Her gut clenched with shame.
She was no different then, than the Knowles girls, or the other women of Eastham who were all competing for this very man’s attentions.
“Sit down, then, and stretch out your leg so I can look at it,” she said more brusquely than she intended, and the captain sat.
She bent down to peer at the wound. Her hair fell over her face, hiding her flaming cheeks from him. She tensed as she touched his flesh, for the skin was warm beneath her trembling fingers; the muscle beneath like bedrock, the hair that grew there wiry. Trying to keep her thoughts focused on the wound was like spinning wool from flax; it just couldn’t be done. But oh God, she was trying.
And he, sitting there watching her, wasn’t helping any, either. She could feel those dark eyes upon her. Could almost hear him laughing at her. Inches away and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his sun-browned hand hanging casually over his bent knee. Her face grew hotter yet, and nervousness beat against her stomach, making her queasy.
“So, why do you burn clamshells?”
“What?”
“Clamshells. You’re burning them, and they stink from here to Boston. Why?”
She tried not to think about the feel of his skin beneath her fingers as she gently pulled the tattered edge of the stocking away from the wound. “They’re for my aunt. She gets these boils on her—” Maria’s face flamed—“well, she just gets them. So I burn these shells, grind them up into powder, then mix them with grease to put on the boils. It’s the only thing that brings Auntie any relief”—his muscles jerked beneath her fingers as she probed the puncture wound and she yanked her hand back—“I’m sorry, I think—”
“Maria.” He grasped her wrist, stilling it. Startled, she glanced up into his face. “Don’t trouble yourself about my leg. I’ve endured far worse and survived.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
Sam got to his feet. She was staring at him like a frightened doe, and he found the guilt—and the rising desire—were not worth the tease of those sweet little fingers against his calf. God’s teeth, why was his conscience bothering him so? “It doesn’t hurt, really. Maybe you could just tell me what to do about it, and I’ll tend to it myself.”
Relief flooded her eyes. “Are you certain?”
“Aye.” He brushed sand from his clothing and shot her a sidelong glance. “But where did you learn such an art, anyway?”
“From the Indians.” And when he looked at her, puzzled that she kept company with heathens, she hurriedly explained. “You see, I’m quite—” she cast about for the right word, biting her lip—“uh, proficient at weaving, and—” she glanced down at the sand, kicking at it with her toe—“needlecraft. The Wampanoags love bright colors, pretty designs, and when they found out I could weave scenes and pictures into blankets when they couldn’t, they begged me to make some for them.”
“You’re awfully young to be trading with savages. Why don’t the other village women make blankets for them?”
“They don’t know how to make the patterns and designs I come up with.” She shrugged. “But you asked how I learned the art of healing…in trade for the blankets, the Wampanoags teach me about their medicines.”
A woman who sang in the moonlight, wove blankets that even the Indians couldn’t duplicate, and stood here tossing clamshells into a fire. She intrigued him. Piqued his interest. Hell, maybe he’d stay in Eastham for another few days after all, get to know her. “And what would these Indians advise you to do for dog-bite?” he asked.
She looked up, caught his eye, and grinned. “Shoot the dog, probably.”
And then they both laughed, he with a deep rumble of appreciation, she with a nervous little twitter. But some of the tension was dispelled. “Actually,” she said on a more serious note, “you could collect some of the bayberry’s bark—it grows all over the dunes—dry it out, pound it into powder, and use it as a poultice. Of course, by the time you do all that the wound will have healed, so it’s probably a waste of effort. Or you could get some plantain and mash the leaves into a paste, and put that on your leg, instead.”
“And do you have any of this dried bayberry bark?”
“Well…uh, actually, yes. But if I brought you home, Auntie would be horrified.”
“What, can’t you have suitors?”
“Suitors?” She let out her breath and picked at her sleeve. “I’ve never had a suitor in my life. Auntie won’t allow it until she feels I’m old enough. And if she did, you, Captain Bellamy, are the last person she’d allow me to see.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t think that needs explaining,” she said, and coloring deeply, looked away.
“If it’s about last night—”
“Please, Captain Bellamy. I have no wish to discuss it further. It was difficult enough to face Thankful this morning.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That her plan didn’t work. That you wouldn’t kiss me because I wasn’t pretty enough.”
He snorted in amusement and a gleam came into his eyes. “Not pretty enough,” he mused, and looked at her in a way that made her suddenly uncomfortable all over again as the memories of the previous night assailed her once more. Sam Bellamy was a wicked man. Wasn’t he? He had done things to her, with her, last night…things that were unspeakable. And yet surely, a wicked man would not have offered to marry her. A wicked man would not have held her in his arms while she sobbed out the agonies of her heart. And a wicked man would not have halted her ministrations to his injured leg.
A wicked man.
Jonathan had never offered to marry her. Jonathan had never held her in his arms. And Jonathan had never been polite to her, because Jonathan had never even bothered to notice her.
But Sam Bellamy had.
