Oceanswept

by Hays, Lara

  My blankets were heaped in disarray on the floor, thanks to my attempt to use my sheet as a covering. As I remade the bed, I felt a strange, stiff lump of fabric mixed in with the blankets. Smoothing it out and straining to see its shape in the dim light, I recognized it as my dress. My corset was there too.

  I tried not to think about who had undressed me and laid me to bed, but the thought was difficult to ignore. Was it done by a gruff and hungry sailor who took a little too much pleasure in the task? Perhaps it had been Nicholas. This idea was only slightly less offensive.

  I touched the fabric, now rough with dried seawater, thinking on the last time I wore it. My maid Lucia had dressed me with care then styled my long hair to withstand the wind. I took tea with my father as the sun rose. A sudden wind pitched the ship and the hurricane was upon us before I finished breakfast.

  Tears sprang into my eyes. I didn’t bother to blink them back. I fell into the hard bed and let them flow freely. It wasn’t long until the sedation of the rum took over and I drifted into a restless sleep filled with fitful dreams.

  The faces of my father, my maid, and Nicholas swam through my tangled mind. Obscure noises from the deck made their way to my consciousness. A bell rang periodically, marking the onset of various shifts. I heard the familiar cadence of human speech, but no discernible conversations. I learned to tune out the constant rhythm of raucous sea chanteys.

  Night fell. Anticipating my chaperone’s arrival, I decided to slip on my gown. Dressing myself for the first time in my entire existence would have been a chore under any circumstance, but it was a particular challenge in such cramped quarters. The corset was impossible. I fumbled with the laces, twisting my arms behind me and hobbling about the room. Frustrated with the blasted thing, I eventually kicked it under the bed and regretted that my willowy figure could not fill out the dress on its own.

  The dress was easier to slip into, though fastening the buttons was almost as frustrating as trying to tie the corset. I buttoned the dress halfway before giving up.

  Heavy with salt—and lacking the aid of a corset—my gown hung limply against my bony figure. It was the best I could do. At least I was dressed.

  My heart raced at the sound of approaching footsteps. I was eager to get out of the cabin but hated the idea of another long night being judged by the arrogant sailor. As if he had the right to judge me! It would serve him right if I refused him my company tonight.

  I sighed and slouched against the door. I was too bored, too hungry, and too anxious to see that through.

  A tap sounded on the door.

  My hands fluttered as I smoothed my disheveled hair. I quickly pinched my cheeks.

  Why was I so worried about my appearance?

  “Miss Monroe?”

  The door creaked as I gingerly opened it. I winced at the sound. Nicholas stood before me wearing a broad smile. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Found your dress,” he noticed.

  I looked down at the tattered gown and shrugged.

  “Ready for your nightly recess?”

  “My nightly recess?” I repeated indignantly.

  “Shh!” He hissed, throwing a stealthy glance over his shoulder.

  “Why are you acting so suspicious?”

  “I told you. I am protecting you. Now, c’mon. Supper’s ready in the galley.”

  I crossed my arms. “No. This isn’t normal. I refuse to leave this cabin until you tell me what you’re hiding from me.”

  “All right, luv. If that’s what you want, I won’t force my company on you.” Nicholas began to walk away, his sinewy figure disappearing in the darkness.

  I sighed in exasperation and scurried after him.

  “First,” I said, “I am not your luv. Second, I am only coming with you because I am famished. And finally, I will discover what you’re hiding from me, even if I have to go to the captain himself.”

  Nicholas stopped abruptly. “Don’t do that,” he said darkly without bothering to look at me.

  “The idea worries you,” I said proudly. “You know you’ll be punished. Chided, at least. Finally, I have some leverage over you.”

  “Listen here, luv,” he emphasized the pet name deliberately as he looked into my eyes, “go to the captain. Be my bloody guest. It’ll actually improve my standing with that codger. I told you once and I’ll tell you again—if you do that, you’ll wish you were dead by morning.”

  The warning was so bombastic, I nearly laughed aloud. Nicholas didn’t laugh, though. I stared at him through narrowed eyes, trying to sense a joke. Or at least derision. But I only sensed sincere passion.

  “I won’t go to the captain,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Nicholas answered with a slight curl of his lip.

  “Yet,” I added. “I will find out what you’re hiding from me. You can tell me yourself, or I will find out on my own.”

  Nicholas shrugged. “You’re treading in dangerous waters, lass. But do what you must. For now, let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nicholas offered his arm, which I hesitantly accepted. A rush of warmth ran through me the moment our skin touched. My stomach danced. I looked at him in alarm, wondering if he had felt it too. He was staring back at me as if he had.

  I swallowed hard and let Nicholas lead me across the deck.

  It was eerily still. There was no trace of the night crew. Not even a breeze ruffled the sails. I thought it odd that not a single soul manned the deck. Perhaps Nicholas had arranged it that way.

  The sky was clearer than the night before. Countless stars twinkled down upon the endless black ocean and a silver moon stared down at me. I felt even smaller, even more lost than I had before.

  In the moonlight, I took keener notice of the ship. The deck was littered with tangles of sailing line, barrels, and other clutter. Loose belaying pins rolled sloppily around. This certainly was not a military ship.

