01 - Captured Dreams

by May McGoldrick

Portia stacked the folded blankets in a corner next to their trunk. “Please understand, Mother. Nothing has changed. I just do not wish to go where I am not wanted.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “What is ridiculous?”

  “You and Pennington. Each of you pines for the other, but neither of you takes a step to solve your problem.”

  “He does not pine for me.”

  “I say he does, and you should not argue with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you are my mo…” Helena shook her head. “I meant to say, because I am your mother.”

  Portia couldn’t help but giggle at the slip. “Then as your mother, I am ordering you not to lecture me on these complicated personal matters.”

  “I am your mother.” Helena smiled. “And you are stubborn—just as he says. And there really is nothing complicated about this, at all. Now I want you to put an end to this foolishness. Go and apologize to him so I can stop suffering like this.”

  “Suffering?” Portia crossed her arms and moved close enough that she knew Helena would be able to see her. “How could you possibly be suffering from something that relates only to Pennington and myself?”

  Helena reached out and took hold of Portia’s wrist. She pulled it until the younger woman sat next to her on the bunk. “Do you realize that every time I come back from walking with him, I have to listen to you sigh and moan for the next hour?”

  “I do not sigh and moan,” Portia cried.

  “Your mother is speaking. Do not interrupt,” Helena scolded lightly. “And Pennington is even worse. When we walk, he wants to know what you did that morning, or the night before, or with whom you conversed, or what book you were reading to the crew, or if the floor of the cabin is too hard on your back, or if you were warm enough when you…”

  “Helena Middleton, you are telling tales. I cannot believe you. You should be ashamed of yourself, making all of these things up.” She put an arm around her mother’s shoulders and hugged her hard, not giving her a chance to deny the accusation. “And I love you for what you think you are doing. But no…no…no. I apologized to him that first day. The way ‘twas left, he said he would send word when he had decided his feelings.”

  “So he is a little slow.” Helena touched Portia’s cheeks and looked into her eyes. “Do not blame him for being a man, my love. Three weeks has passed. He is probably just realizing he has feelings. He might need a nudge. Just a little one. If you do not want to apologize again, then I can understand that. But at least give him a little shake.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The skies looked clear ahead, and the winds were fair and steady. If the weather held, they might reach port as much as a week ahead of schedule.

  Joseph Cameron continued to explain their good progress, pointing out the route on his charts and talking of weather and crew and other things. Pierce, however, was having a difficult time staying focused on the words of the ship’s master. Restless, excited, even a little nervous, he was determined to put an end to the difficulties between Portia and himself. And he would do it today.

  The door of the captain’s quarters had been left open, and he heard Helena’s voice as soon as she reached the stern deck. Cameron gathered up his charts. Pierce went to greet his guests, but was disappointed at the sight of the young sailor helping the older woman down the steep flight of stairs.

  Pierce thought that he did a fairly good job of recovering from his disappointment and escorted Helena in. The older woman was quite cheerful, chatting openly, and obviously enjoying the company of the two men. Finally, when Pierce thought he could bear it no longer, Cameron asked the one question that mattered.

  “Will Miss Edwards be joining us later, ma’am?”

  “I do not believe so,” Helena replied pleasantly. “I think she is otherwise occupied.”

  “How so?” Pierce had to ask.

  “She thinks I know nothing about it. But after all her questions to the crew about knots and sails and rigging…and then borrowing some clothing from one of the sailors…I shouldn’t be surprised if she were up to some mischief this afternoon.”

  Pierce stared worriedly at the open door.

  “Miss Middleton and I will be perfectly happy to have a cup of tea without you, Pierce, if you would care to go and find Miss Edwards and see if you can coax her intos.”

  Pierce was out the door in a moment.

  She was nowhere to be seen on the ship’s waist, or on foredeck, either. He doubted that on such a beautiful day as this, she would be in the galley or anywhere below deck. Still he decided he would start with her cabin.

  Just as Pierce was going to go down the steps that led to steerage, he spotted the handful of rather anxious looking sailors gazing up at the ratlines leading to the top of the mainmast.

  *****

  Portia climbed slowly, all the while repeating Thomas’s advice again and again in her head. Do not look up or down. Just pay attention to your hand holds on the shrouds and feel the ratlines with your feet.

  She had not realized how much distance there was between each rope rung that led upward. Each time she stood on a ratline, she had to pull herself up to get her bare foot on the next one. And the pulling she had to do with her arms was more difficult than the work required of her legs, but she continued to move steadily upward nonetheless. She was glad to be barefoot, for with each successive move farther above the deck she needed to feel the hard rope ratlines with her feet. But her hands were already feeling chafed and tired, and she wasn’t up even a score of rungs.

  She was not about to give up, though. Not after all the begging she had done to have Thomas arrange this for her. It had taken her friend a great deal of talking to persuade the other sailors that it would not be unlucky for a woman to don a man’s clothes and try her hand going aloft into the rigging. Day in and day out, watching the sailors climbing up and down these ratlines, moving through the rigging, setting sails and reefing them and taking them down, Portia had become almost obsessed by the desire to know what it felt like to be that high in the air. And now she was doing it.

