by Liz Tyner
She touched his arm to stop his words. The second her fingers brushed his coat, he stilled, changed. His face reacted as if he struggled to remain immovable by her presence.
And when he turned to her, something passed behind his eyes. Not anger. A longing.
Moments passed before she remembered what she’d intended to say, but he’d not appeared to notice.
The thunder returned to his face. ‘If a puff of air begins ruffling the sails, I assure you, the men will not think it a coincidence. One carries a trinket some gypsy woman spewed nonsense over because he thinks it makes him manly. Gidley has to spit over the starboard side twice every morning because it somehow keeps a man from falling from the ratlines. The men are as they are. They are good seamen and better than any crew I’ve ever seen. But they are as they are. And telling them not to be superstitious works just as well as telling them to change the colour of their hair.’
‘Very well,’ she agreed, sighing. ‘I will be very careful with what I say.’
His lips tightened briefly. Resignation entered his voice. ‘I will...have Gidley take you for an...evening stroll later. The men need reminders you are a woman just like their sisters and mothers. Do not make me regret it.’
He leaned so close, his breath caused vibrations in her breasts. ‘Try to act as proper as you can. No weapons. No threats to expose a man’s gills. They’re particular about keeping such things covered.’
The rough fabric under her hand didn’t conceal the muscles and heat of his forearm. ‘I am a woman,’ she whispered.
His eyes flashed haunted before looking beaten. ‘I cannot get to London soon enough.’
The captain turned, leaving, and she could hear the orders he barked out to the men.
Thessa stepped back against the wall, dazed. She rubbed her hands over her arms, not sure her skin felt the same as it had before she stepped outside. Not sure anything felt the same.
Keeping her back to Bellona, Thessa slid into the bunk. She clenched her fists, trying to stop the strange feelings in her body, making her not the calm woman she’d always been. Making her feel breathless and aware of Benjamin more than she’d ever been awakened to anything else in her life. Not a safe feeling. A feeling he could somehow change her. That he could control her, not by his own actions, but by her weakening power over her own body.
Bellona’s musing voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘I do not think you had to tell him you are a woman. I believe he had already noticed.’
Chapter Eleven
Benjamin let the wind run its fingers through his hair, amazed at the perfect sail after the horrendous night. The ocean hadn’t been fighting them by tossing waves or winds about, but the Ascalon itself had seemed cantankerous, as if she knew he’d chosen the women over the ship. She would make him pay.
He stood looking out over the sea. Gidley was beside him, at the wheel of the raised deck. Now the ship slid across the water, as gracefully as a bird might catch a breeze and glide through the air. Perfection, made all the sweeter by the struggles they’d had.
He tried to push aside the knowledge that Ascalon would never be truly his. That thought pulsed in his head, went south to his gut and made his knee tense in pain. By the time he could buy his share of his true home, she would be too old to care. But they would be a fine match because his own teeth and hair would have fallen out by then.
This second trip to the island had garnered him nothing but becoming a passenger ship for two women. One was too many.
Granted, one had the look of a siren. And his memory of her swimming through the water kept splashing about in his mind. He almost wished she would have had those fins. Fins were safer to think about than legs. Thessa had legs, dark eyes and perfect feet. Bad luck tripled.
It had almost hurt when he’d instructed Gidley to find some spare clothing for the passengers on that first night. But it wasn’t safe for the men’s imagination to keep Thessa and Bellona wrapped in covers.
They’d gathered up trousers and shirts for the women on the first morning. A simple process which should have taken seconds and been no trouble at all. But the men had been quite concerned about not getting the ladies ill-fitting garments. The one who’d pulled the youngest sister from the deep had had to explain three times to the men just the size of her hips and shown just how her waist had fit in his hands and how her breasts had been.
Ben thought back about how Thessa had felt...
‘Gid,’ he snarled out the word, snapping himself back into reality.
‘Capt’n?’ his first mate answered, never acknowledging the terseness in Ben’s voice.
‘What are the women doing now?’
‘They ain’t peeped their heads out of late.’
He mumbled an acknowledgement and walked away. Gid needed no orders.
Ben looked towards the physician’s cabin, thankful for the first time the man had taken ill and left the empty room. He’d not put anyone else in it, knowing jealousy would surface. So the women had privacy at least.
The crew appeared to have forgotten about the women, but he knew it wasn’t possible.
The sun rose whilst Benjamin walked the deck, watching for any aberration. The men worked keeping the ropes at exactly the right length. If one rope needed tightening or loosening, then another would need changing, as well. The intricate dance kept him on his toes, and the steps kept his interest more than any waltz or reel, but didn’t take his mind from Thessa.
*
He’d been on deck an hour and finally put the women out of his mind when the door of the physician’s cabin opened. Thessa went straight to the side of the railing and gripped. She hung her head out, so nothing stood between her and the water.
His eyes locked on her. Her clothing pulled tight as she leaned into the railing. He felt a twinge of guilt for watching her, but he didn’t stop.
