“Men don’t trust women.”
“A truism? Goodness, Genny, when did you begin painting every man with your twenty-three-year-old tainted brush?”
“Ha. You even agree that any self-respecting man wouldn’t deal with me and I build excellent ships, and just because I happen to be a woman, which has nothing to do with anything. My brush isn’t at all tainted. Now, would you please untie me? I’m cold.”
He gave her one last, very long look, beginning at her toes and an eon later ending at her eyebrows. “All right.” He untied her wrists, brought them down, and massaged them. Then he pulled a blanket up to her waist. “Your breasts aren’t cold.”
“You can’t know that. They are so.”
“Your nipples are quite smooth and soft. If they were cold, they would be puckered and—well, you understand now. And your breasts are quite beautiful. They enhance my conversation.”
“Your conversation is lewd.” She yanked the blanket up to her chin. He looked aggrieved but tolerant.
“Forgive me, but I find your breasts anything but lewd. You shouldn’t insult yourself so, Genny.”
“You’ve punished me quite enough, Baron. I want to go home now.”
Alec sent a look heavenward. “I give the woman pleasure and she calls it punishment. I compliment her breasts and she calls it lewd of me. A man tries and tries, and still the woman complains.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“No,” he said slowly, looking at her thoughtfully. “No, you’re not, are you?”
Moses looked at the baron and then down at the little girl beside him who was holding his hand, looking like a miniature image of him.
“Suh. Lord Sherard, do come in, suh, ah, yes, and the little lady with you, suh.”
“Good morning, Moses.”
“Now, who is this little lady here? You find her under a cabbage leaf, suh? Goodness, what a lovely little thing she be.”
“This is my daughter, Hallie. Hallie, love, this is Moses. He runs the Paxton household and he does it very well.”
Hallie looked at the tall, thin black man. “Your hair looks funny. All springy and stiff and like pepper. Can I touch it?”
“Yes, little lady, you sure can.” Alec nodded and Moses scooped Hallie up in his arms. She was regarding him with great seriousness. She touched his hair with very tentative fingers, then more firmly. She tugged just a little. Then she smiled. “That’s wonderful, Mr. Moses. I wish my hair felt that nice.”
“You’re a sweet little ’un,” said Moses, “but I bet yore papa likes yore hair just like it is.”
“What have we here?”
Alec turned to Mr. James Paxton. “Good morning, sir. I just brought my daughter over to meet everyone. Hallie, my dear, this is Mr. Paxton.”
Hallie didn’t show any interest in leaving Moses’s arms. “Hello, sir. You have a lovely house. Papa says it’s George’s architecture. It’s very different from our houses in England.”
“How many houses do you have, young lady?” asked James.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my papa.”
“We have four houses,” Alec said.
“Mr. Moses has very nice hair.”
“I hadn’t noticed before,” James said. Then he looked much struck. “I do believe you’re right, Hallie. Moses has very substantial hair.”
Moses hugged Hallie, then gave her over to her father. “I’ll fetch you some of Lannie’s delicious seedling cakes. Would you like that, little ’un?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Moses, very much.”
James smiled at Alec over the child’s head. “Have you considered the diplomatic corps for her?”
Alec grinned.
“Papa, what kind of cakes?”
“Lannie’s cakes, poppet. Trust Mr. Moses. If he thinks you’ll like seedlings, I promise you that you will.”
James Paxton was moving very slowly this morning, Alec saw. He didn’t like it, he realized, seeing for the first time that the man’s health wasn’t at all good. He followed him into the parlor, showed Hallie the gilded birdcage, then moved over to sit beside James.
“How are you feeling, sir?”
James smiled. “Age, my boy. It’s a miserable thing, but of course being dead would be a good deal worse.”
“Is Genny here?”
“Yes, strangely enough,” James said. “She usually leaves so early. But Moses said something about her spraining her ankle. I can’t imagine that’s true, but we’ll see. Your daughter is beautiful and she’s your exact likeness. Nothing of her mother?”
Alec looked at his daughter, who was now very carefully, very tentatively, running her fingers lightly over the hand-carved perch on the inside of the cage.
