Two days before their engagement dinner, Jaxon informed Charlie that they would be staying at home because they were expecting a special guest.
“Wait here,” he told her when the heavy brass knocker tattooed the visitor’s arrival. He was at the door for a few minutes before he came back carrying two baskets. He set the smaller basket down on the table, but carried the larger basket to her. When she saw the blanket move a moment of nausea hit her. Puppies?
“Imelia has lent us her baby for a couple of hours.”
Jaxon laughed at her expression. Her eyes were as big as saucers. He could tell the baby filled her with both apprehension and fascination. Hesitantly, she pulled the blanket back as if a snake laid coiled ready to strike underneath.
The baby cooed as the blanket was lifted, making Charlie jump. Large blue eyes stared back at her.
“Does it have a name?”
“Her name is Clara.”
“Clara,” Charlie echoed.
“Do you want to hold her?”
Charlie shook her head. She was terrified of the small pink being. Rarely had she been this close to a baby and she had never held one. But she knew, they often screamed for no reason.
Jaxon set the basket on the floor and reached in for his niece.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t leave her in the basket for the next two or three hours.”
“Don’t drop her.”
“I’m not going to drop her and neither are you. I’ll hold her until you’re ready. Come sit over here next to me.”
Charlie moved to the settee, but kept her hands folded in her lap.
Jaxon bounced Clara and spoke in a high register. He was rewarded with a smile and a coo from the six month old.
“How do you know how to do that?”
“I have six younger brothers and sisters and tons of cousins and another niece and nephew.”
Charlie had a hundred questions and asked most of them before she got her nerve up. Jaxon began to pass the baby to her, but pulled Clara back.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Liar.”
He handed her the baby. She stared at Clara for a few seconds then pulled the baby against her shoulder and cried.
Jaxon put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “You’re going to be a great mother,” he whispered in her ear. “Does she make you want one?”
She wore a serious expression when she looked at him. Charlie had seen his disappointment when she shyly informed him that they couldn’t make love because her monthly had started.
“Eventually.”
“Unless you’re suggesting what it almost sounds like you’re suggesting, we’re going to start our family sooner than later.”
Charlie frowned. She didn’t know how to tell him how she felt except to come out and say it.
“As long as you are privateering, I don’t want to have children. It isn’t safe to have a baby aboard when cannonballs and grapeshot are flying through the air. And I don’t want to be here raising children on my own when I still feel like I’m lost in a foreign country when I’m on land. I want to be with you, wherever you are.”
Jaxon looked poleaxed. “You are suggesting we abstain from marital relations?”
“Heavens no!”
“Thank heavens. You had me scared. What are you suggesting?”
Charlie stroke Clara’s downy hair.
“I’ve been reading about it in Dr. Kirk’s books and there seems to be a great deal of evidence that there are only a few days a month when a woman can, you know, conceive.” Charlie blushed. “We just have to avoid those days.”
Jaxon sat back staring sightlessly at a spot on the wall. “Huh.”
“Are you angry?”
He thought about it. “No. I don’t know what I’m feeling. It never occurred to me that we had any control over when we started our family.” He wondered if people would assume something was wrong with one of them if they didn’t start having children right away. “It certainly gives me more time to have you all to myself.”
“It’s not foolproof.” She smiled at him as she bounced the baby a few times. “In a few years, we can have as many children as you want.”
24
Charlie looked at herself in the mirror in bewilderment. She didn’t know the person staring back at her. She wore a beautiful azure blue silk dress. It was cut empire style with a low neckline that left her shoulders bare. A swag of white silk trimmed the décolletage extending around the top of her arms giving the illusion of a sleeve.
Jaxon had hired a lady’s maid to come in and help her prepare for the engagement party. The woman had tsk-tsked her when she saw the length of Charlie’s hair and offered to cut it á la Josephine, but Charlie refused. She had not been allowed to wear it long and now that she could, she wanted to let it grow.
Somehow, despite the woman’s complaining, she had managed to make her hair beautiful, pinning it up into an elegant coif.
And yet Charlie couldn’t manage a smile at her own reflection.
“What’s the matter, Charlie? Nervous?”
“Aye. What if they don’t like me?”
“Why wouldn’t they like you? Mother only invited relatives of ours. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins and Mabel so you’d have someone other than my siblings there that you know. They are here to celebrate our happiness and meet you.”
Charlie looked at him through the reflection in the mirror. He looked so handsome in his double-breasted navy blue dress uniform. The dark color set off the blue in his eyes. Just looking at him calmed her. As long as he was by her side, she could face anything.
