Seton said nothing now, as he always did precisely when she most needed him to say something that could derail her thoughts, something with which she could quarrel.
“Tomorrow when we come into port, you will go with me to the farm as I wish,” she said.
“I will.”
“Because if you do not, you will forfeit the wager and I will win.”
“I will go with you because until you are in the home of your sister I do not plan on allowing you out of my sight.”
Weakness swamped her, from her throat to her legs. He made her feel weak where she had felt strong her whole life. The strongest most adventuresome girl in England, the baron had always said. The most reckless.
Years after he took her, Fionn learned from an old smuggler friend who had passed through Devonshire the story of her English family’s reaction to her disappearance. They had believed her reckless enough to climb the bluff by herself, without ropes, without an adult, and had died because of it, dashed upon the rocks in the water below.
Viola didn’t blame them. As a child she had often behaved rashly, but not on that day when Fionn Daly grabbed her up, bundled her into his longboat, and stole her away, using her as bait for her mother, whom he thought would follow. Instead, she had died.
Now this man said Serena had never believed in her death. To learn the truth of it she could go to England easily enough with or even without her ship, then return and slide smoothly into her life again, with her crew and Aidan alike.
But panic swirled in her, insisting she must not go. For, if she did, she might never wish to return to this life, to the life she had made for herself upon the sea. To the people she cared for and the man she intended to marry. All of it might be lost, just as that other world had been lost so completely once. She had learned to live without it. She had fought to learn to live without it, pressing down her memories and bidding her heart do as she commanded as day after day the sea became her home.
“Damn you, Jinan Seton.”
He laughed, but there was no pleasure in the sound now. “I am afraid you are far too late for that, Miss Carlyle. I signed that contract years ago.”
She swallowed through her aching throat. “I cannot think of a worse curse at present.”
“I will await your pleasure.” He bowed.
She expelled a hard breath, jumped off the bowsprit and strode aft. Not to the quarterdeck. Night had fallen and there was no lonely longing there now to clean her head of confusion.
For that was why she loved that place the most of all aboard ship, why that time of day called to her most profoundly and made her ache so hard yet with such sharp pleasure. Because amid the pain of losing those she loved, then the everyday dangers of life on the sea that made the affection of rough and weathered sailors an uncertain gift as well, what she could count on most was loneliness.
Loneliness was not like love. Loneliness was pure. It was constant. It would never fail her.
And now it wore the face of a man.
Chapter 11
Odwall Blankton Fishery, Billingsgate Wharf
RECEIPT OF PURCHASE:
10 lbs Mackerel, smoked
20 lbs Sole
1 doz. Lobsters, live
2 lbs Sturgeon Roe
3 doz. Oysters
20 Lemons
TO BE DELIVERED TO: Lady Justice, Brittle & Sons, Printers, London
ATTACHED: My lady, with my compliments. Peregrine
Chapter 12
“Matthew?” Viola slid her hand around a thick peg of the helm, wind blowing her hair about her cheeks. Land ran close along the ship’s port side, rising into the island in green slopes to the mountaintops, bending toward the cape. They would make the harbor of Port of Spain on Trinidad well within an hour.
“Cap’n ma’am?” Big Mattie tugged his cap and his leathery cheeks colored up. For a great hulking beast of a man, he was as shy as a girl.
“Are you boys bounty hunters? Is that what the Cavalier turned her canvas to when she quit pirating?”
He screwed up his cauliflower nose and scratched behind his ear. “Just simple sailors, ma’am.”
“ ’Cept Cap’n Jin.” Little Billy perched atop a coil of rope, cleaning his teeth with a stick the size of his skinny arm. “S’always got us after someone or other what’s lost and has got to be brought home.”
“Has he?” It explained a great deal, his determination and unshakable focus-even, she thought, when he had been kissing her.
It had not escaped her that he might have kissed her to encourage her to do as he bid. Most men considered women half-witted. However much he teased her, though, Viola didn’t believe Jin Seton thought of her like that. Irresponsible and mad, yes. But not a fool. The Pharaoh would not voluntarily serve under a master he believed to be a fool, not even in order to secure his goal.
“Don’t matter where they is either,” Billy chirped. “Or if they wants to come. Cap’n Jin don’t stop till he gets his man.” He clamped the stick between his teeth and it poked out of his mouth. “Or woman, ma’am. Cap’n ma’am, I means to say.”
She smiled. Billy seemed simple on the surface, but his mind was quick. He knew Seton had come for her. Big Mattie and Matouba too. Her own crewmen were still ignorant of it, though.
Interesting discretion for former pirates.
“What sort of people has he hunted?” Other than her. He had hunted her. The notion still made her heady, in a sort of nauseous manner. The legendary former pirate had hunted her for money. For payment from her brother-in-law, the earl.
But he had not kissed her like he was being paid for it. He kissed her like he wanted to. Like he needed to.
“All sorts,” Billy replied blithely, settling his bony behind into the coil with a grin. The wind was fresh and the men were glad to be nearing the end of the journey, while Viola’s belly tickled with nerves. She ought to be thinking of Aidan. She ought to be thrilled with the prospect of seeing him for the first time in eons. She was. Certainly.
