by Sara Donati
“But surely the Providence would be safer? Perhaps the captain could be persuaded to sail this evening …”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I ain’t comfortable taking you to the Providence until we’ve had a close look at her. Seems to me that the Isis’s our only choice for tonight.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, and then she nodded. “I’ll talk to Curiosity and get the children ready. You’ll arrange it with Pickering?”
He nodded. “There’s no time to lose, Boots.”
“There never is.” She cast him a sidelong glance, her color rising again. “There’s an old acquaintance of yours on board the Isis. We saw her arrive today, with all her baggage.”
Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “There’s nobody on the Isis who interests me, Boots. It’s just a place to spend the night, is all. With you.”
“Good,” said Elizabeth, her eyes snapping a silver-gray warning at him in spite of her smile. “I am so very glad to hear it.”
14
Hawkeye carried Hannah to the Isis, but when Robbie offered the same service to Curiosity, she chased him away from her sickbed with a croaking laugh.
“My legs is working just fine,” she told him. “It’s my chest that ain’t cooperating.” And she walked down the gangplank straight backed, her basket over one arm and a handkerchief pressed firmly to her mouth. Moncrieff popped up beside her as if to offer his assistance and she sent him scuttling with a single sharp glance.
On any of Quebec’s streets they would surely have drawn attention to themselves for they made a strange, straggling procession. But the boatyards of Forbes & Sons Enterprises were private, and they had no audience beyond a great yellow slug of moon and the watchmen whose lanterns bobbed around the perimeter of the warehouse like fairy lights. And still the short journey seemed very long indeed, so that against Elizabeth’s shoulder Lily might have suddenly doubled in weight.
The Isis herself was almost completely dark. Elizabeth was the last to step on board, just behind Nathaniel. Pickering was there to meet them with a few hushed words of welcome; before she could make out much about the ship at all they had been hurried down a companionway. Elizabeth did take note of this: no simple ladder for the Isis, but a proper staircase in a graceful curve. Under her hand the banister was as smooth and cool as marble, dark wood polished to a high gloss, inlaid with ivory in an intricate geometric pattern.
It turned out that their destination was not the Great Cabin, which was in the possession of Miss Somerville. In a whisper Pickering informed them that she had already retired for the evening; Elizabeth tried not to look relieved to hear this news as she assured the captain that she did not mind at all. A servant boy waited for them in a puddle of candlelight. He wore a flat cap with Isis embroidered on the rim in scarlet, and he opened a door with a bob that was meant to be a bow.
At first Elizabeth could not quite believe that this would be the Isis’s second-best living quarters. Even Nathaniel let out a grunt of surprise and Robbie whistled softly under his breath.
“The stateroom,” said Pickering. “It serves as a sitting area. There are cabins at each corner, as you see.”
Curiosity pivoted on her heel, taking in silk cushions on built-in sofas, a rosewood spinet, a dining table and sideboard of highly polished cherrywood. A dozen candles in silver sconces reflected in the mahogany paneling and a broad expanse of casement windows that opened onto a gallery. Curiosity fingered the draperies of damask and brocade, and ran her hand over the matching bolsters and cushions on the window seat. “A hard life these sailors lead,” she muttered.
But Pickering seemed not at all insulted. “The Isis often transports persons of some importance, and for extended periods,” he explained. “There is an obligation to make them feel at home. When we had the honor of escorting the Duchess Dalyrimple to join the duke in Bengal she had the Great Cabin, of course—but these were her daughter’s rooms.”
“Then I guess it’s about good enough for my grandchildren,” Hawkeye said dryly. “I don’t suppose those Dalypimple girls slept on the floor, did they?”
Robbie laughed out loud and in response Hannah began to stir on Hawkeye’s arm. There were a few moments of hushed activity as they moved the children into one of the corner cabins. Hannah disappeared into a feather bed piled high with counterpanes, and there was even an ornately carved cradle large enough for the twins, made up with linen that smelled faintly of lavender.