“You see her absorbed look? Everything in her is focused on what she’s doing. Her mother was like that. Hallie is just about everything that is important to me,” Alec added.
“Did her mother die birthing her?”
“Yes.”
“So did my wife. Wretched doctors. You’d think they’d know what to do when something goes wrong and how to stop it. Makes me so mad I could spit. Poor Mary. The years she could have had, we could have had—” James fell silent and in that silence Alec felt the pain, vague and gentle now, but there, always, with him. He looked again at Hallie. Thank God she’d survived.
“Sorry to become a maudlin old fool. Have you come to any decision, Alec?”
“Good morning, Father. Baron.”
Alec was aware of a sharp pulling deep inside him at the sound of Genny’s voice. She sounded stiff, excessively formal. He smiled to himself as he slowly turned to face her, freely admitting, silently, of course, that he’d brought Hallie with him as a buffer. He wasn’t a complete fool, after all.
“Hello, Genny. What’s this about a sprained ankle?” Though he sounded concerned to the uninvolved ear, Genny heard the mockery, saw the devilry in his beautiful eyes, and wanted to spit and howl and throw him to the floor and kiss him until he—until he what? She was a fool, a great fool, and he was here laughing at her, enjoying her discomfort, looking at her, through her clothing, seeing her naked again, knowing her and caressing her. She shivered.
She had to pull herself together. “It’s nothing at all. I simply twisted it going up the stairs last evening.”
“You should have told me,” James said. “I could have gotten you to soak it.”
“Soaking is excellent for that kind of injury,” Alec said. “However did you manage to hurt yourself on the stairs? Isn’t a sprain more likely from a fall, say?”
“No, I didn’t fall. Ah, here’s Moses with tea and food. What? Who’s that?”
At that moment Genny saw Hallie. She stared at the little girl and the little girl stared back at her. Genny kept staring, she couldn’t help herself. Hallie was the most beautiful child she’d ever seen. She didn’t know children or understand them, or much care for them for that matter, but that solemn little face, why, it was a replica of Alec’s—he was the child’s father. Genny swallowed, thankful that she didn’t have to say anything while Moses poured coffee and tea.
“Thank you, Mr. Moses,” Hallie said with exquisite politeness as she extended her small hand for a cup of tea.
“You like milk, little’un?”
“Oh, yes, please, Mr. Moses. These are Lannie’s special seedling cakes?”
“They sure is. You just takes what you wishes.”
“Thank you.”
Genny continued to stare. Alec had a child, a little girl, and the little girl was dressed as she was, in boy’s clothing.
“Who are you?”
Hallie smiled at the seemingly pretty young man who wasn’t. “You aren’t a man like Papa,” she said. “I don’t wear a wool cap on my head unless it’s cold.”
“I begin to think that I am the only one who believes I ever did look like a man,” Genny said and pulled off her wool cap.
“I’m Hallie Carrick. He’s my papa. He braids my hair like yours whe
n he wants me to wear my wool cap. Otherwise my hair gets too tangled and Papa says things that I can’t say or he’ll tan my bottom for me.”
This beautiful man braided a little girl’s hair?
“You’re only supposed to sing my praises, Hallie.”
“You’re the best papa in the whole world.”
“That’s better, and naturally it’s the whole truth. Now, sit down, pumpkin, and drink your tea. I see that Lannie’s cakes are sesame seed and lemon. Now, this is Mr. Eugene Paxton when she feels like pulling the wool over my eyes, and then Eugene becomes a Eugenia or a Genny. Genny, my daughter.”
“My pleasure, Hallie. May I have some coffee, Moses?”
Moses smiled at her and handed her a fine English bone-china cup.
“Actually,” Alec said, the devilry still in his eyes for Genny to see, “I realized that Hallie was in the same situation as you, Genny. She needs a couple of little-girl dresses, underthings, shoes, and stockings. The sorts of things you’ve heard about, perhaps.”
