Merline Lovelace (22 page)

“So we’re not completely under the hatches?”

“Not completely. We’ve enough to buy you a new ball gown or two.”

Before Sarah could respond to that bit of nonsense, Huddington broke in excitedly. “You’ll need them, Lady Sarah, and quickly, if I may make so bold to say so.”

She blinked. “Whatever for?”

The barrister delved into stacks on the desk again. A moment later, he came up triumphant, clutching a thick vellum envelope of palest pink.

“A footman delivered this but an hour ago. He, er, let drop that it’s an invitation for Viscount and Viscountess Straithe to attend Lady Swarthmore’s May Ball next week.”

“Who the devil is Lady Swarthmore?” Jamie demanded.

“She’s the wife of the Lord Chancellor of the court who’s administering your estate. Evidently Lord Swarthmore heard from Mr. McIvers of your return, and passed the information to his wife.”

Sarah shook her head in confusion. “And she’s invited us to a ball?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’ve received another invitation, to one of Mrs. Southby’s musicales. You may not know of her, having spent these many years in China, but she’s…”

“I know of her,” Sarah said faintly.

Indeed, who did not? At various times in her career, Mildred Southby had been an opera singer of international renown, mistress to a now deposed king, and widow of a goldsmith. In her later years, she waged an untiring and continuing battle for education for women. Even Papa, stern moralist that he was, had quoted her when urging Sarah and Abigail to their studies.

“What is all this about?” Jamie asked impatiently.

The lawyer grasped the lapels of his robe and tried to look solemn. He succeeded only in looking young and absurd.

“You’re a hero, sir.”

“Are you foxed, Huddington?”

The whip-like question made the barrister blink. “No, sir! I’ve had nothing but ale all day, I assure you. It’s true, you’re quite the hero.”

“The devil you say!”

“The
Star of Bombay
docked just hours after you left my chambers three days ago. It seems she carried dispatches from India, one of which concerns you. The
Admiralty Office sent a copy of it to McIvers, as your trustee, and he forwarded it to me yesterday. I have it here somewhere.”

Letters and notations flew in all directions as Huddington pawed once again through the papers on his desk.

“Ha! Here it is.”

Holding an official-looking document to the light, he lowered his voice to a basso profundo, and began to read.

“‘From the hand of Admiral Lord David Bentwater, captain of His Majesty’s Ship
Trueheart
and commander of the…’”

“I know who the man is. Give me that!”

Snatching the document out of the barrister’s hand, Jamie skimmed the contents. Sarah waited until she could bear it no longer.

“Jamie!” she wailed. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“That puppy, Fortengay, grossly exaggerated the advice and assistance I gave him to his superior. Now Bentwater’s gone and done the same thing to his.”

“Grossly exaggerated?” Huddington gave a little huff of pride, as though claiming a share of reflected glory for himself. “May I say, sir, that if the
Constant
endured half the damages reported in this document and you rendered one tenth of the services described, you indeed saved the ship, as the admiral so bluntly states.”

Sarah grasped the implications immediately. Lieutenant Kerrick’s reputation was well on the road to restoration. Viscount Straithe would be welcomed everywhere. He didn’t need to sell the
Phoenix
and pour the monies into a crumbling keep to gain the approbation
of the local gentry. Nor did he need to dry-dock Limself to make a home for the Abernathy clan.

Surging out of her chair, Sarah dug her fingers into her husband’s arm. “We must talk. Privately.”

Jamie brushed a knuckle down the curve of her cheek. “Aye, we must.”

In a fever of impatience, she bid a hurried farewell to Huddington. Jamie did the same and offered his arm to escort her to the door.

“Oh, I say, sir!” Black robe flapping like the wings of a raven, the barrister hurried after them. “I forgot to tell you about Mr. Dalton’s visit.”

“Who the devil is Mr. Dalton?”

“He’s master of Dalton and Sons, Shipping.”

“And?”

“And he heard a rumor that you’re selling the
Phoenix.
He wished me to confirm it.”

“You may do so.”

“No!” Sarah dragged her husband to the door. “Not until we talk.”

