by Jane Goodger
“Jared,” he called over. He could see that his brother had turned toward his voice. “God speed, brother.”
There was only silence between the ships as West strained to hear a response. He let out a small sigh, bitter with the realization that they would part in such a bad way. He’d turned away when he heard Jared’s voice, spoken softly, as if he was almost too weary to speak.
“Tell her I’m sorry, will you?”
“I will.”
When West went below, Jared was still standing there in the moonlight. Alone.
Chapter SEVEN
Sara was already blushing and she had yet to broach the subject with Zachary. Physical relations between a man and a woman was not something a sister talked about with her brother. In fact, Sara had no idea who girls went to with such questions. Were all girls as completely ignorant as she? She had no choice. She was on a ship with all men and her brother was the only man aboard she could even begin to think of asking such things.
They stood by the railing in comfortable companionship when Sara blurted out in a whisper: “What makes a man want a woman?”
Zachary looked at his sister aghast, then let out a angry puff of air. “Has he tried something?”
“What?”
“The captain, Sara. I feared something like this would happen.”
“Something like what? What are you talking about, Zack?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “Captain Mitchell. He’s made advances toward you.”
Sara thought of the charity kiss but didn’t believe that could possibly qualify as an advance. “He hasn’t,” she said, and Zachary’s look intensified at the unintentional but obvious disappointment in her tone.
“Thank God. I knew he was a man of honor. But even the best of men can be tempted.” Zachary gave her a strange look. “What are you asking, Sara?”
Sara worked her lips between her teeth, giving her the appearance of a child unwilling to impart a secret. “It’s only something Mr. Mitchell said when his brother arrived. He said that his brother would not believe that he, that we, well, had not shared a bed.” This last was said on the merest of whispers. “And I suppose I was just wondering why?”
“Why what?” Zachary said with some hesitation.
“I suppose, why he hasn’t made even the suggestion of…sharing. A bed.” Sara looked to the sky, glad the wind was icy so it could cool her burning cheeks.
“Just be glad he hasn’t,” Zachary said gruffly.
“I should be glad, shouldn’t I?” Sara said doubtfully.
“Hells fire, Sara, of course you should be glad.”
Sara grew silent. A brother was clearly not the person she needed to talk to about such things. She’d never had girlfriends to gossip with, having little free time from running the house. And she’d never been close to a boy her age to even consider such things as sharing a bed.
Her thoughts were instantly disrupted by a shout from high in the mast. “There she blows. To the southeast. Three, no four, Captain.”
Suddenly, the ship exploded with activity. West drew out his spyglass and trained them to the southeast, nodding his head when he spied the whales.
“All right, lads. You know what to do.”
And they did. All the training they’d done during the voyage was paying off, for each man seemed to know precisely what to do. Sara moved to the bow of the ship, getting away from the activity as much as to see if she could spot the whales. Oh, there they were, great beasts moving in the water ahead of them.
“Look at ‘em, Mrs. Mitchell. Ain’t they beautiful?” It was one of the younger crewmembers, who no doubt felt badly to be left behind on ship.
“They’re huge,” she said with pure awe. Indeed, they were giants, lumbering through the waves with immense power. Not even the storms had frightened her as these whales did. Her silly stories of whales dashing against ships, of swallowing men whole, suddenly took on new meaning. Men were hurt whaling.
Men died.
A series of splashes told her some of the whaleboats filled with men had been lowered to the sea. She leaned over the railing and looked at the whaleboats that suddenly seemed terribly fragile, at the men who had seemed so hale and hearty but now seemed too young and too inexperienced to battle such behemoths. Mr. Mason had told her the whaleboats were built not for strength, but for speed, to slice silently through the water so the whales would not become frightened and dive into the sea’s depths. Tales of shattered boats, of whales’ huge flukes crashing down upon the helpless men, filled her head. Again, she found herself searching for West. Something was going to happen. She knew it.
Men died.
