t we, my sweet?” She turned to Raile, looking up at him with her lips parted in what seemed to the ship’s officers tender anticipation.
Raile’s expression was impenetrable. Shutters seemed to have slipped over his gray eyes, leaving them murky.
“We’ll discuss it,” he muttered.
“Yes, of course we will.” Honey fairly dripped from Lorraine’s voice. “I shall be in the cabin if you want me, my sweet. Gentlemen.” Her curtsy included them all and she strolled away from them down the deck with an ever-so-slight swagger.
There, let him think about that, this fellow who was so anxious to make her appear to be his mistress! Let him assume the role of prospective bridegroom!
CHAPTER 10
RAILE FOLLOWED LORRAINE into the cabin and closed the door behind him with his foot. Lorraine was aware of his presence but she did not turn. Instead she crossed to the stern windows and stood before one of them, tossing back her still-damp hair to dry it.
“Mistress Lorraine.” The captain’s voice was stern, formal.
“Yes?” she threw the word indifferently over her shoulder.
“I think I should warn you, I’m not a marrying man.”
Lorraine whirled about to face him at that. Her blue-gray eyes snapped with indignation. “Indeed you need not tell me that, sir. I’d already guessed! And besides,” she added with spirit, “what makes you think I would have you?”
“What you said on deck just now,” he answered reasonably enough.
“Oh, that!” Lorraine shrugged. “I have decided that I would prefer to be considered an overimpetuous betrothed rather than some chance strumpet you chose to bring back with you to while away the voyage!”
Raile grinned at that characterization. “Just so we understand each other, lass,” he said easily. “I’ve managed to avoid the banns thus far. ’Tis my intention to go on avoiding them a little longer.”
Lorraine sniffed and gave her long hair another toss. “You may avoid them all your life for all I care. I am but trying to arrange it so I can look these men in the face! After all, ’tis bad enough to come aboard looking like a serving wench!” She glanced down bitterly at her worn and shabby clothing. “But then to have them know that we’re sharing a cabin—do you want them to consider me some lightskirt scullery maid on holiday?”
“ ’Tis not my way to bring scullery maids aboard the Lass,” Raile murmured, and from his inscrutable expression Lorraine could not know that he was thinking how very pretty she looked with that fiery expression lighting up her eyes. “Only beauties,” he added with a chuckle and a narrow look.
“No doubt!” she scoffed. “There must have been dozens!” But she felt her face flame nonetheless.
“Oh, not so many as that, lass,” he disclaimed lazily. “But what made you blush as you said that?”
What had made her blush had been the way he was looking at her. It was the same way Philip had looked at her, of course, only from Raile it seemed different, more compelling. For this tall fellow was more of a man than Philip would ever be.
“Well, now we can both act a part—I the blushing bride, you the eager bridegroom!”
“As you wish.” He nodded. “I’ll even play along with you and dine alone with you here in my cabin.” He had given in too easily, she thought. What devilry was he planning?
“No need to change your habits,” she said hastily. “You will no doubt want to continue dining with your officers. Johnny can bring me a bite and I don’t mind eating alone.”
His broad grin undermined her confidence. He stood squarely before her, a splendid fellow, broad-chested, calm. And with a wicked twinkle in his eye. “But such behavior would hardly become an—how did you put it?—an eager bridegroom, now, would it?”
Before Lorraine could form a proper answer, he walked to the cabin door and went out, leaving her to gaze after him apprehensively. She had thought to sting him with her words, for it had nettled her to be dragged summarily on deck for the inspection of his ship’s officers, but he had been altogether too agreeable.
She flung herself down at the table, ignoring her still-damp hair, and sat leaning her elbows on the table’s wooden top. Why had she done this? Why had she pretended to be Raile’s affianced bride? What madness had come over her?
Lorraine was not the only one pondering her motives. Outside on deck, as he calmly accepted the congratulations of his ship’s officers, Raile was wondering the same thing.
Only to MacTavish did he tell the truth, and that was when they were for a moment alone near the whipstaff, by which the ship was steered.
“You’re not to believe the little lass, Tav,” said Raile in a low voice. “There’s no marriage intended.”
“But you’ve already accepted my congratulations on it,” answered the brawny Scot. “Faith, that’s a singular thing to do if no wedding is intended!”
“ ’Twas Lorraine’s idea, for she does not want the men to consider her a light woman. ’Tis to achieve standing that she spun the yarn, Tav.”
MacTavish shook his gray head with the wonderment of a man who would never understand women. “Has she no fondness for ye then, laddie?”
Raile was looking out to sea at that moment, watching the whitecaps of the waves foam and glisten in the sunlight. “No, I think she has none, Tav,” he said softly. “But we’ll keep her secret, for if aught should happen to me. I’d want you to see he
r set safe ashore.”
