A Captain and a Rogue (Mills & Boon Historical)

by Liz Tyner

  ‘That is not as endearing as the proposal I had from a sailor who described how I could earn his coins. Gid was right in that you do not know sweet words.’

  ‘You have been discussing this with him?’

  ‘Not truly. But I can see I should have. Perhaps he could have taught you some of his grace.’

  He didn’t release her hands as he walked around the desk. When he got to her side, he pulled her fist up and first kissed one hand and then the other.

  ‘The sea is too dangerous. Especially for a woman who should be protected and cherished.’

  ‘Yes, I should be cherished,’ she said. ‘But what of you? Is that not true?’

  ‘The Ascalon cherishes me.’

  ‘She’s wooden.’

  ‘I am fine with that.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Thessa. Gidley has been like a father to me. The cook worries over us. Stubby is near a son to me. They are my life. They have no other family, and if the men on this ship had other family they could have stayed with—they would not be here. They need me.’

  She let his words flow through her body. She heard them—truly heard them. ‘You do not feel close to your brothers.’

  His chest moved in and out. ‘To be with Warrington on the last voyage was pleasant, but we were nearly strangers. I had not been near him for more than a few days every year or so since I...well, most of my life. He was at school; I was in the nursery. He was in London; I was in the country. Or I was in London and he was in the country. I have seen Dane less, I suppose. At our father’s funeral, we were all three in the same room, and my sister. But looking back I am not sure if I remember another time that happened except right after my mother died.’

  ‘You hardly know them.’ She saw the truth in his face. He didn’t have to say it, but she wanted to be certain.

  ‘In my nursery, sometimes when I was to be asleep, I would sneak into the hallway and I would hear them laughing and talking in the sitting room. I was too young to join them. I could not sit still.’

  He shrugged his words away, but continued. ‘I would look out the window and see Dane, War and my father riding, and sometimes my mother and sister, but I never finished my lessons correctly and I was not allowed to join them until I did. I never, ever completed the lessons correctly. The stable master taught me to ride. Mother was most likely sick then. I can’t remember.’

  Thessa had slept in the same room with her sisters all of her life. Other than when she swam, hardly a one of them had been further away than a shout. She could have turned her head at any time during most of her life and seen a sister or her mother. ‘I wish you could have grown up with a family.’

  He shook his head. ‘My men need me. If I had close ties on land, the men would have to sail on other ships and other ships are not like mine.’ He smiled. ‘I’m a damn good captain and we are all a part of the ship.’ He gave an apologetic grin. ‘Sometimes I do get a bad sailor aboard, like the one you took the knife to, but they leave at the next port.’

  ‘My sisters and I...’ She didn’t look at his face. ‘It is almost as if we were born on the same day and the same year. I didn’t realise how much we needed each other until Melina left. Our lives without her... A part of us had sailed away. You should have that closeness.’

  ‘I have that. Here. I have been sailing with Gid and most of the other men for the past ten years. And then we found Stubby living where his mother worked, in a brothel, and she wanted him to have something more. He chattered so much at first and I kept telling him to Stubble it, and then we were calling him that and one day we realised none of us could remember his name.’ He shook his head. ‘That was unforgivable, but I’ve told him he can pick whatever name he wants and he said he would have Forrester as his surname, same as mine, and I agreed.’

  ‘You can’t leave them.’ She said the words as a statement, not a question.

  ‘No. It was too hard to find them. And I could not live if the ship sank and they died. I would feel it is my fault for leaving them.’

  ‘You would give up me for them?’

  ‘A man should do the right thing. And he does not leave his family to fend for themselves.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Something tickled Thessa’s nose and she opened her eyes. The covers were pulled up to her shoulders and she was naked except for the half boots and stockings. The captain had claimed there just wasn’t time after she’d thrown her body into his arms. But when he’d said those words about family...

  Ben was lying beside her and she half lay across him, his arm the only thing keeping her in the bunk. His body was not a bad pillow, though it might not be possible to sleep in such a way. He held a lock of her hair in his fingertips and was trailing it over her face.

