Lucky's Lady (The Caversham Chronicles Book 4) (18 page)

"I knew what sail plan to rig for your new boats when I drew her hull. I'll not try to sell you anything exotic. I really only needed your opinion on single or double topsails. The double is easier to handle in my opinion. Oh, and you'll have the three jibs, as you do on Avenger."

"I do, you know," he said, holding down and studying her drawings and specifications sheets on her drawing table.

"You do what?" His change of topic confused her. Of course his mere presence put her into a dither, so actual confusion was but a simple step for her jumbled mind.

"Have faith in you. It's why you got the job."

It was times like this that she hated being a redhead. Her every emotion showed on her face—from her hairline down into the collar of her blouses. Becky once told her that she blushed so hard at times that her freckles actually disappeared. That's what she was feeling at that moment. But she had to get control of herself and her emotions. This mission to bed the captain was far too important to her future to lose this opportunity due to any missish blushing.

Slowly drawing a breath and releasing it, she considered her words. "Thank you for your candor." She paused a moment, remembering something. "One more thing, before I forget. Do you prefer cotton duck or the flax-hemp combination you currently have for your sail cloth? That material will need to be imported. Our local sail maker uses cotton duck, which is really beautiful, snowy white, not dingy-looking like the flax cloth."

"Flax-hemp is more durable," he said through his smile.

"Cotton is prettier." She couldn't think of something more intelligent than
that
? And why did she have to sound like a jealous seamstress when she said it?

"Flax cloth is more readily available in foreign ports." He likely thought he trumped her knowledge. "Besides, the sun bleaches it over time until it's as white as cotton."

Mary-Michael had him with this one. "Now think about that a moment, Captain." She gave him a confident grin of her own. "Right when it's at its prettiest, it's starting to rot." He had no reply to that, but she didn't want to let it falsely bolster her pride. She didn't necessarily want to drive home her point, but she needed for him to understand why she was pushing her favorite material for sailcloth. "When it is white it rips more easily, does it not?"

He looked away from her. Had she embarrassed him? She should know by now not to make the customer uncomfortable by making him feel inferior to her superior intelligence. Would this make him less likely to fall in with her plans? God help her, she hoped not.

"Perhaps. I shall have to ask my sail maker."

"Cotton is very durable and treated properly will last you five to eight, even as long as ten years," she said. "It's also the only fabric I know of that is stronger when wet than when dry. And it's quite strong dry. Cotton sails are stronger in a storm than any other material or combination of materials." She hoped she didn't give the impression that because he didn't arrive at this conclusion himself, he wasn't as intelligent as she. She had to watch herself because she did have a tendency toward making people feel uncomfortable when she was questioned on a topic about which she did have superior knowledge.

The sound of the door opening and closing below stairs told them they were no longer alone, and Mary-Michael dreaded the interruption by her employees. She'd wasted time talking about work when she'd rather have been in his arms because it was all she'd thought about while she lay in bed the night before.

"You are right," he said, "and, I shall defer to your experience in this." His voice lowered to a whisper and when he spoke it sent shivers racing through her entire body. "But tonight, you will concede to my expertise in another area." The captain backed away from the drafting table where she worked. "I shall return to escort you to luncheon," he said, as he also greeted Robert and Andrew. "And we can further discuss the merits of cotton versus hemp."

Several hours later, as they ate lunch at Becky's tavern, Mary-Michael realized she'd misjudged him several days ago when she thought him an arrogant nabob. In fact, the more she learned about him the more she admired him as a man. Nothing had ever been handed to him because he wanted it. He'd earned the right to captain his own vessel, and worked hard at building his business from the moment he left university. He and his friend had a plan and they stuck with it, sailing two ships first belonging to his brother-in-law, then purchasing two of their own. They chose clippers because they were designs Ian was familiar with, being his father was a university-educated naval architect who built those very ships with her husband. Knowing what she knew of him now made her desire him all the more.

