Pirate's Rose

by Janet Lynnford

  Kit ate on deck, all the while looking for Rozalinde to emerge from the captain's cabin and feeling irritated that she did not. The events of last night troubled him with obstinate persistence—chased by this morning's painful dream. Gulping a bowl of hot porridge, he looked out over the calm waters and reviewed that ghostly memory. Where had it hidden, buried in his brain for all these years beyond conscious thought? It was so painful, he could hardly bear to think of it. Yet it had nestled there patiently, waiting to be rediscovered. The talk with Phillipe last night had trig­gered it in his mind, and his encounter with Rozalinde had released both the good dream and the nightmare from his heart.

  He flinched at the thought of the first dream. It was a false one, because never again could he give his heart freely to a woman, as he had to his mother. Never. It invited agony. How he had trusted her, adored her. But overnight she disappeared from his life. As easily as if she were an object, with no will of her own.

  Far away at Oxford, he'd cried himself to sleep at night, hating his father, hating her, too ...

  The suffering reclaimed him as he remembered his fa­ther's words—from the time he was old enough to under­stand them: You have an excess of passion, Christopher Howard. I shall teach you to curb it.

  Over and over his father punished him, to drive that excess of passion from his body. For shirking his lessons, Kit was locked in his room; for riding without permission or riding too far from the castle, bread and water for a day. When Kit grew older, he discovered wenching. Nightly he sought the tenderness of a woman's arms. Somehow his father always knew—he brought out the hated cane. Kit limped for days after those beatings, unable to sit, unable to lie on his back.

  By the time she was allowed to remain at West Lulworth when he did, his mother was more shade than woman, flitting, about her duties. He remembered little about her from that period of his life, his adolescence. Finally, he had escaped.

  The thought of freedom brought renewed images of Rozalinde to him, the vision of her sweet face caught in the excruciating pleasure of release. He had given her that freedom, that release from her bondage. And he had taken nothing for himself. He had curbed his passion, proved he could do it while arousing hers.

  Kit smashed his fist against the rail where he stood, staring blindly out to sea. His father was wrong. He could control his passion if he wished. But most of his life he didn't. He'd spent it recklessly and deliberately, every night with a different woman. One after another, always seeking the new challenge, following their beckoning fingers, and still the ache in his body refused to forsake him. Kit leaned against the rail and let his eyes wander over the water. Now it had been a year since he'd had a woman. An entire year. Even when this bewitching siren of a maid acme within his reach—a woman he would gladly bed—he curbed his passion. He granted her the ecstasy instead. Just thinking about Rozalinde awakened a flash of lust deep inside. Once again he scanned the deck, cursing her slowness in rising. He needed to see her, to study the look in her eye. When he'd set out to rescue her in West Lul­worth, he'd meant to abduct her himself, to learn exactly how she felt—whether she loved him or no.

  Damn and damn again. He struck all thoughts of her viciously from his mind. The others who had loved him, who had said they did, had been a nuisance. Trouble of the worst sort, hanging on him, dependent, demanding things he did not want to give. The last thing he should do was make some maid love him, since he didn't care a farthing for her.

  Groaning inwardly, he returned to the helm, cast his empty bowl in with the other dirty ones and headed for the main mast. Lithely he scaled the ratlines to the lookout, where the man on duty stopped whistling and came to at­tention, snatching off his cap. Kit nodded to him briefly and turned away. Looking out over the lonely waves, he tried to recapture his solitude, to determine where they were.

  Not a shred of land was in sight. The sky, so dark and tumultuous last night, was a clear, innocent blue this morning. The sun shone brilliantly. What clouds there were rode high. The water lapped the ship tamely, as if asking pardon. It never meant to betray them, as it had last night.

  Last night. Other thoughts emerged. Rozalinde, always Rozalinde. Kit ran his fingers through his hair, wanting to avoid those thoughts, concentrating instead on his appearance, removing the tangles and bringing his hair into some kind of order. He would need a comb later, and he would like to wash ... and damn. Here he was improving his appearance for her. He gave up trying to forget her. Down below, he spotted Phillipe and clambered down to take a turn with him around the deck.

