Daring Lords and Ladies

by Emily Murdoch

  “Good morning, Captain,” she said with an impish smile, as if an hour ago she hadn’t made this the best morning of his life.

  “Good morning, Miss Barclay. You seem remarkably well rested after your brush with a beast of a hurricane.” He saw her brows twitch at his use of the word “beast.”

  “Well, I had quite a good night’s sleep. I woke up feeling positively…energetic.”

  Ford bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. He knew his crew was already buzzing with speculation about who Jo was to him. No need to give them further food for gossip. Besides, he was quite enjoying their exchange of innuendos.

  “It wasn’t too bumpy for you, then?”

  Her eyes widened and he imagined she was struggling to keep from laughing as well. “No, indeed. The bed was delightful. A near-perfect fit,” she finished meaningfully.

  “Yes, well I’m sure we will be able to improve the fit once we have settled our route and the seas are calmer.”

  She pondered that for a moment before leaning closer and whispering, “By ‘seas,’ do you mean my situation?”

  At that he could not contain himself. He burst out laughing, ignoring the raised eyebrows and knowing looks of his crew.

  “I do indeed. I apologize for my obfuscation. There is only so far one may stretch a ship as an innuendo for more personal endeavors.”

  She giggled. “And isn’t ‘personal endeavors’ simply another euphemism?”

  “Yes and no,” he said with a smile. “It may be a euphemism for our, ah, interaction this morning, but it is also a direct reference to what we seek to attain.” He stared at her meaningfully, willing her to understand his implication. She glanced to the side and he saw her brow furrow. He wondered if he should explain further when she saw her start.

  “Mr. Jorge! I say, Mr. Jorge!” she called as she quickly climbed down from the quarterdeck and crossed to his crewmember who was gathering a torn sail out of the rigging. Ford locked the wheel and followed her.

  “I told you that you mustn’t use that arm for at least a week!”

  Ford had known Jorge for more than three years and had never once seen the man look abashed until now.

  “Si, mi señorita, but I must work. These sails will not lower themselves.”

  Confused, Ford asked, “What happened?”

  “Mr. Jorge dislocated his shoulder during the storm. When he was struck by the yardarm. Do you remember?” She turned to look at him and Ford nodded. “I was barely able to move it back in place. But the muscles of his shoulder were surely strained. He must allow them to heal or he may do further damage.

  “Does your arm hurt, Jorge?”

  “It is just a little stiff, Cap’n. Nothing an extra ration of rum won’t cure.”

  Ford looked at Jo. “He’s fine.”

  “But—”

  “What the devil happened to you, Nelson?” Ford demanded as his gaze was caught by movement across the deck. He quickly crossed the distance where another man was removing a dirty bandage from his forehead to reveal a crudely stitched wound.

  “Milady fixed me right up, Cap. Couldna see fer the blood pouring in my eyes, but she,” this, with a nod and smile to Jo, “Stitched me closed. And wiv a far softer touch than that saw bones we left behind.”

  Ford turned an incredulous gaze on Josephine. “I had no idea you were a healer.”

  “I assure you I’m not!” she protested, looking with slight revulsion at Nelson’s inflamed wound. “I just—well, it appeared your usual ship’s surgeon was, ah—”

  “Stinking drunk,” Ford supplied.

  “Indisposed,” she corrected. “When you left St. Kitts early. It seemed the least I could do.”

  “But you’ve stitched a wound before?”

  “Lord, no!” she exclaimed. “Other than applying a few plasters to the cuts I--I mean that my brother encountered growing up” she said. He wondered if she’d intended to confess to injuries after a bout with Thomas Kent. “My only real knowledge was of resetting a dislocated shoulder. Theo was constantly pulling his out of the socket when we were children and I learned from repeatedly watching the doctor put it back in place. I’m afraid everyone else I treated was subjected to my very ignorant treatment.”

