If I Wait For You (12 page)

“
She’s seasick,” West said
dryly. “Believe me when I tell you this, Mr. Mason, my wife is not
going to have a baby.”

Oliver’s cheeks, beneath that bushy
beard of his, turned ruddy. “Well, it’s not as if it’s an
impossibility,” he grumbled. Then he glared at West. “If she’s not
carrying, then why’s she going about so gloomy? You two have a
tiff?”

“
My relationship with my
wife is none of your concern, Mr. Mason.”

“
All new couples fight, Mr.
Mitchell. It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

“
And you, who have such
vast experience at such things, are about to give advice.” West
gripped the railing, trying not to laugh aloud. He did not want to
hurt the old man’s feelings, but the idea that Sara was pregnant
was too, too funny. Never had a woman gone more untouched than the
one sharing his cabin. He shook his head as he contemplated
Oliver’s misapprehension. Imagine, thinking Sara pregnant. With his
child.

In that moment, he wished fiercely
that it was true. The feeling hit him hard and unexpectedly. Sara.
Carrying his child. He swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the
thought, trying instead to imagine Elizabeth large with child. But
when his mind’s eye roved above the swelled belly of his wife, the
woman was always Sara. As long as he had a will, such a thing would
never happen. It was more than that Sara would never be his wife in
truth, but that he would not endanger his child. He thought again
of his brother, of the pain Jared endured feeling responsible for
the death of his wife and infant girl. He would never put a woman
he loved in such a position, and never his own child. Not that he
loved Sara. Certainly he did not. But a nagging voice whispered to
him: Not yet, at any rate.

“
You know, Mr. Mitchell, I
may be crazed, but I think that’s the
Huntress
.”

West’s thoughts abruptly
returned to the nearing ship, it’s name now nearly discernable.
It’s shape was familiar, and West, who sailed on her before taking
the
Julia
, knew
in an instant what ship he was looking at.

“
It is the
Huntress
.” He turned to
the ship, joy filling him at the thought of seeing his brother
again. “Furl the mainsail,” he cried, knowing that his brother
would recognize the signal, even if he did not recognize his old
ship. West watched for long moments waiting for the
Huntress
to respond to
his signal for a gamming. Finally, the mainsail was pulled in, and
it seemed to West it was a reluctant gesture. A strong and unwanted
feeling of unease filled him. He had not seen his brother in three
years, and the last time Jared had been torn by a grief so
powerful, West feared he might harm himself or someone else. A
hearty call from his brother as the ships drew near helped to ease
his unaccountable ill feeling.

“
What luck, this,” Jared
called over. His face was covered by a heavy black beard, but West
would have recognized his form anywhere. Jared Mitchell, like his
father, was a huge bear of a man with a body that held not an extra
ounce of fat. He was the sort of man people called “strapping,” the
sort people—especially men—liked immediately. Women were afraid of
him at first, for he looked so formidable with his dark looks, his
wild hair and beard. Abigail had never been impressed by his size
or his boisterous behavior, having known him when he was just a
skinny child. She had gentled this giant with her quiet ways. But
now, Abigail was long dead, and West sensed something inalterably
different in his brother. He looked like a man who had not a care
of how he looked, what he said, or what he did. He stalked up and
down his ship as if it were a cage holding him back. The men, West
noted, hung back from the railing while his own crew had rushed to
the side, eager to see unfamiliar faces and to hear tales that were
sure to come from this seasoned crew.

Jared’s men looked hard and
mean, their clothing little more than rags, their feet were bare.
Though this was not uncommon on a whaler, bare feet having much
better traction on an oil-slick deck, West couldn’t help but note
that several of the
Julia’s
men now sported brand new woolen socks on their
feet. They looked well-fed and well-groomed. Much of this could be
attributed to the fact the crew of the
Huntress
had been gone from home for
years, while his own crew was fresh from New Bedford, still eager
to see the world, still unchanged by what could be a cruel way of
life.

As West watched, his brother pace up
and down, then stopped abruptly, as if he’d suddenly encountered a
stone wall. West’s unease grew as he realized what Jared was
glaring at. Sara stood by the railing, her face rapt with the
excitement of seeing another ship so close. Hell, West thought,
he’d have to explain everything to his brother. He couldn’t have
Jared going home and telling his mother that he was a married man
when he was not. West muttered a curse under his breath as he
walked over to where Sara stood.

Sara turned to him, her eyes alight,
and he found himself nearly stopping in his tracks. It wasn’t
always that way—good God he’d never be able to captain this ship if
it was—but sometimes he would find himself startled by her,
discovering as if for the first time just how beautiful she
was.

“
Are we to have a gamming?”
Sara asked, sounding like a child talking of going to the
circus.

“
We are,” West said grimly.
“That ship is one of ours. The captain is my brother,
Jared.”

Sara grew immediately more solemn.
“The one who lost his wife and child?”

“
The same.” West tore his
gaze away from her face. “I can tell already he is not pleased to
see a woman aboard.”

“
He does seem to be looking
at me rather oddly. I don’t look anything like his wife, do
I?”

“
No, thank goodness. You
are nothing like Abigail. She was uncommonly beautiful, delicate to
the point of being fragile. And she had hair as dark as his. They
made a striking couple.”

“
Oh.” He did not hear the
slight note of disappointment in that word.

“
I must tell him the truth,
that we are not married, Sara. And he will probably not believe me
when I tell him…” West cleared his throat. “…when I tell him we are
not sharing a bed,” he whispered, fearing the men would overhear
him.

Sara looked at him, eyes wide with
comprehension. “But surely he will not think you a liar, especially
if you tell him you are engage to another woman. Why wouldn’t he
believe you?”

