She thought again, as she did several times a day, of the precarious future. And of the letter she’d sent to that English lord some months before and the short reply she’d received, simply stating that he would be coming to Baltimore sometime in October. Well, it was October. Where the devil was he anyway?
Genny walked slowly about the clipper, speaking to some of the men, nodding to others, all in all doing what her father used to do. She finally went belowdecks to see to the woodworking in the captain’s cabin. Mimms, the interior worker, was eating his lunch on deck, so Genny was alone. She sat at the magnificent desk, leaned back, and propped her head against her arms. Please, God, she prayed quietly, let this English lord be interested in us. She knew he was quite wealthy; her father had said so.
She had met very few Englishmen and no English aristocracy. She’d heard that they were normally quite worthless creatures—fops, they were called in London—and were interested only in the cut of their coats and the number of intricate folds in their cravats and the number of women they could mount as mistresses. If this English lord were interested, if he did buy into the Paxton ship-building business, Genny didn’t doubt that she could keep control. Her father trusted her judgment; surely he would back her on anything she wished to do.
She sighed and straightened. The ship would be finished within two weeks. They didn’t yet have a buyer. If one didn’t appear soon, the shipyard would have to be closed. It was that simple and that final. Mr. Truman of The Bank of the United States would have to deal with their creditors. She couldn’t abide the thought, nor could she abide Mr. Jenks, a man with a leering eye, an old wife, and a patronizing manner.
And this clipper was a beauty. She herself could sail it to the Caribbean, trade flour and cotton for the rum and molasses, and make a fine profit. She’d simply have to talk her father into becoming a merchant as well as a builder. And then he’d have to talk Mr. Truman into lending them the money until Miss Genny the Captain returned from the Caribbean. That would make Mr. Truman sneer, she thought. And all the rest of Baltimore as well. It wasn’t fair that she was Genny and not Eugene. She looked up to see Mimms in the doorway.
“There’s a fellow topside who wants to talk to Mr. Eugene Paxton or your pa, Mr. James Paxton.”
“Do you know who he is, Mimms?”
“Bloody fellow’s English.” Mimms spat.
He was here. Her hands shook with sudden excitement. “I’ll go up and see him, Mimms.”
“Who’s this Eugene?”
“Never mind.” Genny tucked her thick-braided hair under a woolen knit cap, bloused up her shirt to hide her figure, and strode over to the narrow mirror propped up against the wall above the commode. She saw a tanned face that looked pleasant enough and, she hoped, manly enough. She picked up the mirror and managed to see the rest of herself in it. She looked like a male, no doubt about that. She put the mirror back, looked up, and saw Mimms staring at her from the cabin doorway. He just shook his head.
Genny said nothing. She brushed past him, her head held high.
Two
Alec stood on the deck of the Baltimore clipper and marveled at the sharp raking bow, the long run aft, the tall, thin masts, and the exquisite workmanship of the low freeboard. The sails were of fine canvas, the rigging of sturdy hemp, the woodwork the finest oak he’d ever seen anywhere. Set out of the water, the sharp dead rise looked nearly like a V, different from other contemporary boats whose sides were nearly straight down, their bottoms almost flat. The Baltimore clipper could slice sharp and clean as a knife through the water, leaving all behind in her narrow wake.
Men were seated about the deck eating their lunch, one eye on their food and one eye on him, a stranger. He was dressed informally, at least by his own standards, in black boots polished by Pippin to a high gloss, tight-fitting buckskin trousers, a white linen shirt open at the collar, and a loose-fitting jacket of light brown. He was bareheaded. And he was getting quite impatient to meet Mr. Eugene Paxton.
“He’s a swell,” said Minter, sneering toward the elegant gentleman.
“And a damned Britisher,” said another. “Thinks he owns the world, he does.”
“Don’t he know we pulled his tail off just a couple of years ago? They got short memories, they do.”
Mimms took a big bite of his sardine sandwich and grunted. “He’ll give Miss Eugenia fits.”