  “Don’t believe her, Cap’n. She’s a merciful angel,” Nelson said.

  “Good mornin’ milady,” said another crewmember as he walked by, tugging at his forelock.

  Ford frowned in disbelief at the outright courtly manners of his normally crude crewmembers.

  He cleared his throat and Jo looked at him. “It would seem you’ve won yourself some admirers. How many men did you treat during our foray with a hurricane?”

  “Mr. Jorge was the only one during the worst of it. The storm seemed much less intense after he left the surgery. But as to your question, I’m—well, I’m not quite certain. It was all so nerve-wracking, you see, and by the time I was done, I was so exhausted, I simply fell into bed.”

  Where you awoke next to me, Ford thought. He could see when the same thought occurred to her for she bit her lower lip even as a smile curved her mouth.

  Ask her, an inner voice whispered in his heart. Ask her if she cares for you like you care for her.

  Ford stared into her beautiful smiling face and felt his stomach clench with something like fear.

  “I need to get back to work,” he said abruptly.

  “Oh. Of course.” She was clearly confused but gave him a smile as he turned to stomp to the prow to investigate the storm’s damage there.

  No, he would not ask her now. There were too many obstacles just yet. They’d been blown a little off course by the edge of the hurricane and he needed to readjust their route. Then too, there was Appleton’s sugar to see to and merchandise to acquire once they reached Havana.

  He spent a great deal of time inspecting the foremast for damage. He knew Odysseus had already done so, knew the mast was intact, but he pretended absorption with the task. Staring at the weathered wood of the mast, he saw his deepest fears about a relationship with Josephine in the cracks and grains. He would not ask Jo to commit to any type of relationship until her name was cleared and she could choose him freely. While she was dependent on him for her safety, perhaps her very life, he would not put her in a position of feeling compelled to accept his proposal.

  “You can love anyone, do you set your mind to it, son.” That’s what his mother had said when he’d asked her if she’d wanted to be his father’s wife. He’d been ten or eleven and had overheard two of the housemaids discussing his parents, speculating that his mother might not have chosen his older father if she’d been a free woman before Ford was born.

  “Yes, but did you love papa from the start?”

  “Why so many questions, son?”

  Ford told her about overhearing the maids.

  “Your father is a good man. He courted me properly, brought me tins of sweets, walked with me and treated me like a lady.”

  “But you were his property” young Ford had protested. “You had to walk with him.”

  “He’d not have forced me,” his mother insisted.

  He remembered that she had called for a tray of biscuits then and ten-year-old Ford, always hungry, had been easily distracted from the thorny question about his parents relationship.

  Looking back, he believed that his mother had loved his father, but whether that was because his father had won her heart or she’d simply decided to create love out of an otherwise difficult situation, he would never know.

  And that was why he’d not enter into any marriage unless he was certain his wife had accepted solely because she loved him and wanted to marry him.

  Hard as it would be, it would be best if he avoided her altogether until her legal issues were settled. With luck, Pallet would meet them shortly after their arrival with good news on the situation. In the meantime, he would endeavor to stay busy. And far away from Josephine.

  Though he suspected Jo had not made the
same resolution, she also seemed to be keeping herself busy. He spied her sitting at the base of the mainmast with Bodega, stitching sails.

  “Odysseus! Are Bodega’s fingers broken?” he snapped.

  “Eh?” The first mate glanced midship. “No captain. It is only that my lady insisted on helping. She said sewing was the one sailor’s skill she had.”

  “Well Bodega needn’t look so happy about the assistance,” Ford said grumpily.

  The Russian glanced at him knowingly, the tiniest smile on his face. To anyone who didn’t know the man, he would have seemed to be wearing his perpetual scowl. Ford, however, saw the slight relaxing of the man’s normally down-turned mouth as the mocking smile it was.

  He pointedly turned away and concentrated on making tiny and unnecessary corrections to the wheel.