To his disgust, he felt his cheeks
flush scarlet. “Because you are beautiful and very few men would
have had the,” he stopped to search for the right word. “…fortitude
to…Well, you understand.” He cleared his throat again.

Instead of just her cheeks, her entire
body was suffused with heat. Up until that moment, Sara had a
schoolgirl’s vision of West; he cut a romantic figure, one that few
girls were immune to, including Sara. But she’d always thought of
him as West Mitchell, of the Hill Mitchells, as remote and distant
as a statue. While she’d always been aware of West as
handsome—didn’t her fluttering heart tell her that?—she’d never
truly looked at West as a man. As a man who would want a woman to
share his bed. She finally had a name for that strange feeling that
sometimes overcame her when she looked at him: desire.

Her awareness of him, standing only
inches from her sleeve, became almost painfully acute. She couldn’t
stop her mind from picturing herself in bed with West. It was an
innocent image, of her lying beside him fully clothed, but it was
enough to make her feel hot and distinctly different. Sara
swallowed, grasping the one part of this conversation she deemed
safe. “You think me beautiful?”

“
Of course.”

“
Of course?”

He turned, looking at her almost
angrily. “Every man on this ship thinks you beautiful,” he said in
a harsh whisper.

“
They do?”

West looked at her with bafflement,
and Sara was quite sure he was telling the truth.

“
You must know that you
are. Good Christ.” She blinked at his harsh tone and West forced
himself to soften his expression. He looked across at the Huntress
again, and didn’t like what he saw—the leers the other men were
giving Sara. He didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to touch
her, but he wasn’t about to put her in any danger. “I think you
should stay in the cabin tonight. I’m sorry. I know you were
looking forward to hearing their tales.”

“
You want me to stay below?
All night?”

“I don’t like the look of those men,”
he said tightly. “They haven’t been home for years and whatever
refinement they had is long gone. Please, Sara, I don’t want to
worry about you.”

She looked up at him and it was all he
could do not to draw her into his arms, to reassure her that he
only meant for her to be safe. “All right. If you think it
best.”

“
I do.”

When she was gone, West relaxed
slightly. He didn’t want to have to worry about her wandering about
the ship, perhaps stumbling into one of Jared’s crew. He’d been a
whaler for years and had not seen a crew as disreputable as this
one in a long time. It hurt him to realize it was his brother’s
crew that was so shockingly unkempt.

In short order, his brother
and much of his crew were climbing up onto the
Julia
. They were a loud and raucous
bunch, with language so colorful it even gave West pause. West
grinned at his brother and the two men shook hands and slapped each
other’s back.

“
It’s good to see you,
Jared. You look like a bloody pirate,” West said,
laughing.

“
And you look like a
banker,” his brother said, but he quickly lost his smile. “A banker
who’s gone mad. Who the devil is she?”

“
She’s no one. Not my wife,
if that’s what you’re thinking.”

His brother sneered. “So, you’re
taking on whores now to entertain the men? No wonder your crew
looks so happy.”

West clenched his jaw, not liking what
he heard or saw his brother’s hard features. “She’s not my wife,
though the crew believes she is,” his voice low so he would not be
overheard. “She is my third mate’s sister who got into some trouble
in New Bedford. It’s a long story and one I’ll not bore you with
now. But you should know that Sara is off limits to you and your
crew.”

“
So, you’re keeping the
whore to yourself, are you? Not very generous of you, West. From
what I saw of her she looked fetching enough. If you like
Quakers.”

“
I have not touched her.
Nor will you or your men,” West said, too close to losing his
temper. He could only think that Abigail’s death had driven any
kindness from his brother’s heart.

Jared gave him a hard and searching
look as if he could see into his soul—or into his heart. Then he
shrugged as if he didn’t care if he had twenty women on
board.

West steered the conversation to safer
ground as they walked to the aftercabin. They talked about Jared’s
trip, the number of barrels of oil he’d got, whether he was heading
home. West was surprised to hear that Jared had no plans to head to
New Bedford, and instead planned to sail to the North Atlantic, to
the Azores, then to Australia.

“
But you’ve been gone more
than three years now. You’re talking another year at
least.”

Jared only shrugged.

“
Surely the men want to go
home.”

“
They can leave if they
want. They all know there’s more money if they stay. I’m sending
more oil home than any ship out of New Bedford.”

“
I’ll not dispute that,
Jared.”

“
There is nothing in New
Bedford for me.”

“
There is mother and
Gardner. I know they would be pleased to see you. Mother does
worry.”

“
I don’t see why. I hardly
know the woman.”

“
Hell, Jared. She is your
mother.”

Jared gave him a withering look,
filled with an impatience meant to make West feel foolish for
harboring such soft sentiments toward his mother. His brother
looked about the cabin with idle curiosity.

“
Ship looks good,” he said,
and for the first time West saw the veneer crack on Jared’s forced
indifference.

“
It must be difficult to be
aboard her,” West said softly.

Jared only shrugged. “Just wood and
canvass. Like any other ship.” But his hand moved softly over the
smoothly polished railing that separated the sofa from a shelf
stacked with Sara’s sewing projects.

“
Busy little wife you
have,” he said with a small sneer, as if realizing he’d almost
given in to sentiment.

“
She’s making the best of
things.”

“
I’ve got to hand it to
you, little brother,” he said, pulling out a whiskey flask. “I’d
never take you for a saint, even with your high principles. If it
were me, she’d been well used and passed on to the crew by
now.”

West swallowed down the anger that
surged at Jared’s callous words. “I think you have as much or more
honor than I. At least you always did.”