Sailor’s weather!
Lorraine leaned against the ship’s rail in the sunshine and watched a pair of herring gulls swoop and dive over the ship, then gracefully rise to swoop again. It seemed to her that her life had changed the instant she had come aboard, for life on the Likely Lass was like nothing she had ever known before: carefree, exhilarating.
Lorraine had learned much since the fleet ketch had flown down Narragansett Bay toward the open ocean. She had learned that while the crew was French (“Picked up from the gutters of Bordeaux,” was MacTavish’s grunted comment), the ship’s officers were an international lot. Aside from the dignified Scot, MacTavish, who was first mate and navigator, there was a dangerous-looking Dutchman with very blue eyes and bright yellow hair and wiry muscles named Jakob Heist, who was the sailing master. The ship’s gunner was that huge carefree laughing Irishman Derry Cork. The rest were English save for the ship’s doctor, a handsome Frenchman, André L’Estraille, who wore outrageously fashionable clothes and fawn-colored curls that Lorraine suspected of being a wig. His eyes were a remarkable amber that in sunlight approached an unusual brassy gold. L’Estraille had been quick to tell her that his middle name was Champion—as, he explained volubly with lighthearted Gallic gestures, indeed he was, mademoiselle, in all things, especially L'amour! His delighted amber gaze had wandered caressingly over Lorraine’s dainty figure as he spoke. Then Raile had cut in with a chuckle to warn her, “Pay no attention to this fighting cock. Mistress Lorraine. He’s our ship’s doctor, here to bind up our wounds if we have any, and to leech us and bleed us at his pleasure!”
“You forgot to mention I’m the best blade aboard!” boasted the handsome Frenchman, flashing a grin at Lorraine.
“The best blade?” Lorraine was impressed.
In response to Raile’s level look, L’Estraille coughed. “After the captain, of course,” he corrected blithely. “But his expertise, I understand, is in naval warfare, whilst I prefer single combat. My prowess in duels is unmatched in all of France, mademoiselle. I have fought the best beneath the most famous dueling oaks of my native land for the honor of—”
“Various ladies,” supplied Raile. “Of whom Mistress Lorraine will not be added to your list, André.” The Frenchman sighed and shrugged. Lorraine liked him at once, and spent considerable time talking to him, for he sought her out at every opportunity when she came on deck.
After only a few days on board, she felt she had poked into every cranny of the vessel. She was bewildered by the amount of gear needed, the spars and anchors and canvas and ropes and tools, and by the number of craftsmen that seemed to be necessary to keep a small ship afloat—there were coopers who made barrels, and carpenters and sailmakers, and caulkers whose responsibility it was to keep the ship watertight, as well as the ordinary seamen who swarmed over the rigging.
The food left something to be desired. The fresh fruit was beginning to run out, the fresh milk acquired in Rhode Island had long since turned to clabber, and although the water in the casks was still good, Lorraine was already tired of the salt fish and onions and dried beans and cheese and hard ship’s biscuit which were the sailor’s standby.
But life had certainly changed for Lorraine.
She had waked that first morning after her long sleep, to find Raile gone and the cabin boy knocking on her door asking her if she would not like some breakfast. Since she had fallen asleep fully dressed—and waked to an enormous hunger—Lorraine struggled up on one elbow to call: “Yes, please. Do come in.”
A towheaded lad, ruddy-faced and eager, entered. He told her his name was Johnny Sears and he didn’t stop talking as he set her food on the table, explaining volubly and at length that his parents had died on a trip to Marseilles and that rather than return to the guardianship of an uncle who hated him, he had—he put it rather grandly—“taken ship” to reach Barbados. Eventually. He was rather vague about that.
“Well, you’re in luck,” laughed Lorraine, biting into one of the hard biscuits. “For ’tis to the Indies we’re bound, according to the captain.”
A momentary frown shadowed Johnny Sears’s young face. “Well, that’s not to be helped,” he muttered. Obviously he had hoped to sail around a bit and see other shores before reaching his destination.
