Lucky's Lady (The Caversham Chronicles Book 4)

by Raven, Sandy

  Her insides quivered like jelly at the sight of the faint beard along his jawline, and she noticed as he got closer that his gold-flecked coffee-colored eyes were alight with joy. She almost thought the delight in his eyes was for seeing her, but the closer he got, the more she realized it wasn't. But it didn't upset her. After all, it was her own creations that had him so ecstatic he could barely contain his delight.

  "You went over there, didn't you?" she said from her seat behind the desk. "Before coming here to get me, you went and looked."

  "Sorry, I couldn't wait." Lucky's wide grin and lively expression illuminated his entire face.

  "We didn't board either one," Ian added, hoping to calm Mary-Michael. "We saved that for the tour."

  She couldn't help herself, she had to ask, because she wanted them to love their boats as much as she did. She wanted them to appreciate the work her men put into the twin ladies. "Well, now that you've had a peek, what do you think so far?"

  "They are amazing, Mary," Lucky said. "I feel like a child at Christmas—getting his best present ever."

  "Do you like the colors? That dark green you wanted was really hard to find in a heavy marine paint. I had to have that shade blended. When I saw what a good job the painter had done with that, I asked him to make the golden-white as well." She was babbling. She did that when she got nervous. She had to get a hold of her emotions. She had to stop talking and let the man get a word in edgewise.

  "The striping came out wonderfully." Lucky's eyes crinkled as he smiled at her and she really couldn't stop her racing heart. "It's everything we discussed, only a hundred times more beautiful."

  Mary-Michael smiled. She loved seeing him happy. Lucky was excited and pleased with something she, and all the men that worked for her husband's shipyard, had created.

  A forced cough from behind Lucky reminded Mary-Michael they weren't alone. Flames of embarrassment crawled up her neck to scorch her cheeks. Why couldn't she be as collected and cool as Becky and Cady when situations such as this came up? Instead she colored up like a ripe tomato when she tripped up socially. She cleared her throat and stepped around Lucky to take Ian's outstretched hand.

  "Good morning, Captain," she said to Ian. Ian's excitement was equally visible in his expression as well, but she sensed an underlying thread of disapproval. Likely it was her behavior. She would have to check herself and not allow herself to get caught up in Lucky's sensual web. She would have to remain conscious of Ian's presence throughout the day, or she would continually make a fool out of herself.

  Glancing back at Lucky, she offered him her hand.

  He lifted it and brought it to his lips, his eyes holding hers as he bent over her hand, pressing his lips against her knuckles. They lingered perhaps longer than what the ladies at church might consider polite.

  The warm touch of his lips on her bare skin turned her insides turned to jelly. She quivered so violently she thought surely he must see. What would he think of her if he saw her so discomposed? She was supposed to be a professional. A capable businesswoman. And here she's portraying a simpering idiot in the man's presence.

  Mary-Michael had to pull her hand away before she swooned at his feet. She returned to her seat and the two captains sat opposite.

  "How much longer do you think it will be, Mrs. Watkins, before they are ready to sail?"

  "Please, call me Mary-Michael." At that she gave Lucky a glare. She accepted him calling her Mary when they were alone—and only for Lucky—would she accept that. It was something intimate and special between them. For others, she preferred they use her given name.

  Thinking about being alone with Lucky, she felt herself start to blush. She had to check her emotions yet again, before lifting her gaze to Captain Ross-Mackeever. "We can test your Lady S in a couple of days. Her rigging is about to go up and her sails are here on the property, but not on board yet. I just yesterday finished inspecting the ironwork on the masts and yards." She looked at Lucky. "The Lady M will be about two or three more days after that."

  "It all went so quickly." Lucky held her gaze and melted her insides. She really had to stop sharing glances with him, he was going to be her ruin.

  "Your two—" She cleared her throat. Why was she having so much trouble speaking? "Two ships— have, have been— my— um— my priority this past year." Her brain seemed to have ceased functioning and her heart pounded as though it wanted to burst out of her chest. Before she embarrassed herself any further, she averted her eyes, stood, and excused herself. "When I, um... return why don't we begin our tour?" And then she hurried down the hall.