  When we approached the hatch to the galley, Nicholas released my arm. I felt cold and alone again and secretly wanted to be near him. I carefully made my way down the narrow ladder and sat at the table.

  A lantern was already blazing over the table. Nicholas filled two bowls with steaming soup and poured two cups of rum. As a treat, he served me a spoonful of pickled vegetables. The taste of vinegar was strong, but it was invigorating compared with the rest of the meal.

  “How was your day?” Nicholas asked me.

  I shrugged. “Very long.”

  “Yes, it would be. I apologize for that.”

  “No need for apologies,” I countered politely, though I wondered what he was really apologizing for—my boredom or my confinement.

  We ate in silence for a while.

  “I think it’s time we become acquainted. Since you’re sleeping in my bed,” Nicholas said with a wicked wink.

  I stiffened at his affront. “We don’t have to talk.”

  Nicholas barked a laugh, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Pardon me for supposing that you wouldn’t mind a bit of conversation after your very long day. I may as well treat you like a sheep out to pasture—watch you eat and send you back to the barn.”

  I glared at him. “That’s exactly what this is, despite the…conversation.”

  “Come on, Tessa—”

  “Miss Monroe,” I corrected.

  “If you say so. Let’s be civil. It will make the time pass easier. Play along.”

  “What would you like to know?” I asked curtly.

  “Tell me everything.”

  “That may take all night.”

  He smiled broadly and said, “I think we have all night.”

  I felt myself blushing, though I didn’t know why.

  “You’re no stranger to the sea,” Nicholas stated. “Did you sail with your father often?”

  I nodded. “Occasionally. On short voyages.”

  “The whole family would join in the fun, then?”

  “Just me,” I said as I absentmindedly stirred my stew. I glanc
ed up and saw that Nicholas was confused. “I meant that I am the whole family. Just my father and me.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She died giving birth to me,” I said indifferently.

  Nicholas’s brow furrowed. “Both parents gone,” he muttered to himself, but not quietly enough.

  “Yes, both parents gone,” I repeated. “Thank you so much for bringing up the topic.”

  “I’m sorry. I lost my parents at a young age too.”

  He almost sounded sincere.

  I glowered at him. “Do not pretend we are anything alike.”

  Nicholas sneered in return. “With your fancy tutors and nannies, your private menagerie, your hired playmates…you don’t have to tell me that we are nothing alike.”

  “I did not have a private menagerie!”

  Nicholas scoffed and swigged his drink. “Tell me, then, what was your life like?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I was a spoiled brat. I never wanted for a thing.”

  “Which surely leaves you wanting for something.”

  “After insisting how privileged I am, you’re now questioning it?” This man was insulting.

  He shrugged. “Nobody can have everything. And the more you try to get it all, the more you realize what you can never have. Just something I’ve learned.”

  “You presume too much, Mr. Holladay,” I bristled. “You do not know me at all.”

  Nicholas sensed he had jarred a personal nerve. His eyes were pleading when I looked at him. He hadn’t meant to offend me with his philosophical waxing. I didn’t know why I felt the need to ease his discomfort. I had no reason to care of his thoughts or feelings. But something inside me softened and I felt compelled to pardon the offense.

  In an offering of peace, I rekindled the conversation. “Tell me about this ship.”

  Nicholas’s eyes grew bright. He rattled off the ship’s details. “She’s a two-masted brigantine, as you saw. Fast as the four winds. Survived three hurricanes without so much as a ripped sail. Decent tonnage. Holds over a dozen cannons and is populated with nearly one-hundred men. She’s called the Banshee.”

  “The Banshee? As in the evil Irish specter that calls to you before death?”

  “Aye. That Banshee, indeed.”

  I shuddered. “Such an ominous name.”

  “Can’t hurt in these waters.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He grappled with his thoughts before answering. “The balance of power in the Spanish Main is unsteady. Broken treaties and battles, not to mention those out for themselves.”

  “Pirates, you mean.” My father had warned me of those too. It was one of his gravest concerns about his new position in St. Kitts.

  Nicholas shifted. He caught my eye for a brief moment, then looked away. “Aye. So, it doesn’t hurt to have an ominous name, as you call it.”

  “Is that why there are so many cannons on deck? Self-defense?”

  Nicholas stared at me blankly for a full minute. “Aye,” he finally answered. “Dangerous waters and all.”

  His answer was unsettling, though I didn’t know why. “I take it this is not a passenger ship. What does the Banshee do?”

  Nicholas smiled wryly, laughing softly to himself. “Transports goods, mostly.”

  He was oddly uncomfortable. Nicholas had no problem bragging about the ship itself or his duties as the first mate earlier, so why was he acting so evasive now?

  “How did you become a sailor?” I asked, steering the conversation away from the ship. He was hiding something, and I would find it out eventually. But I did not want to rouse his suspicions.

  “Ah, now that is a story worth telling.”

  He downed the remains of his drink and sat back in his chair with a grace I envied and began his tale.