  She broke her resolve and looked down at the crew’s nervous faces below. She was perhaps as high up as she would be looking down from her third story window at the apothecary. Not much to be nervous about.

  Portia shifted her eyes and focused again on where her hands were reaching. She continued to climb. Thomas had made her promise only to climb up as high as the first trestletree. Reaching there, she glanced quickly at the upturned faces below again and then her gaze moved out past the gray and white sails to the calm seas beyond.

  The climb this far, though hard work, was uneventful. Knowing she would probably never have this chance again, Portia decided to climb up a few more rungs of the ratlines before returning to the deck below.

  There were some calls from the deck, but the breeze blowing, and she couldn’t make out if the shouts were intended for her or not. She didn’t really want to know and she continued upward. Another dozen steps up, Portia stole another glance at the sea. It was so large and flat. It was an endless field of blue-green grain, with flowers of white. It seemed to go on endlessly. Holding tight to one of the stays, she was enjoying the scenery when suddenly the ship dipped and everything around her twisted and tilted down.

  Portia felt her stomach climb into her throat. Her heart pounded in her chest, and then, unaccountably, one of her hands lost its grip as the mast swung her outward. Her body was bending outward, she rd wght for a moment that the momentum would tear her from the rigging and cast her into the sea.

  As she clung to the ratlines with one hand, she felt her toes trying to grip the rungs. Every muscle in her body suddenly ached, and her head started to spin. Then, when she thought she could hold on no longer, the ship righted itself, and she found herself pressed into the ropes.

  Portia hung on, trying to catch her breath and steady her nerves. She knew she had to go down while she still had the strength, but she could not get her
feet to move or make her cramping hands release their death grip on the stays.

  “This is no place to rest. Shall we go up and see more, or are you ready to go down?”

  She hadn’t see him come, but there he was on a spar, just a few feet from her. Portia felt like crying and laughing at the same time. She had never been so happy to see Pierce as she was at this moment.

  “I think this is as high as I should like to go.”

  His expression told her that he was relieved. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. The muscled forearm reached out toward her.

  “Give me your hand on that, will you, mate?”

  Without even thinking, she reached out, and Pierce’s fingers took her hand in his iron grip. Then, with a smile, he released it and nimbly swung himself out onto the ratline. In a moment he was just below her.

  “Could you climb down on your own?”

  Portia nodded. Sliding her hands down the shrouds, reaching into space until her foot touched the next ratline, she descended. She could feel Pierce moving down just below her, talking to her the entire way. He was so close that at times she could feel the brush of her feet against his hands. So close that she had no doubt he would catch her if she were to fall.

  It seemed like eternity before Portia edged herself by the lowest of the mainsails.

  As she emerged beneath it, she was shocked to hear a loud cheer from the deck. She hadn’t realized that the entire crew had gathered to watch.

  Portia saw Pierce climb down from the railing, and she was touched when he made no move to help her, but waited patiently until she dropped down by herself to the solid wood deck.

  The second round of cheers was deafening.

  *****

  Pierce controlled his emotions, backing away as the men gathered on the deck cheered her and teased her and even offered her a place in the crew. Pierce kept his distance while the wobble disappeared from her legs and the color and a smile returned to her face. He did not approach her as she untied the ribbon and shook her hair loose in the breeze. He even waited until after the crew dispersed, some returning to their duties, some forming an escort to take Portia back to her cabin.

  He waited as long as he could, and then he descended to steerage and knocked on her cabin door.

  Portia opened it as if she were expecting him.

  The moment he saw her, all his control immediately dissipated into thin air and his emotions burst forth. “You will never—”

  “I shall never…” she repeated, pulling him into the cabin and closing the door. “I shall never again do anything so foolish as climbing those ratlines alone.”

  Then, before he could say anything, she was in his arms and placing soft kisses on his face.

  “Pierce, I have never been as afraid as I was at that moment. And then you were there. You knew I needed you. As you always do, you were there to help me.”

  “As I always do, I would like to strangle you.”

  But he kissed her instead, pouring the frustration of three weeks into the act of gathering Portia against him and devouring her lips. She was just as he remembered her. Passionate, beautiful, intoxicating.

  She held him tight, her mouth responding with demands of her own. Her lips parted, and she gave as much as she took. She needed him as much as he needed her.

  “My God, I have missed you.”

  She leaned her back against the door. “Does this mean that you have decided what to do with me? Have you decided to forgive me?”

  “How could I not?”

  He threaded his fingers into her wild curly hair. He looked into her beautiful eyes and recalled how his heart had ceased beating when he’d seen her climbing up the mainmast rigging. The fear that she could fall to her death at any moment was numbing. And then he’d moved faster than he’d ever moved before.

  “You are a sorceress. You’ve cast your spell on me, and I have no choice but to dance to your wishes.”