All at once it seemed the most important thing in the world was to say good-bye to him. To tell him to be careful. To somehow let him know that she, that she…
And then she was standing before him, just as he was about to step aboard the last whaleboat. Clearly his mind was on the whales, not on Sara, not on how she knew in her heart that something awful was about to happen.
Men died.
He was turned away from her, inspecting his crew, making certain in one quick look that all was prepared. She lay a hand on one arm, bunched and tensed muscle hard beneath her palm. He turned, at first irritated with the interruption, but his gaze instantly softened when he saw her. For a long moment, Sara stood there, wind whipping her dress, buffeting her face, making her eyes tear. Certainly it was the wind. She swallowed. Her mouth opened, her lips moved, but nothing came out, at least not the thing her heart cried for her to say.
“Be careful,” she finally whispered, something sharp pricking her heart.
He smiled, a sudden and heart-stopping change of expression. And then he bent his head and kissed her. Long and hard and devastatingly possessive. She curled her hands and gripped his coat to keep from dissolving onto the deck.
With one quick movement, he was on the boat, crying “Lower away.”
Sara staggered to the rail, her hand grasping it painfully, and watched the boat make its jerky way to the choppy sea below. He didn’t look back at her, his mind already on the hunt.
The four boats moved away from the ship, an officer at each stern, calling out to the men, urging them on. The long oars moved in unison, cutting almost silently into the sea, bending from the force of the men’s strokes. For Sara, the excitement of the hunt had evaporated, replaced by unfathomable dread that seemed to grow like a blossoming black cloud inside her. She wanted to call him back. She even stepped to the railing, opened her mouth, to call him back. She knew she was being foolish, knew that West had done what he was doing now a hundred times without mishap. She clenched her jaw tightly, refusing to shame herself—and him—with her fear.
It simply was that now that he was in that boat, on that unforgiving sea, he seemed so much more human, so much more fragile.
If anything should happen to him, she thought frantically, if anything should happen.
She raised her fists to her mouth and whispered harshly against them a fervent prayer, forgetting everything her brother had just told her. “Please God, watch over him. I love him so.”
With the officers all on the whaleboats and most of the crew as well, the ship was left in the hands of the cooper, blacksmith, carpenter, cook, and a handful of others—men Sara new only by their professions. Most of the sails had been reefed so the ship would not sail too far from the men hunting whale. By the time the sun went down, Sara could barely make out the whaleboats as they continued to chase the whale. Mr. Mason had told her there were times when the hunt was called off, when no whale was brought back to the ship despite hours of backbreaking rowing. To make things more maddening, whales would often dive beneath the surface and remain there for long minutes, only to reappear frustratingly far away—but not so far as to make another chase out of the question.
Sara’s fear seemed to ebb and swell as the hours passed. There were moments when she convinced herself that instead of the corpse of a whale, they would bring
back the corpse of the captain. She could almost visualize the scene, the men solemnly bringing his limp form aboard, could hear her scream of denial. And then sanity would return and she could convince herself that it was only her wild imaginings and not some dark premonition at work. Sara frantically reminded herself she had done the very same thing when Zachary left on his first whaling voyage. She had become so convinced he had died, she cried herself to sleep for a week.
Darkness, cold and the awful wait finally forced Sara to retreat to the stateroom. Placing her lamp on the wall hook, she was overcome by the desire to sleep in his bed, to snuggle beneath the same blankets that had warmed West not a few hours before. Her fingertips touched her lips and she closed her eyes, remembering that fierce kiss, so different than the one he’d given her before. She let herself think about it as she lay in his bed trying to get some sense of him. Turning her head into the pillow, she smelled nothing but bedding, and sighed. She hadn’t been near enough to him often enough to recognize whether he had a unique scent. To her, he always smelled freshly of the sea, of salt air and sun. The bed smelled only like a bed. It swung gently from gimbals attached to the ceiling, rocking her gently, its movement somniferous. Just before she dozed off, she told herself if was only fair that she get to share this bed. It was so very nice, so soft, even the creaking of the rope was hypnotic…
The door opened and Sara was instantly awake.