“With her dressing like a man?” Minter said. “I doubt that.”
Mimms, an enormous man who was tougher than a strip of cowhide, just gave him one of his looks, which Minter correctly translated as Keep your mouth shut or you’ll swallow your teeth.
Alec heard the low buzz of the men’s conversation and accurately assumed that he was the subject of too many of their sentences and what they said wasn’t at all complimentary to him. Where was this damned Paxton?
“Lord Sherard?”
The voice was low and mellow and youthful. Alec turned slowly to face a slender young gentleman—he couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, for God’s sake—who was wearing clothes that hung on him, a woolen cap pulled nearly to his eyebrows.
“Yes, I’m Lord Sherard,” Alec said easily, and advanced toward the young man, his hand outstretched.
Genny couldn’t believe her eyes. She certainly hadn’t counted on anything like this. She was staring, but she couldn’t help herself. Never in all her twenty-three years had she seen such a man. No man who looked like he did should exist outside the pages of Mrs. Mallory’s romances. He was very tall, with a proud bearing, wide shoulders, hair that shone minted gold in the bright sunlight, and eyes so deep a blue that it nearly hurt her to look at him. His face was tanned, his features perfectly sculpted, bones and planes and angles all complementing one another, arranged to perfection as if by an artist’s hand. And his body was as delightful as any woman could imagine or dream about. No paunch for this man, and she knew that he would never become like other successful men who grew complacent both in their intellects and in their bodies. He was gloriously made, not an ounce of fat on that wonderful body, lean but fully filled out, too—oh, she was having mental fits trying to do him silent justice. Damn him, he shouldn’t exist. He was undoubtedly dangerous to any female between the ages of sixteen and eighty. He was undoubtedly not a fop, not affecting any excesses in his clothing, fine as they were. He was undoubtedly magnificent. Then he smiled and she swallowed painfully. His teeth were glistening white and straight, and that smile should have the highest tariff in the world on it. She was terrified of him.
“You’re Eugene Paxton?”
Genny gave him her hand, feeling that deep voice wash over her. “Yes, I am. It’s October. I’m glad you finally came.”
He took her hand and looked down at her. And he knew in that instant that this Eugene was in reality a Eugenia.
Alec knew women, knew how they felt down to the fragile bones in their wrists, and he wondered just who this girl was trying to fool. Not a man who knew anything about women, that was certain. But for whatever dim-witted reason, she fully expected to fool him, evidently. So be it. Alec occasionally made snap decisions, and most of them he’d never regretted. He would have to see about this one. He looked forward to being amused, at the very least. Perhaps even fascinated, if the fates were kind.
He looked away from her. “Well, Mr. Paxton, you’re right. It is October. I was much admiring your shipyard as well as your clipper. When will she be finished, do you think?”
He heard her give a relieved sigh at what she thought was her successful deception, and kept all sarcastic comments to himself. He would like to study her as closely as she’d studied him. There would be time.
“Two weeks, my lord.”
“Do call me Alec,” he said easily, turning that devastating smile on her again. “And I’ll call you Eugene. I fancy we’re going to become well acquainted.”
Not that well acquainted, Genny thought, and swallowed. “All right, my—Alec. Shall I show you about the ya
rd?”
“Actually, I’ve already shown myself about. As I said, you appear to have an efficient operation and skilled men. However, it would be a problem, I would imagine, to try to continue without sufficient capital.”
“That’s plain speaking, my lord.”
“You wrote to me, Mr. Paxton. You are in financial difficulties, not I. Now, what I should like to do is finish my tour of this clipper, then meet with your esteemed father.”
“I assure you, Alec, that I am well versed in all my father’s business. Both of us will be negotiating with you.”
“You will? Hmm.” He walked to the railing to lightly rub his fingers over the highly polished wood. He saw her shadow shorten, saw her finally shrug and come to him. He wanted to pull that silly woolen cap off her head and see what color her hair was. Her brows were dark and finely arched, her eyes a dark, dark green.
He turned suddenly, taking her off guard. “How old are you, Eugene?”
