by Raven, Sandy
"I wasn't planning on any visitors arriving that day." She gathered papers pertaining to his order and placed then in a leather folio. "I had been in Carolina's hull supervising the installation of the iron pegs in the iron knees the owner demanded, in place of wooden shelf clamps." His puzzled look must have asked for explanation, for she gave one. "That owner ordered iron, not wood. I usually give the owner what he wants if I can, and engineer it in a way that makes the whole structure safe."
"But they'll rust in place," Lucky said, "then be difficult to remove without taking out the entire..."
"Exactly! And in two or three years, the man will be back in dry dock and I will replace them all with wood. I tried to warn him." She flicked her hand in the air. "But the man thinks he knows more than I, a mere female. So I gave him precisely what he asked for." She was quiet a moment, then straightened in her seat. "I'm sorry to digress Captain, please continue with your response."
There was so much he wanted to tell her about why his frustration had got the better of him earlier, but for now, he chose to remain quiet. Perhaps one day, he'd tell her how his attraction to her, her unattainability, and his desire to possess and cherish her, all collided on this hot, humid afternoon. "You did nothing, except smile at me. It took nothing more than that for me to—" He stopped before he confessed to falling in love. "You are unlike any woman I've ever known. And the women in my family are extraordinary, so that is truly a compliment."
Color rose in her cheeks, making the freckles seem to disappear as she grew embarrassed and uneasy. "I wasn't fishing for compliments, Captain. I simply wanted to know what you see that no other man has ever seen."
"Then every other man in this village is a fool, my lady. Because I sense a deep need in you. And I want to be the one who satisfies that need, as no other ever will."
This was going to happen. Mary-Michael wasn't sure if the heat and humidity were finally getting to her or if she'd begun hallucinating. Her heart began to race, and she felt a little light-headed. Well, she thought, that just made one part of her task much easier. Now the calculating part of her brain had to figure out how to proceed. She would speak to Mr. Watkins about this before dinner tonight.
"You were not entirely wrong earlier," she whispered, embarrassed to admit that he was right about her frustrated state. "But there is nothing to be done about it." She lifted her gaze to meet his. "At least not today."
"What are you saying, Mrs. Watkins?" the captain asked, disbelief in his voice and expression. His expression was to be expected after all her protestation and arguing with him.
Mary-Michael checked the doorway again to make sure Andrew was at his drafting table. She saw him and Robert in discussion, paying no attention to her and the captain. "I don't know why I'm telling you this." She worried her lower lip, wondering what he would think of her when she told him this bit of news. She'd never done this before, and was uncomfortable doing so. It was basically her way of inviting the captain to her bed to help her conceive a child, only she couldn't phrase it quite like that. She had to be coy, seductive, alluring. Something she'd never been in her entire life. "My husband is going to his farm this weekend to get away from the oppressive heat. He does this in the summer months. The distance is such that he usually remains gone for several weeks or more before returning."
"And?" he prompted.
Of course he would make her the one to initiate any sordid affair—likely because she'd been so confused and indecisive earlier.
"Nothing," she choked out. "I... I... was just informing you... in case you needed my husband for any reason." There was no turning back now. She'd let the cat out of the bag so to speak, and she was now committed to having sex with this man. The captain would soon be her very first lover.
He checked the men at the drafting table beyond the open door, then returned his full attention back to her. "I don't need your husband. Just you."
Mary-Michael gulped hard. She was really doing this. Perhaps even tomorrow morning if he arrived early enough. Oh God, she needed to talk to Becky. Not only could her friend help her with how to seduce the captain, but perhaps she could give her some pointers on what she should expect.
This was out of her realm of experience, but she had to admit the warm, quivering feeling she got low in her belly felt perfect and right.
Except it was sinful. She was going to be committing adultery with this handsome, virile specimen of a man who found her as attractive as she did him. And while committing this sin she would pray she conceived a child.
Becky had hinted at finding pleasure in her husband's bed, even going so far as to saying she enjoyed it. Perhaps Mary-Michael might find that same pleasure as well. Cadence never said anything about sex, but she had to enjoy it enough to continue giving her husband children every year since they married.
"I shall be available to... ah... explain all that to you." Her mouth suddenly went dry and she paused. "We can discuss the... benefits of... composite masts and yards... in detail, this weekend."
Darn, darn, darn! Why couldn't she be better at this seduction thing? The man likely thought she was light in the head and would retract his offer of satisfying her needs as he called it. She had to get some advice from her friends. Now. This afternoon.
Captain Gualtiero stood and smoothed his shirt. He looked nervous. She wondered what he had to worry about. He was getting what he'd been working toward from the moment he walked into her life. And he obviously had the experience to know when he saw a frustrated woman in need of a man in her bed. So why should he be nervous?
"I look forward to that, Mrs. Watkins."
Mary-Michael stood to see him out the door. She somehow managed to speak in her normal voice. "We can finish the interior appointments list early tomorrow morning, Captain. It shouldn't take long. Then you'll be free until dinner with Mr. Watkins and myself tomorrow evening."
He bowed, and with a smile said, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Watkins."
