“No!” she gasped. “Please, God, not that!” The tears she had been holding back flooded her eyes as she realized for the first time that it wasn’t merely a husband she needed, but a husband’s love.
On sudden impulse, she went to her bureau and rummaged through the bottom drawer. Buried deep down beneath a pile of shawls and blouses that needed mending, she found what she was looking for. She caressed the fine white fabric lovingly. This was the first time she had set eyes on it since she’d hurriedly packed it away on another tearful night almost ten years before.
Dare I? she wondered.
She drew out the gown and placed it to her cheek. The feel of the soft linen against her skin brought back a rush of memories. Her heart swelled with emotion. Her hands trembled.
Quickly, she shed her underthings and slipped into the gown—the same one she had worn that night in Boston with Zack. She could still remember the thrill that had coursed through her as his fingers had fumbled at the ties in their urgent haste to find her breasts only moments before he’d left her that long-ago morning. But, oh, how precious those few moments had been!
This was the purest kind of folly. She was only inviting unhappiness. But she couldn’t help herself. This was her wedding night! She would wear the gown her mother had made for the occasion.
Slipping between the cool sheets, Persia felt almost wicked. Zack’s hands had touched this gown, and then they had touched her. She closed her eyes, remembering. All the need and love and passion came flooding back to drown her senses. Her tears flowed freely.
In her mind, she saw his face, his body—throbbing its need for her. She remembered how she’d caught her breath in that wonderful, terrifying moment when his weight had sagged the bed. She could still feel the shock of his first touch, the urgency of his kisses. She twisted in her bed now, moaning softly, aching through and through.
She tried to recapture the memory of his first thrust. But all she could remember was that following the sharp stab of pain, she’d felt filled and whole and infinitely loved. After that had come such sheer ecstasy that there was no way for her mind to recreate it. She would recognize the feeling, if ever she was lucky enough to experience it again. But for now the memory of that magic moment eluded her.
She hugged herself, trying to imagine that Zack was there with her—holding her, kissing her, possessing her totally. But it was no use.
Suddenly, a great sadness swept over her. She realized in that instant that this was the end of it. All these years, she had waited and hoped. She had always believed deep down that she would find Zack again. But now, she had killed whatever glimmer of hope still existed. She had severed the final bond between them by sealing her marriage to Cyrus Blackwell.
In a moment of perfect anguish, she tore the linen gown from her body and tossed it furiously across the room, then collapsed on the bed, sobbing in utter torment. She cried most of the night away. And before sleep from exhaustion finally overtook her, she experienced a hopelessness, and emptiness, a bitterness toward life like none she had ever known before.
“Honestly, Father! I simply don’t know what to say! Married? How could you have condoned such an impetuous action?”
Europa Whiddington Holloway—still pretty, but plumped out considerably by having borne six sons in nine years—stood in the entranceway of her childhood home, hands on her hips and her cheeks bright red from more than the cold wind outside. She had just arrived; Seton and Fletcher were still hauling bags inside from the pung, but already her tirade was under way.
“I’ve begged you and begged you to send her to Portland,” Europa continued. “I could have found someone for her there. No one in Cumberland County knows about her indiscretions. But to permit her to marry a stranger!” Europa gave a little snort of indignation. “Mother would never have allowed this to happen!”
“It’s not Father who got married yesterday, Europa. If you have something on your mind, please address me directly,” Persia said, coming down the stairs.
Europa huffed in exasperation. “I don’t see any use in talking to you Obviously you’ve misplaced whatever wits you once had. Married!” she repeated.
“Yes, married, sister, the same as you.” Persia was determined not to be bullied by Europa. She’d had enough bullying from her own memories the night before.
“Well, I’d hardly say that your marriage to this… this missionary is the same as mine to dear Seton.”
“Perhaps not at the moment, but give me a few months. I’m sure I’ll soon be carrying my first son, just as you were immediately following your wedding.”
