Caution to the Wind (American Heroes)

by Mary Jean Adams

  Tossing the pot into the rinse water, she reached for the captain’s plate and was about to give it the same treatment when she decided the delicate china might not tolerate such abuse. Instead, she swiped it with the dishrag then set it in the scalding rinse water next to the coffeepot.

  She almost needn’t have bothered. The man might have no regard for her personally, but he enjoyed her cooking. By the time he finished a meal, nothing remained on his plate to scrub. A mental image of the man they called the Sea Wolf licking his plate clean made her smile, despite her irritation.

  “Something amusing?” Bull asked from the door.

  “No… Well, yes, but just personal thoughts. Ones I should probably keep to myself.”

  “You seem to do more thinking than most men I know,” Bull said.

  Amanda’s hands stilled. What had he meant? She studied his weathered face, but he looked as he always did, old and cantankerous. She wondered if anyone else knew about the heart of gold that beat beneath his tough exterior.

  “Oh, I wanted to thank you for the book,” Amanda said. “How on earth did you come by that on a ship?”

  It had been a volume of Voltaire in its original French. Proficient in French, it had nevertheless been a long time since she had practiced. She found her progress slow but enjoyable. The book itself looked quite expensive, with a gilded leather binding and crisp pages. Certainly, one would not expect to find such a fine piece in the library of an ordinary man.

  “From the prize we took,” Bull replied, looking down at his feet. “Neil told me you can read and write French so I thought you might enjoy it.”

  “Hmmm,” Amanda murmured, fishing the still hot plate from the water with the tips of her fingers. What kind of English merchant kept a copy of Voltaire in French?

  “You know, we, meaning me and the rest of the crew…” Bull shuffled his feet, “we wanted to thank you.”

  Amanda dried the plate with a towel, then turned to Bull. “For what?”

  For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what he should be thanking her for. Although she and Bull had started out on rough terms, and she had surely vexed him with her lack of seamanship, he had shown her nothing but encouragement since the day they set sail. She pursed her lips. Far more encouragement than a certain captain had.

  Bull’s encouragement had developed into kindness. He, Buck and the Doctor supplied her with a constant stream of books and pamphlets. They kept her busy and her mind off the captain—mostly. Why should he be thanking her when she owed him so much?

  “Captain Stoakes has become a different man since you started feeding him,” Bull said.

  “Really?” She lowered her chin at Bull. Even before he knew her true identity, she seemed to be always at odds with the captain. Lately, the tension had increased to almost palpable levels. She had never considered herself disagreeable, so the fault must lie with him. “You mean he used to be worse?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

  Bull laughed. “Hunger doesn’t sit well with the captain. Since you’ve been feeding him, all our lives have become easier.”

  All of their lives, but not hers. Hers had become a daily battle between the unsettling emotions the captain aroused in her—anger at the high-handed and medieval views he held toward her sex, fear that she would be sent away from everything she loved, and most of all, a burning need to be near him that grew each time she saw him regardless of how hard she tried to deny it.

  Nighttime was the worst. Dreams of the captain tortured her sleep. They were like something from a long forgotten fairy tale with her locked away in a tower. As with many fairytales, this one included a handsome prince and a wolf with pitch-black fur forever trying to devour her. In her version of the fairytale, the captain played the part of both prince and wolf. She never failed to awake in a cold sweat, hot desire coursing through her even while fear chilled her to the bone. Her dreams, try though she might to remember them, faded easily until only her tormented emotions remained.

  Perhaps some dreams were best forgotten. Now that he had made his regard for her, or lack thereof, clear, she would bury any hope she might have had.

  “Well, let’s just say I did it for the crew and for Voltaire.” Amanda gave Bull a sympathetic smile that said she understood what a wolf the captain could be.

  “Oh, that reminds me.” Bull reached inside his shirt and pulled out a thin pamphlet with brown crumpled pages and no outer binding. “Here’s another one I picked up last time we was ashore. It looks pretty beat up, but lots of folks are talking about it.”

  Amanda dried her hands on the apron around her waist. She reached for the pile of rumpled brown pages Bull held out, eager for something new to take her mind off her troubles.

  She read the title at the top of the first page. Common Sense. She liked it already.

  “I read it too,” Bull said, sounding a little sheepish.

  “Really?” Amanda looked up at him. By no means an ignorant man, neither could Bull be deemed an intellectual. Few former whalers were, she supposed.

  “Yup, and either I’m getting smarter or that fella’s a hell of a writer. I understood ’most every word of it.”

  “Thank you, Bull.” She laid a light touch on his shoulder then turned to the worn pages.

  Scrawled beneath the title were the words, Written by an Englishman. She scanned the cover searching for a date—1776. A month had not been listed, but scanning the contents, she surmised the essay had been penned when the Colonies were still debating independence. More surprisingly, given the nationality of the author, he supported the cause.

  Her compatriots had declared independence and now fought to retain it. She understood the depth of their passions. Her parents and even her grandparents had been born in the colonies. While England was her mother country, she had never set foot on English soil, never laid eyes on the King, never given a moment’s thought to what her life would have been like had she been born in England. She was English without really being English.