Not that his tanned olive complexion and thick dark waves of hair were unpleasant to look at. Quite the contrary. His looks were so opposite her fair freckled skin and wavy red hair, that she had difficulty imagining he was interested in her in
any
personal way. His body was well-proportioned, and–from what she observed–all solid muscle. She, on the other hand, was thin and not endowed with the bountiful soft attributes a woman should have. Her friends all told her it was because she spent her days doing a man's job, when she should have been embroidering linens. Frankly, she didn't see how poking at linen stretched on a frame with colored threads made one's breasts larger or hips wider. It might make one fatter, she supposed. But she didn't think men were attracted to fat women either.

Oh, what did she know about relationships? She, the woman who'd never been kissed. She, the woman who worked alongside men in a profession that she'd never have if it weren't for the protection and encouragement of her husband.

Mary-Michael inwardly cringed. She had no idea what men actually wanted, she just hoped that this one wanted her for at least two days. And for as much as she was attracted to him, and was starting to like him, she could not let herself hope for anything permanent with him. He lived in another country, and she would never leave Indian Point, much less America.

She lifted her gaze to the captain's lips again as he drank his ale and had a fleeting thought of what it might be like to kiss those strong, full lips that smiled more than they didn't. And as she'd never been kissed, she had to accept the word of the girls she knew who had, and she seemed to remember them saying that full lips were better than thinner lips.

Her gaze dropped down to the table and she tried—really, really tried—to not look at the width of his arms or the breadth of his chest. Surely she wasn't the only woman who'd fantasized about being held in those enormous arms, how secure and safe they would make a woman feel. His forearms were bare, having rolled his sleeves up before he arrived at the office. From his wrist to his elbow, he had a sprinkling of dark fine hairs that ended at the rolled cuffs. She wondered if it continued all the way up and across his chest. The tiny bit of his chest she managed to get a peek at above the unbuttoned top of his shirt proved positive for a smattering of dark hair. Her mouth suddenly went dry and she took a hefty swig from her water glass.

Her mind raced with thoughts of touching his bare skin. Would the hair on his chest be soft? Would the rest of his body be as hard and muscled as the parts she could see?

As she reveled in her own thoughts she never realized he'd spoken to her. Now, surely he thought her nothing more than a desperate, unfulfilled wife. Here she was making a fool of herself over his looks, when she had to keep on her mission. She had to remember she'd selected him because of this attraction they shared and his looks—this was only to beget a child. That was all she needed from him.

"I'm sorry. My mind was drifting."

He looked around at the remaining customers in the dining room at Becky's. When he returned his intent gaze to her, he said, "I said we've been dancing around something all morning."

She looked at him, concerned at what he might say in this public room, and who might overhear him. Because while she suspected Potts was already removed, she wasn't sure that his lackeys were gone with him. All she needed was for one of them to walk into the taproom.

"I want to make myself clear about this—" Lucky spoke in a soothing whisper. "—you and I will be dining tonight in my cabin and afterward we are going to make love, Mary Watkins. Prepare to spend the entire night with me."

Her heart raced and that riotous fluttering started up again in her belly. Her breathing hitched. Likely from the shock of his words. That and his stare caused her to shift uncomfortably in her chair and cross her legs at the ankle. She clenched tightly at the knees, as a tingly wet sensation began between her legs.

He sounded so sure of himself, as though he knew she wouldn't refuse him. If this were any other situation but the one she faced currently, she would remind him of his manners. As it was, their meal arrived and they both found conversation uncomfortable after the captain's declaration.

Mary-Michael pushed the stew meat around her plate, finally dropping her fork. As if waiting for her cue, Captain Gualtiero placed his fork and knife across his plate indicating he, too, was finished.

"Are you ready to go?"

After a terrifying moment of speechlessness, she found her tongue. "Sir, I cannot go to your cabin in broad daylight. There are still men working in parts of the yard and it would surely set the gossips' tongues to wagging if they saw us. You must know I would never intentionally cause my husband shame."