“Everyone is going to want to know how we met. I don’t know what to tell them.”
“We’ll tell them the truth. Honestly, Charlie, it’s an amazing story. Do you realize how many events had to happen for us to meet in the middle of the ocean? If just one thing had been different, we might have never met.”
“But they are going to find out I used to live my life as a man. What if they react like Grayson?”
He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her bare shoulders. “You will be the envy of all the women. I think many of them wish they could see what it’s like to have the freedom of a man, if only for one day.” He kissed her neck. “You might want to leave out the parts about going wenching with your friends and smoking cigars.”
“And starting tavern fights.”
“You never told me you started tavern fights.”
She smiled shyly. “I used to start them all the time. Sometimes I just wanted to get my frustrations out. My father hated it. The last time, he confined me to my quarters for three days when I wasn’t on duty and threatened to flog me if I did it again. You saw the big bruise on my back. I’m not sure what he used to hit me, I was too focused on taking the knife away from another man to realize this man had picked up something. Luckily, Morty stepped in and ended the fight.”
She saw him react to the mention of Morty’s name and wished she had just kept her mouth shut.
“Yes, let’s leave that out, too.”
He stood behind her looking at her in the mirror. It was hard to equate this beautiful woman to the little spitfire that had come aboard his ship. She looked so different. It was no wonder she felt insecure. Her whole world had turned on its ear. Everything was new to her. Jaxon wondered if she would feel the same way about him had they not been forced together by circumstance.
“Did I tell you how beautiful you look? But I think you’re missing something. Close your eyes.”
Charlie closed her eyes and felt him place something around her neck.
“Open your eyes.”
He had draped a string of pearls around her neck.
“A treasure from the sea for my treasure from the sea. Don’t cry.”
“If you don’t want me to cry, stop being so nice to me all the time.”
“If we get there and you look like
you’ve been crying, everyone will think you’re not happy,” he teased handing her his handkerchief.
Charlie took a deep breath and slowly blew it out between her lips and forced back the tears. A wan smile touched her lips.
“Better?”
His expression said it all. Jaxon’s brow knitted and his mouth was set in a line.
“The captain’s son was not allowed to cry.”
Jaxon leaned over until his face was next to hers in the mirror. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry, baby. I was just teasing you. If you want to cry, cry.”
Charlie reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. “I don’t want to cry tonight. I want to be the fiancée you can be proud of.”
Jaxon’s tight-lipped expression turned further south. “I don’t understand what you mean by that. You’re not a possession I’m trying to show off. I don’t need you to pretend to be someone you’re not to impress anyone.”
“But I’m not like other women.”
“If you mean you don’t know how to cook or throw a party, who cares? I can hire people to do those things. But you are the woman I love. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you wanted to wear trousers or pick up your meat with your knife, I wouldn’t care.”
Jaxon would have like to have told her when she looked at him, he no longer felt scarred, but somehow saying something so personal was too revealing. He didn’t want her to have to bear his demons, especially when she was still adjusting to all the changes in her life.
Rather than have the party at her home, Betsy Bloodworthy decided to rent the hotel restaurant and ballroom. It had just been too much work to do in two weeks, but she knew no one would mind too much. When they arrived, Charlie sought out Jayne and asked her if she would be her maid of honor. The wide grin on her face said it all.
The evening may have started with a meal, but neither Jaxon nor Charlie could remember afterwards what they had dined on. Charlie only remembered that the food had just kept coming course after course. When the dessert course came, Jaxon stood up and extended his hand to Charlie.
“I want to thank everyone for coming tonight on such short notice. And I’m going to apologize now for not giving you more notice on the wedding in a fortnight.”
A few people whispered among themselves as Jaxon continued.
“Rather than repeat the story of how we met twenty times tonight, I thought I’d just tell everyone together. It’s a long story that starts more than a decade and a half ago when a little motherless girl goes to sea to live with her father, the captain of a merchant ship. He dresses her in breeches and brings her aboard the ship—as his son….”
25
After dinner, an octet of musicians began playing from the ballroom drawing the partygoers into the adjoining room. The ballroom wasn’t very large, but it seemed to accommodate the thirty or forty people there. Two grand crystal chandeliers were alight with a least twenty kerosene flames that reflected off the highly polished oak parquet floor and wall of windows. Gold velvet curtains flanked each window with white silk ropes holding the curtains open. The small orchestra was packed tightly into to one corner of the room leaving the guests as much room as possible.
