I wanted the wind in my hair, the sea spray dotting my cheeks. I wanted my heart to beat in rhythm with the rise and fall of the ship as it crested over the waves. I closed my eyes, feeling the sway already. I was created to be on the ocean. I wasn’t ready to be a wife or a mother. Didn’t know if I’d ever be. Salt water coursed through my veins, and the only way I would ever be truly happy was to be aboard one of those mighty ships on my way to the Americas.
Sighing deeply, I turned on my heel and continued toward the house. Inside, I tidied the kitchen and went to the sitting room to finish the coverlet Lady Elizabeth wanted made for the nursery. Sailing dreams aside, I was accomplished in needlework. I sold a few of my pieces in town when the mood struck me.
“Lady Elizabeth’s little one will love all of you.” I fingered the ducklings that trailed along the edges of the coverlet.
As I finished working on one duckling that I had given a set of sorrowful eyes, voices made me put my work aside and go to the kitchen.
“Was there something you needed, my lady?” I curtsied yet again.
“No, Charlotte,” Lady Elizabeth said. “In fact, Abigail and I are off to the shops in town. Abigail is hosting a ball next month, and she’d like me to help her while I still can.” She motioned to her belly and held her hands out to her sides, a slight smile on her lips.
“Yes, my lady.”
Lady Elizabeth studied me for a moment. “Why don’t you come with us? For fun, not work.”
Lady Abigail drew in a breath, not pleased with Lady Elizabeth’s invitation.
“No thank you, my lady.” I noticed the tiny downward curve of her lips at my decline. “Unless, of course, you need my assistance.” I would not shirk my responsibilities as her maid.
“I’ll be fine, Charlotte.” Her shoulders lowered. “You can have the rest of the evening to yourself then. I shall see you later.”
“Yes, my lady. Thank you.” I bowed my head.
“You are too kind to her, Elizabeth,” Lady Abigail said before I had left the kitchen.
“I have no reason to be otherwise, Abigail.” Lady Elizabeth walked past me and pulled her parasol out of its stand by the front door. “She does her work and does it well.” She threw me a quick, but sad smile over her shoulder. “She’s meant for greater things.”
“Maybe, but she is… odd. What sixteen-year-old girl declines an afternoon at the shops with two prominent Southampton ladies? ’Tis a girl’s dream.”
Not this girl.
The ladies hustled out of the house and crossed the avenue to Lady Abigail’s estate. A carriage would be waiting for them so I went back to the sitting room to put away my coverlet and threads. My daily chores were done, and Lady Elizabeth had said to take the evening for myself. Only one place to do that.
I slipped into my brother’s old coat and walked down the avenue until I reached a fork. One direction led me into the woods and a few sparse farms scattered out that way. The other direction led to the docks where a colorful sunset was guaranteed tonight.
I chose the sunset. As the first whiff of fish and ocean wafted over me, I was home. Home to a place alive with seagull cries and creaking docks. A place where anything was possible.
Chapter Two
Near the busiest dock, men loaded and unloaded ships. Like ants crawling over the boats and docks, they worked rapidly before the sun set to end yet another day. Most of the men were fishermen, some merchants like my father. Still others were explorers working for the queen of England. The race for new lands had been on for some time now, and many captains were willing to brave the unknown in search of fame and fortune.
I took in every detail of the vessels tied to the docks. Southampton’s large main dock could support some of the wider ships. In the near distance, other sizable crafts were anchored, their rowboats tied to the docks instead. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the steady thump of the water against the hollow wooden hulls. The gentle swish of the sea jostled oars and tightened lines as the current tugged at the rowboats.
“Down here again, eh, Charlotte?” a voice called to me from one of the nearest rowboats. I opened my eyes to see Aaron Bannistor hopping onto the dock. He was a friend of my father’s and had come to dine at our house on many occasions when my mother was alive.
“I can’t stay away.” I shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up at Aaron. His fuzzy gray beard was in desperate need of a trimming as were his hair and fingernails.