Lorraine gave him a shrewd look. He was young and cocky and he had a winning smile, but somehow she doubted his story. Perhaps because she was a waif herself. She sighed. It took one to know one. . . .
She put down her biscuit and gazed upon him sympathetically. The sun was pouring through the stern windows and in the harsh light he looked very, very young.
“What do you want to be, Johnny, when you’re a man full grown?” she asked.
He grinned at her and his boyish chest expanded. “I want to be a gunrunner like the cap’n!”
Raile was a gunrunner? Lorraine felt her back stiffen with shock. And yet she supposed she might have guessed him to be doing something like that . . . unlawful.
Johnny Sears was alarmed at her surprised expression. “I thought sure you knew,” he mumbled, casting a surreptitious look at the bunk from which she had emerged.
Lorraine caught that look. It said: A woman usually knows the profession of the man she’s sleeping with! Her chin lifted. She was not accountable to Johnny Sears, nor would she discuss her sleeping arrangements with him!
“You won’t let on I told you?” prodded Johnny in a worried voice.
“No, of course I won’t.” Crisply.
“Because the crew thinks we’re carrying cheese and woolens. I’m the only one that knows what’s underneath—outside of the ship’s officers. I heard them talking about it one day when I was bringing them a bottle, and the cap’n told me if ever I breathed a word of what I’d overheard he’d drop me over the side to feed the fishes!”
Lorraine doubted Raile would do that, but obviously his threat had intimidated Johnny, for the lad seemed truly upset. So the crew didn’t know either. . . . They had looked to be a cutthroat pack when she boarded. Lorraine wondered what they would do if they found out, and suddenly felt less hungry. She pushed her food away from her.
“Cap’n wants you to eat,” urged Johnny, distressed. “He told me so.”
Lorraine favored him with a smile. It occurred to her that she might have tumbled from the frying pan directly into the fire.
She said no more because at that moment Raile swung into the cabin. He was still dressed in the same dark trousers he had worn before, and below the knee his muscular legs were bare. He seemed to bring the brilliance of the day in with him, along with the sea air and the freedom one feels on a ship in the trackless ocean. He bade Lorraine good morning and reached for his shirt.
“Bring another trencher, Johnny,” he told the cabin boy as he slipped into the shirt. “I’ll breakfast again with my lady.”
Johnny Sears fled.
Raile drew up a chair and sat down at the table. His gaze passed over Lorraine appreciatively. “Faith, ’tis the brightest this cabin has been,” he murmured. “I trust you slept well?”
In truth Lorraine had waked with her mind swarming with confused dreams of Philip and Lavinia and purple bridal gowns and things going wrong—and mixed up in all of it a disoriented memory of a pair of arms and Raile’s voice soothing her. She peered at him suspiciously but his face was expressionless. Then she remembered how frightened she had been and how he had lain across the door protecting her from God knows what, and her tension disappeared.
“I’m sorry,” she said shyly. “About the pistol last night.”
“Night before last, lass,” he corrected her easily. “Ye’ve slept the clock around.”
She blinked. “I must have been more tired than I thought! Anyway, I am truly sorry I didn’t trust you.”
His grin was reassuring. “I’m not surprised you’d think you needed protection against a cutthroat crew like mine,” he said dryly. “We left Marseilles in a hurry and André—the ship’s doctor, whom we’d picked up
in Marseilles—rounded them up for us.” He had started to add: since he speaks French and would attract less attention. Then he realized she’d wonder about that, and added quickly: “ ’Tis André’s first voyage with us.”
“And the rest of your officers?”
“Have been with me for a long time. MacTavish the longest.” His voice was laced with affection when he spoke of the gray-haired Scot. “We’re from the same part of the world, MacTavish and I.” Returning to the subject uppermost in his mind, he looked at her keenly across the table. “For your safety, lass,” he said bluntly, “ ’tis best those on board consider you my mistress.”
“But—” she began to demur.