  "I have no navigator, you know. I lost him last week to ship fever," Kit began, inclining his head toward the man who hovered at the helm, holding an astrolabe by a rope threaded through its suspension ring. The fellow was trying to line up the sighting vanes so the sun shown along them properly.

  Several men busily swabbed the deck nearby. Phillipe turned and led Kit away, farther down to the quarterdeck where they would not be overheard.

  "Hadn't replaced him when we got caught in that storm,' Kit went on. "Damnable thing to happen."

  Phillipe offered his condolences. "If you're worried about the calculations, I'll do them, though I suppose you can yourself."

  "Aye, but I'd appreciate your consultation. In the meantime, I am letting Wrightman try his hand with the astrolabe. He knows only the rudiments, but I promised to let him have a go at it."

  They both stopped. Rozalinde stood at the port bow, arrayed in her dry kirtle and wrapped in Kit's cloak. Her hair hung in two long plaits down her back and the freshen­ing breeze stirred little tendrils of hair around her face. She looked very young, leaning against the rail, staring out to sea. Kit left Phillipe without a word and went to her.

  "Good morrow, my Rozalinde." He barely restrained his hand from seeking her hair. "Good morrow. And I am not yours."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No." She sent him a brief, scathing glance over her shoulder. "But do not jump to conclusions. I never act on things if I am unsure."

  Kit sighed deeply and stepped closer. Still, he did not touch her. He stood at her shoulder and looked out over the water, so near he knew his breath warmed the back of her head. He could see her shoulders move slightly with each breath she took. Her back remained stubbornly toward him.

  "You make the logical choice, as usual." Kit picked up one of her plaits and tickled his palm with its brushlike end. "I suppose you wish to belong to no one."

  She twisted her head to confront him. "That's the first true thing you've said since this voyage began."

  He thought of his mother—her beauty shining from across the room. Everything she stood for, forbidden by his father—love, tenderness, given in proper mixture with passion. Wanting them desperately, he breathed out evenly, drew in breath deeply, steadying himself. "I might say others like it if you would but give me a chance."

  "Such as, my lord?" Her eyes, as always, challenged him. He raised his hands in exasperation, dropping her plait. "A truce between us, Rozalinde. Let us have no more quarrels. We have worked out our differences—"

  "Only with regard to my ship and sailing to Antwerp, my lord."

  He sent her a reproachful look. "I did ask you to call me Kit."

  Her gaze shifted uneasily away from him, ranging back over the sea. "Where are we ... Kit?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't!" She swung back to face him. "Hasn't the pilot been taking the readings? Hasn't he been doing his calculations? He must have some idea."

  Kit was tempted to take a step backward to escape her protests. "These things take time, Rozalinde."

  Roz sniffed as if she did not believe him and twitched the cloak straight on her shoulders.

  He offered his arm. "You should break your fast. Allow me to escort you."

  Rozalinde took it stiffly. "Very well. But let me be clear about one thing. I would have you remember that I am presently at your mercy."

  "Are you? I had the impression you were never at anyone's
mercy."

  "That is not what I mean. I am presently dependent upon your hospitality. I expect you not to take advantage of that fact, sir. You have already gone too far."

  He walked her to the helm where hot porridge awaited, valiantly suppressing a smile. "I promise to try."

  But, he added to himself, he would probably, unfortunately, fail.

  "When Kit joined Phillipe a short while later, Wrightman busied himself over the chart book, a stub of pencil in hand.

  "Is he any closer to a reading?" Kit said in a low voice to Phillipe, avoiding catching his seaman's eye.

  Phillipe shook his head furtively. "I think you'd best ... Good morrow, Mistress Cavandish." He rallied gallantly as Rozalinde came down the deck to join them. "Have you dined?"

  "You might call it that, Phillipe."

  Kit was surprised to see her expression change. She smiled brilliantly as she came abreast to Phillipe and looked up into his eyes. Kit's blood roiled with irritation at the intimate glance they exchanged. Some understanding ap­peared to exist between them, and he did not know what it was.