When Elizabeth came into the main sitting area, Curiosity was sitting on an elegant bow-backed chair covered in striped silk, studying the stateroom and the cabin boys who had appeared to lay out platters of breads and cold meats. She had little to say but produced a steady wheezing cough that Elizabeth liked not at all. Moncrieff and Robbie had put their heads together in front of a painting of a pack of hunting dogs, but she managed to catch Captain Pickering’s eye and direct his attention toward Curiosity.
He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Freeman,” he began. “My surgeon sends his regrets that he could not be here to greet you personally, but he has a difficult case that requires all his attention.”
Curiosity narrowed one eye suspiciously. “Does he now.” The long dark fingers fluttered, as if to indicate that more information would not be unwelcome.
“One of the midshipmen with a splinter lodged in the flesh of his upper arm. It was some days before he thought to seek out attention and I fear it is come away badly infected. Hakim Ibrahim would be very thankful for your consultation on the wound—if it is not too much of an imposition.”
“I believe he was planning to drain it this evening,” added Moncrieff, studying a point on the wall well above Curiosity’s head.
She scanned their faces one by one. “I don’ know, I truly don’t. Do I look so simpleminded? Everybody so eager to send me off to see the Hakim, makin’ up stories for me to swallow whole.”
Pickering flustered visibly, but Hawkeye laughed.
“Well, Christ, woman,” he said. “We could just tie you down to let the doctor have a look at you. Though I expect you’d give us a tussle.”
To Elizabeth’s relief, Curiosity produced a reluctant smile. “You hardly one to talk, Dan’l Bonner. I remember Cora threatening you with a rope more than once when you was fevered.”
“Och, aye,” said Robbie, glancing between the two of them. “Ye’re gey stubborn, the baith o’ ye. P’rhaps ye could open a school for mules once ye’re hame agin safe. But today, Curiosity ma dear, ye’re fair wabblin’ wi’ fever. Will ye no’ take aid and solace when it’s offered in friendship?”
“I do wish you would,” added Elizabeth softly. “I am quite worried about you.”
Curiosity pushed out a ragged breath and then raised one shoulder in defeat. “All right, then. If it’ll set your mind at ease. I suppose it won’t hurt me to drink his fever teas though I ain’t ever yet seen a doctor who knew anything worth knowing about herbals…. Lord knows I’m willing to be surprised. Captain, you’ll have to show me the way to this Hakim fellow of yours. Elizabeth, I expect you’ll cope without me.”
“I’ll do my best,” Elizabeth agreed, suddenly aware of Nathaniel at her back and his breath on her hair.
“Have ye any objection tae company along the way?” Robbie asked Pickering. “She’s a bonnie ship, and I expect we’ll ne’er see the like agin.”
To Elizabeth’s amazement, both Hawkeye and Nathaniel seemed just as interested in the prospect of exploring the ship. She caught Nathaniel by the sleeve. “You won’t go off to the Providence, will you—”
“Not until Bears comes back,” he promised. The look in his eyes was as warm as his touch. He whispered, then, “Don’t go to bed without me.” And they were off, leaving her suddenly alone in the splendid cabin.
For a while she simply sat, overwhelmed by fatigue. In another life she might have examined the violin laid to rest in its case on the top of the spinet, the coat of arms above it, or the portraits that lined one wall. A young man in b
rown velvet with an elaborately curled wig seemed almost to be scowling at her in the flickering of the candlelight. And why not? What was she doing here?
Elizabeth got up and took a turn around the room, her feet sinking into the deep Turkish carpet. There was a long shelf of books on the wall with the predictable treatises on weather and navigation, but there were other volumes, too. Novels with well-worn spines, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling; Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews; The Castle of Otranto. Equally well thumbed were the Shakespeare tragedies and what seemed to be a full set of Molière in the original French. There was much more: Aristotle, Dante, Cervantes, Machiavelli, Newton, Bacon, and Galileo. Elizabeth was intrigued in spite of herself, and newly curious about the captain.
With a sigh, she turned her mind to more practical matters: she ate some dried fruit from the platter on the sideboard, checked on the twins once and then again, sat for a little while by Hannah’s bedside simply watching her sleep, sorted through their baskets, folded clothing, and made ready for a hasty departure should that prove necessary. After a moment’s hesitation she rang for the cabin boy and requested hot water. This he produced in very short order, along with a message.