He held up a hand. “Hear me out. I’ve a reputation with the sword that tends to keep men in line, but if the lads thought you were not spoken for, they’d compete for your favors. ’Twould make for dissension and we’ve a long voyage ahead of us. I’d prefer to make it without threat of mutiny.” To her troubled expression he added gently, “MacTavish will know the truth. Should aught happen to me, lass, MacTavish will see you safe ashore.”
“I like MacTavish,” she volunteered, not quite ready yet to agree to the charade.
His smile flashed. “Aye, everyone does. He’s a good man, is MacTavish.”
Still uncertain, she looked at him through shadowed lashes and veered off on another tack.
“What cargo do we carry, Captain Cameron?” she asked innocently.
“Cheese and woolen cloth,” he replied instantly. “And I’d prefer you to call me Raile. It makes better sense”—his lips quirked—“under the circumstances.”
“Is that why we ran without lights last night? To protect a cargo of cheese and woolen cloth?”
An almost melancholy smile settled over his strong features. “I see Johnny’s been talking to you,” he sighed.
“No, he hasn’t!” she protested, but a telltale flush was spreading over her expressive features.
“And guns,” he added lightly. “Beneath the cheeses and the woolens, we carry guns. But I’d thought ’twas best for you not to know that. A smuggler’s life can be short.”
And the tenure of a smuggler’s lady even shorter. . . .
“Is that why you came to Rhode Island?” she asked curiously. “To sell the guns?”
He nodded. “But Moffatt was dead when I got there.”
She remembered now hearing in the tavern that Harley Moffatt’s horse had thrown him and he was dead.
“You look startled,” he commented.
“It was just that... I had met Harley Moffatt,” she blurted.
“And thought him above dealing in smuggled guns,” he said thoughtfully. “We’re none of us above trying to save our lives, Mistress Lorraine,” sighed Raile. “Moffatt and some others expected an Indian uprising.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed quickly. “Everybody does.”
“They were hoping to be able to meet it—with my guns.”
“But when you learned that Moffatt was dead, why didn’t you try to find the others?”
At his sardonic expression, she said, “Oh,” in a contrite voice. And looked down in embarrassment, picking at her skirt. “I’ve caused you no end of trouble,” she muttered.
“There’s no need to feel that way about it, lass,” he told her softly. “What I choose to do is my own concern—and I felt like taking you with me.”
“But you should be able to sell your guns along the coast somewhere without making the long voyage to the Indies, shouldn’t you? Perhaps New York? That isn’t so far.”
He shook his head. “I’m too well known in Hudson waters, lass.”
“Virginia then!” she hazarded. “Perhaps you could drop me off in some likely town? For I’ll have to make my own way somewhere.”
He listened to her suggestions, drumming his nails. “I realize that,” he said gravely. “But we cannot go to Virginia, lass—I’ve my reasons. No, I’ll take you to the Indies. One of the islands—you will be much safer there, where the law cannot catch up with you. Perhaps a Dutch island where English law does not hold.”
“But . . . but I don’t speak Dutch!” cried Lorraine, bewildered.
“No matter,” was his ruthless rejoinder. “You can learn.”
She sat back, silenced by his sharp tone. Then she set her jaw. “Perhaps I do not want to learn, Captain Cameron!”
He sighed. “If you would break the law, lass, then you must be ready to run. Now that the war is over between England and Holland, I can deliver you to Curaçao. After I have finished my business in Barbados.”
He was deciding her future very high-handedly! she thought, but she turned away and fell silent. She would much prefer to be left in Barbados, where English was spoken. Somehow she would have to find a way to stay there. She would not let him take her on to Curaçao!
Having made that decision, she brightened.
“As to the voyage being long, let me be the judge of that—you’ll brighten the way for all of us, lass.”
She had liked him before, but now she had begun to like him very much indeed. There was something reassuring in his confident manner, in the very way he spoke. And despite the caressing way he looked at her, she had begun to realize that he would not force his attentions upon her.
Johnny Sears brought Raile’s breakfast just then and set it upon the table before him. At Raile’s reproving look he scuttled away again. Lorraine, glad of the interruption, said no more, but watched Raile attack his food. Her mind was clamoring. First she had let Philip seduce her and now she had run away with a smuggler and must face the knowing looks of all those men outside this cabin who believed her to be his mistress.