And then, just like a door slowly swinging open to reveal a menacing shape in the room, his eyes communicated to his brain. She was watching the seas...searching. He quietly exhaled all the air in his chest. She expected them to be followed and said not a word about it.
He stepped to the deck beside her, curious to see if she might mention her suspicions.
When he stopped at her elbow, she turned to him and straightened. She rubbed a hand across her forehead. Wisps of hair danced around her face, pointing to the different aspects of her.
‘Are you having seasickness?’ he asked.
‘No. I am not sick. I am being chattered to death. All my sister talks of is the wondrous things she will do whilst she is in London. And I cannot swim to escape her.’
‘I have two brothers. I understand. I went to sea.’
Her fingers didn’t loosen on the railing. ‘You did not wish to live with your family?’
He grimaced. ‘I lived in London and was happy there, but I knew my heart belonged to the sea after my first sail with Gidley.’
‘Is he your relation?’
He shook his head. ‘Not by blood. But I didn’t always feel welcome in my home. My mother had died. My father hadn’t been happy with my studies before that, and with Mother gone we did not suddenly start consoling each other. He found a sweetheart and she was near my own age. I said something about her thinking of me whilst she kissed him. He overheard. And so did she, because he’d just kissed her and I’d just walked into the room. It was meant as a jest. Almost. He sold my horse. I left, and when he found me, the next day I was apprenticed out.’
‘Apprenticed?’
‘Not truly. But I didn’t know it at the time. I soon became used to the stench around me, I preferred it over schooling and the arguments with my father.’
‘Do you get on well with your father now?’
‘I never got on well with him, ever. My brothers did, but not me. He’s dead now so none of it matters any more.’ Benjamin leaned on to the railing. The sun shimmered and the wind blew his hair. He would have liked to have said something pleasant to the man before he died. Not that
it would have changed anything. And they’d not said unpleasant things to each other in the few times they’d seen each other after he’d left home. But it had always felt like talking to a tutor when he spoke with his father.
‘We could not anger our father,’ she said. ‘He would leave. Mana would cry.’
‘I imagine that would not have stopped me. We just seemed to raise each other’s hackles.’
‘Hackles?’
‘Like the fur rising on a dog’s back when it is ready to bite another dog.’ He could hear the sound of his father’s voice in his memory. And it was always loud and angry. ‘Some people just do not get on well.’
‘Would you say you would find my father a man to converse with easily?’
‘Well enough.’ He turned so she could see his eyes and know his words were not meant to offend. ‘But we didn’t find an easy accord either.’ He let his eyes stay on her and didn’t look back to the sea.
‘I do not even wish to see him in England.’
He didn’t tell her that her father would not wish to see her either. Her sister, Melina, could do that. ‘You won’t have to. I’ll be sure you see your sister first.’
‘I don’t know if I want to talk with her either.’
‘Now I’m beginning to think you might have your fair share of hackles yourself.’
‘Melina... If she had returned as she promised, then we might not have had to be here. Perhaps together, we could have found a different way to stay away from Stephanos.’
‘She’s adjusted well to English life. Helped care for my brother’s children soon after she reached London.’
‘English life interested her more than us. Father made her read the language so she could read his letters to Mother and write back. When we were small, he could not travel so easily among the ships. The French ships travel to Melos often, and he could speak well enough, I believe, to convince them he was a native. But still, with the war on, it was a risk to him to travel. I think, if not for the war, he would have left us sooner.’
‘Your sister will be pleased to have you there. She didn’t expect you to agree to leave Melos, though. She claimed you swam three times a day, if not four.’
Thessa nodded. ‘Already, I am missing my mornings in the sea.’
He leaned on the rail. ‘I love London, but sailing is my life. Here, on long voyages, we eat little different than the men in gaol. And the imprisoned men are not likely to drown. But instead of the bars of a prison, sailing opens my bars. It’s something not everyone can do and I do it well.’
He held a hand out, feeling the breeze on his callused fingers. ‘Every day you’re alive, you’ve beaten the ocean. And if she takes me—’ He gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘It is my time. Of course, it’s dangerous, though, the vast seas...’ He let the silence linger, waiting...giving her an opportunity to tell him why she’d watched the water.
She let out a breath and tilted her head all the way back, but he could tell she wasn’t seeing the sails above them, or the sky.
‘Being in this ship—I keep wanting to reach for a rope to pull me ashore. A wall to hold me steady—motionless. And there is nothing. No trees. The morning is dead. No bird calls. How can you stand mornings with such silence in them?’
‘You cannot feel it? The peace? The magic of skimming the earth quickly?’ The horizon fascinated him as much now as it did the first days he set sail.
She gripped the railing. ‘The greatest distance I am aware of is to the depths. There is no wonder in imagining my body sinking down into water to be eaten by creatures with teeth bigger than the sails.’
Dark smudges under her eyes didn’t take from her face, but made him wonder what thoughts kept her awake at night.
‘I have it on good authority that all the creatures down below only eat other fish. They think humans too salty. And the things in the depths have tiny mouths and teeth no bigger than a flea’s.’