She went to the window to watch as he began his walk back to Avenger. What had she just done? Never once in her twenty-four years did she ever think she would do such a thing as break commandments or vows she had freely given with her heart. But here she was about to do both, with her husband's full consent and encouragement, and with her own eager anticipation. The man was handsome, appeared very virile, and seemed to understand what she needed as a frustrated woman.
She just hoped she didn't disappoint him.
Now that was something she hadn't considered. His pleasure. God, she hoped she satisfied him enough that he would want to make love to her repeatedly over the weekend. She needed him to do it enough for her conceive because this was her only opportunity to do so.
She smiled to herself as she watched him walk away from the building. He was such a fine specimen of a man. Her entire body trembled at the thought of the act of sex with him. Why, his touch alone sent shivers through her body. Knowing how sinful what she was about to do was, she feared not getting with child more than she feared eternity in hell. And it was all because her arms ached to hold a babe of her very own, one who will never be taken from her. She was desperate to feel her own child growing inside her.
As she thought about it, she wondered how on earth she would present that to the priest in the confessional.
She would have to think about that later. After. After she satisfied this need to get pregnant and have her baby.
Mary-Michael had to talk to someone, and there were only four women who knew the true nature of her marriage. Three of the girls she'd come through the home with—Melody, now known as Sister Elizabeth, her sister Cadence, and their friend Becky. They'd each chosen differently upon reaching the age of majority and being forced to choose service to the church or a life as a wife and mother. Becky married the owner of the town's boarding house and tavern, Mr. David Parks, and Cadence married an older widower in need of a mother for his boys, Mr. Edgar Humphries. Both women were proof that a marriage could surely be more than just an amiable
relationship as both were happily carrying babes again.
Cadence's sister, Melody, chose the church. Becky and Mary thought it was likely because Melody was afraid of life outside of the structure of the church-run orphanage in which they grew up. Because of her friend's vocation, she'd have no problem asking Melody for her prayers, but Mary-Michael could never tell her what she desired and how she now planned to achieve it.
The fourth woman who knew of her marital situation was Sally Johnson, Mr. Watkins' cook and housekeeper. She'd heard once, that there is nothing the help doesn't know, and this has proved true on several occasions. Without a doubt, she'd find a sympathetic ear with Becky or Cady, but Mary-Michael just wasn't comfortable approaching Sally with feelings such as these. She would also have to keep in mind that Sally's loyalty was always to Mr. Watkins before her, and the other woman might think Mary-Michael's desire to commit adultery to conceive a child was inappropriate because of Mr. Watkins' condition.
If Becky and Cady could only know how much she envied their lives now, even though her rational side said she could never have known where and what they would be doing at this exact moment six years ago. Back then she thought she would be happy with just her job, and possibly being a godmother to her best friends' children. Who knew that the moment she held Becky's first son, Davy, that her decision would come back to haunt her.
Each time there was a baptism at church, or she heard of a couple she knew being blessed with yet another child, she died a little on the inside. At each child's birthday party she was invited to, she'd wished she could go back and make a different choice. While it might never have garnered her the education or satisfaction of her work, she might feel more complete. More of a woman. As it was, no one even considered her a woman with physical wants or needs. It made her an oddity, in more ways than one.
Then Mr. Watkins had suggested she consider adopting, and he was right. Being a mother was just as much a calling for her as designing ships. It was what she'd always dreamed. She'd fallen in love with the brother and sister who'd been orphaned when their parents died suddenly from an illness. Just as her parents had. She'd felt it was a sign. A sign that they were meant to be hers.
From that moment on, she'd wanted both. To design fast ships and be a mother.
Before Rowan and Emily, she had her job to satisfy her. Since realizing that her heart was incomplete without a child, she was determined to become a mother again somehow. And if God wanted her to be a mother, He would allow this to work. Then this time her child would truly be her child.
Mary-Michael put the stack of papers in her folio and buttoned it, then took her hat and jacket from the rack in the corner of the room and headed out of her office. Robert wrote the totals of a sum he'd been calculating at the bottom of the column and glanced up at her.
"I'm taking this list and the notes I took home with me so I can go over them with Mr. Watkins, and will work on my drawings from there after dinner. Will you tell Andrew and lock up when you're done for the day?"
"Sure thing, Mrs. Watkins," the staid young accountant said before returning to his calculations. Taking the steps down to the front exit, she found Victor in the shade of a tree, wiping an invisible speck on the side of the carriage while he waited on her.
"How long have you been here, Victor?" Mary tossed her folder onto the seat and climbed into the carriage unaided and waited on Victor to take his seat in front of her.
"I jus' got here," said the grizzled and gray-headed black man who'd been her husband's butler, driver and valet for over thirty years. "I passed that nice gen'leman that's here to get new boats from you and Mr. Watkins and waved to him." Her ears perked at his words, and Mary-Michael tried her best to ignore that he mentioned the captain.
"He left the office not too long ago." She hoped she appeared nonchalant, and not as interested in the handsome, magnetic and intriguing captain—the man she wanted more than anything to sire a child for her. "We have a little more work tomorrow morning and we're done."
