Marrying Christopher (4 page)

And with Crayton shipped off to France now…
There was no longer anything holding him back from his dreams.
From here on out, I make my own way. I am bound by no one and nothing. The choices I make will be my own, not anything I am compelled to.

“Well then, welcome aboard,” the captain said once more. “Marc, our cabin boy, will help you stow your trunk.” As if on cue, a lad of about fourteen appeared on deck, just behind the captain.

“Take any cabin you’d like on the port side— take all of them, if you want,” Captain Gower said, grunting. “You’re the only male passenger we’ve got this voyage. Cowards, these Englishmen are. I’ve no doubt I’ll fill her full on the return trip from America. Little wonder she won her independence fighting against a bunch of pasty Englishmen.” He shook his head. “Three women will be joining us, and we’ve got a fine crew, but you’ll have plenty of time to yourself for the next four weeks.” Pivoting sharply, he strode away in the direction he’d come, as if he’d had all of the talking that he could stomach.

Christopher called a thank-you anyway and reached down to lift one end of his trunk. The cabin boy, Marc, already held the other, and together they lifted it easily, Marc’s end rising so quickly that his face registered surprise at the trunk’s light weight.

“I don’t have much with me,” Christopher said by way of explanation. “Probably less than most who travel across the Atlantic.”

“Less than them women coming aboard,” the lad said, staring past Christopher.

Turning so he could walk sideways, Christopher caught sight of the procession coming up the gangway. Two men appeared at the top of the ramp, then four, then six, then eight. Each pair carried a large trunk between them, and piled on top of these trunks was an assorted array of parcels— paper-covered packages wrapped with string, fancy carpetbags, and hatboxes.

The last pair of men, struggling with their load, stepped aboard the ship as two ridiculously feathered hats appeared behind them, bobbing up the ramp above their owners. Christopher turned away before the faces beneath the hats came into view. He hurried his step. The last thing he wanted right now was to be around women— especially any as frivolous as it appeared these two must be.

He loved his sisters fiercely and had done his best by them, but now— at last— it was
his
time. Time to pursue the life he’d dreamed of for as long as he could remember. And he refused to do any little thing that might risk complicating it. Women, in his opinion, tended to complicate a man’s life. Some day far into the future— after he owned his own land and established a successful farm, when he’d built a fine house and had a solid bank account, then he might be interested in a complication of the female sort. But that time was years away. Today he was gloriously single and free from all worries over any female.

And I intend to enjoy it.
He might only be twenty-one, but he’d not had the youth others were afforded. He’d been shouldering responsibility since he was old enough to wander away from home and find his way back again— practically his whole life.

Marc paused as they came to a door. Holding his side of the trunk with only one hand, he reached his other toward the knob. “Which cabin would you like?” he asked as he pulled the door open and started inside. Christopher followed, careful to duck beneath the low doorway as they stepped down into a long saloon lined with a good two dozen doors on each side and tables and benches running down the entire length of the middle.

“Which cabin is farthest from the women’s quarters?” Christopher asked.

“Over there.” The boy inclined his head toward the end of the row on the opposite side. “It’s the one closest to the captain as well.”

“Perfect,” Christopher said. “I’ll take it.”

The coach rolled to a stop, jarring Marsali from a troubling dream in which she was back at her aunt and uncle’s house. The carriage rocked as the driver hopped down, and Marsali winced as her head— tender already from hours of knocking against the side— hit the carriage wall again. Thoroughly awake now and grimacing, she pulled the curtain back, eager for her first sight of the wharf.

But instead of a bay full of ships at anchor, her eyes met a dirty and rather deserted street corner.
Lime Street and Pembroke.
She did not recognize either name and supposed the coach must be stopping to take on another passenger. The two gentlemen and the lady who had been her traveling companions for much of the journey had disembarked at the last stop, somewhere in the heart of Liverpool. She had guessed that her own stop at the docks would not be long after.

The carriage door swung open, and the coachman poked his head in. “Last stop. All out.”

“You must be mistaken,” Marsali said. “I am the only one left, and this is not my destination.”

“Docks’r over there.” The coachman pointed through the carriage to the window on the other side.

“Oh. Of course.” Marsali hurriedly climbed down, embarrassed at not having thought to look out the other window. Somehow she had expected the scene to be different— louder and busier, full of people all as excited as she was, eager to be leaving behind this forsaken island.

“That’ll be another shilling for your trunk,” the coachman said, his hand held out.

“But I paid you already— when we left this morning.” What kind of fool did he take her for? She’d been sleepy today, not forgetful.

“Right. You paid me at the first. An’ you pay me at the end— unless you don’t want your trunk, that is.”

Marsali clutched her reticule tightly to her and frowned, furious with both herself— for not knowing whether or not she was being cheated— and with the unfeeling coachman, who had done nothing that she could see to earn that extra shilling.

“In your advertisement, it stated clearly that the price for transport from Manchester to Liverpool was exactly six shillings.”

He nodded. “And so it has been.”

“But you charged me an extra shilling this morning to load and transport my trunk. And the driver charged me another as well.”
For who knows what.
Without a driver there would have been no transport of any kind. It seemed rather logical that his fee, at least, should have been included in the original cost. “Then I was assessed a third shilling for the change of horses at noon.”