“You keep thinking one of us will be crazy enough to let you come aboard one of our ships, don’t you?” Though the words were delivered with a cordial smile, they stung just the same.
“My father has warned every sailor in Southampton not to play audience to my pleas.” I folded my arms across my chest. To date, every single one of those sailors had heeded my father’s edict. Everyone listened to Capain James Denham. Everyone.
“He’s right to do that, Charlotte.” Aaron dragged a battered net out of the rowboat and rolled it into a tangled pile. “He’s trying to protect you. Trying to make sure you grow up to be as fine a woman as your mum was.”
I had trouble swallowing around the lump in my throat. True enough I resembled Mother, but I was nothing like her. Would never be. Despite my father’s efforts, I was more like him.
Aaron hefted the fishing net up under his arm and groaned at the awkward mess it had become.
“Do you need a hand?” I took a step closer to him.
“No, I’ve got it,” he said. “Going to take it on up to Watkins’s Post for repair. Can’t catch me any fish with this frayed bird’s nest.”
“I could untangle and mend that faster than Benjamin or his father could.” I reached out a finger to the net.
Aaron stepped back as if the act of me simply touching his equipment would go against my father.
“I’ll bet you could, but your job is tending to Lady Elizabeth, not—”
“Hanging around the likes of you.” All the sailors said this when I offered my help. Cripes, how many times would I have to hear the same words?
Aaron laughed at the slump of my shoulders. “It’ll be dark soon. You better head back home.” He patted my shoulder as he passed by.
Letting out a long breath and shaking my head, I continued walking along the dock. I nodded at several other men, some friends of my brothers, others of my father. As I neared the end and was about to turn around, one ship careened on the west shore beyond the docks caught my attention. I had not seen it during any of my recent nighttime visits.
Like a giant beached whale lying on its side, the boat had been pulled out of the ocean entirely. Crew swarmed like bees in a hive as they scraped the exposed hull and repaired the massive keel. Though the underside of the ship was encrusted in greenish-white barnacles and from where I stood I could see signs of wood rot, she was a beautiful work of art.
I was drawn to her.
Though I wanted nothing more than to pull off my boots and run across the sand toward the ship, I stopped myself. The makings of a brilliant plan knitted themselves together in the deep recesses of my brain. One thought connected to the next until I was smiling from ear to ear. The trapped behemoth was far enough away that the crew might not have interacted with any of the local sailors yet.
There was hope.
Squinting, I saw three burly men hauling long planks of wood. Four muscular deckhands chipped away at the barnacles. The entire crew was immersed in repairs, much too busy to stop and pick up the town gossip, never mind hear anything about my father’s decree to keep me land bound.
“Charlotte.”
I jumped at the hand that touched my shoulder.
“Easy there,” Benjamin said.
I turned around to scowl at him. He was always sneaking up on me like that.
“I thought you were mad at me.”
It had been three weeks since Benjamin and I almost got caught sneaking around on the docks. He hadn’t spoken to me since I’d plunged us both into the wat
er.
“I was.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But I missed you. Besides, you didn’t mean to almost drown me that night, did you?”
I didn’t answer. The careened ship had drawn back all of my attention. If my plan was going to work, I had many preparations to make and not a great deal of time for making them. The crew appeared to have more repairs to complete. If they hung around Southampton much longer, they would have to come into town. Have to talk to people.
“Oh, no, Benjamin,” he said, trying to imitate my voice. “I didn’t mean to almost drown you. You’re too important to me. I couldn’t live without you.”
I turned around again to see him gripping his tunic as if his chest were in pain. I had to laugh. Gently pushing him away, I said, “I don’t talk like that.”
“No, but it’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” His green eyes looked at me hopefully. We had conversations like this more and more lately.
“Of course I couldn’t live without you, Benjamin. You’re my best friend.” I rested my hands on his shoulders and didn’t have to look up or down to stare into his eyes.