  ‘Did I ever tell you I like pointy noses?’ he asked.

  ‘What does that have to do with me?’

  ‘Your nose. It’s a fine one.’ His leg rubbed along her stocking. ‘But I don’t like your boots. Not at all. If there were time I would like a miniature painted of your feet to take with me. With the longing mark. But there’s no time.’

  ‘Ben...’

  He clasped both arms tight around her, holding her. She could feel his heart beating and the roughness of his skin against hers.

  ‘I saw a man die once,’ she said, holding him as close as she could. ‘One moment we were all laughing, and then someone screamed out and I ran towards the noise. I didn’t know why I ran there, but we all did. And my uncle lay on the ground bleeding and then he was dead. My aunt was crying and crying. Stephanos turned and slit the throat of the man who had killed my uncle. I could do nothing but watch in those moments. I could not move. Both men were buried quickly and my aunt married again soon, and it was as if my mother’s brother had never lived. Bellona and Melina didn’t see it.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘I’m thankful.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have seen it.’

  ‘I tried not to think of it. And when the man reached for Bellona on your ship, I was not inside my own body.’ She’d meant the man no harm, but yet she’d had a knife in her hand just as Stephanos did. ‘When I thought back later, I was sick. I knew the blood I would have felt. I had seen it before. I didn’t care.’

  He kissed her forehead. ‘I know. At sea. In ports. It’s not unheard of to be attacked. That is why we have the extra guns. Because we have been attacked. Because Ascalon is not as big as most and they feel it will be simple to take her and her goods. Stephanos was not my first pirate and I don’t think he’ll be the last. I can’t even think of you going with us. Danger comes from below, above and the sides.’

  ‘Benjamin, I don’t want you to die.’

  ‘Sweet. I would like to stay alive. But you can’t wait on me. It isn’t fair to you and I can’t return thinking you’ll be there and find you with someone else. You have to have a family. I don’t want you to watch your sisters have their children whilst you are looking towards the sea.’

  ‘Ben, I might love you for ever.’

  ‘I will love you twice as long. But you have the family you were born with and you will have more. You’ll be safe with them and loved.’

  ‘I’ll never let you see my feet again,’ she said, hugging him with all her strength.

  But the words were a lie. Before the next morning, he’d kissed her toes, and the little heart again, and helped her dress and fix the pins in her hair, and he’d helped her with the half boots. And then he helped her get a carriage to leave.

  *

  Thessa stood at the fireplace in the town house, endlessly running her hand over the carved leaves in the mantel.

  The door opened and closed in the distance. The rumble of voices told her that Warrington and Melina had arrived. Broomer had arranged to send for them while Dolly had cooked as if her very happiness depended on Thessa enjoying her meals.

  Having servants was better than she expected. Dolly and Broomer didn’t feel like staff, but more like two people who only cared that e
verything be done to make her happy.

  Melina walked into the room and took Thessa in her arms. ‘We’ve come to take you back to Whitegate,’ Melina said, hugging her sister.

  Thessa ended the moment by pushing away. She’d spent many hours thinking while she was in the town house. ‘You planned for Bellona and me to come to England, didn’t you? When you sent the ship?’

  ‘Of course I’d hoped.’ Melina stepped back, the fabric of her dress tight and her corset long since discarded to make way for her changing form. ‘I wanted my babe to have aunts nearby and I wanted the older two children to get to know my sisters. And I knew you would like London once you arrived. Englishmen,’ her eyes softened as she looked at her husband ‘—are not like our father.’

  ‘Why did you not send a message asking?’ Thessa said.

  ‘Asking means you are willing to accept an answer that you might not like. I did ask Warrington’s brother to get you to England if he could at all. But...’ she frowned ‘...he said the choice had to be yours. With the dowry you could have a comfortable life and I could visit you as soon as the babe was old enough for us to leave it for the journey.’

  Bellona walked in, lagging behind the others, one glove on and the other in her hand. ‘I am so pleased we came to London.’ She twirled around. ‘This dress is the same colour green that the archery club uses and I have a bow and arrow now.’