I
n a fever of impatience, Sarah fidgeted in her seat during the carriage ride along Portsmouth’s infamous Broad Street. The cab had almost reached the Royal Arms when she suddenly turned to her husband.

“Where is the
Phoenix
berthed?”

Jamie turned from his silent contemplation of the passing street scene. “At the Customs House piers.”

“Can we go there?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. I’d like to see her, see how she fared on the journey home.”

He regarded her for a moment through his black lashes, then nodded. “So would I.”

A rap on the carriage roof brought the driver’s head poking through the sliding panel. Moments later, the cab turned off Broad Street and began a slow descent to the waterfront. Gradually, the sounds and scents that were so much a part of the docks grew stronger. The shouts of stevedores rolling casks up and down the wharves. The sharp scent of caulking pitch, heated to a boil. The rotting garbage that floated on the waves until the title washed it out.

The cab drew to a halt at the Portsmouth Customs House. Across from the redbrick building, a massive stone pier stretched out into the protected waters formed by a long hook of shoreline. Jamie handed Sarah down and walked to the foot of the pier. He stood for a moment, searching the ships riding at anchor in the bay.

“There she is!”

Sarah’s heart thumped at the low, quivering note in her husband’s voice. Standing on tiptoe, she followed the line of his outstretched arm. When she saw three tall masts raked back at a sharper angle than all the rest, she felt an answering quiver deep in her stomach.

“Wait here,” Jamie told her. “I’ll have to identify myself to the Customs men and tell them I want to go out to inspect my ship.”

He returned some time later and helped her into the small boat the customs officials used as a water taxi. The cheerful ferryman who pulled the oars pointed out the various ships waiting for inspection of their cargo and clearance to unload. He twisted on his seat to peer over his shoulder as they approached the
Phoenix.

“This be your ship, Cap’n?”

“Aye, she’s mine. For a while yet, anyway.”

“She’s a beauty, sor, right and proper.”

“That she is,” Jamie agreed softly. “That she is.”

Sarah’s stomach gave a painful lurch. Planting a hand atop her bonnet to keep it from being snatched away by the breeze, she scanned the ship with the keen scrutiny a woman gives the rival for her husband’s affections.

Dressed only in her standing rigging and furled sails, the
Phoenix
nevertheless looked sleek and elegant beside the bulky, square-rigged ships anchored
alongside her. As they drew nearer, Jamie gave a grunt of approval and relief.

“She’s right and tight, and well cared for. That’s Liam’s doing, I’ll wager, and not any customs agent’s.”

When the boat bumped alongside, he stripped off his frock coat, grabbed a rat line, and swung aboard. Sarah joined him on deck some moments later. They stood for a moment in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Sarah felt the ship’s gentle roll under the soles of her boots, and heard again the quiet whistle of the wind in its rigging. She missed the lively chatter of the crew, though. And the crack of the wind catching the sails. Without them, the
Phoenix
seemed like a ghost ship. A shiver shook her, causing Jamie to glance at her in concern.

“Are you cold? Come, we’ll return to shore. I’ve seen enough.”

“No, I’m not cold, truly, but I wouldn’t mind getting out of the wind. Can we go below?”

“I’m still master of this ship,” he replied, his eyes glinting. “We can go where we will.”

After the brisk ocean breeze, the air in the companionway felt dank. Despite herself, Sarah shivered again. Jamie ushered her into the mess room and went to one of the compartments built into the mahogany paneling.

“We took on a load of port in Portugal, before sailing for China. If I remember rightly, Liam stashed the last of the bottles we appropriated for our own use in here. If the customs men haven’t confiscated them, they…Ah, here we are. This should warm you up.”

Retrieving two mugs and a knife from their slotted
holders, he worked the cork stopper free and poured them both generous measures of the ruby-red wine.

“To you, Sarah.”

She smiled and lifted her mug. “To us, Jamie.”

The rich, sweet wine spread a welcome warmth through her entire body. She took another sip, then glanced about the small, familiar room.

“How strange to be standing here again after so many months,” she murmured. “And so many tumultuous events.”

“The wheel of fortune has certainly taken another turn,” Jamie agreed.

Sarah brought her gaze back to her husband. “The lieutenant is once again a hero.”