His smile faltered. “Always just friends, huh?”
“Best friends,” I corrected.
He smirked, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. We had been friends since we were born. We had done everything together from taking our first steps to learning to ride a horse to wanting to follow in our fathers’ footsteps. Truthfully, without Benjamin I would have been alone in Southampton with my father and brothers always at sea. He was wonderful, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than friendship. I didn’t need anything that would tie me to land.
“Besides, I saw Rachel Carnigan watching you unload crates at your father’s store.” I tossed a glance back toward Watkins’s Post, owned and operated by Benjamin’s father, Thomas Watkins. “She watched you for a very, very long time.”
“She did not.” Benjamin rolled his eyes, but looked rather pleased nonetheless.
“Did to. She’s pretty.” I poked him in the stomach with my index finger, and he grabbed my hand before I had time to pull away.
“I suppose she’s pretty… if you’re not around.”
I started in on my don’t-say-things-like-that speech, but Benjamin put a finger to my lips.
“I know, I know. Best friends.” He let go of my hand and glanced down at his feet, which I have to admit made him look rather adorable, but I couldn’t let nonsense like thinking about being more than friends with Benjamin cloud my mind. I had more important things to think about, and they all had to do with that marvelous ship sleeping on the beach.
****
Benjamin insisted on walking me back to Lady Elizabeth’s. I wanted to be alone so I could plot. Difficult to formulate the details of my plan with him trotting along and chatting beside me.
We passed Southampton’s largest tavern, The Copper Pot. Conversation, laughter, and music spilled out of its open doors. Benjamin put his hand on my elbow and nudged me along. I obliged, but the shuffle of boots to the right of us caught my attention. Before my mind could register what was happening, I was thrown off balance by a hulking mass that draped over me.
I fell to my knees under the weight of this shadowed person. My face dove down into the gravel roadway, sharp rocks piercing into my lower lip. I let out a howl of pain and the weight was off me. I rolled to my back and tasted blood.
“You all right, Charlotte?” Benjamin asked.
I got to my feet while he had a young man, about our age, pinned up against a tree. His forearm was across the man’s throat and from what I could see every muscle in Benjamin’s body was ready to fight. I had never seen him so charged.
“Just a split lip.” I came over to stand next to him. “Who are you?” I said to the young man. His eyes were glassy and his breath reeked of whiskey. A recent Copper Pot patron, to be sure.
“Edward Scarsdale.” He focused on my lip and his nose scrunched up below two beady brown eyes. “Did I do that?”
“Yes, you did,” Benjamin said between clenched teeth.
Edward coughed and sputtered as Benjamin applied more pressure to his throat.
“Benjamin,” I said. “Let him go.”
“Not until we know what he wants.”
“I don’t want nothing but a job,” Edward said. “Got myself dismissed from my last one.”
“Which was?” I asked.
“Deckhand ’board the Rose.”
“The Rose?” Benjamin said. “I don’t know that one. Do you, Charlotte?”
“No.” I had a strong feeling as to which ship the Rose was.
“Cap’n Finley tossed me off.” Edward hiccupped. “I’ve had enough of Cap’n Finley’s trick questions and his grouch of a nephew anyway.”
Benjamin eased his hold, and Edward slid down until he was a crumpled mass of limbs at the base of the tree, totally unconscious. We both stood looking down at the sailor. What was Benjamin thinking as he looked at Edward?
I was thinking there was an open space to be filled on the Rose.
An open space with my name on it.
Chapter Three
When we arrived at the main gate in front of Lady Elizabeth’s estate, I ran my tongue over the stinging split in my lip.
“Benjamin, I can’t go inside like this,” I said.
He nodded and caught my chin in his hand to inspect my lip. “Want to go to my house?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Let’s go to mine.”
“You sure?”