“Persia Whiddington!”
“The name is Blackwell now, Europa.” It still felt queer on her tongue, but Persia didn’t let that show. “Please try to remember it.”
“Girls, girls!” interrupted their father. “Must you lock horns the moment you set eyes on each other? Really, Europa, your sister’s marriage is quite legal and official. And she will be sailing for Bombay on the Madagascar in a few days to join her new husband.”
Europa’s hand flew to her trembling lips. She looked as if she might faint at any moment. “You can’t mean it! She’ll be traveling alonel This so-called husband of hers is allowing her to journey halfway around the world all by herself? Why, Father, that’s the most indecent thing I’ve ever heard in my life! What will people say?”
“I won’t be traveling alone. Fletcher is escorting me.”
Europa cut her eyes in a quick glance at the manservant, and the rest of the blood drained from her face. “Fletcher is hardly a suitable companion for a lady!”
Persia smiled smugly in spite of herself. She knew that her next statement would silence her sister one way or another. “I don’t really need any companion, actually, since I’ll be sailing as a part of the ship’s company. You see, Father’s offered me the position of supercargo and I’ve accepted the job.”
Seton Holloway came through the front door with the last of the baggage just in time to catch his wife as she fainted.
“My word!” he exclaimed. “Did I miss something?”
Europa’s husband might have missed the first scene in the drama, but he got to see and hear it replayed almost hourly. His wife refused to let the matter rest, even though she knew there was nothing she could do to change things.
Finally, on a fine snowy morning after a particularly heated contest over breakfast, Persia stormed out of the house. Seton, always the peacemaker, ran after her.
“Wait, Persia,” he called.
She slowed her angry strides, kicking at clumps of snow on the path while giving him time to catch up.
“Will it help any if I apologize?” he offered.
Immediately, some of the anger left her. “Oh, Seton, you have nothing to apologize for. She just gets me so riled up that I have to get away from her or I’m afraid I’ll start pulling her hair like I used to do when we were children.”
“Maybe she could use some hair pulling from time to time. I’m afraid I’m too easygoing to keep her in hand.” He offered his sister-in-law a sheepish grin. “I can’t help it. I love her.”
Persia patted his arm. “Of course you do, Seton. I do, too. I have to admit, though, that I’m awfully glad you moved her off to another county and tied her down with all those babies. I’m afraid neither Father nor I would have survived her maternal bent after we lost Mother.”
Seton lowered his head and kicked at a clump of snow in imitation of Persia’s earlier actions. His voice dropped. “That was a sad time for all of us, in more ways than one.”
She sighed. “It was that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bring up old memories.”
“You didn’t bring them up. They’ve been hovering over me these past days like a dark cloud. Why now, of all times, should I be thinking of Zachariah Hazzard?”
Seton paused on the path and gazed at Persia quizzically. “You haven’t seen him, have you?”
> “Seen him? You must be joking. The last time I saw him was in a boarding house in Boston the day we were supposed to be married. We’d had a spat and he stormed out, telling me he’d be waiting at a tavern. But he didn’t wait!”
“Oh!” The tone of Seton’s one-syllable reply said a good deal more than the word itself.
“Seton?” Persia caught his sleeve and turned him to face her. “Have you seen him or heard something about him?”
“No. No, I’m sure not. It was only that the name caught my eye recently. But then Hazzard is fairly common in these parts.”
Suddenly, Persia’s heart was thundering. Her throat went dry and her palms sweaty. It couldn’t be! Sunlight struck the wide gold band on her finger, flashing blindingly into her eyes. Not now!
“Where did you see the name, Seton?” She struggled to control her voice.
“It was on a shipping manifest that came through our office. There was some legal problem with the entry tariffs. The papers were signed by a Captain Hazzard out of the port of Havana, and the merchandise—tobacco, molasses, and rum—was auctioned in Boston only a few days ago. I’m sure it couldn’t have been Zack, but the name did bring him to mind.” He finished, but she made no reply. “Persia, are you all right?”