“Aye, ye can count on me for that,” said MacTavish. He looked curiously at the younger man. Raile’s jaw was set, but for all that, his gray eyes revealed no expression at all as they swung around to encounter MacTavish. Still, the stern Scotsman who knew him of old thought there had been something wistful in the tall young captain’s voice. Perhaps he was only remembering another woman and thinking on her, MacTavish told himself, for he was all too familiar with Raile Cameron’s checkered past.
By evening Raile seemed to have forgotten Lorraine’s outburst of the morning. Still his attitude had changed subtly. It was a debonair Scotsman, correctly dressed and wearing his boots, who presented himself at table.
Lorraine noted his festive garb and that he was wearing lace at his throat and cuffs and felt vaguely resentful that in her worn gown she could not match him.
“I would have changed my gown for dinner had I not left all that I own in Rhode Island,” she said rather stiffly (ignoring the fact that the gown she had left behind was no better). “Indeed I have managed to tear this flimsy fabric again.” She indicated her sleeve, which had caught on a nail in the cabin wall not five minutes before. “I doubt I can mend it so that it will not show.”
“Stand up,” commanded Raile.
“What?”
“I said stand up so I can look at you.” He sounded impatient.
Lorraine came to her feet and he looked her up and down coolly.
“You’re a wee bit on the thin side, lass,” he observed. “Didn’t they feed you well at that tavern?”
“Not very,” admitted Lorraine.
“Then you should eat more,” he announced. “You only picked at your breakfast. Here, try this Indian porridge. We got the corn in Rhode Island so you should be familiar with it.” He scooped out a large helping and piled it on her trencher.
“Not so much,” protested Lorraine, sinking back to her seat.
He was still watching her narrowly from across the table as he broke apart a piece of rock-hard biscuit and demolished it with his strong teeth. Lorraine felt uneasy under that calm inspection but forced herself to eat—even the second helpings he insisted she have.
When they had finished their dinner and the table had been cleared, Raile, leaning back sipping his Madeira, said what was on his mind.
“Lass, if you had your choice of material for a new gown,” he asked her suddenly, “what would you choose?”
“Purple silk,” said Lorraine instantly, for she had always envied Lavinia her “royal purple.”
Raile laughed with a flash of white teeth. “I’ve something much better,” he assured her. “Something that will bring out the blue of your eyes.”
Going to the smaller of the two chests, he rummaged about until he dragged out an enormous piece of sky-blue silk with a handsome fleur-de-lis embroidered in gold thread in the center. Edged in gold and sporting gold tassels, the whole thing was lined with dusky blue-gray satin that had a rippling silvery shimmer as he picked it up and carried it over to her. “Could you not make do with this?” he asked.
Lorraine stared at the beautiful undulating material resting in his arms but she did not reach out to touch it. “It looks like . . .” she began, and stopped.
“You’re right,” Raile told her amiably. “ ’Tis a funeral pall, meant to be draped over a coffin. Handsome piece of goods, isn’t it?”
Lorraine was familiar with such palls. She had seen them draped over the tops of peaked coffins and spreading down over the shoulders and waists of the black-clad men who struggled along carrying those coffins. But the palls she had seen in Rhode Island had been of plain gray or brown stuff edged in black braid—meager and dull compared to this. She remembered her mother telling her that in England every parish had two or three palls that they rented out for such occasions, but that aristocratic county families, such as her mother’s, had their own—in their case a gorgeous red velvet one edged with black Italian silk.
“But wouldn’t it be wrong?” she asked, troubled, for they must have this pall on shipboard for some reason—she shuddered to think what.
“Oh, this pall has never been used over a coffin, nor ever will be,” Raile assured her coolly. He pushed aside his glass and draped the material over the table where Lorraine could view it better. “Jacques Le Loup, who sailed with me—we called him Jocko the Wolf—had this cloth made up for himself in Jamaica. ’Tis Italian silk and French satin. Jocko bought the fabric from the buccaneer market on the waterfront and had it embroidered with the lilies of France by an English wench in Port Royal.”
So the pall had a romantic past. Lorraine continued to stare at it, feeling both attracted and repelled.
“Whenever he got drunk—which was often—Jocko would laugh and toss this cloth into the air and catch it and roar that even if he couldn’t live a Frenchman he’d die a Frenchman—he’d been run out of Paris for debt, you see. Anyway, he’d carry the thing ashore with him for his drinking parties and fight anyone who touched it—and I’d have to have both him and his pall carried back aboard when he got too drunk to walk.”