  She continued to the solitude of the privy closet to take a moment to calm her nerves. She pressed the back of her hand, the one Lucky had just kissed, to her lips. She could almost imagine the warmth of his touch still there. Mary-Michael fought to control her rapid breathing. Her hands shook as she tightened the knot holding her hair net and tucked a stray tendril behind her ear to get it out of the way.

  Before leaving the house this morning, she'd made sure her shirt and trousers were not worn or torn, and that she'd put on the better of her two pair of boots. There was nothing more to do to try to make herself more presentable except to calm her trembling nerves. "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out," she whispered, hoping to slow her racing heart.

  From the moment she saw his boats coming toward her docks the day before, she had this slow growing feeling of uncertainty. Almost as though she wasn't sure if the feelings were still there on his part—or if what she remembered from last summer was just her imagination, something she'd dreamed of in her heart. Last night she suspected it might still be there. Now she knew.

  It was in his look, in his manner. She could also tell that Lucky had spoken to Ian about their relationship because Ian didn't give her that look of disapproval as he had the night before. Mary-Michael hoped that was a good sign, because she wanted time alone with Lucky. She wanted to feel his touch on her body again, and wanted more than anything to try again to conceive a child. It was these thoughts that had her knotted inside.

  Lucky was poised and collected. Always had been from the moment she met him. He'd confessed last summer that she'd upset his code of honor. If he'd never said it, she never would have known.

  Perhaps if he just held her for a few minutes, it might help settle her nervousness. If she kissed him, some of his composure might rub off on her. On the other hand, maybe not. She wondered if his lips were as firm and skilled as she remembered, or was it all just her imagination. Ten months could do a great deal to fade a memory, even one as magnificent as the memory of his kisses.

  "The poor thing is trembling from nerves," Ian growled. "What have you done to her?"

  "Only the same thing she does to me." Lucky lowered his voice to a whisper, as the company's accounting clerk arrived and spied him and Ian in Mr. Watkins' office. "And she has since the moment we met." How could he explain what he felt when he wasn't even sure of it himself? He was painfully attracted to her, yet knew they were from different worlds. He wanted her, but didn't think marriage to her would be likely, and he respected her too much to ask her to be his mistress. Besides she didn't need the monetary support as she was obviously well-off, if not wealthy. In fact, she didn't need him at all.

  But he knew she wanted him physically, almost as much as he wanted her. And if what they had now was all he could ever have of her, then that was what he'd have to accept.

  Ian glanced towards the doorway. "She wears men's clothing and does a man's job. No, many men's jobs."

  "I know. Isn't she great?" Able to see the length of the corridor from where he sat, Lucky kept a lookout for Mary's return.

  "I will admit to being impressed with what I see thus far." Ian looked around the room. "Though this place hasn't changed a bit in all the years I've been gone. Except maybe gotten older. The interior of this building could use a coat of paint. Which is leading me to some serious questions about their finances."

  "From wha
t I gather—and I spoke to a few people in the community last year—Watkins is something of a miser. Except when it comes to the money he gives to the children's home." Lucky glanced out the door to make sure the clerk couldn't hear him, he didn't want to appear to be gossiping about the owner of the shipyard. "I witnessed him give a parcel full of cash to Mary's brother specifically for that home. The two men did not know I was in the back of the chapel while they transacted their business. Mary has told me he gives to the church as well to help the community."

  "I left the area when I was not more than a boy," Ian said. "But I remember even then people revered Watkins, my father included."

  Lucky heard the squeaky hinge on the door at the end of the hall and turned to watch Mary walk down the long corridor toward him. The sway of her hips held him mesmerized. She had a glint in her eyes and a smile on her face, and Lucky could tell she was more composed than she'd been just minutes earlier.