“Yep.” The coachman nodded again, exaggerating his movements as if she were daft and was having difficulty understanding. “A shilling at the start, and a shilling now, for me to take your trunk down and restore it to you.”

“That isn’t fair,” Marsali said. “Such a fee was not advertised. You ought to have been more clear up front.”

He shrugged. “I guess we’ll just be keepin’ your trunk, then.” He tipped his cap at her, then turned to close the carriage door.

“Wait!” Marsali held her hand out. “I’ll pay it— or what I can, anyway.” She loosened the strings of her reticule and reached inside, reasoning that she
had
to have her trunk. It wasn’t as if she could sail across the Atlantic or arrive in America with no underclothes or without so much as a sleeping gown or shawl.

“I haven’t a shilling. Only a sixpence.” She held her hand out, the coin on her palm.

The coachman snatched it up. “At’ll do. Right, then. Let’s get your trunk.” He walked around to the back of the carriage, and Marsali followed. The driver was already waiting there to help, and Marsali worried that he, too, would assess some last-minute fee— in which case she would have to give him one of her belongings as payment. And threadbare as most of her garments were, it was doubtful he would accept such.

Yet I am here. What can he do?
Eager for her first sight of the ship she was to sail on, Marsali walked past the men around to the other side of the carriage. But there was no water in sight. She turned a hurried circle. No water anywhere.

“Wait. There’s been some mistake.” She whirled around to stop the coachman from untying her trunk before it was too late. “This is not my stop. My ship departs from the Waterloo dock, and I don’t see any docks
anywhere
.”

“I know.” Something about the coachman’s nonchalant manner alarmed her.

“Then why have you not taken me there?” she demanded, turning quickly searching for the driver, who had disappeared again. “It is what I paid for.”

He shook his head. “No. You paid for transport to Liverpool. If you want to go to the docks, it’ll be an additional shilling.”

“I haven’t an additional shilling,” Marsali said, her panic escalating. “I’ve just given you the last of my coin— for the
arduous
task of removing my trunk.”

“Guess you’ll have to walk, then,” the coachman said, ignoring both her sarcasm and her plight. Her trunk was untied and fell to the ground with a none-too-gentle thud. Whistling, the coachman flipped her sixpence casually into the air once, then dropped it into his pocket, where it jingled merrily against the other coins resting there.

“It is quite a racket you have going,” Marsali huffed in a last, desperate attempt to wrangle his conscience— supposing he had one. “To strand a lady as you are—”

“It’s not my custom to strand
ladies
.” His face twisted in a sneer as his gaze roved over Marsali as if she was the vilest creature. “But a woman like you is a different matter. Your uncle said to leave you where you belong. And so I have. Be glad you’ve a bit of daylight left. Maybe you’ve still a chance of making that sea voyage— as some pirate’s chattel, if you’re lucky.” His harsh laughter echoed down the street.

Marsali reeled backward as if struck. His stinging words sank deep, revealing her true vulnerability just when she’d believed she was at last beyond her aunt and uncle’s reach.

Will I ever be beyond it? Will I ever be free?

The coachman stepped up on the side of the coach, gave a shout, and it rolled away. She sat woefully on her trunk as the carriage and the last of her money disappeared. Quickly she scanned the buildings and signs hanging over them. Madame Kelner’s Girls for Hire, Palace of Pleasure, The Starlight— Showgirls and Spirits. She felt suddenly ill.
Your uncle said to leave you where you belong.
It wasn’t here, just as it had not been in his arms or in his bed, though he’d tried on more than one occasion to persuade her to that end.

Her head jerked to the other side of the street as she fought panic. Surely there had to be other sorts of establishments here. The Lion Tavern— Women and Ale, Moll’s Club for Men, Archer and Sons’ Wine and Spirits.

No.
Marsali wanted to squeeze her eyes shut against the obvious, but fear kept them wide open, darting to and fro. Dusk settled quickly over the lonely street. Several buildings down, a lone female figure emerged and came to stand beneath a lamppost, leaning against it in such a way, and facing the street, so as to be easily noticed by any passersby.

Worry over reaching the ship suddenly paled in comparison to the more immediate problem of getting off this street. Before long it would be full dark.

And I will be here alone— or worse.

The medical inspector dabbed his napkin to the corner of his mouth. “A fine meal, Captain. If your cook is able to provide such tasty fare throughout the voyage, I daresay your ship will find success based on the merits of its cuisine alone.”

“Mr. Tenney is an excellent cook,” Captain Gower agreed. “And we are well supplied with a pen for chickens and a stall for a milk cow to sustain us with fresh eggs and cream throughout the journey. We’ve barrels of salted meat and sacks of grain— even nuts and dried fruits. The shorter length of travel makes all of that much easier to provide and store.” He eyed his pocket watch for the seventh time in the last hour; Christopher had been counting.

It had seemed a long hour to him as well. They had all dined together— Captain Gower, the medical inspector, Lady Cosgrove and her daughter, and himself. Only Miss Abbott, the one passenger yet to board, had been absent. Lady Cosgrove had excused herself shortly after the main course, citing a headache as her excuse for retiring early and requiring her daughter to come along to assist her.

The meal had become a bit more pleasant after that. At least the captain and inspector were able to carry on a proper conversation now that the chatty Miss Cosgrove had left.