  The rest of his day and well into the night was taken up with equally pointless tasks. His crew was experienced and good at their jobs. They had no need of his supervision or advice. Nonetheless, they respected him enough to welcome his interference instead of chafe at it.

  Finally at the end of the first watch—having given the man assigned it the night off—Ford stumbled below deck, clumsy with fatigue. He studiously ignored the door to his cabin and purposefully continued into the saloon where his pallet had been made up on the floor. Despite his weariness, it took him nearly an hour to fall asleep.

  He awoke some time later to the soft press of a feminine body against his side. Without thought he rolled to his side, drawing her flush against him, running his hand from rounded buttock to the gentle curve of lower back.

  A trim leg hooked itself over his hip and he felt heat seep through his small clothes. He instantly pressed closer even as he fully awoke. With a gasp, he rolled away from Josephine.

  “What are you doing?” he rasped.

  “You didn’t join me in your cabin. I thought—”

  “I was tired. I worked all day and took the first watch,” he said, hating the thinness of his excuse.

  “Oh. Of course,” she said, sitting up.

  “And…I think it’s best we not, ah, indulge in anything until we know your status.”

  “My status?” She looked over her shoulder at him, her brow crinkled in confusion. “What has that to do with anything?”

  He scrambled to his feet to keep from reaching for her, hating the hurt look in her eyes. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. I don’t want to put you in a difficult position. If you were to become pregnant while this legal matter is still hanging over you—”

  Her gaze shuttered and she quickly stood, ignoring the offer of his hand. “I understand,” she muttered.

  “I don’t think you do,” he said quickly, sensing that he’d hurt her. “I’m trying to protect you from—”

  “My own foolishness?” she asked bitterly.

  “No!” Ford realized he’d made a serious misstep, but as he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d said wrong, he didn’t know what to say to fix it. He scrambled to his feet, conscious that other parts of him were not so reluctant to indulge in love play. He twitched the folds of his smallclothes to disguise it.

  “I don’t want you to feel, well, obligated. Because I’ve helped you,” he clarified weakly. She gaped at him as if he were speaking in tongues. “When your situation is settled and you—” He broke off as she turned on her heel.

  “Josephine,” he called as she reached the door.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The hurt in her eyes very nearly brought him to his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You’ve nothing to be—” but the slam of the door cut him off.

  “Damnit!” he swore, scrubbing his head in frustration.

  “When you do find a girl to love, son, don’t hesitate to tell her how you feel.” Ford remembered the advice his father had given him when he realized he would soon die. “Many a love story has died in its infancy because someone held his tongue. Where would my life be if I hadn’t told your mother how I felt?”

  Unfortunately, Ford had just as many memories of his mother instructing him not to tell his father that she didn’t feel well, or that she’d spent the household allowance to help a slave escape the island, or that she was teaching him the few words of her grandmother’s native language she remembered.

  He could also recall genuine affection between his parents, but he could not help but wonder if his mother would have chosen differently if she’d been free. Ultimately, it was that question that kept him from exposing his heart to Josephine. Until they knew that she was cleared of any legal charges, that she was not dependent on him for her safety, for her liberty, he would not speak.

  His only fear now was that in waiting until she could choose him freely, he might very well push her away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two castles flanked the entrance to Havana’s harbor: square stone sentinels guarding the narrow channel.

  “To the left, that is el Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro,” Jorge said, coming to stand next to her. The castle boasted a lighthouse and its wide stone façade was golden in the setting sun.

  “And that one?” Josephine asked, pointing to the other. In spite of still feeling embarrassed and hurt by her recent interaction with Ford, Jo was excited to visit the city.

  “Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta,” Jorge answered.

  Josephine repeated both names and Jorge corrected her pronunciation until she had it.

  “Muy bien,” he said. “Now you must help el capitán. His Spanish accent is muy mal!”

  At mention of Ford, Jo’s smile faded. Though she pretended fascination with the two fortresses, she could feel Jorge’s intense scrutiny.