  He turned his back on their idle chatter. He could hear Rozalinde quiz Phillipe on the weather, their location, ev­erything to do with shipping.

  The men who passed up and down the decks about their business stole glances at her, clearly discomfited by a woman on board. He knew them well enough to realize there'd been grumblings. He'd heard last night as he went to sleep on the gunner's deck. The Swiftsure was no plea­sure ship, and his crew was not accustomed to carrying lady passengers.

  Kit watched through half-veiled eyes, three men swab­bing the deck nearby. Whenever one of them turned to Plunge his mop into the bucket, he would throw a black look in Rozalinde's direction. She had left Phillipe by now and strolled over to where Wrightman struggled with his calculations. Kit regretted the absence of Courte Philips at the helm with him—he'd left him behind on The Raven. Now the man steering cast a gloomy gaze at Rozalinde. It did not bode well. Determinedly Kit turned his back on them and mentally began his plans.

  'That is incorrect." A voice pierced his reverie. "You are determining direction entirely wrong. It should be thus."

  He whirled to see Rozalinde step up to Wrightman and snatch something from his hand.

  He knew it was a compass box. Taking the painted box in hand, she set it to float in the large basin of water standing on the navigator's table.

  "There." Wrightman pointed his stocky finger, indicating the pointer affixed to the lid. "Tis north."

  Rozalinde shook her head vigorously, without a word to break her concentration. Taking the lodestone in one hand, she raised the basin and passed the stone carefully under­neath. "This will correct your bearing, from the celestial pole to the magnetic pole."

  Wrightman stared at her. The men swabbing the deck stopped their work. Other members of the crew drew near, their expressions disapproving.

  "Now your needle will read accurately." Rozalinde put down the basin and handed back the lodestone. "This would never happen if you had a Flemish compass."

  "There is nothing wrong with my compass," began Wrightman.

  "It's prettily executed but inaccurate. Haven't you wondered why it was always just a little off the meridian?" Rozalinde peered down at his paperwork. "You've ruined all your reckonings without the correction. They'll have to be done again."

  "Now see here." Wrightman's ire flared and he glanced around at his fellow crewmen for support. "I don't need no woman to tell me my job. I—"

  Kit took that moment to stride deliberately into the crowd. "What is this all about?" His voice was curt.

  "This fellow," Roz spoke up promptly, "is taking a reading. But he does it all wrong. I am trying to show him the correct way, but he won't listen." She glared at the seaman who pulled his forelock and looked stubbornly at the deck.

  "How should it be done?" Kit asked.

  "You know well enough how it should be done." Rozalinde caught up the lodestone again. "First you float the compass box in the basin and let the needle stabilize. Then you pass the lodestone across the bottom, like this." She demonstrated, scrapping the magnetized stone slowly across the bottom of the basin. The needle adjusted itself slightly. "That corrects your variation." She displayed the proper action again. "Otherwise you get the wrong reading. He's also been using the astrolabe incorrectly. I saw you," she said to the seaman, her voice accusing. "You were lining up the alidade wrong." Roz caught up the astrolabe an suspended it from its cord. "First you turn it to the sun shines squarely from above. You rotate the alidade until the sunlight passes through the pinnule of the upper vane." She demonstrated, turning the long hand of the astrolabe, lining it up so the sunlight exactly pierced the pinnule of the upper arm and fell on the pinnule of the lower arm. "Then you take a reading. With his information, he's charted our position thus." Roz stabbed at a place on the map unrolled across the table. "But if that's the case, and we follow his directions, I guarantee we'll end up in Nor­way. We might anyway, the way the wind is blowing." She stopped speaking, held up her hand to feel the breeze.

  Kit stared entranced. From the second she'd begun to talk, to handle the navigational tools, he'd been captivated. She had said she could do it, use an astrolabe and compass. He'd supposed it was true. But seeing it was different. He wanted her to do it again.