  "Would you gentlemen like to come with me?" She lifted her wide-brimmed straw hat from the rack by the door. "It's time to meet your ladies."

  The next several hours proved to Lucky that his Mary knew her business well. He supposed he had understood this somewhat, back when he toured the Ajax and Carolina last summer. But these were his and Ian's boats. He wasn't sure if it was because these were their boats that he thought them more beautiful, better laid out, better appointed, with a finish unlike what he remembered on those other ships. Or was it because of who built them.

  They arrived on the deck of the Lady S, and Lucky slid a hand along the ship's brightwork, the oiled finish as smooth as fine crystal. As he toured the S, as Mary called her, he was awestruck by the perfection and soundness of her creation. Everything from the jib boom to the aft rail, the mechanicals and riggings, the galley and cabins—it was everything they'd discussed and more. She'd had a vision and created the reality with the help of the men in her employ. He was amazed.

  "Were you able to find a stove with an oven, as you'd mentioned last summer?" Lucky asked.

  "No, I'm sorry. I even went into Baltimore and asked at a few foundries, to see how difficult it might be to design and produce them. No one, it seems, took me seriously," she said, sounding frustrated by the limitations due to her sex. "I've often said if I had been born a male, I would have had an easier time of it."

  Lucky and Ian shared a sympathetic glance behind her back. But if Lucky was honest with himself, he'd admit to being thankful as well. Because if his Mary had been born a male, he knew without a doubt there would be an enormous hole in his heart. He didn't know exactly when he began to think of her as his, just that he had. Nor did he know when he knew she was that important to him, he just did.

  They toured the Lady S around the finish crews working on the interior and the rigging crews hanging their lines, blocks and chains. Mary stopped to talk to one of the men and asked how soon he planned to have the sails brought on and hung. When the man said "hung and done" in two days, she gave Lucky and Ian a big grin.

  "Captain, in two days, weather permitting, we shall take your Lady out into the Chesapeake as far as you'd like to really stretch her legs." Then she turned her amber eyes to Lucky and said, "Captain Gualtiero, about four days for your Lady."

  "I can't wait, Mrs. Watkins." Ian walked toward the anchor deck to inspect something, leaving the two of them alone.

  "Mrs. Watkins..." Lucky moved around the side of the galley where he saw no workers, intending to catch a moment alone with her. He wanted to kiss her since he saw her the night before, and he was going to take that kiss. Now. "Can you explain to me the placement of the longboats?"

  "Yes, Captain." She followed him to the starboard side of the quarterdeck where they were hidden from view.

  Once there, Lucky tugged her into his arms. She melted into him. She still fit against him as he remembered. He held her for a while, then threading his fingers through her braid, he lowered his head to meet her lips in a kiss of rediscovery. One that he'd envisioned every night for the past ten months.

  His fingers itched to pull the hat off and let her auburn tresses fall, but to do that would blatantly announce their activity and humiliate Mary in front of her workmen. So instead, he slid them down from his hold on her head to roam over her back and bottom, bringing her in closer. He wanted her to know how desperately he needed her and wanted her. His lips parted and he tentatively touched hers with the tip of his tongue, coaxing them to part. Once they did and he tasted her sweetness, he became obsessed with taking more and more after that. Her trousers were baggy, yet the lightweight fabric skimmed over her curves so that with each step she took his male possessiveness rose up to lay claim on her.

  She broke the kiss, gasping for breath as she buried her face in his chest. He held her close and whispered, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to ravish you here."

  Had he lost all reason? Just because he'd missed her wasn't reason to take such inappropriate liberties with her. There was nothing gentlemanly about his behavior. If he had any hopes of keeping her in his life in some capacity he must try harder to keep his ardor in check—especially when there was the chance they could be seen.

  "I want..." Her eyes glistened with what he hoped was desire. "I want nothing more than to find a way to be alone with you. The entire time you were gone, I dreamed of being with you again, and of you holding me close, especially when..." She broke their gaze, pressing her face to his chest. "It is my memory of being nestled safe in your arms that strengthened me when I felt weak and unable to persevere, because I knew—" She paused and her voice choked. "My heart knew that you were missing me as much as I was missing you."