A fierce sense of protectiveness suddenly overwhelmed her, for this man had been unfairly judged by the “righteous” citizens of the parish. The depth of the feeling startled and shocked her. Who were they to say such mean things about him? She would not be like them. She would not judge him on what had happened last night. After all, she’d been as much to blame as he was—maybe even more so, she now realized. And now here he was, the most proper of gentlemen, laughing with her, paying her compliments, and bestowing upon her the kind of attention that made her feel wanted, needed.
Treasured.
She really ought to do something about his leg.
“I can’t let you come back to my aunt’s,” she said, “but if you like, you can help me gather some plantain while we’re here. I’ll prepare it for you, and you can put it on when you get back to town.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
“Yes, but you cannot breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Your reputation is of utmost concern to me.”
“My reputation?” She laughed then, unable to help herself. “’Tis not my reputation that concerns me, Captain, but my skin!”
For if Auntie found out that she was walking across the moors with the notorious Captain Samuel Bellamy, chaperoned by nothing more than a brown-and-white bird dog that never, mind you, bit anyone, she’d have more than her reputation to worry about.
He offered his arm and together they retraced his solitary footsteps in the sand.
Chapter 4
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf
— Swinburne
The wind changed overnight, blowing out of the west in stiff gusts that would have carried Lilith far out to sea had her master decided to raise her old gray sails to catch it. There was no longer anything holding him here; Paul Williams had given him n
ot only his friendship, but the financial backing he’d sought. But for Sam Bellamy, the wind had ceased to matter.
He had other things on his mind, and it wasn’t treasure and it sure as hell wasn’t the wind.
He had never courted anyone in his life; he’d never had to, for finding a woman willing to take a tumble with him had never been difficult. But to court one? He had no idea where to begin.
The moors, perhaps. And here he was wandering the dunes, hoping that the rain would hold off and that the bearberry flowers he’d picked, pristine white and kissed by splashes of pink, would do. Their colors reminded him of Maria’s complexion. And thinking of her sunny hair, he plucked a few of the poverty grass’s tiny, star-shaped yellow blossoms and added them to his bouquet, too.
A shadow fell across his hand and he glanced skyward. Thick black clouds were rolling toward him across Massachusetts Bay, and unless he missed his guess—which seldom happened, for as a mariner he knew the sky’s moods as well as he did his own—it would rain soon. He’d have to hurry if he expected to beat the deluge. God’s teeth, the damned flowers would probably be wilted by the time he finally got them to her.
The sky was darker than pitch by the time he reached the King’s Highway leading back to town. What a fool he must seem, traipsing across the moors with a handful of flowers while his ship lay waiting and Paul Williams grew more and more impatient to leave. What was the big hurry, anyway?
None.
After all, there was more in life than Spanish gold.
* * *
The fire that burned in the huge hearth toasted the keeping room and cast flickering tongues of light across the cast-iron cooking pots, the herbs that hung from the rough-hewn beams, and the shape, made eerie by the leaping shadows, of Maria’s loom. She sighed and straightened up from her work, listening to the steady beat of rain upon the roof and trickling down the windows. It was enough to put a body to sleep, that rain. She rubbed at her aching back with weary fingers. At least the blanket she was taking such special pains over was almost finished.
As usual, she’d made a mess. Spilling from the basket beside her spinning wheel were bright, cheerful yarns she’d carded and dyed over the winter and flax she’d spun into linen. Their bright colors lent cheer to the gloomy day—colors that had come from dyes that Maria had made herself. Deep shades of red obtained by boiling pokeberries in alum, yellow gleaned from the barberry root. She’d simmered berries and iris petals to make a purple regal enough for a king and had got rich browns from the bark of oak trees and walnut shells. Indigo was the only dye she had to buy, and this, Maria usually used sparingly. But not now, for this was a very special blanket she was weaving….
It was to be for Sam Bellamy.
She passed her hand over it with a smile and rose to her feet, stretching her stiff limbs and kneading the small of her back. Sam Bellamy. She said the name aloud, letting the words roll off her tongue, savoring the sound of them, the feel of them. A week had passed since that night beneath the apple tree…a week of stolen walks across the dunes with him, a week of making excuses to her aunt, a week of getting to know him and growing more and more fond of him. She berated herself. Who was she fooling? She was more than just fond of him.
She flushed, the fire suddenly too hot to bear. She went to the window, where water streamed down the diamond-shaped panes and blurred her view of Auntie’s vegetable and herb gardens, the cattle in the far pasture with their rain-darkened hides, the robin that stood on the lawn playing a furious game of tug-of-war with a hapless worm. She pressed her face to the glass, savoring the coolness against her cheek. Vapor quickly fogged the pane and spread out over the window until she couldn’t even see the robin anymore.
Sam Bellamy. With a secretive little smile, Maria put a finger to the glass and drew a small, careful S in the vapor beside her nose.