  But the men were drawing closer. He frowned mightily. Blast her, she was both amazing and a nuisance, and she put him in a tremendous quandary. She publicly challenged the navigator so that he must make a choice—either uphold Wrightman and thereby insult her, or take her side and alienate his men. He glanced around, realizing they were in a foul mood. They didn't like the storm last night, and now it was hard to tell when they could take on food and water. Abruptly he decided in their favor. To a captain, his crew came first.

  "Mistress, I must think upon the matter. Come to my cabin. I'll examine your calculations and let you know what I decide." He took Rozalinde firmly by the arm. "Troth!" She tried to shake him off. "Do you mean you need further proof?"

  He pulled her close. "My dear," he hissed, speaking very low "these men are not accustomed to women. They would as soon dump you over the side as let you insult one of their own."

  Rozalinde glanced around her. The angry expressions on the men's faces registered with her for the first time. "Oh." She took his arm with unexpected swiftness. "I knew you would make the logical choice," he said grimly, sweeping her off to his cabin. "You always do."

  The interior of the cabin was dark after the brilliant light of morning. Once inside, Rozalinde blinked and stood still. "I'll not have you behaving this way on my ship, Rozalinde." Kit slammed the door behind them, making the darkness even more intense. "Our situation is fragile. These men can't handle a quarrel." He went to the table and rolled out a map. "You're not to talk like that again before them. Not for any reason."

  She ignored him, groping her way to the porthole and standing in its ray of light. "Do you hear me?"

  "I hear you, Kit." She swept over to her trunk and arched her pockets for the key. "I hear you well enough, you always make sure I do."

  "There you go, just like a woman." He gestured vehemently at the trunk, thinking the spell was broken. It had been his imagination—she couldn't navigate. Furthermore, was exasperated by her attitude this morning. She'd said he loved him last night, but this morning she didn't act it. "I see you have to have your trinkets and baubles to console you the minute things become unpleasant," he sneered.

  "Trinkets, indeed." Rozalinde's answer was curt. "You think you're so clever, so powerful, but there are certain things even you fail to observe." She produced her key at last.

  Kit spoke through clenched teeth. "And what might those certain things be?"

  "First of all, that I am the best qualified individual on this ship to help you." She inserted the key into the lock and tried to turn it. It seemed to be stuck, because she frowned, then got down on her knees to struggle with it. "You won't
learn your location from that bungler you have up on deck. He's incompetent."

  "That's beside the point. I decide who does the navigating. I'm the captain."

  "If you rely on him, you're incompetent."

  Kit's eyesight wavered as his choler rose, hissing its way through his brain. "Don't be so quick to criticize," he said curtly. "With training equal to his, you could probably do no better."

  "But my training is far above his, and I can do better." The key turned at last, and Rozalinde threw open the lid. She removed her astrolabe. "I can do better and I shall."

  Kit's gaze snapped to the astrolabe. It wasn't at all what he'd expected to see emerge from the trunk, and it changed his mood abruptly. He took one step toward her. "God in heaven, what's that?"

  Rozalinde pursed her lips and tossed him a scornful glance. She put the astrolabe aside and drew out something else.

  Kit closed the distance between them swiftly. "A rutter!" He caught the little book from her hands and opened its cover, thumbed through its pages reverently. "A beauty, too. Look at this." He stopped at a page, gazed at it. "This is the coast off Haarlem and Brederode. A perfect rendering." He turned the page, thoroughly surprised at these treasures her trunk contained. "And here is the Zuider Zee."

  Rozalinde raised her chin and regarded him victoriously. "And you thought I brought gowns with me. Or trinkets." She sniffed contemptuously. "If that was the case, why did I agree to sleep in your shirt? And why am I still wearing this?" She gestured to her wrinkled kirtle.

  Kit gave her a sharp look, but she kept her expression innocent of all accusation. He returned to studying the rutter.

  Someone rapped at the door. Phillipe came in. "Look at this, Phillipe. Such a pilot's book." Kit passed the book to him.

  "Please be seated." Rozalinde indicated the best chair for Phillipe, but he was studying the rutter now and failed to move. Roz took his arm and coaxed. "I wish to get started," she murmured, pulling him gently. "Not tomorrow, not in a fortnight. Now."