“Why, I’m twenty-three.”
“Odd, I thought you younger. Your absence of beard,” he added.
“Oh, well, you see, the gentlemen in the Paxton family aren’t terribly hairy.”
“You’re from a long line of hairless men?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite so baldly.”
He laughed and nodded. Twenty-three, he thought, a veritable spinster. Was she Paxton’s only child? She looked to be in charge of the building of this clipper. He looked at her more closely and saw that her dark green eyes held even darker golden flecks around the irises. Very nice eyes, very expressive, and quite narrowed at the moment. As for her hair, he simply couldn’t tell anything about it, what with that absurd cap. Her man’s clothes were shapeless enough to prevent an accurate assessment of her female self, all save for her legs and hips. No hiding the fact that her legs were long and, from Alec’s guess, well shaped. Her hips were boyish and firm, her stride graceful but without a single swaying motion.
And here she was, a woman, running a shipyard. “What will you name her?”
Genny looked about, her look of pride palpable. “Pegasus, I think, if Father agrees. She’ll be the fastest ship in the sea and the most beautiful. Have you ever sailed a Baltimore clipper schooner, Alec?”
“Not yet. The ship I brought here is a barkentine, Night Dancer, and I have as well two brigs, a schooner—a three-masted staysail—and a snow, all of them fast vessels, but not nearly as fast as this beauty will be.”
“I would agree that they are capable boats,” Genny said, all condescension, but with a grin.
Alec liked that grin. It was unexpected and impish and quite contrary to the stiff, severe young man she’d introduced him to.
“Thank you, Eugene. I will be honest with you. I want as huge a share of the Caribbean trade as I can manage, and thus, Baltimore clippers are what I need and want. Now, when do I have the pleasure of meeting with your father?”
That made her bristle and he saw that she was keeping her tongue behind her teeth with some difficulty. After a few moments she managed to say calmly enough, “I told you that both of us would be negotiating with you, not just my father.”
Not likely, he thought, wondering how much baiting it would take to mow her down and make her reveal the woman, breasts and all. One could only try. “You are too young to be negotiating something so important.”
“I am twenty-three, and you, my lord, aren’t much older.”
“I, Eugene, am thirty-one. A venerable age, one to demand respect, particularly from green ’uns like you.”
There was that grin again, impish and quite enticing. He was going about his baiting all wrong. Doing himself in, as a matter of fact.
“There is a big difference, however,” he continued after a moment. “I have money and you haven’t a sou. I can’t believe that your father would want his fate held solely in your hands.”
Alec fancied he could see a bit of steam rising. “My father trusts me not to be taken advantage of sir. I have a lot of experience and—”
“Experience? You? Really, my dear boy, I imagine that you are still very much a virgin youth.”
That did it. She hopped right through the hoop. Her face turned bright red—an incredible red, really—and her mouth was open to yell at him, only he’d taken her off guard too completely and she didn’t know what to say. So she stared at him. He laughed.
And that, unremarkably, enabled her to bring herself back together in a semblance of order. “I wasn’t aware that my sexual prowess was at issue here, Lord Sherard.”
“My dear young man, sexual prowess is always the issue. Surely such things are the same here as they are in England or in Spain or in Brazil?”
How the devil would she know? Did he mean that men jested about sex all the time, everywhere? “Very well,” she said, bowing to what must be true, and if it were true, then she, who was a he, must appear to be like all the others.
“Very well, what? You have experience?”
“Quite a bit. But it is none of your concern. Gentlemen—American gentlemen, at least—don’t speak about ladies to other men, or about their conquests.”
“Conquests? How quaintly put. I wonder, what is a lady? A female who doesn’t enjoy men? No, I haven’t phrased that correctly. A lady most certainly enjoys a man’s attention, being showered with compliments and presents and jewels. But his body? I don’t know. What do you think?”