But what did he think of her? Did he care one whit for her? He’d certainly spent a lot of time with her during the past week, and when the wind had changed he hadn’t taken advantage of it, but had stayed in Eastham. Why? For her? An odd little shiver raced up her spine at the thought. And he’d been the perfect gentleman too, never laying a hand on her, always conducting himself within the rules of propriety—although there were times when she saw a hot gleam in his eye when he thought she wasn’t looking, times when she’d turn abruptly and find a lazy, admiring smile curving his mouth that made her remember the way he’d looked at her that night beneath the apple tree.
But he never mentioned what had happened beneath that tree, instead keeping to safe, benign subjects that didn’t make her feel uncomfortable. His plans of salvaging the Spanish ships. The wild moors of Devon he’d all but forgotten until they’d begun to walk Eastham’s barren dunes and boyhood memories, long relegated to a forgotten corner of his mind, stirred within him. Her weaving, her interest in the Indians’ medicine—
A sharp rap on the door brought her musings to an abrupt halt. Hastily, Maria obliterated the telltale S from the foggy pane with a swipe of her sleeve and hurried across the room. It was probably Thankful who, suspecting she hadn’t been given the whole truth about Maria’s “encounter” with Sam Bellamy, had grown increasingly waspish of late. Well, she wasn’t going to find out any differently now. Resolutely, Maria lifted the latch, pulled the heavy door open—and gasped in surprise.
Sam Bellamy stood there, rain streaming from his black hair and trickling through his brows, his lashes, and down his swarthy cheeks. His seaman’s jacket was dripping, his full canvas skilts, belted at the waist with a thick strap of wet leather, were splotchy and dark with water, and his shoes were spattered with mud.
“May I come in?”
“Captain Bellamy! What are you doing here?”
He smiled and brought his hand from around his back. In it was a colorful—but wilted—bouquet of wildflowers. Maria squealed in delight.
“Oh, they’re beautiful!” Pressing them to her bosom, she dashed across the room, searching for something to put them in while he stood grinning.
Suddenly she remembered him standing in the doorway. “Oh, do come in out of the rain!” she said breathlessly, her eyes bright with happiness.
“Why, thank you.” He closed the door behind him and shuffled his feet upon the braided rug to dry them. “’Tis a beastly day out there.”
“It is indeed, and what compels you to be out in it is beyond my understanding. Let me guess—a seaman’s wont, to be drenched to the skin and shivering like a wet cat? Here, give me your coat and go stand next to the fire.”
His jacket was heavy with rain and smelled pleasantly of sea salt and wool. She hung it on the peg beside the door and watched as he stalked across the room, warily checking the shadows and the far corners.
“Where’s that blasted whelp of yours, anyhow?”
“Gunner? Auntie took him with her to the reverend’s.”
“Thank God. I’m safe for the moment then, it would seem.”
Laughing, Maria plucked one of the wildflowers he’d given her and ran it lovingly across her cheek. In her innocence, she could not know that the simple gesture only tantalized her guest all the more. “Surely, you didn’t come here just to discuss my dog.”
“Nay, I did not.”
And indeed, he hadn’t. Sam watched her as she went to the hearth and ladled something out of an enormous black pot. He gazed hungrily at the curve of her buttocks. The shimmering beauty of her hair, the nip of her tiny waist, the flashing tease of a trim ankle beneath her petticoats.
She returned and offered him the bowl. Steam drifted up, tickling his nose. He wrapped his hands around the bowl and let the delicious warmth seep through his fingers. “Let me guess,” he teased. “Clamshells boiled in water. Clamshells with carrots. Clamshells—”
“Venison stew.”
“No clamshells?” he asked with mock disappointment. “Why, I certainly wasn’t expecting dinner.” Nevertheless, he dug his spoon into the bowl like a starving man and looked up at
her with a wicked light in his eye. “Don’t you know, Maria, that if ye feed a stray he’ll always come back for more?”
She drew up a chair and arranged her skirts over her knees. “’Tis true. But that stray will only hang around until he finds something better at the next house.”
“Well, this stray is perfectly content to stay right where he is. If—” he took another sip of the stew and looked at her over the top of his spoon—“you understand my meaning.”
“All too well. But mind that the stray doesn’t stay so long that he’s thrown out on his ear when Auntie comes home.”
The spoon thunked down into the bowl and he reacted with swift, unexpected anger. “Confound it, Maria! This sneaking around like a damned whelp, keeping my feelings for you a secret—I’ve put up with this idiocy for long enough. It’s about time we stop this farce, don’t you think? Time we stop hiding from everyone.” He dropped his tall frame into the settle beside the fire and rested his head against its back, his long legs stretched toward the crackling flames. “I’m done with pretense,” he said. “In fact, I think I’ll wait right here ’til your aunt comes back. That’s the proper way, isn’t it?”
“Proper way? For what, pray tell?”
“Why, to ask her permission to court you, of course.”
“Court me?”
“Is the idea that disagreeable?”
“No—it’s just that….” She wrung her hands in despair. “Oh, Sam, you don’t understand! I can’t have suitors. Not Jonathan, not Ben Nickerson, not you. Especially not you.”
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