  ‘I hope it will be safer than fencing,’ Melina said. ‘You must never touch that sword again near the children. And you must promise not to get killed in front of them.’

  She shuddered. ‘It was because of that beast of a horse called Nero. I will never ride him again. He is a monster with four legs. And he jumps like a rabbit.’

  Warrington’s voice rumbled into the room. ‘Perhaps if you hadn’t been waving a sword about and nearly took off his ear.’

  Bellona removed her remaining glove and glanced askance at Warrington. ‘Jacob did not see it properly. Nero turned his head suddenly.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said and turned, waving an arm for the ladies to sit. ‘Now let us get settled and decide how you and Thessa will proceed with your futures.’

  *

  Benjamin sat at his desk on the Ascalon, hurting from his forehead to his boots, and yet, he felt numb. It would be less than an hour before they sailed. He’d visited his sister and their batty aunt the night before and taken his leave. Warrington and Dane had arrived to wish him well and had left a few hours earlier.

  For a moment, Benjamin considered delaying his departure and asking Thessa to marry him, but he could not. A woman deserved a husband if she married, not a memory. Two to three years was too long to wonder if someone still lived.

  And he would be at sea, wondering if they’d had a child. Claws of apprehension raked through him. And if they married and she didn’t conceive in the short time he was in England, then he could be robbing her of the chance to have a child. A marriage without either a husband or children was nothing but wasted words on paper. Wasted vows.

  And how could he keep his mind in the direction he needed for his ship to stay afloat and his men alive if he could not take his mind from concern for her? Men often returned from sea to find grass grown over a loved one’s grave.

  Nor could he truly give her a place to live. He didn’t even own the town house outright, but in union with his brothers.

  He loved his life, but now he wished he’d been content to live in England as Dane and Warrington did. He’d left his family behind the first time, and when he returned it was as if they’d not even noticed him gone.

  Gid opened the cabin door and walked in, the small box in his hands. He put it on the table, to the side of Benjamin’s papers. ‘He won’t take ’em. Says he took a belly ache and don’t want no food might make it worse. Then he says our new physician don’t even know a belly ache from an earache, and he be wonderin’ if that Broomer could ’ave found a man what didn’t smell like camphor and didn’t have so much hair stickin’ out his nose.’

  ‘Broomer is adept at finding good seamen for us.’

  ‘The quartermaster said the other one Broomer sent didn’t even know to bring his own plate and cup.’

  ‘Leave it be, Gid.’

  Benjamin didn’t look up, still scribbling on a page he’d torn from his journal, thankful Gid couldn’t read the list he couldn’t seem to complete without writing Thessa’s name. She was what he wanted most, not barrels of peas. ‘Send Stubby to me.’

  Gid stood, just staring ahead, lips in a thin line.

  ‘Get Stub. Now.’ Benjamin kept the pen moving.

  Gidley stepped to leave. ‘Whatever the Capt’n wants. I am just here to do your commands.’

  Benjamin’s hand stilled. He lowered his voice. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.’

  Gid didn’t move from the doorway and didn’t turn back. ‘Yer near shouted my ears deaf and say one little hard word to the boy and then yer send...’ His voice rose to a shrillness best left to adolescent lads. He turned, his forefinger thumping his own chest. He faced Benjamin. ‘Yer send me to get the little critter treats.’

  ‘Didn’t mean to shout at you so, Gid.’ Benjamin nudged the box to the edge of the table without looking up. He didn’t want the pain on his face to be obvious to Gid. ‘You can have the treats.’

  ‘No.’ Gid hurled the word out and his nose went up. ‘Them is not to my taste. They is the kind Stubby likes.’

  Gid left and Benjamin restrained himself from throwing the box at the wall.

  Stubby walked in so fast Benjamin knew he’d been just outside the door and brushed past Gid on the way in.

  ‘I made up my mind. I won’t be able to sail with you again, Captain. Ain’t no ladies on this ship no more and I be thinking it’s time for me to find me work on land. My talents is not appreciated here.’ His jaw worked sideways.