"I meant to return you to your office. With regard to tonight, I shall be at your house at just dark."

Panic struck her. "Please," she begged. "You cannot be seen at the house, Captain. Some of my neighbors are rather nosy busy-bodies." She had to dissuade him from picking her up. "Meet me at the office after dark, please?"

"No, Mary," he said. "I will not leave you to walk the streets of even this safe village alone at night. If I must, I will come to your back door."

She relented with a curt nod. "And I suppose we can begin calling each other by our Christian names seeing as we are about to become...." Her voice faltered, unable to give credence to the deed they were about to perform later.

"Lovers, Mary. We're going to become lovers."

She simply nodded in agreement, then quietly cleared her throat. "Well then... Please come to my back door from the alley. And make sure you are not seen entering through our gate by anyone."

She returned to the office, and within thirty minutes Mary-Michael had rolled up the sail plans she'd been working on, unable to focus after the luncheon she'd just shared with the captain. She used the heat as the excuse for leaving when she told Robert and Andrew she'd continue working from home.

It wasn't too far from the truth. The afternoon was stifling, muggy, and only getting warmer. As she walked home, she realized that with Sally gone she had no one to help her dress or arrange her hair. Did she leave it down, or tie it back at the nape. She had no idea which the captain preferred. She also couldn't wear a full corset without Sally's help, so she would have to manage with a demi-corset that she could lace up on her own. For the first time in her life she was having womanly concerns pop into her head and she had no one she could turn to for answers.

Mary-Michael wanted the captain to desire her as much as she desired him. At least for tonight. Because she needed him to plant the seed to make her dream of becoming a mother come true, and she didn't have much time to make this happen.

  

J
ust as dusk turned full dark, Lucky slipped past the small stable behind the Watkins home, and saw Mrs. Watkins standing just inside her back door. With the bottom portion closed, and the top open, he smiled to her as he walked up the fragrant, flowered path. He hadn't sneaked in through the back door of a woman's home since he was a green lad. If Mary Watkins only knew how much he was doing for her company this night. She opened the lower half of the dutch door, careful to hide behind it as he slipped inside. In the dimly lit kitchen he drank in her appearance. She wore a sleeveless aqua-colored muslin dress, the bodice shot with gold thread in a floral pattern. A wide white sash tied into a bow behind her back and it told him what he'd suspected all along–that behind that men's garb she wore, she was slender and finely boned with a tiny waist.

Her scooped neckline was modest, giving her the appearance of a girl younger than her twenty-four years. Outside of those work clothes she favored, she was incredibly beautiful, in a fragile-bird sort of way. He was almost afraid he'd hurt her. He'd have to be mindful of her delicate frame later.

Lucky reached out with a hand and cupped the soft skin of her face with the work-roughened skin of his palm. Her skin was smooth and flawless, like that of a perfect, delicate bloom. She'd bathed and her hair still hung to her waist, damp and loose.

"You are so beautiful." He ran his fingers up her scalp then through her hair, separating it, and fanning the gleaming tresses out behind her. "You should wear it down always."

"I have to keep it up for work." She backed away, and reached out for her key ring and put it in the pocket of her dress. "If I didn't, I would have ink stained ends. And that wouldn't be very attractive, now would it?" She went to check the front door and returned to the kitchen where Lucky waited. She appeared very nervous. Checking all the windows and doors, some more than once. "Not to mention my hair would smear the ink on the drawings. Recently I have considered cutting it short. Some of the working women at church have done so and it's rather convenient, they say."

Her nerves made her chatty. He wished there was a way to calm her, but he knew the only way was leave her, and he couldn't do that. "I'm sure it will be equally as lovely short as it is long." He rather hoped she'd never cut it because he wanted to always picture her with that glorious head of red hair fanned out across his pillows.