Raile’s voice cut into her scurrying thoughts. He had finished his meal and was rising. “We’ll take a turn around the deck if you’ve finished,” he suggested politely, pushing back his chair.
Lorraine recoiled. “Oh, no, I couldn’t! I mean . . .” She looked quickly away. “All those men will think I'm—”
“Sleeping with the captain?” he finished softly.
“Yes,” she choked.
“Indeed I hope so,” was his cool rejoinder. “For ’twill protect you after a fashion. But of course,” he drawled, “if you insist upon sticking to the truth, lass, we can always make it so!”
He was mocking her! Her face flushed and she gave him an indignant look.
“I am sorry,” he sighed. “I realize that you are very young and that all this is a new experience for you. But I promise you that no one will give you offense—you have my word on it. Indeed they will all envy me!”
“I cannot go out,” she said, pouncing upon the first excuse offered. “For, as you can see, I have torn my dress and I do not have another.” She fingered the tear in her bodice, a tear through which her worn chemise showed.
“Faith, that’s easy mended,” he said humorously. “I’ll even find you a needle and thread.”
Lorraine looked dismayed. Somehow she had not imagined that this tall fellow would have such commonplace equipment about.
He did not realize, she told herself, that her sudden shyness came not from expectation of insult, but from an unwillingness to meet the eyes of his men, knowing they thought her to be his mistress.
It would have to be faced eventually, of course, she realized—but she would postpone it as long as possible.
Her smile as she accepted the needle and thread from his strong hands was a trifle wan.
“I have a comb for you,” he added.“And Johnny will bring you a bath.”
“You couldn’t find me some hairpins, could you, Raile?” she asked wistfully. “For I have lost all mine riding about the countryside!”
“I doubt it,” he said. “But I’ll ask about. Meanwhile you can tie your hair back with a scarf.” He produced one of palest blue silk. “And when you’ve done, you can come out on deck and view my ship.”
“Thank you, but I want to wash my hair and I’ll just dry it in the sun here at the open windo
ws.”
“The deck is better, lass.”
“Perhaps later.”
“As you like. I’ll leave you now. And later on, we’ll fashion a hanging for your bunk so you can have more privacy.” For it was not in Raile’s mind to let odd rumors concerning their separate sleeping arrangements circulate about the ship. If hangings were put up, word would be spread that the captain’s lady was modest. Whereas now, if through some emergency the door were to be flung open, it would be very plain that the bunk was occupied only by Lorraine, and that might lead to trouble.
“You are very good to me,” she said gratefully, touching the comb he had given her.
Raile turned away, frowning. He was not sure whether “good” was exactly the way he wanted her to view him. He thought, as he made his way to the deck, dogs and children, parsons and kindly schoolmasters were “good”; plainly he did not cut a very dashing figure in her eyes!
Lorraine bathed slowly. Then she mended her dress and washed her long fair hair. She had hoped to be forgotten for a while, but Raile came back while she was drying her hair. He found her standing on a chair so that she might lean far out one of the stern windows and comb her wet tresses in the whipping sea breeze.
“Come away before you fall overboard!” he laughed, and when she shook her head at him, he strode over and scooped her up so swiftly that she almost lost the comb.
“Put me down!” she sputtered.
He gave her a look of derision, and with her still in his arms, moved toward the door.
“Oh, no, I don’t want to—” she began, but they were already out on the deck before she could finish her protest.
And so in full sunlight Lorraine London made her appearance on the deck of the Likely Lass.
Raile put her down with some ceremony and waved an arm to MacTavish, who came over and joined them.
“Mistress Lorraine.” The impassive Scot bowed slightly. “I trust you slept well?”
Remembering Raile’s words, MacTavish will know, Lorraine gave the old Scotsman a clear, direct look from her dusky blue eyes. “I did, sir—I was not disturbed.”
Raile’s grin flashed. “Did I not tell you she’d look even better by daylight, Tav?”
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