How had this happened? They were aboard a clipper, for God’s sake, out of the water, her men sitting around them, eating their lunches, and she was a he in this man’s eyes. He was beyond her experience and, in addition, he was the most arrogant, most forward man she’d ever met. But he thought she was a man, too. She shook her head. This was going too far. She was getting in too deep.
Up went her chin. “A lady, my lord, at least an American lady, is one who speaks of appropriate things and enjoys things when they’re appropriate.”
Alec laughed at that but missed the sight of her impish grin.
“Ah, then you mean that a lady, an American lady, doesn’t speak of enjoying men, but simply does so after she’s managed to drag the poor fellow to the minister?”
“No, that isn’t it at all. You are misunderstanding apurpose, my lord. A lady isn’t at all like a man.”
That was an understatement, Alec thought. “Too true. Ladies, in my experience, are far more sly than men, far more cunning, and because they determine when the man can have what he wants, they exercise unbelievable power. That, my dear young man, is why men allow themselves to be leg-shackled.”
“Why, that is absurd. Ladies have no power at all—they—well, I don’t know. You must stop talking like this—you’re a stranger here and sex is hardly a topic to be bantered about as if we were old acquaintances—” She stopped. Blathering, that was what she was doing, and all because he’d flustered her so badly.
“Back to being formal again, I see.”
Genny saw that Minter was giving her his patented sneering look. She prayed that none of the men could overhear this strange conversation. “Would you like to see the captain’s cabin, sir? It’s nearly finished and we can be more private.”
“If you wish.” And he thought: Would an American lady invite a stranger down to be private with her? “Is your father below?”
“No, my father is at home. Please follow me, my lord.”
Alec did, his eyes on her hips. Nice, he thought. He saw his hands on her hips, caressing her, and felt his sex swell. How much longer would she insist on this charade?
The cabin was exquisitely done and was roomy enough even for him. Indeed, it was larger than his cabin in the Night Dancer, but there was no adjoining door. “There is a cabin next to this one?”
“Certainly. It is to be the first mate’s.”
Or his daughter’s. “Now this is a man’s desk,” he said, running his fingertips lightly over the polished mahogany. “Yes, a man would be quite comfortable here. I should like to meet the fellow who designed the desk.
”
“I designed it.”
“Really? And you are so young a man. Scarce a man, I should say. Well, it’s difficult to know sometimes, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have thought that you—well, do you still wish to negotiate with me, Eugene?” Alec sat down and leaned comfortably back in the chair, a very comfortable chair big enough for him.
Genny was looking at him. Did he suspect that she wasn’t as male as she purported? No, he would have said something, surely. “Yes, and with my father, of course. It is his shipyard.”
“True. You wouldn’t want to be unreasonable or take all the glory. And as his son, you are his heir and thus have some say in the matter.”
“That’s correct.”
“Shall I come to dine with you and your father this evening? You have sisters? A mother?”
Genny’s eyes glazed over. What to do? Oh, dear, she would have to speak to her father. Oh, goodness, she couldn’t be Eugene at home, with her hair falling all about her face. She gave in gracefully even as her mind raced to formulate a strategy. “Certainly. Seven o’clock? And yes, I do have a sister, but my mother died a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec said, rising. “Seven o’clock will be fine. I look forward to meeting this sister. Now, Mr. Eugene, I would like to see the rest of the clipper.”
The Paxton butler, Moses, a black man of immense dignity, ushered Alec into the drawing room. There, an older gentleman and a young lady awaited him. Moses merely said, “Suh,” to Alec, then bowed himself out.
Genny had prepared herself, truly she had, only not enough. Alec Carrick dressed informally was one thing, but Alec Carrick in evening garb was enough to make any female lose what little sense she had left. He should be outlawed. No man should be allowed to dress like that, looking as he did. The unremitting black broken only by the white linen and white cravat at his throat made him look like the royalest of royal princes, the most proverbial of knights in shining armor. He was incredibly handsome, his golden hair brushed and gleaming in the candlelight, his blue eyes so vivid and sparkling, so very alive, that she just wanted to stand there and stare at him forever. At least forever.
Night Storm Page 3
