“She doesn’t know you exist?”
“Oh, she knows.”
Morty closed his mouth and glared at Charlie. This was not going well, but Charlie didn’t know how to extradite herself at this point so she plodded on.
“So you like this girl and she what? Doesn’t return your feelings? She’s taken?”
“I don’t like this girl,” he said deliberately. “I love her.”
“And…” she prompted.
“And she’s a lying, deceitful piece of baggage. She made me think I was going crazy. I thought.… Never mind what I thought.”
Morty stood up and paced the length of the room and back until he stood in front of Charlie.
“Look, Morty, maybe you’re better off without her.”
Suddenly, Morty grabbed handfuls of Charlie’s uniform coat and pulled her to her feet, his face inches from hers. It wouldn’t have been impossible to break free of the large man, but Charlie could see the pain in her friend’s eyes and didn’t even try. If he wanted to shout into Charlie’s face, she’d let him.
“Even now,” he gritted out. “You just won’t make it easy on me. You know how I feel and you won’t admit it. I know, Charlie. I know you’re a woman.”
“No, Morty. You’re wrong.” Denial was her first reflex. Even though she knew he knew, it was almost her own inability to admit she was exposed to which she responded.
His head lowered hesitantly to hers. But as his lips met hers, she pulled back and turned her head.
“I am no raper of innocents,” he said in her ear. “I am not going to hurt you. I just want you to see me the way a woman sees a man. Not as your shipmate and friend. I want to be the man who makes your knees weak and your skin hot.”
When she tried to push him away, he let go of her coat and slipped his hand inside around to her back and pulled her up against the length of him.
“Morty,” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
Charlie had never been allowed to be vulnerable. She had to be tough at all times. “Please.” Her mind tried to wrap around what he was saying. This man, this gentle giant for whom she felt a very tender kinship, loved her as a man loved a woman. She didn’t know why she was afraid. It wasn’t because she thought he’d hurt her, not Morty. Never that. It was more fear of his emotions.
He could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest and see the pulse in her neck dancing. Slowly, he released her and stepped back, his eyes never leaving hers as he watched a myriad of expressions flit across her countenance. Morty knew the moment she thought about fleeing and beat her to the door. With one swift motion the key was turned and palmed his meaty hand. When he saw the panic in her eyes again, he pressed the key into her hand.
Charlie closed her eyes for a moment. She hated this vulnerable feeling and wondered if land women felt this way as they lived their everyday life. How was it that his knowing she was a woman made her feel so defenseless? Was she not the same person he knew before he discovered the truth? She could still take him to the ground and pin him there and yet she never felt so insecure in her life. The things he said, were they not the things she wanted for herself? There in front of her, was a man echoing what she had spent endless hours dreaming of as she sat alone in her cabin at night, but never dared to hope for: a man to love –one who loved her back—someone whom she didn’t have to pretend to keep up appearances. She was sick of the charade. And yet she knew no way out of it.
As long as she lived at sea, she could not be a woman. Women had no place on a ship. They were bad luck and no man would ever follow a woman officer, but she knew no other way.
On land there was a place for women. They lived with their parents until they married and then they were wives and mothers. She knew nothing of being a daughter, a wife, a mother.
She put her hand on his chest and strained her neck upwards until his mouth came down to meet hers. His arm went around her drawing her to him. Try as she might she just didn’t feel anything. When she pulled away Charlie could tell Morty’s reaction was different from hers. His eyes were hooded with desire as he tried to reengage her.
“No.”
She didn’t know if she didn’t like kissing or if she wasn’t doing it right, but she did know kissing Morty was not what she had hoped for. She resisted the urge to wipe her mouth on her sleeve.
“You are my closest friend. The love I have for you is like the love brothers have for one another. I don’t think it could be more.”
He grabbed his chest. “Could you thrust the knife deeper into my heart?” Morty asked. “You do not know what you feel yet. You’ve never allowed yourself to think of me in any other manner. I haven’t had a moment to woo you, to banter flirtatiously with you.”
“Nor shall you, Morty,” she cut in. “Nothing has changed aboard this vessel. I am still second mate. You are still a member of my watch. My father will not allow us to fraternize. The only thing changed is that I will be constantly on my guard that you will reveal my secret.”
“Charlie….”
“I do not pretend to be male to amuse myself,” she continued. “It was never my choice. My father and Dr. Kirk made this decision when I was too little to know the difference. They were trying to protect me.”
Morty slammed his fist into the wall. “Damn it, Charlie. You’re not giving me a chance. Didn’t you hear me when I said I love you? If you need protecting, I’ll do it. But who’s going to find out?”
“You need to lower your voice, Mordecai Horatio Ness, or everyone will know everything before you leave this cabin!” Charlie’s voice may have been low, but there could be no doubt she was shouting as well. “You think a romance will go unnoticed on the ship? I bet ten people know you are here right now.”
“We-we’ll tell them you’re teaching me to play chess.”
“No, we won’t because it’s not going to happen. You wear your heart on your sleeve—you can’t help it. This moodiness had been going on for months now and then suddenly you’re on cloud nine. You don’t think people will notice?”