“Ma’am. Hakim Ibrahim sends word that Mrs. Freeman is sleeping and he wants to know may he call on you in the morning?” It came out in an earnest tumble.
“Please thank the Hakim,” Elizabeth said. “I will look forward to his call.”
She was almost sorry to send the boy on his way, but there was the hot water and it was growing late. Elizabeth found that she did not have the energy to take on laundry; that would have to wait until they were safely on board the Providence. Instead she had a quick bathe, changed into her nightdress, and brushed out her hair. By the casement clock she saw that Nathaniel had been gone forty minutes. It was a mystery to her that even sensible and rational men seemed to find gun decks and cannons endlessly interesting.
A deep settee with an abundance of pillows was inviting, but her nerves were strung tight and she could not relax: Runs-from-Bears and Will had been gone three hours.
With her shawl around her shoulders Elizabeth went to the long wall of draperies that had been pulled closed before the transom windows. They put her in mind of Aunt Merriweather’s morning room at Oakmere; she might pull them apart and find a lawn that sloped down to the rose gardens, and beyond them, a sea churning in shades of emerald and evergreen. But when she slipped between the panels Elizabeth found only the river, caught up in the moonlight. A hundred masts poked into the night sky, a web of bony fingers out to snare a moon riding just out of reach. A shimmering of candlelight came through the draperies so that she could make out her own vague reflection in the glass, too pale and the unruly mass of her hair crackling around her head. “Our very own Medusa,” Aunt Merriweather had often declared, convinced that Elizabeth’s hair was the result of willful extravagance. But it pleased Nathaniel, and so she left it.
A wide bench ran the length of the windows, piled with velvet bolsters, faded to ivory and plum and indigo in the half-light. It was a comfortable spot; she could rest a little, until Nathaniel came. He had plans for her. And she had plans for him, too—they presented themselves in bright, disjointed images. Her own appetites still surprised and unsettled her, although they had been together for more than a year now.
The splash of oars brought her up out of a half-doze, heart pounding. A bateau or a whaleboat, for a canoe would not make so much noise. She heard men’s voices, but could not make out the language and so she put her face closer to the glass. The boat had already moved on out of sight. On the other shore cook fires sputtered like random coals in a cold hearth.
Behind her a door opened. There was a murmuring of voices: Moncrieff, and Nathaniel. Elizabeth stilled, tucking her bare feet up under herself; she had no wish to entertain Angus Moncrieff in her nightdress. After a moment the door opened and closed again.
She waited, and heard nothing. Just when she thought it might be safe to slip out, Nathaniel’s voice came to her, not five inches away.
“Boots,” he said. “You’d make a godawful spy.”
Elizabeth yelped in surprise and tried to rise from the cushions, only to find it was suddenly impossible to negotiate her feet out from underneath herself. But it was too late: Nathaniel had already come inside, the draperies falling to a close. They were almost eye to eye, for she was kneeling on the high bench in front of him. The gentle twitching at the corner of his mouth pleased her not at all.
“Why would I make such a terrible spy?” she demanded.
“Because your shawl was hanging out there for all the world to see. That’s why Moncrieff took off so quick.”
She pulled the end of the offending garment free of the drapery and wrapped it more securely around herself. “It is just as well, Nathaniel. I am not dressed to receive visitors.”
“So I see.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward as if to tell her a secret. “I dinna think he wad ha’ minded, ava. He’s got a verra keen e’e for the lasses, does oor Angus. And ye’re lookin’ aye fine this evenin’, Mrs. Bonner, wi’ yer hair aa soft an’ curled aboot yer bonnie face.”
Elizabeth let out a high hoot of laughter. “I had no idea you were such a good mimic.”
One brow shot up. “Ah larned guid Scots at ma mither’s knee, woman, an’ Ah’ll thank ye no’ tae forgit it.”
She choked back a laugh. “Is that so? And what other talents have you been hiding from me, then?”