He carried in his pocket a list from Eleanor Swindel, who had told him roundly that breeches on a five-year-old girl were outside of enough. When she’d handed him her list, she’d said, “Outgrown everything she owns. Even these fool breeches are too short on her.” Of course she didn’t know what to do about the armoire in Hallie’s chamber at the Fountain Inn. Smelled like nutmeg and camphor, it did; nasty smell for a little girl. These colonials didn’t know a thing about armoires or little girls. This didn’t necessarily follow, but Alec wasn’t fool enough to go into it with Mrs. Swindel. He’d already endured quite enough with the initial nutmeg controversy.
“So here I am to ask you to accompany us to your mantuamaker. I should imagine that you have something ready, Genny. Would you like to change into something more, er, socially acceptable?”
“My ankle is much too sore for me to go walking into all sorts of shops.”
“How odd. You seem to be doing all right. Indeed, I was amazed at your recovery. A fall—did you say up the stairs?—isn’t to be treated lightly. Shall I take a look at it? I’m known to be something of an expert on ankles.”
Genny wanted to spit several colorful invectives in his face. In that instant, she met his eyes and saw herself reflected there and she was naked and on her back, her hands tied above her head, and her back was arched as he caressed her with his mouth and hands.
She swallowed.
“Genny?”
Ten
“I’m going to the shipyard.”
Hallie looked up from her cake. “Shipyard? You’re the Genny who works in a shipyard?”
Genny shot Alec a look. “Yes, my father and I own the Paxton shipyard on Fells Point.”
She didn’t have to wait long to find out what he’d said about her to his daughter. “Oh. You’re the lady Papa makes angry.”
“That’s quite true. He does it well and very quickly.”
“Hallie,” Alec said quickly, “would you like to, ah, feel Mr. Moses’s hair again?”
“Not right now, Papa,” she said, all patience, then turned her full attention back to Genny. “I asked him why he did that and he said he didn’t know. He said he liked to see what you’d do. He said you didn’t like men and didn’t ever want to marry, and I told him that was impossible, that all the ladies liked him.”
“Is that what he tells you?”
Hallie gave her a curious look. “Of course not. I watch and see how people act, you know.”
Genny felt like a fool. Taken down by a child. She smiled and offered Hallie another seedling cake.
“I was happy when Papa said you dressed like I do. Now he wants to buy me some frilly dresses. Would he listen to you, Genny?”
“No, never in a century.”
“Well, that’s all right. Papa’s usually right about things. Can I see the shipyard? May I, Papa? I don’t want any silly girl’s dresses just yet. Please, Papa.”
“After chewing me up and spitting me out in front of Genny, you want me to reward you?” Alec threw up his hands.
Hallie turned the force of her papa’s beautiful blue eyes back on Genny. “Pippin—he’s Papa’s cabin boy—he told me all about shipyards. He was an apprentice calter—”
“Caulker?”
“Yes, that’s it, a caulker. He was in Liverpool a long time ago. I want to be a caulker and I’ll fill every space between the planks and my ship won’t leak. Can I watch your caulkers? Do they use twisted hemp? It’s called oakum, Pippin told me.”
Genny smiled; she couldn’t help herself. “Yes, you can watch our caulkers. They’ll be starting next week. It’s a wonderful sound to hear, and you hear it only at a shipyard.”
“Ah, yes,” said James. “I miss the ring of the caulker’s mallet. Here in Baltimore, Hallie, we use a caulking iron struck with a mallet of mesquite wood. We cover the ends of the mallets with steel. Do you think you’re strong enough to join in the caulker’s brotherhood?”
“It would have to be a sisterhood,” said Alec.
“That’s just fine. Let me see your muscle.”
Hallie showed James her muscle and he looked deeply thoughtful. “As impressive as Baltimore Billie’s,” he said as he lightly squeezed Hallie’s upper arm. “Now, he’s a fellow I wouldn’t want angry at me.”
“And I can be covered with tar,” Hallie said with such awed delight that Alec burst out laughing, earning him a wounded look from his daughter.
“Acquit me, pumpkin. You make it sound like a marvelous Christmas present.”
Genny found that she was again staring at the little girl. “Where is your mama?” The instant the words were out, Genny gasped. “Oh, never mind, I’m sorry. I forgot. Oh, dear. Another cake, Hallie?”