  Pierce kissed her again, this time slowly, deeply. He tried to enmesh her in that spell with him and make her desire that intimacy that they’d shared once before. He caressed her throat, slid his fingers downward and cupped her breast through the thick, rough fabric of the shirt.

  “I never imagined I’d find myself kissing a sailor,” he whispered.

  As he brushed his lips against the sensitive skin of her throat and then beneath her ear, Portia leaned her head back against the door and closed her eyes. She tasted of the wind and the sea. His thumb rubbed gently across her nipple until he could feel it harden and extend.

  “Are you wearing anything under this shirt?”

  She shook her head. He groaned, and the sound of his head thumping against the door made her smile.

  “Then we had better get out of this room before I forget all my good intentions,” he growled. Pierce ran his hands once more down her body before reluctantly pushing away. “Will you change and join us in the captain’s quarters? Your mother has been waiting there for what must be forever.”

  “But I believe I like the effect my new outfit has on you,” she teased. “Perhaps I should wear this for what is left of this journey.”

  Pierce pressed his hips intimately against hers to make her realize what she was doing to him. “You come to my cabin tonight wearing this, or anything else for that matter, and I promise the effect…and the consequence…shall be the same. I shall rip them off9"> “Arody in matter of seconds.”

  “Seconds?”

  “Are you issuing a challenge, you minx?”

  “No, I just cannot wait for tonight.” She ducked under his arm quickly and reached around him to open the door.

  Pierce wanted to stay. He wanted to lock them both in his quarters for at least a week. It was not only his body that hungered for her, he found his mind was also starved for her company. He didn’t know how it happened or when, but she mattered to him now…a great deal.

  Portia hugged him one last time and pushed him toward the door. “You need to go so that I can follow you.”

  He opened the door and stepped into the narrow passageway, then remembered something that had been lingering in the back of his mind.

  “What did you mean when you said you should not have climbed those ropes alone? Alone? Does that mean you are going to do it again?”

  “Not without you,” she whispered, closing the door to his face.

  *****

  The captain’s quarters, spacious and well-furnished, was quite a handsome place, in a masculine way. The walls were paneled and covered with several French tapestries. A high bed was built into the port side, and a desk with a number of charts and books stood beneath a large oil lamp. There was a table and chairs where their tea was served and later, their supper. But as the afternoon slid easily into evening, Joseph Cameron excused himself and went to see to the watch change and other matters of the ship. It was then that Helena moved to the comfortable sofa that had been placed near the stern, facing the built-in seat beneath the windows that framed a view of a golden sunset.

  Portia had stopped worrying about wearing out their welcome hours ago, when Pierce had whispered to her that this was the least he expected of her as a means of apology. She had a great deal to make up for the time they had been apart.

  In fact, when Helena offered to tell them about the years that she had spent in her father’s house, Portia thought that he was as eager as she was to hear the account. And she didn’t mind, at all, that he should know. She wanted him to know everything, and Portia loved the feel of this newfound openness.

  She was amused to have him escort her toward the window seat rather than the place beside her mother. With an air of nonchalance, he then sat next to her. From the sly smile on Helena’s face, Portia knew her mother understood what was happening.

  “Despite what you may have heard,” the older woman began, “I was not always kept in seclusion and under the influence of those horrid medicines. That is only since coming to Boston. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start from th
e beginning.”

  The sun was still warm on Portia’s back, and her mother’s face glowed in the golden light. She paused, gathering her thoughts, before continuing.

  “I was just a dreamy-eyed girl when my first romance left me expecting a child. I was stunned, of course, but I was not sorry. Naturally, my attitude as well as my affair shocked the Admiral. He was always a stern, self-centered man. He had great responsibilities that he carried out for his country, and he would not allow this scandal to damage his career. Once I knew I was with child, a situation which my family feared since they discovered my affair with your father, they decided that I must be separated from society. Of course, they were correct. Such a scandal would have been devastating to the Admiral’s ambitions. Realizing that there was no longer any possibility of your father and me having a future together, I became passive, allowing them to do whatever they desired.”

  A knock on the door interrupted her, and Thomas entered to light the lantern in the cabin. After asking if they’d care for anything else, he retired.

  Portia wished she could stop her mother now and ask about the man who had fathered her. But she knew that was only one link of a long chain that comprised Helena’s life. Perhaps now that her mother was opening up to them about the past, it would only be a matter of time before that link would reveal itself.

  “My mother, Elizabeth Middleton, was still alive then. And as tragic as my life might seem to you now, it could have been a great deal worse if she had not been there to protect both me and you. She brought me immediately back to England.” Helena’s gaze moved in the direction of Portia. “Although I was told that I lost you right after birth, I believe ‘twas because of my mother that you were taken to Lady Primrose and not given to some gypsy or left by the side of some country lane…as the Admiral would certainly have done had he not still been in France on the King’s business.”

  Pierce’s hand reached over and took Portia’s in his own. She entwined their fingers, relieved that there had never been an opportunity for her to formally meet her grandfather. She didn’t think she could have ever understood a man like that.