“But won’t he mind, this Jacques?” she wondered, looking longingly at the beautiful material.
“Not Jocko.”
At the finality of his tone, Lorraine looked up sharply. “What happened to him?”
Raile’s face had sobered. “He got drunk one last time and fell overboard in Bordeaux harbor. Drowned in deep water before anyone could save him.”
“But how could that happen?” cried Lorraine. “He was a sailor, he must have been able to swim!”
Raile grimaced. “He could not, unfortunately.” Then Raile went on to explain the circumstances.
“Our ship’s doctor had left us at Plymouth, you see. The other doctors roundabout had declined to join us,, but Jocko boasted that he would find us another. He ran across André L’Estraille in Bordeaux the very day he died. They were old friends and Jocko got me to sign André on. Then Jocko was so exuberant about sailing with his old friend that he took André on a tour of the waterfront taverns. They were still on their feet when they came aboard, but just barely. Cook was making some coffee, hoping to sober them up, when Jocko suddenly gave a whoop and cried. ‘Look at that! Tis her face! I’ve found her at last!’ He leaned far out over the rail and with a howl he fell over. Three of us leapt in to save him but the harbor water was dark and foul and we couldn’t find him. He never surfaced. We had to give it up.”
“What do you think he saw in the water?” asked Lorraine, awed.
“Visions,” said Raile, frowning. “He’d been in love with a girl in Alsace. She was frail and had died long ago, coughing her life away while Jocko watched and agonized. He never forgot her. And when he was drunk he always thought he saw her face—in tree branches, in the patterns of the clouds, in the depths of the sea, in the murky light of waterfront taverns.”
“He was always faithful to her?” Lorraine asked, charmed.
Raile’s eyebrows elevated. “Oh, I didn’t say that,” he corrected her in a cool voice. “Jocko chased every skirt in sight—and when he was hot on the scent he could see them around corners! But when he was very drunk,” he added softly, “he remembered only one.”
Lorraine gave the captain an uncertain look. She had imagined Jocko’s frail but lasting love gathering him into her arms at last—albeit a cold and watery embrace—but Raile’s comment had blasted that romantic illusion.
“And so you kept this square of cloth,” she mused. “In memory of your friend?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I was of a mind to carry the pail out to sea and send it floating away upon the waves in memory of Jocko, but it slipped my mind and now I’m glad I didn’t. Even more than he loved the bottle, Jocko loved the ladies—he’d be honored to have you wear it. Indeed, were Jocko alive, he’d have offered it to you himself. So if you think you could manage to make a new gown out of it . . . ?” He was watching her keenly.
“Oh, I think I can manag
e,” Lorraine assured him hastily. With great care she gathered the shimmering material to her. How soft and silky it was to the touch! Oh, how often she had dreamed of having a dress made of fabric as fine as this!
She rose and held it up to her body, looking down and considering critically how she would fashion her new gown. She stood awhile studying it, absorbed. When she looked up at Raile at last her eyes were shining.
“Thank you,” she said shyly.
Raile shrugged. “Thank Jocko,” he said.
“I thank you both.”
From that moment on, making her new dress became an all-consuming passion with Lorraine. She had inherited her mother’s sense of style, but though clever with a needle, she was out of practice, for Oddsbud’s wife had given her no time to sew. Carefully she cut the cloth, praying she would not make a mistake and ruin it all. Johnny Sears came around to admire her handiwork and stared at it round-eyed. She might consider herself out of practice and awkward, but to him Lorraine seemed astonishingly deft.
“You’re to tell no one what I’m doing, Johnny,” she cautioned the lad, waving her needle to emphasize her words. “I want it to be a surprise when I come out of the cabin wearing this dress.”
Johnny promised. He had formed a childlike attachment for Lorraine and would have done anything she asked of him without a murmur.
After her second day of straining her eyes in the cabin over her fine stitches, Raile ordered her summarily out on deck. “You need sun, lass,” he said bluntly. “And air. If we run into a squall, you’ll find yourself cooped up inside long enough!”
“But I want to finish this!” she protested.
But her captain was unyielding.
“After you’ve spent a while on deck, you can go back to it,” he told her, and held open the cabin door. “Unless you wish me to carry you out again?”
Lorraine rose to her feet with alacrity. She had no desire to repeat that performance!
Out on deck she realized it felt good to be standing in the sun flexing her cramped shoulders. It felt good to have the wind tangling her hair and cooling her cheeks and blowing her skirts about. It was a beautiful day. The Lass was sailing along beneath a sky of cloudless blue. There were men scrambling about aloft, a barefoot sailor was whistling off key as he swabbed the deck, and the wind sang its wild song through the rigging.
To Love a Rogue Page 12