He blinked at her thoughtfully as one finger began to skate down the front of her nightdress. “Talents?” His own voice now, as strong and purposeful as the flick of a finger that opened first one button, and then another. “I can’t think of any, offhand. Except maybe this knack I’ve got for making you blush.” Three more buttons, and the white linen gaped open from neck to waist.
“See?”
He was tugging at her shawl. She tugged back, but without effect. “Nathaniel! Perhaps this demonstration should wait—”
But he cut her off neatly, catching her up against him, his arm like a vise at her waist so that she could feel him from knee to shoulder. A flush started in the pit of her stomach and curled up like smoke. Oh yes, he had that knack. If she let him start, she would not be able to stop him—or herself.
She turned her head so that his mouth caught her cheek. “It grieves me to say this, Nathaniel, but this is not the time nor the place.”
“And why not?” His fingers were tangled in her hair where it fell to the small of her back, jerking every nerve into near painful wakefulness.
“Your father and Robbie—”
“Hip-deep in Pickering’s gun collection and not about to come back here, Boots. I’ll have to fetch them when Bears shows up.”
“Yes, exactly. Runs-from-Bears and Will should be back any moment.”
“If that’s all you’re worried about,” Nathaniel said hoarsely, “then don’t. We’ll be the first to see the canoe from here.”
She struggled harder. “Yes, and they will see us! The whole river can see us here.” With a wiggle she was out of his arms. She turned, putting her hands against the casement to steady herself. “Look!”
The river was empty. Ships rocked gently at docks for as far as they could see, and not a light burned in any of them.
“Aye, Boots. I’m looking.”
His hands were everywhere. She tried to turn back to him but he held her still with his body, his mouth at her ear. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
“I don’t want you.”
“Liar.” His hand slipped inside her nightdress, fingers moving restlessly.
“Yes, yes, yes. I am a liar,” she said, struggling against him in vain. “But oh, Nathaniel, the windows—”
“Damn the windows,” he muttered. In one motion he pulled the open nightdress down over her shoulders, pressing her forward, bare breasts to the cold glass so that she jerked with the shock of it. Then he l
et her go and stripped before she could gather her thoughts—did she want this? Dear God, yes, but the windows!—and then he was there again.
He crowded up behind her and put his mouth to her neck, breathing a slow litany of promises into her ear while his hands moved over her, folding the hem of her nightdress up around her waist. The words held her in a trance, startling, powerful words. He could coax water from stone with this voice of his, but she was not stone, nothing like stone. Against the cleft of her buttocks his cock was proof enough of that. His hands insistent on her thighs; all was lost.
“The windows,” she muttered. To be cursed both with mind and heart. And with eyes: for there they were, faint reflections in the window glass, coupling for themselves and for all the world.
“We mustn’t.”
He paused, his mouth hovering over her shoulder. “Don’t you want me, Elizabeth?”
“I want you, yes,” she hissed. Because she could not lie to him, or herself. “But I can’t, I can’t.”
“Oh, but you can, darlin’.” And so he showed her, bent her to his will, and to her own. Covered her and filled her, his mouth on her neck, one arm like a pillar, supporting both of them. The other arm was around her waist, pulling her up and back to meet him. And even the world gave in, retreated and left nothing behind but Nathaniel, the long muscles of his thighs tensed behind her, the heat and the heft of him, his body deep in hers and all around her and still he struggled, they struggled together to bring him closer.
And in the window glass she watched it all, saw their faces torn apart with furious need and stitched back together thrust by thrust. His cheek pressed against her temple and his eyes flashing with the beat of her heart, ready to burst for him. She watched it happen. She would remember it as long as she lived.
An hour later Nathaniel woke Elizabeth with the news that the first mate had sighted Runs-from-Bears and Will from the quarterdeck. She had barely enough time to dress and tame her hair into a plait before they were on board. With the exception of Curiosity, all of the party assembled around the cherrywood table with its covered silver platters, porcelain dishes, and crystal goblets, finery never meant for rough hands. To all this Bears added a bundle wrapped in buckskin and tied with a length of spruce root.
