Taming the Wilde (2 page)

There was no time to be concerned with modesty as I dashed toward the far railing, clambered atop it and dived, feeling fingers brush at my ankles as I flew into the air, soaring for but a moment. Already joy was taking my heart for I had found a kind of freedom in the fall, which was longer than I had anticipated, long enough that I had time to tumble and hit the water feet first as my body sank into the river's embrace.

Of course I wasted no time in striking out, though not for land. To swim to land would be to put myself back into the hands of my captors. I had determined it best if I were to make down river with the current and find sanctuary at one of the small villages along that great river's shores. I could hear little over the sounds of my own gasps for breath and the sloshing of water against my ears, but in the moments of clarity there were great shouts and much commotion, followed by loud reports as a few eager officers discharged their weapons at me. A shot broke the water not far from me, frightening me terribly.

I had become hunted like a fox, but unlike the fox I could not go to ground for long. Diving below the surface of the water hid me temporarily, but I was forced to resurface far too quickly as my lungs burned for air.

“Ho there! Stop wench!” A rough voice called out to me. I was by that time quite far from the ship and riverbank and could not discern where such a voice was issuing. My spirits sank when I turned my head and saw a rowboat propelled by four strong men fast overhauling me. The game was almost up, but I was not ready to concede just yet. Instead of attempting to out-swim the little vessel, I dived and made towards it, surfacing just behind the stern, as it were. To those on the boat, it seemed as though I had disappeared completely. I treaded water for a good few minutes as they cast about, trying to understand whence I had gone. It was an admirable ploy and though I was fast becoming exhausted, I could not help but find amusement in it.

After the first minutes events took a new turn as someone aboard the Valiant took out a cone that amplified the voice and began shouting to the boat. “Behind ye! Behind ye!” The sailors dutifully looked stern-wards and of course I ducked down beneath the water, using the bulk of the boat to hide myself.

I began to think that escape might be possible after all, but the river had other ideas. A chance swell lifted me into the sight of the sailors, nearly dashing me against the boat in the process. In short order hefty hands were reaching for me and I was dumped aboard as unceremoniously as a side of beef.

“You lead us a merry chase, lass,” the officer at the head of the boat informed me with a cruel thinning of his lips. “You will regret that before the day is through, I promise you that.”

He wore a powdered wig, which assured me that what he said was undoubtedly true. In my experience, limited as it was, no good ever came from a man in a wig. I shared this opinion to the merriment of the sailors, who snorted and hid their faces so as not to earn the ire of the man who was now regarding me with as vicious as an expression as ever took up residence on a human visage. “I will make sport with you,” he promised with an unpleasant leer.

Good sense demanded that I made no reply to
that; I had antagonized my captors quite enough. As the boat was raised up to the ship I began to regret the failure of my escape most keenly, for I saw that there were manacles waiting for me in the hands of the sailors.

Sure enough I was clapped in irons the moment I set food aboard the Valiant, and most uncomfortable they were on wet skin. The day had turned cold and I shivered in my wet garments as the officer responsible for my apprehension took audience with Captain Morrow.

With all the aplomb of a half drowned cat, I waited, enduring looks and whispers and the occasional glare from those around. The other women had all been safely stowed below decks, so I faced the wrath of the captain alone as he approached me, his expression severe.

“That was a foolish jape, Mistress Wilde.” There was heavy censure in his voice, which was otherwise rather pleasant. It had a deep timbre to it, the sort of sound that rolls around in one's head long after the words have been spoken.

I found myself momentarily tongue-tied as I searched for a response that did not seem entirely absurd. This in spite of the fact that the time for being concerned about seeming senseless was well over. I had made a scene worthy of the papers. “Thank you,” I finally said, dipping into a small curtsey. My sodden petticoat brushed the deck as I bobbed down, then slapped against my lower shin as I stood straight.

“I did not say it by way of congratulations,” he snapped directly.

“Then I withdraw my thanks.” That reply came quickly, slipping off my tongue before I had time to consider it properly, or at all.

The captain had been in the process of turning to leave me to my fate, but my words bought him snapping back towards me, not unlike a clockwork toy. He looked at me with irritation, but there was some curiosity in his gaze as he examined me as carefully as if I had turned out to be a talking fish dredged up out of the deep. “You do understand your situation, do you not, Miss Wilde? You are a convict being transported to the Australian penal colonies.”

I hastened to assure him that I did understand that very well indeed.

“Then why, might I ask, do you speak and behave like a dowager taking a dip at Blackpool?”

I understood immediately what he meant by his question. He was wondering how somebody of my obvious breeding had fallen so far from grace. It was a question I had no intention of answering directly, for the direct answer pained me deeply. “It is fate who should be taking this voyage, not I,” I made the reply with a small smile so as not to seem overwrought with despair.

He smiled for some hidden reason and his face was transformed. There was no doubting that Captain Morrow was a handsome man, he had strong features set in fine bone structure slightly on the narrow side. When he smiled small dimples appeared on his cheeks and I felt my heart flutter quite inappropriately as my own lips curled in response. For a fleeting moment, the ship went away, complete with those who acted as guards and even the sweeping river seemed to drift far into the background. I found myself absorbed in his gaze, fancying that it was just he and I in that place.

Then rough hands were laid on me and the fantasy was shattered as Captain Morrow's men drew me towards the lower deck. I hadn't seen him give the order, but before I knew what was happening I was down in the prison deck, a place sheltered from natural light in a way that made me temporarily blind.

A cheer went up, a half celebratory, half jeering sound from my fellow inmates. I had expected it, but it was no easier to endure for the expectation. The impulse to make a rude gesture was strong, but my arms were occupied with Captain Morrow's stalwarts so I had no choice but to endure the comments made as we passed down the clear center.