She gave a tight nod. ‘I have been told that water gorgons live below. Monsters with many heads and arms and empty stomachi, who think human flesh such a delicacy they fight each other for the morsels.’
‘Have you been talking with Gidley?’ he asked.
She shook her head, smiled and leaned towards him, her voice only for his ears. ‘I am a mermaid, remember. I have friends who have seen them.’
He looked at her. ‘You’re daft.’
Her humour bubbled out. ‘To be certain.’
Benjamin took her hand and pulled her knuckles to his lips and for a moment he savoured the touch of her skin.
He linked her hand over his arm. ‘Let me take you on a stroll and show you the sights of my city.’
Her pause filled his ears. Her head ducked back and her eyes squinted. ‘Water. And more water?’
‘Then maybe I will see the sights—whilst you are on my arm.’ He reached up to touch her hand again, noting the perfect fingers, surprisingly unmarred for someone who must have had to care for the animals and plantings as she had.
She brushed her hair back from her face. ‘How long do you think until I can be back in my country? I can go to another island Stephanos does not visit.’ She stepped a proper distance at his arm, not letting herself too near him.
‘I would not guess. After we reach England, if you want to return to Greece, then you will probably be best to sail across the Channel, perhaps go overland, and then take a short sail back. Although I would not recommend the road travel. I do not see your sister and my brother willing to let you leave quickly. Your sister will want to make sure you are well and you will want to make sure she is well.’
Her eyes took a slow path to his face. ‘I have no relative with control over me. I am not enslaved to anyone.’ She shrugged, then reached to align the shoulder of her too-big shirt and said a word he didn’t know the meaning of, but was certain it wasn’t proper.
He realised one of the younger men was staring at her, eyes stilled in concentration. Benjamin didn’t know if the man thought her a simple woman, a siren or misfortune for the ship.
‘Please do not teach my men any more words they don’t already know. They’re quite fluent enough in their own way,’ he said.
He squired her around the ship’s perimeter, trying to look at it through her eyes.
The routine of the ship was the same as any morning. The bricks rasped against the deck while men scrubbed to keep the wood from getting slippery. The contented sounds of the sails mixed with the men’s low murmurs. The masts and yard-arms were, to him, bodies which held the clothing of the ship, and the oaken hull herself, tight as a cradle, hugging them close for safety.
‘A ship is a miraculous thing. A world of her own.’ He ducked while he walked under the ropes for the yard-arm. ‘But what fascinates me the most is that she started out as trees and, when they were felled, they could have become firewood. But shipwrights took the wood and shaped her into a completely different form. They made my home instead of letting her turn into ash. And to me, she rose, much like an Aphrodite rising from the sea. I even love her pine perfume. When I sleep, she holds me, rocking gently.’
He stopped, putting a hand on one of the ropes and letting himself sway with the movement. ‘And she is always demanding my attention. If one sail needs adjusted, then all the rigging must be tightened or loosened. She has to stretch her legs or relax and sometimes, just like us, she rests. This is the only true home I’ve ever had. My true family. My blood has salt water in it.’
Again she watched the seas. ‘It’s so vast. I didn’t know...how we might be surrounded by so much...for such a long way.’
‘Nothing to hide behind,’ he said.
Her breaths came quickly. ‘I suppose not. But still...we’re a good distance from land, aren’t we?’
He didn’t interrupt the silence.
*
Thessa didn’t know what alerted her that the ship wasn’t as calm as she appeared. The captain’s jaw was set at an odd angle, though, and his eyes had squint-lines at the sid
es of them. The men worked at their jobs. But every head was studiously turned from hers when she looked towards them and every pair of lips was grim. These men might not be openly watching her, but they certainly did not ignore her. Sometimes she saw a whisper exchanged between the men and she knew they still had their superstitions.
‘I should see how my sister fares.’ She meant to pull her hand from his arm, but he put a hand over hers, holding her in place.
He smiled, but she wasn’t fooled. A hardness lurked behind his eyes.
‘I’m sure your sister prefers moments of stillness. Perhaps she needs solitude, as well.’
She realised she had little choice in the matter of staying with the captain.
‘Why?’ she asked. And she could tell he knew the whole of her question. But he didn’t answer and she knew he couldn’t at that moment. Too many people listened.
Instead, he pointed her to the small stairway which took her up a level on the ship to the helm. Instantly, she realised why the captain’s hair was trimmed. With the wind puffing the ship forward, whoever steered her would have the wind at his back. If a man didn’t keep his hair cared for or pulled back, he would be fighting it from his vision.
Gidley stood at the steering and she saw the speculation in his glance and the set of his jaw.
Then Benjamin led her around the other side of the ship and she knew he walked slowly for the length of his legs. The deck inclined and she stepped into the raised bow of the ship, and he guided her there but she didn’t know why.
His voice lowered. She heard him let out a breath. ‘The crew needs to see you are a woman. They are watching and they see a simple conversation. A simple moment of a woman discovering the ship and the view. They’ve seen you walk, bend and roll up the hem of the trouser leg, and stumble when I ducked under the rigging. They need to be reassured in case the wind might change or something else might happen to concern them.’