Hallie said in an unemotional voice, “My mama died a long time ago when I was just born. I don’t remember her, but Papa has a picture. She was very pretty. Papa told me she was very sweet and that she didn’t like to travel but she did and didn’t ever complain about it.”
“Do you travel with your papa?” Genny asked.
“Oh, yes. Papa and I go everywhere together. We even had dinner with the governor of Gibraltar. It was last February. Mrs. Swindel hated Gibraltar. She said the Spanish wanted to come in and kill all the English. She said it was full of nasty monkeys who jumped on everybody and scared them into gray hair and gave them the Black Death.”
James Paxton laughed, leaned forward, and patted Hallie’s shoulder. “Did you see any nasty monkeys?”
“Oh, yes. I wanted Papa to give me one, but he said a monkey wouldn’t be happy on board our ship. He said he’d bring the Black Death on board before he’d bring a monkey.”
“I suspect he’s right about that,” Genny said. She was having difficulty fitting this new man into the Alec-mold she knew. But last night had happened. He had tied her to his bunk, stripped off all her clothes, and touched her. Genny jerked. “Just stop it,” she said aloud. Then she jumped to her feet, groaned at the pain in her ankle, and promptly sat back down again. To Alec, she said, “Just stop it, do you hear?”
He looked at her, and Genny knew exactly where Hallie got her wounded look; then he shrugged and looked wicked. “What are you thinking about, Genny? Something that happened last evening, perhaps? Your sprained ankle? You really should be more careful. You fell off the side of a house, you said?”
“No, I fell down—up—the stairs.”
“Perhaps you could demonstrate. That way all of us could avoid such an injury in the future.”
“I must change. I will see you shortly, Hallie.”
“I thought you were going to the shipyard,” James said.
“Later, Papa. First we’ll go buy Hallie some clothes. After lunch we’ll go to the shipyard. I’ll take her to meet John Furring. He rolls oakum into strand for the caulking,” she added to Hallie. “He’s an old man and he has wonderful stories.”
Hallie gave her a heart-stopping smile. “I should like that. Thank you, Genny.”
&n
bsp; “Now this is very interesting,” James said as he watched his daughter limp from the parlor.
“Hallie, take your third slice of cake and go examine the birdcage some more.”
“Yes, Papa. You want to talk to Mr. Paxton about business.”
“That’s right.”
“She’s a wonderful little girl, Alec.”
“Yes, she is, and she never ceases to amaze me. I had no idea she knew anything at all about ship-building. So my cabin boy was an apprentice caulker. Now, down to business, sir. Before you were ill, you directly ran the shipyard? You were the master builder?”
“Yes. Genny assisted me, mainly with the bookkeeping. But she knows all the phases quite well, and has since the age of thirteen, I might add. I lofted the plans of the Pegasus last winter. When I had my heart seizure, she took over and finished the plans. Has Genny shown you through our warehouse? No? Well, all that’s left really is the half-model I built and the lines I laid down. Still, it’s Paxton property and you should see it. Also, there’s our sail loft on Pratt Street. We’ve probably eight men finishing sewing the Pegasus’s sails right now. It was Genny’s decision to rig up the sails in sections. She tells me we’re right on schedule, so the last of the sails should be finished by the end of October.”
“There’s no buyer in sight?”
“No. As I told you, Mr. Donald Boynton commissioned her, paid for initial materials, then went bankrupt. We found out that he lost two ships in the same storm, both of them carrying black slaves. He’d assured me that he didn’t want another slaver, but—” James shrugged. “He was a prominent citizen. You know the sort, Alec—outwardly all bluff goodwill and inside, ruthless as a snake. We were running out of our own private funds. In early September, we had to borrow money from the Union Bank to pay the men’s salaries and to purchase further materials, or scrap it all. We couldn’t do that. It would have meant losing everything. The clipper schooner will be a marvel. It must be built. It will earn great profits in the next five years.”
Alec stared down at his clasped hands. “Like my daughter, I should like to see the actual work.”
Night Storm Page 14