Part of the deck was open and hung with hammocks, but there was a barred section towards the rear and I knew without asking that I was headed for that locked off space. I found my breath coming quicker, my heart beating faster as panic rose. “Please,” I begged my captors. “Please don't lock me away.”

“Ye dived over the edge, ye wee nut, of course we'll be locking ye away,” the Scotsman to my right informed me gruffly.

I made no more appeals to their sense of mercy. I did notice that most of the barred area was not locked, but occupied simply for space. Several women already sat and lounged on bunks bolted to the walls and bars. I nodded to them politely as I was escorted into a cell and locked away most securely, but mercifully not before the manacles were removed. It seemed I was to be free to pace my cage at will, though that was little comfort. As the guard's key turned in the lock, my fear that the ship might sink and I would be trapped below decks to drown like a rat made my mouth dry.

I did not have long to fret about my situation as I was soon distracted by the appearance of a tall man in a black velvet coat who made his way down the stairs leading to the main deck with great aplomb. He moved with a curious motion that drew my eye, his gait somehow sinuous and dangerous.

“Ladies!” His gravelly voice boomed over our heads, cutting through chatter and making space for silence. “I am Mr. Roake, master of education and discipline for the next eight months of your lives. It is my hope that you will land in the colonies better women than you left these shores. To this end you will find yourselves attending regular lessons in which those of you who do not know how to read and write will be taught to do so.” He ran a supercilious eye across the prison deck, finding each of us wanting in our own way. “I will also be handling affairs of discipline. Those of you who do not obey the rules I shall lay out in short order will find yourselves very sorry for it.”

Already I did not like this Roake. There was a peculiar glee in his voice as he subsequently made reference to birch rods and canes and other implements that might be used to impart discipline if he so saw fit. Some of the younger women and children began to sniffle at his devilish descriptions of those instruments of pain.

“One of you has already distinguished herself in disobedience,” he said, casting his eye towards the rear of the ship where I was incarcerated. I felt a shiver pass through my very bones as his eyes settled on my dripping form. The cold feeling grew as he walked towards the cells, a path silently forming around him as he moved. There were no titters of excitement or murmurs of appreciation for this man, though he was not unpleasant in aspect. I could only conclude that the others felt what I felt, the presence of a predator, a fox let loose amongst the chickens.

I was glad for the bars that divided us as Roake stopped at my cell. He was close enough that I could smell his cologne, a wood-musk scent that seemed out of place in the salt ridden air. Though we were still on the river, the ship had absorbed the scents of the wide ocean and it was possible to taste what lay before us as we breathed in those lingering fumes of journeys gone by. His height meant that my natural eye line fell several inches below his shoulder at the spot where his raven locks terminated in gentle waves.

“Miss Jane Wilde, I presume?” He tilted his head and looked at me with a mocking gaze. His dark curls cascaded about his shoulders, a thin and precisely trimmed mustache twitching above his lips. I lowered my head, not wishing to meet his twinkling eyes. “That was quite a dive.”

“Yes sir,” I agreed. Something about the man made me fearful. I wished there was somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere in the cell to retreat to. I was forced to stand there, to be observed by this gentleman who made my very blood cold.

“You are a spirited woman,” he said, feigning the complement. “But I am not interested in spirit. I am interested in obedience.” He let the words hang in the air ominously until I was certain that my fate was to be the first victim of his cruel implements, but when he finished his thought, I discovered that the captain, if not fate, had smiled upon me. “You are fortunate that Master Morrow has intervened on your behalf, for I had the perfect cane picked out for your hide before you hit the water,” he said with a slight sigh of dismay.

“Yes sir,” I mumbled. It was best to agree with this type of man, the type who so desperately needed to control a woman with pain. There were many thousands of men like him in England; I hoped that their number would be smaller in the colonies if traveling to Australian shores were to be my destiny.

There was a long moment in which he did not speak, rather inspected me closely with a keen look. “I hope that this agreeable disposition you now display is a result of your understanding that you are under the authority of Captain Morrow and myself and that we will stop at nothing to ensure that you are delivered to Australian shores to serve your sentence – and not merely dampened spirits resulting from standing about in sodden clothes.”

“The former, most certainly,” I murmured, hoping to appease his need for control.

“Yet something in your speech tells me this is not the case,” he said dryly. “Mark my words, Miss Wilde, I will have my eye on you. Give me but the slightest reason and I will see you meet the rod and cane you so richly deserve.”

I fixed my eyes on my toes, which were taking on a shade of pale blue. I had earlier removed my boots and stockings in an effort to stave off blisters, but it had left my feet exposed, just as the rest of my person, perhaps even my soul was exposed to this man who looked at me with the same glittering gaze a cobra gives its prey. Did he know that he looked upon a veritable mongoose when he looked at me? I thought not. A hundred retorts vied for my tongue, but I gave voice to none of them. Wet and alone, one woman against the agents of a king who had sentenced me to an uncertain fate on distant shores, there were not words in existence that properly expressed the disdain and loathing I had for this Roake and yes, as handsome as he might be, Captain Morrow too.

Apparently satisfied by my silence, or at least giving up on baiting me for a short time, Roake returned sternwards and cleared his throat as he retrieved a small tome from his pocket. “You will shortly be separated into two groups, one of which will take up residence on the other side of this bulkhead.” Here he tapped the wall behind him with his knuckles. “You will find that your time on the Valiant will be bearable, if not pleasant if you follow the rules I am about to impart. These are directly from Captain Morrow, so see that you mind them. To break one of these rules is to have trespassed against not just my authority, but the captain's and I should not have to tell you that on this ship, Captain Morrow's authority is absolute.”