But another man filled her thoughts.
“Oh, really?” she pressed.
Billy nodded. “Sometimes they’s ladies. Sometimes they’s gents.”
“Ladies and gentlemen?” Did he do this regularly now that he had ceased pirating? Did he seek out and drag home people who had been abducted like her? Ridiculous. How many people like her could there be?
“Some,” Mattie said gruffly, peering at her from beneath bushy chestnut brows. “Somes is no-good ruffians.”
“Like them Scots what we gone chasing up north.” Billy nodded, chewing on the stick.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and ruffians? And up north too. You boys have been busy, haven’t you?”
They both nodded.
She was only one of the many. The tingles of nerves in her belly clumped together in a sticky mass.
“I’ll bet you have favorite haunts in every port,” she heard herself say. “And favorite girls too.” She smiled the way she smiled at Crazy and Frenchie when they spoke of their wives.
Billy’s cheeks flamed.
“No, of course not, Billy.” She chuckled. “But do you have a special girl somewhere, Matthew?” She could not seem to halt herself.
His dusky cheeks darkened as well.
“Got himself a right pretty gal in Dover,” Billy supplied.
“Then she is a very lucky lady, just like your captain’s girl, I’m sure.”
“Cap’n ain’t got no girl, ma’am.” Billy scrubbed at the crown of his head. “He don’t never have no girl more’n a night.”
Viola’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Big Mattie’s heavy brow dipped.
“Cap’n don’t go in for holding fast with petticoats,” the hulk mumbled, his gaze fixed on her with peculiar focus. “He ain’t the sticking sort.”
“Ah. Of course not,” she made herself reply, forcing a knowing nod.
She turned her attention to the land, tracing the unfamiliar coast. She’d only visited Aidan once sin
ce he purchased the farm. At that time his fields had been cleared, the cane growing in long rows. But for living quarters he hadn’t even a roof over the rough floors of his new house. Two years later now, he must have finished it. No more bedding her in a corner of the kitchen covered by leaky palm branches and infested with flies and mosquitoes.
Although, on that occasion he barely bedded her. He’d been tired, anxious over a squabble between the foreman and the free men who worked the fields. He had satisfied himself in her quickly, then went off to see to the trouble, leaving her aching for more. For something else.
In truth, she knew nothing else. She had first given herself to him at seventeen, when Fionn fell ill and she went to Aidan for comfort, then later a handful of times. He never pressed her for it. He was a gentleman.
Her gaze scanned the rolling coast. Before she left this island two years ago, he had kissed her, told her she was the most important person in his life and that he had always loved her, and vowed to write. Months later when a letter arrived, she read his renewed promises of their future together with mingled confusion and gratification. He still wished to marry her. She must only allow him to settle more firmly into his new life before asking her to join it. He had been a clerk, then a sailor, and now he must accustom himself to the duties of a landowner. Then he would send for her and they would be wed.
Five months passed before the next letter. It mentioned poor weather, fractious laborers, and bothersome taxes, and again the assurance of his love. Six months later the next arrived, much the same in content. Since then she’d had only the quick note indicating he had received the news she would be visiting soon and was eager for it.
Along the coast the island rose dramatically, emerald green beneath the summer’s morning sun. She drew in the scent of verdant land and searched for the nerves in her belly that should be there, the anticipation of seeing him again after so long. But her insides felt empty.
Perhaps she merely required food.
“Matthew, do you know this port?”
The helmsman nodded. “Came in here twice a year, for a spell.”
“Will you take us in?”
“Aye, Cap’n ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, handed over the wheel to him, and turned toward the stair.
“Always so appreciative.” Seton leaned against the rail at the bottom of the steps, watching her descend. “You are spoiling my men. They will expect me to fawn over them and be crushed when I refuse to oblige.” He grinned, the merest tilt of his breathtaking mouth.
Tingles erupted in Viola’s midsection.
She gripped the rail. This was not supposed to happen. She loved Aidan. She would see him within hours. She should be thinking of nothing else. She could not tear her gaze from her quartermaster’s handsome face.
His clear eyes sobered, the grin slipping away.
“What is it?” He pushed away from the rail and met her at the base of the stair. “Something is amiss. Tell me.”
She swallowed over her tied tongue. “It’s nothing. I’m a bit light-headed, I suppose. I forgot to eat lunch.”
His brow creased. “Small wonder. It is not yet ten o’clock.”
“Then I’d better go see to that.” She turned toward the stairs to below.
“We are nearly in the harbor. You do not wish to remain atop?”
“Yes.” She halted. “Yes, of course.”
He peered at her oddly, a question in his eyes. But her heart galloped and nothing occurred to her that she could say out loud. She pivoted and headed for the bow.
She remained there until they rounded the cape and tacked into the harbor. Then the business of heaving to and announcing their presence to the port officers approaching in a boat engaged her entire crew and there was no time for foolish confusions. She was a respected privateer making anchor in an ally’s friendly port. This she could do with perfect ease.