  “It is rare for a lad to grow up wishing to be—” he paused abruptly and started over. “I never knew I would grow up to make my living this way. As a lad, I was apprenticed to a carpenter—a respectable trade in anyone’s book. I loved it. I loved taking virgin wood in my hands and making something beautiful. I was uncommonly good at it, especially for a young boy.”

  “Then why did you stop?”

  “My mum died. I had no father. I could not afford to live off my apprenticeship, and I was far too young and poor to start a shop of my own. I couldn’t join the military—too young for that too.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twelve, thirteen? Somewhere in there.”

  Though several years older than he had been, I, too, was now an orphan with no way to provide for myself. I pushed away the comparison, reminding myself that many children were orphans. We were nothing alike.

  “So what did you do?” I asked.

  “I stayed alive,” Nicholas shrugged. “I slept in alleyways, performed odd jobs for scraps, and tried to stay warm, but I was starving. So I started stealing things. Bread, coin purses, whatever I could use. I lived like that for a year. Sneaking from town to town, trying not to get caught.”

  I would never have thought I would have compassion for a thief. But suddenly I did. I understood the pride Nicholas took in his vocation. He had made something of himself—even as a sailor—in a very hard world.

  “Once, as I was trying to avoid an angry constable, I found the best hiding spot ever—as a stowaway on a ship. It was only a matter of days before I was discovered pilfering food from the galley. I could’ve been hanged right then.”

  “Hanged? For stealing food?”

  He nodded.

  “You were only a child. That seems extreme.”

  “Maybe, but that’s how it is. At sea, law is everything. One sign of weakness and enemies will capitalize on it.”

  I shuddered.

  “But this captain, he was a good man. He knew I did not have the heart of a criminal. I was just surviving. And when he learned I was trained as a carpenter, he offered me a pardon so long as I worked on the ship. So, at fourteen, I became the ship’s carpenter and I’ve been sailing since.”

  “How old are you now?”

  Nicholas paused. “Twenty-one, I guess. It’s easy to lose count.”

  I smiled. “Do you ever wish you were still a carpenter? That you did not have to sail for a living?”

  A huge grin split his face, “Tough question, luv. From the first day as one of the crew, I knew I had a calling here. The surf. The sun. I’d bet against sevens that God made the ocean just for me. But there are times when I wish things were different. I wish I weren’t bound to this ship or this particular company. But I could never leave the ocean. Sailing was made for me—and I for it.”

  “It sounds like it. You are awfully young for an officer, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “A natural sea dog, indeed. I’m strong, I guess. Good balance. I can climb the rigging faster than anyone on this ship. I’m particularly good with weapons. I learned to fence, to throw knives, but I am a natural crack shot with a pistol. A marksman.”

  “And so they call you Marks,” I remembered. “But I always heard that pistols are of no use at sea.”

  “Aye, in general. They take time to reload and they are difficult to aim in an emergency. But if you can take one shot and make it count, it’s an asset to any crew.”

  “But does a merchant ship really have need of such precision in an emergency?”

  “The Caribbean is a treacherous place for any ship.”

  Though I had been practically raised upon the ocean and familiar with every aspect of sailing, it was evident that life on the Caribbean was a world away from the cold waters of the English Channel.

  “Have you ever shot anybody?” I asked curiously.

  Nicholas cleared his throat but did not answer. I searched his face, but he refused to meet my eyes. The silence grew heavier with each passing second. Finally, Nicholas stood, collected our dishes, and put them on the counter.

  “Time to go back.”

  I looked at the hatch. It was still pitch black. There was no sign of dawn,
no ringing of bells to announce the early watch.

  Suddenly I was distraught by the thought of the small, lonely cabin. “But it’s not morning yet.”

  Nicholas walked to the ladder and gestured for me to follow him.

  “It was wrong for me to ask that, Mr. Holladay. Please don’t think I meant something by it, because I didn’t. My father is an admiral. I understand life at sea.”

  “Do not pretend we are anything alike.”

  Nicholas turned and climbed the ladder. I had no choice but to follow.

  At the threshold of my cabin, Nicholas gruffly commanded me to stay inside.

  As he turned to leave, I caught his elbow and motioned for him to lean in close. “In truth, Mr. Holladay, I think I should present myself to the captain,” I whispered.

  Glancing up and down the corridor, Nicholas stepped into the cabin, pulling the door closed behind him. My heart thumped at his proximity.

  “I understand you trust me very little and respect me even less. But I am begging you, do not talk to the captain.”

  Confused by his sudden candor, I tried to explain myself. “But couldn’t the captain help me—”

  “No,” Nicholas whispered sharply. “Do not talk to him. Do not go near him. Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes,” I whispered.

  “Do I have your word?”

  “I-I…”

  “Tessa, give me your word that you will not attempt to talk to the captain or anyone else on this ship besides me.”

  The force of his words alarmed me. I was reluctant to swear to anything, but under the power of his stare I eked out my promise. “You have my word.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day was as long and torturous as the day before. I dared not think how many more days like this I would endure.

  As promised, Nicholas placed a plate of hardtack in my room while I was sleeping. I forced myself to eat the entire roll. I curled up on the bed again, tracing the wooden grain of the walls with my fingers.