  Moreover, her colony, Maryland, had always filled her with pride. Her fellow colonists were hard working, pious and kind. To her, breaking away from a country that treated its subjects as inferior to those residing in England seemed a natural course of action.

  This author still considered himself English, yet made the same arguments. She flipped through the crinkled, well-thumbed little book, noting the passages that caught her attention were invariably on the most worn and tattered pages. This Englishman’s ideas had fascinated many a reader prior to Bull.

  She must find a quite place to read. An intriguing sentence caught her eye, and she groped her way out of the galley.

  “You’re welcome, my dear,” Bull said, his soft words blending into the words on the page.

  A few steps away from the galley, darkness enveloped her. The narrow shafts of light from the deck above were not enough to illuminate the pages. She clutched the pamphlet beneath folded arms and considered where she might hide herself away for a few quiet minutes of uninterrupted reading.

  After spending so much time below deck, cooking for the captain or assisting the doctor, Amanda missed the warm early-summer sun and longed to spend time where the ocean breezes could caress her face and ruffle her curls.

  On the other hand, she wanted to be alone with her new acquisition. Some of the sailors could read, but even they rarely took time for more than a letter from a wife or sweetheart or the Bible. She would be an unusual sight, sitting on a tarpaulin or coil of rope, her back against the bulwark, a book in hand.

  She would have no peace. Over the weeks, she had been amazed at how friendly the men had become with her. She supposed it helped that she sewed up their wounds, made them a little chicken soup when they were feeling ill, or even treated them to a piece of the lemon cake she often made for the captain when she heard they had done something especially worthy of reward.

  Now, they greeted her whenever she saw them, asking how she fared and wishing her continued health
. They were such polite men. How could anyone ever confuse a privateer with a mere pirate?

  Of course, they would be curious about her book and tempted to stop what they were doing to ask her about it. It would be just her luck to draw the captain’s attention by attracting a crowd of idle sailors. In all likelihood, he would accuse her of breaking down order on his ship and order the captain’s skiff to row her to Baltimore.

  Straining her eyes to read in the dim light, she heard the doctor’s voice drift through his open doorway.

  “Next time we take a prize, see if you can get me more gauze before you sail her off.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” she heard Buck reply.

  Amanda drew back just outside the doctor’s open door to listen. She felt bad about eavesdropping, but this time she was the topic of discussion even if Buck and the doctor didn’t know it.

  “I know I asked for more to be brought on board before we sailed, but we must have used it faster than I anticipated.” The doctor paused and Amanda could imagine him polishing his glasses as he usually did when deep in thought. “That would be odd though, since our casualties have been light this voyage.”

  Heat rose to Amanda’s cheeks. She had neglected to consider one element of her transformation to an adolescent boy. Still, even if she had thought about it, she could have done little. She may look like a boy on the outside, but her body still worked like a woman’s no matter how much she wished it wouldn’t.

  At any rate, packing more than a month or two of her own paddings in her small sack would have been impossible. If someone had chanced to open her sack, her monthly supplies would have been hard to explain away.

  Buck turned to leave and Amanda ducked further into the shadows. She held her breath and hoped he wouldn’t notice her skulking in the corridor. When he headed in the opposite direction, she let herself breathe again.

  “Oh,” the doctor said with a start when he discovered Amanda standing just outside his door. “Were you looking for me?”

  “I was searching for a quiet place to read,” Amanda said, glad to have a ready excuse for lurking in the dark corridor.

  “What do you have there?” The doctor held out his hand for the pamphlet. “Ahh, Common Sense,” he said, taking it from her and reading the worn cover in the lamplight that shone through the door of his quarters. “I remember this.”

  “You’re familiar with it?” Amanda asked.

  “Oh, yes.” His eyes sparkled behind the round wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He handed the pamphlet back to her. “Very familiar with it. In fact, I think the captain may have a copy.”

  Amanda’s heart beat faster. Could Bull have borrowed the pamphlet from the captain? If he had, why hadn’t he said so? At the very least, she hoped he asked permission before loaning the captain’s belongings to her. Captain Stoakes already thought her a nuisance. She didn’t need him thinking her a thief.

  “You could read in my quarters,” the doctor offered. “Fortune seems to be smiling on us, and we have no patients at the moment. I’m sure you won’t be bothered. Plus, I have business elsewhere that I must attend to.”

  “That would be wonderful!” Amanda replied, delight at finding a place to read outweighing her concerns about the source of the pamphlet.

  The doctor removed his glasses and started polishing. “Actually, I have been thinking, would you like to move your hammock to my quarters?”

  “Your quarters?” Amanda asked.

  She would have sworn he blushed, but she couldn’t tell for sure with the shadows playing against his face in the dark corridor.

  “I can assure you all the privacy you need to uh…read and such,” the doctor added, his voice wavering.

  Amanda considered for a moment. Oddly enough, privacy was the one benefit she had not thought of. She had spent the last several weeks in the company of men and had grown quite adept at finding privacy when needed. Still, changing the arrangement so she shared a room with only one would ease matters considerably.