“That’s a piece of nonsense I’ll soon set straight. George Fortengay deserves the credit for bringing the
Constant
in, not me.”

“It’s not nonsense.” Sarah laid a hand on his arm. “I was there, remember? I heard the quiet words of advice you gave George. I saw the silent signals you passed him. He would never have brought the
Constant
through the Straits of Sunda without you.”

A cynicism Sarah had never seen in him before touched his eyes as he raised his glass in salute.

“And so the black sheep has returned to the fold, and the invitations begin to pour in. Such is the way of the polite world.”

Sarah recognized her husband’s worth in a thousand ways. In his refusal to run opium or slaves like so many captains of his day. In his evenhandedness with his crew. In the way he held to his word, once given. She knew him for a better man than most, and was determined that others would know it, too.

“If this polite world you speak of so disparagingly
wishes to recognize your efforts, let it do so,” she said fiercely.

The hardness faded from his eyes. Setting aside his wine, he looped his hands around her waist.

“You’re right, of course,” he told her with a lazy, deliberate smile. “George and the admiral will have their say whether I wish it or not, so we might as well reap the benefit of it.”

“Not we, Jamie. You.”

Curling a knuckle, he stroked the underside of her jaw. Her skin tingled everywhere he touched it.

“We, Sarah. This will ease our homecoming considerably, lady wife. When word gets out that you and your rascally husband were invited to Lady Swarthmore’s May Ball and this Southby woman’s soiree, every hostess within a hundred miles of Kerrick’s Keep will shower us with invitations.”

“Jamie…”

“Mr. Dalton will have to cough up a good price for the
Phoenix.
I foresee a mountain of bills for new gowns and jewels, in addition to a new roof.”

“I don’t wish for new gowns, Jamie.”

His thumb came up to tease her lower lip, silencing her protest.

“You don’t need them, it’s true. You could walk into a ballroom naked and still be the most proper woman in attendance, my so-prim and modest missionary’s daughter.”

“Modest?” She gave an inelegant little snort. “After what you have taught me? I hardly think I still possess that particular virtue, sir!”

Sarah saw at once she’d said the wrong thing. An all-too-familiar grin tugged at Jamie’s mouth.

“You, my sweet, are the embodiment of every feminine
virtue. I have the teeth marks on my shoulder to prove it.”

Blushing furiously at the memory of one of their more energetic nights together, Sarah almost missed his next, provocative words.

“I think, yes, I think, I shall have to take one last memory away from the
Phoenix
with me.”

“What memory?” she asked warily, mistrusting the glint that came into his eyes.

“From the moment you tumbled out of the rope locker, I wanted to take you to my cabin, lock the door, and make furious, passionate love to you.”

As much as she wanted him to do just that, Sarah had to protest.

“Wait,” she pleaded when he tugged at the ribbons of her bonnet and plucked it from her head. “We must talk.”

“You talk. I’ll work the buttons on your pelisse.”

Sarah grabbed at the hands working their way down her front. “Jamie, do be serious.”

“I am,” he replied, peeling the coat down her arms. “Damn, we’ll have to buy you a different style of gowns. That one has too many hooks.”

“Please! I don’t want new gowns.”

“You’ll need them, remember? For Lady Swarth-more’s ball.”

“I don’t care about Lady Swarthmore’s ball! I don’t want invitations from every neighbor within a hundred miles of Kerrick’s Keep. I don’t…Oh! Stop that!”

She crooked her arms to keep him from unhooking her bodice completely. “Will you heed what I say! I don’t want you to sell the
Phoenix!
”

The desperation in her voice finally snared his attention.
The teasing grin left his face, and his hands stilled on the ties to her chemise.

“We’ve talked about this before, Sarah. We need the capital the Phoenix will raise to make the necessary repairs to the house and acquire enough land to support it.”

“You don’t want to live in that house,” she whispered, her throat tight. “You want your ship under your feet and a fair wind. You’ve said as much, many times.”

“I must have been in my cups.”

“You’ve never been drunk in all the time I’ve known you!”

“Then I was blowing air, as all sailors do. Come, wife, let’s make a memory to take ashore with us.”