Nodding, I tugged him down the avenue toward my family house, the crisp September breeze pushing us along. We stood in front of my house for a long moment. It loomed before us like a gigantic, black shadow. The wide, double doors beyond the bricked front steps locked in the silence waiting for me inside. Small birds dawdled in the pear trees lining either side of the walkway to the door. They watched me as if they couldn’t understand why I’d come here.
I pushed open the gate and stepped onto the pathway that led to the doors. Benjamin followed behind me. My legs felt as if they had been wearing lead boots, and my jaw ached.
My hand quivered as I reached for the doorknob. Joyous voices and happy images of my mother bounced around in my head. We had been such a lovely family living in this once-perfect house. As I led us into the now-blackened interior, I would have given anything to hear my mother’s soothing voice.
Anything.
Instead, the silence swallowed us as I closed the door. I leaned against it and slid down to my feet. Sitting on the cold wooden floorboards, I rested my forehead on my knees. Benjamin lowered next to me.
“We can clean you up at my house, Charlotte.” He put his hand on my bent knee. “You don’t have to be here.”
“No.” I fought the urge to break down. It happened every time I came here. The memories of the way things used to be were too overwhelming. The feeling of being trapped on land while my brothers and father got to sail around, free as seagulls, made my head hurt, my heart ache. When I came by myself, I usually gave into the tears. With Benjamin along, it didn’t seem like the right thing to do, so I held them in, but my eyes stung.
I had no way of knowing exactly how long we sat there, crouched in the darkness. Benjamin hadn’t said a word. Good sport. When I finally lifted my head from my knees and drew in a deep breath, something on the floor beneath the front door caught my attention. Shuffling over, I reached my arm out. My hand closed around a thin parcel.
“What’s that?” Benjamin asked.
“I don’t know.”
Holding the package under my arm, I got up from the floor and fumbled around in the dark, making my way to the east sitting room. Using touch alone, I located a candle and lit it. Flickering light danced off Benjamin as he stood beside me.
I eased into one of the wide chairs in front of the long windows, which in the daylight offered a breathtaking view of the sea. Setting the candle on a small wooden table, I held the package toward the light. Riley’s slop
py handwriting covered the front of it, and despite my current mood, I had to smile. He wrote in tight scribbles as if he were in a hurry. Always had.
I tore open the parcel, and a brown leather cord spilled into my lap. A bright white seashell had been threaded onto the cord. Turning it over in my hand caused iridescent colors to swirl inside the shell in the candlelight. A fresh, salty scent clung to it.
While Benjamin inspected the shell necklace, I picked up the folded sheet of parchment in my lap. Riley’s unkempt script covered the page.
Dearest Charlotte,
I hope all is well with you in Southampton. Life aboard the Emily is hard work, but she sails with the grace of a swan and the power of a bull under father’s direction. He has allowed Eric and me chances at the helm and I look forward to more of them. Eric didn’t like it as much, but you know how he is.
We have made landfall in a place called Florida. It is much hotter than Southampton, and its coast is sandier. Tall trees with thin trunks and wide plumes of leaves are everywhere. We have set up a small camp, and a few scouting parties have canvassed the immediate area. Father is set to trade with the friendly natives, assuming there are some. We hope to avoid the savage ones.
While charged with cleaning detail, Eric and I found ourselves at the shore gathering buckets of water. With the sea lapping at my ankles, I bent down to fill a bucket and noticed an exquisite shell at my feet. As soon as I saw it, I thought of you.
Eric threaded it on the leather cording, and we both agreed it had to be sent to you at once. We hope you like it and think of us when you wear it. We miss you, especially when one of us doesn’t feel well or gets hurt. You always know how to attend to those situations… just like Mother did.
Forever your favorite brother,
Riley
The word “favorite” Riley had snuck into his closing made me chuckle. He and Eric always pretended to be my favorite, tried to outdo one another for the title. I fingered the shell Benjamin had dropped back into my lap and was delighted that even in an exciting new land, my brothers thought of me.
Sail With Me (A Discovery Series Book) Page 2