  Doctor Miller had always been so kind and courteous to her. She guessed him to be around sixty, and more than once, he mentioned his wife while they worked together. Sharing quarters with him didn’t seem scandalous in the least.

  To have her own private quarters, or at least semi-private, seemed a luxury beyond comprehension. Maybe she could even find time to wash at a basin while the doctor was away. The thought of washing in something other than salt water, even standing at a basin, seemed heavenly.

  “Thank you, Doctor!” Amanda said.

  “That’s the spirit!” The doctor grasped her elbow and led her into his quarters. “Now let’s work together and see if we can’t make some more room in here. Here, grab the other end of this desk.”

  Sometime later, he and Amanda managed to rearrange his personal quarters to provide enough room for Amanda’s hammock plus a small sea chest with a beautiful, intricately carved mermaid gracing the lid and tiny shells at the corners. When Doctor Miller asked about it, Amanda explained that Roger had given it to her as an apology for being so rude on her first day.

  The doctor smiled.

  A few of Doctor Miller’s experiments and supplies had to be moved into the hold, but when Amanda expressed regret at his having to accommodate her, he told her he had been meaning to do a better job of clearing out some of his older things anyway. In the end, she judged the arrangement cramped but cozy. Although less than a foot separated their hammocks, the doctor had hung a sheet between so she had at least the illusion of privacy.

  Doctor Miller excused himself, saying he had some business to attend to, and Amanda flopped into her hammock with her copy of Common Sense. The solitude, the quiet, the privacy felt almost decadent compared to what she had been living. Her hammock swung in time to the gentle rocking of the ship, the hypnotic rhythm soothing her mind and body.

  The pamphlet proved fascinating, but in the stillness of the small cabin, her thoughts wandered back to how Bull had come by it. She chuckled. Pestering him would be pointless. But obstinate though Bull may be, he would have never stolen something from his captain. Would he?

  She sighed and flipped a dog-eared page.

  Of course, Captain Stoakes wasn’t always the man he appeared to be either. She could see he cared about his men. Whenever a man lay in bed, recuperating from anything from injury in battle to a sore stomach, he always found time to speak with the doctor about his condition. It would be natural to be concerned about a sick crewmember, disease spread like fire through the close confines of a ship, but the captain’s questions showed genuine concern for the man’s comfort.

  She snuggled into the flock-filled padding in her hammock, a gift from Cookie who had said he didn’t find it comfortable.

  The captain had proven to be more than just the Sea Wolf his enemies knew him to be. With his amber eyes and fierce grin, the name was apt, but not always.

  She flipped another page.

  Then again, wolves had a softer side too. Her father had told her stories of how they traveled in packs with the alpha male and female mating for life and caring for their pups together. They were deadly predators and a danger to livestock, but, to her, their fierceness always seemed to carry a strain of nobility, a sense of honor and of duty.

  It suddenly occurred to Amanda that the captain resembled a wolf in many ways. Did the alpha male take his obligation to the pack and his mate as seriously as the captain took his responsibility toward his crew? Did he have a mate?

  She shifted in her hammock. That line of thinking would not help. Better to concentrate on her reading since the captain’s personal life was none of her business. True, he had kissed her twice, but that meant nothing. The first kiss in his cabin had been no more than a gentle touching of lips that left her dazed. His intention had undoubtedly been to throw her off guard so she wouldn’t react quickly enough to prevent her confinement in his quarters. He had succeeded.

  But that second kiss... She ran her fingertips across her lips
, remembering the way his kiss had robbed her of all sense of time and place, made her forget she stood in the doctor’s operating room, half a dozen pairs of eyes on her and the captain.

  Amanda chuckled, remembering the varying looks of surprise and shock on the faces of the injured men conscious enough to bear witness. Undoubtedly, they were hoping he wouldn't kiss them in the same manner!

  She settled herself further into the hammock. That kiss could be just as easily explained away. He had been overjoyed to see her alive. At least her death wouldn’t be on his hands. She gave the pamphlet a rueful smile.

  “Argh!” Amanda groaned again, realizing she hadn’t registered a single word for several minutes. She flipped back a few pages searching for passages that looked familiar.

  If she were to think of the captain at all, she needed to think of him as her commander, not as a man. Her top priority needed to be convincing him she did not pose a threat to his ship or his men. That way, she could continue on, living the life she loved, surrounded by men she had come to consider her family.

  In the quiet stillness of the empty cabin with only the lapping of the waves and the creak of the hammocks to break the silence, Amanda could hear her inner voice as clearly as if the words had been spoke aloud. Why do you so desperately want to stay?

  Because I am a good sailor, she argued without saying a word.

  Are you?

  Amanda shifted in her hammock, trying to find a comfortable position. She should have known there would be no point in arguing. She was a horrible liar, even to herself. Although she adored life at sea, she wasn’t particularly well-suited to it.

  The voice spoke again. So why stay?

  Neil needs me.

  No he doesn’t, and you know it.

  Probably not, she agreed with some reluctance.

  So why stay? Her inner voice had become impatient, demanding.

  “Because the men need me,” she whispered, knowing how demented she would sound if anyone should happen to hear her arguing with a phantom.