“Y-yes, of course. You’re right, Seton. It couldn’t be Zack. He’d have come here, if he’d been as close as Boston.”
“Certainly he would have. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Oh, don’t be. I’m a married woman now.” She laughed a bit falsely. “I couldn’t care less about where he is, or whether he’s alive or dead, actually.”
She turned off the path and started away from her companion.
“Persia, where are you going?”
Fighting tears and the lump in her throat, she waved and called, “To the pond to see how the ice harvest is coming along.” And then she dashed off through the woods.
Seton frowned. He had upset her, he could tell.
Chapter Sixteen
The Tail of the Devil was gone, “burnt to a cinder of a cold January night back in forty-two,” Zachariah was told when he inquired of an ancient sailmaker at India Wharf in Boston.
So, his former “home” and the scene of his downfall was no more. Too bad, he thought. He’d planned to pay one last visit to beat the living be-Jesus out of the tavernkeeper, if he was still around. The two men who had cold-cocked him and hauled him off to the Alissa May that long-ago night had laughingly confided in him later that his “good friend,” Clancey the barkeep, had set the whole thing up.
“Pay him two dollars a head, we do, to tip us off to likely prospects. Fine man to do business with, the bloke is. No muss, no fuss, no law on our tails.”
The grungy pair had laughed and spat and pounded each other on the back in congratulation when they told him the details of their excellent shanghai operation. Then, without ceremony, they had kicked him down the ladder into the Alissa May’s reeking hold, where he was given a few hours in the lonely darkness to recover his senses before he was set to work. He’d been more slave than seaman for the next four years, until the ship had wrecked off Java and he’d washed ashore.
Before taking his leave, however, he’d settled his score with those two. One disappeared over the stern without a trace on a hot, stormy night into the shark-infested South Pacific waters. The other poor fellow “lost his footing” in the rigging and plummeted to his death on the filthy, steaming deck of the Alissa May. All through the years since, Zack had been intent on planning how the third conspirator would meet his Maker. He had whiled away more hours than he could count, when he was chained belowdecks awaiting his watch, plotting the barkeep’s destruction. He felt almost cheated, hearing from the sailmaker that Clancey had “sizzled like pork fat” as his inn burned down around him.
Zack gave the sailmaker a silver dollar for his time, then he sauntered off down the quay. He was at loose ends now. There was no reason for him to stay on in Boston. And certainly his trip to Maine had been a mistake, opening old wounds that tore at his heart.
Better, he thought, to ship out at once than sit about counting his woes and feeling sorry for himself.
For some unknown reason, his mind wouldn’t let go of the woman in black he’d seen across the pond several days before. He’d been half tempted to go to her and ask her name. Maybe she knew Persia. Maybe she could have told him whether Persia had ever married. But, in a way, he was glad he hadn’t asked. He’d lost Persia; that was all that mattered. His sins were too many to go crawling back to her, begging her to see him again. Finding out that she was happily wed to some other man could hardly have helped him. Still, it was damned unfair!
Heading up the street, he turned toward the United States Hotel. There agents could always be found who were looking for captains ready to sign on. But he spotted a sign in the dirty window of a low brick building that stopped him.
“Ship’s crew needed—IMMEDIATELY!” it read.
Immediately was exactly the time he wanted to ship out. He shoved the creaking door open and stepped inside. The room was small and cluttered.
“Help you, mate?” The pale, shriveled man behind the desk never looked up but answered the bell over the door when it jingled.
“The name’s Hazzard—Captain Zachariah Hazzard, late in command of the Mazeppa. I’m looking for a new berth, an ice ship, if there’s one leaving right away.”
“A cap’n, eh?” The tired-eyed clerk looked up, squinting hard at the tall man before him. “A bit odd, ain’t it, for a ship’s commander to be out trying to hire on like a common seaman? You pile your last one up on the rocks, maybe?”