“Well at least I have a heart.”
Charlie had a heart and it was nearly breaking for him. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t give him hope when there could be none.
Awkwardly, she took his hands in hers. Things like that did not come naturally to her, as any kind of gesture that might appear feminine had always been avoided.
“Believe me when I say I’m sorry.” Her head was bowed and she saw the blood drying on his knuckles. She dropped his uninjured hand and began palpating the swelling, bleeding one. Why did men feel the need to hit the walls and doors when they were mad? Morty flinched a couple of times as she dug her thumbs into his swelling, bruised flesh to feel the bone.
“Big baby,” she said under her breath. She could feel his eyes examining her face as she tended his hand.
“You really are an exceptionally beautiful woman.”
No one had ever complimented her before. She wasn’t sure what to say. “I could be in the freak tent at the fair. I could be the boy-faced girl.”
“Never that,” he said softly. “You were a sweet-faced lad when I came on this ship nine years ago. A fairer face youth there’s never been. But at some point, when the baby-face never became more masculine something deep in my brain knew—Jesus, I thought I’d been out at sea too long when someone I thought of as a kid brother looked good to me.”
Under other circumstances, she might have teased him over such an admission, but she had seen how tortured he had been over the last months.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”
She rinsed the blood out the cloth then handed it to him. “The cool cloth will help it feel better.”
He tossed the rag at the basin. “Do I look like a woman to you? Unlock the door, my hammock is waiting.”
She produced the key from her pocket, but put herself between Morty and the door after unlocking it. “I’ll have your word.”
“You d
on’t trust me?” A look of hurt was written across his face. “Of course you don’t. We’ve been best mates for nine years and not once did you even hint at your little secret.”
He reached out to shove her out of his way, but with lightning fast reflexes she grabbed his hand, twisted it behind his back and pinned him to the door. It was a move he had seen in many of her tavern brawls. She pressed her thumb into his bruised knuckle just to drive her point home.
“I’ll have your word, Morty.”
He pushed away from the door until it felt like his shoulder would come out of its socket. “Damn it, Charlie, let go. I’m not going to fight you.”
She already regretted using the move on him. It was only going to add insult to injury. “Go.”
5
Charlie stood outside the first mate’s quarters reluctant to knock. He had been with the ship three years and Lionel Byron made no secret, he would move on to any other ship if the opportunity presented itself. Fifteen years her senior, he knew if Captain Sinclair ever vacated his post as captain, he would undoubtedly be passed over and the post given to Charlie if she was remotely ready for the position. And it was unlikely that Captain Sinclair would vacate before then. Since John Sinclair and the ship’s doctor co-owned the vessel, for all intents and purposes, he was just keeping the first mate’s cabin warm until Charlie was ready to move in.
Charlie knocked.
“What do you want, Junior?” he asked upon opening the door, his Australian accent as strong as his first day aboard.
“Mr. Byron, sir. There’s a discipline problem….”
“That’s your duty not mine,” he cut in, pushing the door close.
Charlie instinctively put her booted foot in the opening before he slammed it in her face. “I am well aware of my duties. I am putting Mr. Ness in the brig. I need the key to the hold.”
Aboard ship the cargo was the responsibility of the chief mate. He and the captain were the only ones with access. Once the cargo was loaded, the hold was locked and no one could enter without getting permission and the key.
“Oh, for God’s sake, can’t you just flog him and send him back to work?”
“No, sir,” Charlie gritted out.
“Mutiny? Attempted murder? Theft?” Sarcasm practically dripped off his tongue. The man never ceased showing his contempt.
“Mr. Mate, I don’t stand over your shoulder while you count the cargo or when you fill out your logs. This is my duty and I won’t have you standing over my shoulder second guessing me.” Charlie resisted the urge to bow up on the man when he acted like a jackass. Beating him senseless would feel so good and probably worth the flogging her father would give her. “The key, sir.”
“Or what? You’ll go tell your papa?”
If Charlie ever did, she’d get an earful. John Sinclair raised Charlie to take care of her own problems. He didn’t fight her fights when she was little and one of the cabin boys bullied her and he certainly didn’t fight them now. She would have been in for a lecture on how her behavior embarrassed him.
Charlie folded her arms across her chest and waited. She would not let him bait her.
Byron snagged a ring of keys off a nail. “See that nothing comes up missing.”
“Why would I steal from the coffers I will someday inherit?” Charlie removed the key she needed from the ring. “I’ll just hold on to this while he’s in there. No reason to wake you every time he needs the slop bucket emptied or he gets his food ration.”
“Fine. Go lock up your mate because you’re too soft to flog him. But I’ll tell you this; I won’t have him replaced on your watch. If your crew can’t get their work done, you’d better get your maidenly soft hands dirty or there will be hell to pay.”
Morty understood on a ship at sea there is no place to run, no place to hide. He gathered his belongings from the crew’s quarters in the forecastle and followed Charlie into the hold.
Charlie had barely returned to the quarterdeck when the mate and captain joined her.