  "You have no idea." God, he missed her. Not a single night went by that he didn't relive those two days he spent in her bed. And now that he knew she was of the same mind as he, Lucky knew he'd have to figure out a way, some way, that they might have a relationship. Because Mary-Michael Watkins was that special to him.

  "Lucky?" Ian shouted.

  Lucky groaned, disappointed at the interruption.

  Mary stepped away from his embrace as Ian's footsteps grew louder. Lucky struggled to settle his stirring cock. It was a good thing that Ian had called for him. What if one of Mary's workers had happened upon them? What would he have done then?

  "Here," Lucky called out.

  When Ian rounded the corner, Mary turned her face away from them both, likely collecting herself.

  "I put the two gigs on the davits back here, which is traditional American placement—one port, one starboard. Each is the same length as a lifeboat, but not as wide. And your two launches, being deeper and wider, are up out of the way on top of the galley on skids, which is your traditional British mounting. But you know that."

  Ian lifted the tarp covering the gig and ran his hand over the notched railing for the oars. "She is truly beautiful and I cannot wait until we take her out."

  "I'll make a note to order extra ballast for both vessels to set them deeper in the water while we test them," Mary said. "If she's shallow, she'll not handle as well as she would normally. Too shallow and it would be dangerous if we let out all her sails, which I would like to do. But then, you know that, too."

  Lucky could tell Mary was nervous again, it showed in the way she chattered on about the things all sailors learn when they're children. While he felt badly for her, he also found it amusing, though he didn't want Ian to think he did this intentionally.

  "We can start loading provisions, couldn't we?" Ian asked. "If all goes well on the test, perhaps we might sail home with them?"

  "You certainly may," Mary replied. "I shall have one of my men help you with acquiring the provisions you want."

  "Lucky and I hadn't planned on the ships being ready for two months yet," Ian said, "and we haven't enough crewmen to man the new ships yet. Since we were planning to do that after we made this visit, we were wondering if we might leave our two older girls here for some work," Ian asked, "and come back in six weeks or so for them? They could use re
-coppering and painting. Plus, both need some interior carpentry work done in the cabins."

  "Absolutely. I never turn work down, Captain. That would be taking food from the tables of my employees," Mary said. "But I'm thinking six weeks before we can even get to them. As you've seen, my dry dock is very busy. But once we get the crews on board, everything can be done in two to three weeks. Let's detail what you'd like done before you leave."

  Mary led the way over to Lucky's boat. She walked between him and Ian as they discussed the work they'd need done to the two older vessels.

  "Do you think we can have the old girls ready by mid-August?" Lucky asked Mary. "It would be good to have all four ships for this year's tea run." He looked at Ian. "Would that give us enough time to get home and ready?

  "It'll be close but I think we can do it," Mary said. "Mr. Watkins always says, 'Preparation is everything in this business,' so if we can get a detailed list and get the supplies ordered as soon as possible, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to turn it around in just over two months' time."

  They continued on their tour, this time on the Lady M, and Lucky watched and listened as Mary explained important details, and her reasons for doing things a certain way while she led them through the belly of the hulls. If anything was modified from what was considered the norm, she explained why she chose to do it her way rather than the way it had always been done before. When that was the case, it was usually something like a material that performed differently or that testing had proved another way preferable or less stressful to the vessel. As was the case with the composite masts and yards he'd already learned about.

  Through the entire rest of the morning, his arms ached to hold her again and his lips burned from their earlier kisses. How could he get her alone for any length of time? He longed for a chance to revisit their passion. There was much to do that afternoon—stocking provisions and adding temporary ballast to the new ships. In the morning he needed to make a trip into Baltimore to find a downhill cargo, preferably cotton and tobacco as they were most in demand at home. It seemed that if Lucky wanted to spend time with Mary, they had to use the cover of night and his cabin.