It was half-past four in the afternoon, and Mary-Michael knew Becky would be in the kitchens preparing for her evening of cooking the various meals for her customers. But she desperately needed her friend's advice. "Victor, could you stop at Becky's for a minute? I'd like to ask her something."
"Sure thing, Miz Watkins." Her driver turned the horse out of the shipyard and headed toward the tavern a few blocks away. As they rolled up to the building's back entrance, Mary said, "Look, there's a shady spot for you and Buttercup." She hopped down before Victor had even set the brake on the carriage. "I'll bring you a sweet if she has any. This won't take long."
Immediately upon entering the kitchen she saw the half-dozen women her friend employed, all at various tasks working on preparing food and cooking the dinner menu for the night. From the smells coming from the kettles and the fish carcasses on the edge of the long butchering table, she deduced it was a good day for the local fishermen—and in turn, the patrons coming to the tavern for dinner.
Mary-Michael pilfered a piece of squash from one of the ladies and smiled sheepishly when she was caught. "Is Becky up front?"
"I'm not sure she's back yet," one of the cook's helpers said. "She said something earlier about goin' up to the schoolhouse to talk to Davy's teacher. The little one had a belly ache when he left this mornin', and seems like he knew he was about to get into trouble for something."
"He's only five years old. How serious can it be?" She popped another slice of vegetable into her mouth. "Besides, my godson is a good boy. He's just curious and full of energy," Mary-Michael added, her mouth full. She smiled at the women. "Much like I was at his age."
"Go on, before you eat all my squash. Ain't gonna be a good fish stew with no veg'tables in it," the first woman said, waving her big knife toward the door to the dining rooms. "Miz Parks might be back and we don't know it yet."
Mary-Michael pushed through the swinging door to the main dining room of the three in Becky's tavern. She had one smaller private room, one larger private room, and the main dining hall. She scanned the room and noticed a few patrons at the bar as it was still early yet for dinner to be served. A thought crossed her mind and she wondered if any of the unfamiliar faces she saw were members of Captain Gualtiero's crew. Crossing the hall to take a peek into the other rooms, she noticed Constable Potts seated at a table with his two deputies and quickly turned away, hoping he hadn't seen her. The man was more than annoying. For the past month he'd been doggedly relentless in his pursuit of an adulterous affair with her. How many times did she have to tell him she was a happily married woman? He must have thought her desperate since the children's uncle came to take them.
But she was desperate, wasn't she?
The exact moment that thought crossed her mind, she let out a tiny giggle. What irony, she thought. She wanted sex. Yes. Only she wanted it from Captain Gualtiero and no other.
"Mrs. Watkins!"
The sweat trickling down her spine froze as she stiffened on the spot.
"Come, have a seat! I've been meaning to come by your office to talk to you, but I hear you've been busy with a new client." His self-inflated attitude irritated her, just as his nasal voice grated over her skin. "Nice young man some say. He's from England, I hear." Potts picked at something between his teeth with his knife. She wondered what would happen to her if she just fell onto the table and 'accidentally' pushed it down his throat. Would she hang? With his lackeys as witness, likely so. "He was asking around town after your husband's shipyard, and business practices a few days ago."
She wasn't going to let this odious beast, a man whose rich, widowed mother bought him a job in their tiny village, ruin her chance at a tiny bit of happiness. She would not allow it.
"I'm sorry. I'm in a bit of a hurry. I left my driver out back," she replied as politely as possible. Lord knows she wanted away from the man.
The man waved off his two deputies and held out a hand to her, inviting her to sit in one of the newly vacated se
ats. She refused his offer, and as the men left, she told Potts, "If all of you are in here, then who is patrolling the streets of our village?"
"No one would dare upset our peaceful existence here in Harbor Village. Not now that we patrol the streets day and night." He motioned again at the two chairs. "Please," he said.
"No, thank you," she insisted. "I came to see my friend."
"Mrs. Parks picked the little one up from the school house. She's taken 'im upstairs and put 'im to bed. Seems he ain't feelin' too good."
Mary-Michael took a step away from the table, wanting to rush up the steps to find out what was wrong with her godson. She stared into his beady little dark eyes, and was just about to bid the sheriff good day when he repeated, "I don't want to have to ask ya again. Have a seat, Miz Watkins." His drawl became more pronounced, and Mary-Michael wondered at the quantity of ale he'd consumed. The man's tone of voice was sharper, and a bit more demanding.
She hated being told what to do by someone she considered nothing more than a bully, so remained standing and staring at him. She was sure the defiant look on her face told him what she thought because no one spoke to her in such a manner. She mirrored his sardonic little smile with one of her own and repeated, "No. Thank you, Constable. I'm here to see my friend, not you."
"I've been informed that the Englishman has been spending time alone with you in your husband's office." His smug tone rankled her.
"Not that it's any of your business, but he is a new client."
"He followed you to your house for lunch yesterday. The entire village saw the lustful way he looked at your backside."
Mary couldn't let his words fluster her. It's what he expected of her. "Again, none of your business, but our client dined at our home with Mr. Watkins and myself."