  ‘Stubby,’ Benjamin put down the pen. ‘I did not mean to hurt your feelings.’

  ‘You did not hurt my feelin’s, Cap’n Benjamin. I...’ he sniffed ‘...be tough as leather.’ He sniffed again.

  Benjamin looked at the cabin boy’s trembling lips. Blast. If Stub cried they’d both be blubbering like little chits.

  Benjamin swallowed. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I want you to do the cabin-boy duties because no one could ever do them as well as you, but I’m thinking I...’ He stood, reached to his seaman’s chest and pulled out the spyglass still wrapped in the shopkeeper’s paper. ‘You have sharp eyes and I’m thinking you might need a spyglass to help us look for pirates, so I wanted to give you this if you stay on.’

  Now Stubby’s lip trembled more. He raised his hand, fingers outstretched, and then stopped movement. Benjamin put the package down on the table and turned his back.

  He heard scrabbling noises, turned around and saw Stub holding the box of confectionaries and the spyglass, eyes downcast.

  Slowly the lad put the items down. ‘Capt’n. I be honoured beyond honour to sail with you, but I been thinkin’ and thinkin’ a lot, and not just today, and I decided that I be leavin’ the ship. That anchor’s about to be lifted and I...I’m not wantin’ to leave London.’

  Ben could hardly make his mouth work to speak. ‘You can’t.... You’re like...you are my family.’

  Stubby nodded. ‘But I be missin’ my ma. And I be thinkin’ I’d like to know if I can find her again.’ He looked at Benjamin. ‘And I be listenin’ to all them men talk about the apple dumplin’s and tarts they leave behind and I be thinkin’ I...’ His cheeks reddened. ‘I think I’m plannin’ to like confectionaries a lot.’

  Benjamin paused. He didn’t want Stubby leaving, but perhaps the boy had a point. Ben knew what it was like to feel abandoned by his mother.

  When she was ill and would never leave her bed again, she’d called his brothers into the room. She’d spoken her last words to them. And he’d waited in his bedchamber for his turn to speak with her, not really knowing what was happening, but wanting to s
ee her, and she’d never sent for him. She’d never asked for him to come to her side. He told himself she’d meant to, and hadn’t had the chance, but he didn’t believe it. She could have called him in with Warrington and Dane.

  The next day, servants were covering all the mirrors in the house. No one told him what had happened, but he knew quite well when he saw the first shrouded mirror.

  He didn’t want Stubby to lose his mother some day and feel he never had the chance to know her. The lad could already have brothers he didn’t know about. Brothers who would return home and his mother would reach out to muss their hair and tell them how pleased she was to see them again.

  Stubby’s mother had told Benjamin she didn’t know what she was going to do with the boy. The same words he’d heard about himself from his own mother’s lips.

  Convincing the lightskirt to let her son sail hadn’t been difficult. Relief had shown in her eyes and Stubby’s belongings had been gathered before Benjamin had a chance to change his mind.

  He would never have changed his mind.

  ‘Broomer told me your mother is still in London,’ Ben said to the lad. ‘He can take you to visit her. He’ll see to your needs and he’ll find work for you at Warrington’s town house. Tell him to treat you as my son.’

  Stubby raised his eyes. ‘I be thankin’ you, Capt’n.’ He smiled. ‘I be wantin’ to work on the docks. Some day I might sail with you again.’

  ‘I wish you all the good fortune in the world. And take the confectionaries and spyglass. You might need the eyepiece later.’

  Stubby’s lips firmed and he took them both. ‘I be keeping the spyglass for ever, Capt’n, and I’ll share the other with Gid before I leave. He’s goin’ to miss me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Benjamin flopped back in the chair, but then moved forward, putting his elbows on the table. He steepled his hands and put his temple to them.

  What he wouldn’t give to speak with his father. And yet he’d spent so little time with the man. He tried to pull the image of the older man’s face into his mind, but couldn’t. He could remember his father’s portrait—the one of him as a young man. Even with the feeling of anger gone, he still couldn’t remember the man as clearly as he wished.