Bending, he swept her into his arms. His sure, swift strides ate up the short distance to his cabin.

“Jamie! This isn’t something we can brush aside! We must discuss this matter calmly, rationally.”

“For shame, Sarah. Didn’t the
Ars Amatoria
state that all matters between husband and wife can best be resolved in bed?”

“Jamie, put me down!”

He complied, dropping her in the middle of the bunk still covered, she saw, with the embroidered green silk coverlet she’d draped around her shoulders her first day aboard the
Phoenix.
In a tangle of skirts and half undone bodice, Sarah scooted to her knees.

“Listen to me,” she pleaded as her husband sat on the bed to pull off his boots. “I know you planned to make Kerrick’s Keep into a home for me and Abby and the boys. I will always love you for that and for…for the joy you’ve given me.”

He stilled, a high-topped black boot in one hand. “Will you?”

Her throat closed. “Always,” she whispered. “I love you, Jamie. Only you. I always will.”

Very carefully, he placed the boot on the floor beside its mate. In tight-knit trousers and stockinged feet, he turned to her. Sarah’s heart contracted at the expression in his blue eyes.

“And I, my darling, will always love you. Only you.”

The words should have been said months ago, Jamie realized. On the deserted island. Certainly, at the time of their marriage. But tender promises and soft words hadn’t seemed right. and fitting in a fetid cabin stinking of death. Now, they were not only fitting, they were absolutely right Taking her hands, he raised them to his lips.

“I’ll provide for you, and cherish you to the end of my days.”

Tears shimmered in her brown eyes. “I know you will. It’s the matter of how you do it that gnaws at my heart. Don’t sell the
Phoenix,
Jamie. I don’t need to live in a medieval keep. I can live near Abby and Liam on the Isle of Wight, or close by in Portsmouth. I’ll make a home for you, my love, one you’ll always want to return to between voyages.”

The selflessness of her gift humbled Jamie. He couldn’t remember a time when someone offered so much, with no thought of taking in return.

She sniffed. “All I ask is that you refrain from smuggling. I’m not sure I could stand the strain if fortune’s wheel turned yet again, and I found myself married to a rogue of the first order once more.”

“There’s no fear of that,” he said softly. “You’ve tamed the rogue, Sarah.”

Her tremulous smile held disbelief and a glimmer of the laughter that had stolen his heart.

“Ha! So you say, sir. Yet I suspect I’ve lessons still to learn from this scurrilous book you seem to have committed to memory, and a lifetime of worry ahead of me, wondering where you are and what brawl you’re wading into with fists flying.”

A picture flashed into Jamie’s mind of Sarah peeping around the corner of aft cabin, her head covered with a ridiculous canvas hat and her eyes wide with shock at the melee she’d caused between the crew of the
Phoenix
and the Chinese merchants who’d tried to bamboozle them.

This was the woman who’d followed her father from India to China. Who’d coerced a most reluctant captain to go in search of a missing missionary. Who’d stowed away aboard a ship engaged in smuggling, and sailed away after weeks on a deserted atoll with little more than a sunburned nose.

She had more adventure in her intrepid soul than any sailor who ever climbed aloft. He knew in his deepest heart that he wasn’t sailing the
Phoenix
anywhere without her.

Could he sail it with her?

Jamie’s heart skipped a beat. He stared down at her face, his mind racing with the possibility. She could come with him, as many sea captain’s wives did, at least until she quickened with their child. He’d have to make the voyages shorter, the time ashore between them longer, so she wouldn’t miss Abigail and the boys. In the process, he’d save enough to begin repairs on Kerrick’s Keep.

Could Sarah leave the family she’d just reclaimed to sail with him?

Could he ask her to?

His gut tightened. He could ask her, but he didn’t need to hear her answer at that very moment. He needed, Jamie discovered, only the feel of his wife’s mouth under his.

His lips kicked up in a grin. Sweeping an arm around her waist, he drew her up against him.

“You’re right, my darling. You’ve much yet to learn from that scurrilous little book. Are you ready to recommence your lessons?”

“Yes,” she breathed, “oh, yes!”

* * * * *