Seton made it even easier. While Crazy usually ran about directing the men’s every last move, as always the Pharaoh seemed to have perfect control over her crew with an economy of words. The remainder of the time he stood silently at her shoulder, stance solid, hands clasped behind his back, awaiting her orders.
The harbor was not particularly busy, only a handful of ships docked or at anchor. A tattered old sloop and a schooner not worth the price of its rigging bobbed on the calm green water at anchor, both foreign vessels from the looks of it, a mass of fishing boats and a pleasure boat or two.
When the customs documents had been signed, the contents of the April Storm’s hold duly recorded in ledgers so that the appropriate fees could be levied, and barrels and crates unloaded onto carts to the men’s rhythmic chanting, Viola finally went below and collected her traveling case. Few of her sailors were still aboard when she came atop again, a skeleton crew to watch the ship overnight until the morning when she would move the April from dock and drop anchor in the harbor.
Seton sat on a barrel by the gangway, his long legs stretched out before him, gaze on her as she climbed onto deck.
He stood and came toward her. “Are you always the last person off your ship when you make berth?”
“Yes.”
He nodded thoughtfully, then reached to take up her bag. She snatched it away.
“Don’t you dare.” Her throat was tight.
His brows slid upward.
“You are not my servant,” she said.
“No.”
“Then what business do you have carrying my belongings?”
He settled back on his heels, quick awareness in his eyes. “This is a show of denying your sex, I take it.”
“Not denying it. Making it irrelevant.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“I think I am beginning to.” He took up his own pack and slung it over his shoulder. “I hope you will not consider it an unforgiveable impertinence on my part that I have arranged for a carriage?” he said easily. He understood that she must prove herself at every port, that she must be seen to behave and be treated like any other shipmaster, that this had been her life for two years since her father died. That he comprehended this with barely an explanation from her only made her heart race faster.
“Thank you. First I need to visit the inn across the street there.” She pointed into the town, the main street quiet now in the midafternoon heat.
“As you wish.” He gestured with a hand toward the gangplank sloping down to the dock. “Madam.”
“Do not bow.”
“Do you think you might leave off with the hissed commands now that we are on land?”
She shot him a glance. Her stomach somersaulted. A dent creased his lean cheek. Viola’s vision quivered-twinkled-as though she hadn’t sufficient air.
Stars. In the middle of the day.
“If you don’t like it,” she managed to mutter, “feel free to take your leave.”
“Mm hm. I know that trick.” His smile did not fade.
They passed onto the street and across the light traffic of people and vehicles. The brilliant sun bathed the town in heat and stirred up clouds of dust, making everything seem to shimmer.
That must be it. The sun. Not his smile. The sun.
“You are unusually cheerful. For a man who has made the sea his life, you seem to enjoy making land a great deal.”
A three-story structure, the inn boasted fresh paint and impressively tall windows. To either side elegant buildings lined the street, all likewise clean and tidy, carrying the unmistakable aura of prosperity. This modest English island colony was thriving.
He paused to allow her to precede him up the stair to the door.
“I think, rather, that I enjoy my captain,” he said quietly.
She jerked her head around, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
His brows bent. “At a guess, entering the inn you have said you wish to visit?”
“I mean, don’t compliment me.”
He shook his head, rolling his eyes away
, and walked into the building.
In the foyer, she went to the desk and pulled out her purse, motioning Seton into the taproom adjacent. Without comment he went. He would not allow her to escape, she knew, but she had the most peculiar feeling that he trusted her not to try to run away.
Foolish imaginings. Of course she would not run away with her ship at the wharf and most of her crewmen spread about town and probably three sheets to the wind already.
She paid for a private chamber and the innkeeper led her through the public room to a stairway that rose along the wall, then showed her into a modest chamber. Viola unpacked and a maid arrived with a basin of water. She scrubbed her hands and face and drank the remaining contents of the pitcher, reveling in the flavor of fresh water. Then she and the girl set about combing the tangles from her hair and lacing her into the change of clothing. When they finished, she pressed a coin into the maid’s palm and dismissed her.
She stood before the narrow oval mirror and studied their work. Her shoulders slumped. It was always the same. She looked ridiculous.
Her face was brown as a berry, her masses of curls would never be suitably tamed, and she despised the dress. But the dressmaker in Boston had said it was the latest style, with a tight bodice ruched up beneath her breasts and puff sleeves that barely managed to cover her shoulders. At least the color was acceptable, light brown with darker brown pinstripes. The dressmaker had not approved, offering instead an awful pale yellow fabric with tiny orange blossoms embroidered all over it that looked like underclothing. Viola had refused. If she must dress as a woman, she would do so without shaming herself. In any case, she had a shawl to cover it all up, serviceable gray wool Crazy’s wife had knitted for her.
She poked her feet into the thin, uncomfortable slippers her father had given her six years earlier, and stuffed her breeches, shirt, and shoes into her traveling case. Leaving the chamber, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror again and halted.
Probably it was an effect of the heat, or of her hair all pulled away from her face in the arrangement the maid had effected. Her cheeks seemed to glow, and her eyes were peculiarly large and bright.
How to Be a Proper Lady Page 10