  “You and el capitán have had a quarrel.”

  “What? Of course not! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “An, mi señorita, it is too clear. El capitán esta de mal humor. For a man who is normally tranquilo, there must be something wrong. The ship, she escape the storm with very little damage and no men were lost to the sea. What then, I ask myself, could cause a man to look like he has eaten a maggot? The only answer must be una mujer. So I pay attention and I see you two do not speak. There is no more with the—how you say in English? Ojos de vaca?”

  “Ojos de—cow eyes? Oh, you mean, calf eyes.”

  “Si. Why this is a phrase? Do cows in Inglaterra fall in love?”

  “No, it’s—” Jo stopped herself. Rather than explain a colloquial expression that would only bring the conversation back to how she and Ford were not looking at one another, she took a different tack altogether.

  “Mr. Jorge, did I not tell you you musn’t exert your injured shoulder? Where is your sling?”

  Instantly distracted, Jorge fumbled to avoid her nagging. “Mi señorita, you heal me so well, my shoulder, it stop hurting right away. Ah!” he said, looking over her head. “I see Mr. Odysseus has need of me.” With a short bow, Jorge ran off. Jo didn’t bother looking to see whether or not that was true. She was as glad not to talk about what was wrong between she and Ford as Jorge was to avoid her lecture about his injured arm.

  She turned back to the view. The Nightingale was passing into a rather narrow channel, the two sentry castles behind them.

  Against her will, her mind replayed for the hundredth time that last scene with Ford, on the floor of the saloon. He’d seemed to enjoy their…bed play (how did one refer to such interactions? she wondered). Why then had he pushed her away? His body had reacted to her inexperienced touch, his belly muscles rippling beneath her questing fingers, his chest muscles--and other things--hardening with tension.

  The memory of that morning rippled through Josephine’s body with a tingle of remembered pleasure. A flush of warmth that had nothing to do with the blazing sun settled low in her belly and without conscious thought, she looked over her shoulder, her gaze going directly to Ford, though she’d not been aware of him coming up on deck.

  She studied the strong, hands
ome lines of his face, the broad expanse of shoulder tapering to a trim waist and long legs.

  The heat in her belly settled lower as she remembered exactly what those shoulders, waist, and legs looked like without clothes. Other parts as well…She bit her lower lip and forced her gaze back to the widening harbor.

  Such thoughts were a distraction from the worrisome issue of why Ford’s feelings had seemed to do an about-face.

  Jo pressed her fingertips to her temples and let out a low growl. She did not understand men, and reminded herself that her judgment on all men-related issues was clearly flawed. She had thought—well, it mattered not what she thought. In the past year she had become a much stronger woman. She surely didn't need a man in her life!

  She took a deep breath and straightened her spin. Perhaps St. Kitts was not to be her final stop after all. Perhaps she would find Havana more to her liking. She could find employment. At what, she wasn’t sure., but she was not afraid to work. Perhaps she could seek employment as a seamstress?

  She could change her name again, perhaps cut her hair. Monsieur Pallet seemed to know people throughout the West Indies. Perhaps he could introduce her to a family with children in need of a governess or even a nanny. She’d no experience with children, but she rather thought she would like them.

  Of its own accord, her hand dropped to her belly. She had always wanted children, had thought that might have made life more bearable when she was married to Kent, although perhaps it was best. He would no doubt have been as harsh a father as he was husband and she could not have borne watching him strike a child.

  Having a child with Ford had not crossed her mind until that morning he had taken measures to ensure it did not happen. Then the idea had nagged at her heart, making her ache with yearning for a non-existent baby. Tears filled her eyes and Jo turned abruptly to flee to her cabin. She slammed into a brick wall that turned out to be Ford. He caught her arms as she stumbled. As soon as she was stable, she stepped away from him lest she throw her arms around him and beg him to love her.