“Mr. Byron tells me you have something to report,” her father snapped, obviously perturbed by the mate’s spin on the transpired events.
Charlie’s dark look cast at the mate was involuntary. “It’s a private matter,” Charlie said tightly.
“You locked up that tar because of a private matter? What? Didn’t he want to be your chum anymore?” Byron asked disdainfully.
“What I meant to say is that it is a matter that should be addressed privately.” She locked her eyes on her father’s and held his gaze trying to make him understand it could not be discussed within earshot of others.
“Take the quarterdeck, Mr. Byron.”
“It’s not my watch,” Byron said sounding like a whiny child.
Captain Sinclair ignored him and stalked off to his quarters with Charlie at his heels. Neither said a word until they were safely ensconced in the captain’s cabin.
John Sinclair sat at his desk and rubbed his forehead. “How did it happen?” He sounded tired.
The last thing Charlie wanted to do was bring up her tavern brawl. She could already feel his ire and to mention the fight would send him over the edge. He would not be pleased that Charlie had been aware that Morty knew her secret for over a week and had risked letting him tell others during that time.
“I don’t really know. I think he just…worked it out.”
John Sinclair scowled at her, dissatisfied with her answer. “You must have slipped up somehow. Talk to him, figure out what you did wrong and correct it.” He thought for a moment. “What exactly did he say? You didn’t misunderstand, did you?”
“There was no misunderstanding. He said he knew I was a woman.” She cleared her throat. “And that he was in love with me.”
The Captain’s brows shot up so high they disappeared in the shadow of his tricorne hat. “Indeed?” John Sinclair actually smiled a little. “Anything else?”
She debated whether to tell him. “He thinks I’m pretty,” she said without emotion as if that would keep her from blushing.
John Sinclair looked at her as if he saw her for the first time. He had obviously never thought she was pretty or he wouldn’t have had to exam her face so hard.
“Charlie…maybe….” It was one of the rare times she saw her father hesitate. “I-I want you to spend time together while he’s still on board. You bring him his meals and take yours with him as well. Give him a chance.
“Frankly,” he continued, “I never thought this charade would last this long. I always wanted you to have what your mother and I had. It was probably wrong of me to bring you on this ship, but I didn’t know what else to do—leave you at home with a nanny and a housekeeper? See you for a few weeks a year?”
“I don’t understand, Father.”
“Aye, you understand, Charlie. It would make me happy to see you in dresses and married with babies.”
“But the ship….”
“Morty is a good man. If you want to marry him, he can move up through the ranks and eventually move up to replace me.”
Charlie loosened the stock at her neck and poured herself a glass of water.
“All these years, all my hard work, you would deny me what I have earned?” Charlie had to work hard to school her expression. This was not the time for girlish tears. “Aye, Morty is a good man. He has been my friend since nearly the first day he walked up the gangway. But he is not ambitious nor is he educated. The sextant and compass confuse him.”
John shook his head. “Ness is your friend. Many marriages don’t start that strongly.”
“Father, I have been wenching with the man. Don’t you think I would think about that when we are together?” Charlie threw up her hands. “He passes wind and blames me!”
John Sinclair’s stony face stared at her. “All I’m asking is for you to spend time together and see what happens. If you haven’t changed your mind, we put him off when we get to Portugal.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Charlie, I know
locking him up was a hard decision; it shows you have the ship’s best interest in mind. I think when we get back home; I’m going to let Byron go. If you haven’t changed your mind about Morty, you’ll have your promotion.”
“Thank you, sir.” She turned to leave, but stopped short of the door. “The men will ask why he’s locked up.”
“Tell them…it’s not their concern.”
Morale on a ship is a living entity. As a pebble tossed in a puddle, one small change can ripple through a small ship. A bad cook, a new mate, an incompetent jack tar all have unexpected ramifications on men and their morale. By throwing Morty in the brig, Charlie had started a ripple the size of a tidal wave. Her watch scowled at her, ignored her orders, and intentionally bumped into her as they passed.
The chill in the galley directed at her was palatable. The men leaned towards each other and spoke in low tones while casting hostile looks in her direction. Charlie only stood in the back of the line for a few seconds before she moved to the front. The men fell back rather than challenge her under the captain’s gaze.
“I need two plates, Melvin; one for me and one for Morty.”
Charlie knew Morty was supposed to get half-rations while in the brig, but she didn’t have the heart to order Melvin to do it especially since it was not his fault she locked him up.
Melvin was sixty if he was a day. Cold molasses poured faster than he moved. He spent his life at sea, but as he aged, his eyes had become clouded and his vision began to fail and he had been moved into the galley.
Charlie was glad her father had ordered her to eat with Morty. For once the brig seemed more hospitable than the galley. Young Benjy helped her carry the food and he was happy to see Morty.
Morty ruffled the teen’s dirty brown hair before taking his plate. “Hey, Benjy. How’s life topside?”
“Oh, Morty, it’s a mess,” Benjy said. “You never heard so much cussing in your life.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
Benjy cast a sideways glance at Charlie.
Charlie answered for him. “They’re upset I locked you in the brig.”
An Officer but No Gentleman Page 5