“Miss Dawes.” He was standing before her empty bunk, an oil lamp in his hand.
“I’m here.” Her eyes widened. Blood covered him. He stank of it and of something worse. “My God, what happened to you?”
He gave her an odd look, then blinked, and looked down at himself. “Oh. The whale. We got a whale.”
Sara’s hands flew to her face as relief swept through her. Despite her theatrics as he was leaving the ship, she found she did not want him to know just how glad she was that he was unharmed. She recovered quickly, bringing her hands down to find him staring at her.
“What are you doing in my bed?” His voice was hoarse, likely from yelling to his men all night.
A flush crept up from the neckline of her nightdress and spread with alarming heat to her cheeks. “Because I…,” wanted to be near you. She shrugged. “I wanted to be comfortable.” She couldn’t help it, she wrinkled her nose. The smell was awful, even if the sight of him unharmed was wonderful.
“I stink, I know.” He gave her a rakish smile that completely disarmed her. “You’ll have to get used to it.”
Sara smiled. He was talking as if they would be together for a long time. She would have to get used to the smell, to seeing blood on him. To being afraid for him.
“The hunt went well?”
“Got one whale, lost one boat.” At Sara’s concerned look, he quickly added, “No men were lost, just a lot of hayseeds scared enough to cry for their mothers. Just got one to tend to. Got cut on the head by the one of the lances that went flying.”
Sara looked at him, puzzled by his almost jovial attitude. He was covered with blood, stank to high heaven, lost a boat and had a man injured, and he was acting like a little boy who’d just gotten a shiny new red wagon. She’d never seen this side of him—he was almost acting as if he were happy. At that moment, something in Sara’s heart turned. That was it—she was seeing West Mitchell happy. Clearly it was not something he often felt, at least not in her presence.
Sara moved to the edge of the bed and kneeled, sitting on her calves, her night dressed bunched around her knees. “A big whale?” she asked, hoping that he’d start gushing again.
“I figure we’ll get more than one hundred barrels out of her,” West said, suddenly sounding distracted. His next question told her why. “Is that what you always wear to bed?”
Sara, even though she knew what she had on, looked down at herself, her simple white gown made of cheap material looked golden in the soft light of the lamp West still held in his hand. She was suddenly aware in a way she had never been before that she was a woman alone in a room with a man and she was hardly clothed. “Yes,” she said, nervously plucking at the thin cotton.
West nearly groaned. “You should wear something…warmer, perhaps.” Something thick and made of wool, something that won’t haunt me when I’m trying to sleep.
“I’m not cold,” she said, and West wanted to contradict her, wanted to point out that her nipples were clearly visible through the thin fabric. He swallowed. He stank, he was covered with blood, and he wanted at this moment nothing more than to climb on that bed and run his hands over her body. My God, she was glorious. He actually began to shake, something he noticed when the light from his lamp started to make the shadows in the room dance. He put the lamp on a nearby hook, forcing himself to turn away from her.
He had kissed her. He’d weakened earlier that day, unable to, in the excitement of the moment, resist pressing his lips against her impossibly soft ones. He told himself that kiss was for his men’s sake—for wouldn’t they expect a husband to kiss his new bride good-bye right before heading off to chase whale? In reality, that kiss had only been for him. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hold her against him and feel her arms wrap around his waist each time he left her. And so he had kissed her, putting all his frustration and need in that hard meeting of lips. It was not what he wanted. He wanted to tease her lips slowly, to nip and suck them, to graze them with his tongue. To open her mouth and taste her.
West turned fully away from her, his entire body taut, shaking from the need to pull her to him. He took a deep breath.
“I came down her to ask your assistance.” He barely recognized his voice. “The injured man needs tending and I thought you could help.”
“Of course.”