Zack realized that his method of finding employment was unusual for one of his experience and position, but the man’s tone annoyed him nonetheless. “I’ve lost but one ship in my entire career, and that was some years ago off the Irish Coast in heavy seas with a woman on board.”
The clerk’s pinched face twitched in a grin. “Ain’t partial to women much, are you, Cap’n?”
“Not on board my ships.”
“Too bad. I might of helped you out otherwise.”
“What do you mean?” Zack leaned over the desk, all attention.
“Well, it ain’t a for-sure, just a maybe, you understand. But the ship’s due to sail in no more than a week. She’s got a ship’s master signed on, but he come down with a broken leg. Ice being a meltable cargo, the owners don’t want to wait for their captain to mend up. He swears he’s still going, but one of the two owners whispered it to me not an hour ago that I’m to be on the lookout for a suitable replacement.”
“What about this woman? Who is she?”
“Oh, some missionary’s wife on her way to Bombay. A Miz Blackwell.”
The clerk didn’t bother to add that she was also the daughter of one of the owners and part of the ship’s company.
Zack’s mind raced ahead. A missionary’s wife would be the least difficult type of woman passenger to take along, if any female was less than impossible. And if she’d spent time in India already, she’d have made the passage before. She would know the discomforts and dangers facing her. Also, the sailors weren’t likely to give a preacherman’s wife a second look. There’d be no grumbling in the ranks over her because even rough seamen dared not cast lustful glances at such a woman. Yes, it might work out all right.
“By God, I’ll take it!” Hazzard boomed, giving the desk a sharp smack with his fist.
“Here now, you just hold on! It ain’t been offered right yet. Give me a list of the ships you’ve commanded and such. I’ll pass that along to the owners and we’ll see what we see. Stop by again in a couple of days.”
Zack’s spirits sagged. He was ready to go now. “You’ve got nothing else? Perhaps leaving sooner?”
The man cast a suspicious eye at the tough-looking, scar-faced captain. “It appears to me you’re a mite eager. You sure you ain’t in no trouble?”
“Of course not! I just need to feel the sea under me again.”
Even as he spoke the words, Zack realized the sea wasn’t all he needed under him. The trip back to Maine and his constant thoughts of Persia had put a giant-sized ache in his groin.
When he left the office, after assuring the clerk he would be back, the first person he saw was one of the dockside ladies who plied their trade among seafaring men.
“Buy me a drink, mate?” she asked, putting a long-nailed hand to his chest and bringing her painted face close to his.
Zack started to brush past her, but something in the faded prettiness of her features and the shabby elegance of her attire stopped him. She was young, perhaps twenty, but as well used as the cast-off gown clothing her supple body. He saw that she was shivering. Reaching out, he pulled her threadbare cape more closely around her shoulders. Her feet, he noticed, were clad not in boots against the ice and snow, but in worn-out dancing slippers. No wonder she was freezing!
“You’ve got a room?” he asked gently.
“A cold one.”
Her big eyes, he realized suddenly, were almost the same blue as Persia’s, and her hair was a tawny reddish gold. He felt a new flow of warm blood at the thought.
“Well, it won’t be cold tonight. Lead the way, girl.”
He stopped off to buy brown bread, cheese, and wine. The bright-eyed, warm-bosomed girl—whose name he never got around to asking—took him to her dingy room and into her well-used bed. And all the snowy night through, they kept each other from the cold.
In the deepest dark of the hours past midnight, her full breasts felt good against his bare chest… but not as good as Persia’s. Her kisses were urgent and hot and sweet… but not as sweet as Persia’s. And when he mounted her and entered quickly with a sudden hunger so devastating that it would not be denied, her body opened to him and seemed to welcome his thrusts. But there was none of the depth of love and longing and tenderness that he had known with Persia.
Hot Winds From Bombay Page 21