Without turning toward her, he walked to the door. “Get dressed and meet me in the aftercabin.” He sounded angry, impatient, and he couldn’t help it. He was angry and impatient. He wanted to forget he was engaged. He wanted to throttle Sara’s brother for making him take that ridiculous vow. It did seem ridiculous at that moment. The little scoundrel had probably known how beautiful his sister was, knew what a temptation she would be to him, and made him promise not to deflower her. No man could be expected to resist her, especially with her looking at him with those soft eyes of hers, smiling at him with those enticing lips, wearing almost nothing in front of him as if she hadn’t the slightly notion of what she was doing to him.
Ah, damn. She didn’t know, couldn’t know.
As the sharply cold air struck his face, West felt better. The men had already begun making preparations to boil down the blubber by rigging the platform to the side of the boat and getting the fire under the tryworks going. All he needed to do was get the young man tended to, and he could begin working beside the men.
“Mr. Mason, where is Walker?”
Oliver jerked his head to where the young man, the son of a freed slave, was sitting. West smiled. The kid was trying his best not to fall unconscious. It had been a hell of a blow and he’d lost some blood. He lifted him by his arms, noting he was well-muscled for a boy his age, and wrapped an arm about his waist.
“I can walk, sir.”
“Yes, I can see that,” West said dryly, looking down at the noodles the boy had for legs.
By the time West got him down to the aftercabin, the lad was slumped limply against him. It was only when he’d got him on the sofa and slapped his face lightly that West became more concerned. The boy did not respond. Hell, the cut didn’t bleed all that much, he thought, gazing at the wound. He would need perhaps six stitches. There was hardly a lump to speak of. He slapped harder. Nothing.
He felt Sara move up behind him. “He’s not responding.”
Sara looked at the boy, her eyes going to the small gash on his head. “Has he lost much blood?”’
“Not enough to make him faint. He was just speaking to me. Told me he could walk himself, fool boy.”
“I’ll clean him up the best I can.”
“He’ll ne
ed stitches. I would do it but I’m needed on deck. You will have to manage on your own. Can you?”
The thought of pulling a needle and thread through flesh horrified Sara, but she nodded. If he asked it of her, she could do it. “I can.”
Before leaving, West shook the boy again, hoping to see his eyes open, but he remained unconscious. When he’d gone, Sara went to work cleaning the wound. The bleeding had nearly stopped and it truly didn’t look like a too bad a cut. A few stitches and he would have only a small scar.
“I’m going to stitch you up now, Mr. Walker. I do hope I do not hurt you.” She threaded the needle with a shaking hand, and grimaced as she placed the needle against his flesh. She pushed through, letting out a small sound of anguish, her gaze going to his eyes to make certain he hadn’t awakened. He was still blessedly unconscious. She began sewing him up, realizing that sewing flesh was not much different than sewing soft leather. She made seven small stitches then sat back to admire her handiwork.
“You’ll not even have a scar to boast of, sir,” she said, smiling down at the boy. She wet a cloth and laid it upon his head, thinking he might have a headache. His breathing was regular, but shallow, and Sara grew more worried.
“Mr. Walker?” No response. “Mr. Walker?” Sara sat back, tears pressing against her eyes, as she realized this young boy might be dying. She wondered about his parents, whether they worried about him going off on a whaler.
An hour later, he breathed his last and Sara knelt and prayed for his soul. Then she got up wearily and made her way topside to tell West he’d lost one of his crew.
Sara nearly gagged at the smell that enveloped her as she reached the deck. West, watching intently, stood near the railing where the men were cutting away large chunks of blubber from a piece still attached to a large hook hanging above them.
A shout rose up and the men near the carcass backed away in a panic, slipping and sliding on the slick deck. A huge slab of whale fell away from the hooked portion, landing on the deck so heavily, Sara felt the wood beneath her feet vibrate. West turned on the man responsible, and though she could not make out his words, she knew he was fiercely reprimanding the man. His face was a mask of fury, and the guilty man looked like a dog about to be whipped. He was taking a pause in his scorching lecture when West saw her standing by the companionway.