“That’s the biggest fiddle I’ve ever seen,” Charlie whispered to Jaxon.
“Don’t let them hear you calling them fiddles. They’d be insulted.”
“I didn’t think there was a difference between a violin and a fiddle.”
“I don’t think there is. The difference is in the musicians.”
Charlie nodded. “Well, they sound beautiful together.”
“I can see if they can play at the ceremony, if you’d like?”
“There will be music at our wedding? I’ve never been to one before.”
Charlie wasn’t used to being the center of attention, but there could be no doubt everyone there was eager to meet her. Jaxon was right about the women’s curiosity about living as a man. They had so many questions and many she would have preferred not to answer and when Jaxon or she could not evade the awkward questions, Jaxon or Jayne would suddenly spot someone she had to meet and pulled her away from the women.
“Do you want to dance?” Jaxon asked.
Charlie was undecided. The kind of dancing done on the ship was not the kind of dancing she now watched with fascination. These men and women glided effortlessly around the floor. On the occasions aboard ship when there was a crew member with a fiddle or a concertina, the men danced jigs or occasionally paired off and stomped around in a mock version of what she watched here.
“I’d like to, but I don’t really know how. Won’t it bother your leg?”
“Between your messages and the stretching, my leg is feeling pretty good these days,” Jaxon said slapping his thigh lightly. “Jayne lift your skirt enough that Charlie can see your feet and show her. This is a waltz. It’s easy just one, two, three, one, two, three.”
Jayne spared a quick glance around the room before complying. “One, two, three, one, two, three. Always start by stepping back with your left foot.”
“Left foot first. Got it,” Charlie said trying out the steps on her own.
“Good,” he praised. “Shall we? We’ll stick to the edges until you feel comfortable.”
Jaxon led her to the dance floor and took her into his arms and gracefully maneuvered her into outskirts of the dancers. She could barely detect his limp as they glided to the rhythm of the music.
“Stop counting and relax. Feel the music.”
He held her nearly at arms-length, afraid he might step on her feet if she misstepped. Soon, he was pulling her closer and leading her in and out of other dancers easily.
“You’re a born dancer,” he whispered into her ear.
“I was just thinking the same thing about you. You make this easy.”
“I was worried I would be really rusty, but I guess some things you just don’t forget.”
Charlie nodded realizing he probably didn’t dance much with his bad leg. “Is this the first time you’ve danced since your accident?”
Jaxon’s body tensed momentarily at her choice of words. He would have liked to have told her that what happened to him was intentional; not an accident, but this was not the place or time.
Suddenly, Charlie stopped dancing. Jaxon ran into her with enough force that he nearly knocked her over and would have fallen on top of her had he not been able to shift his weight to his good leg. It took a moment for him to right himself and Charlie with him.
“Are you all right?” they both asked in near unison as most of the others couples danced around them.
“What happened?” Jaxon asked chuckling. “Did you lose your shoe?”
“Daniel is back,” she said looking into his eyes. “And Morty is with him.”
Grayson disembarked the hermaphrodite brig with barely a glance behind him. He hated sailing and was glad to have his feet back on terra firma. It had taken two weeks to sail to Charleston and they had just had two days of weather that had left Grayson feeling sick to his stomach. With Jaxon’s wedding scheduled for a fortnight from now, he was going to be hard-pressed to get there in time to stop it. He’d have to find a faster ship for the return trip.
Grayson had his strategy well thought out before he arrived in Charleston. He was going to proceed with caution. His first stop would be to the local lawmen and explain what he was doing. The last thing he needed was to get arrested trying to steal the real Charlie Sinclair’s money. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he was convinced that she was not Charlie Sinclair.
After that, he would go to the courthouse, talk to every lawyer he could find and see if John Sinclair had a will. Surely, if John Sinclair had money for someone to inherit, there would be a will. And if there was a will, wouldn’t John Sinclair confide in his lawyer that his son, Charlie, was actually his daughter. A lawyer would keep information like that in confidence so there was no reason not to tell him.
Grayson smiled.
He was not going to leave a stone unturned and when he returned home, he was going to have her arrested. He would get affidavits from everyone who knew anything. It was going to kill Jaxon to know that he had been duped, he thought with a slight sneer, but how naïve could his brother be?
Grayson left the harbor and checked into the first decent looking inn he came to. He hated the fact that he was going to have to wait until morning to begin his task. Unless he could find a much faster ship than the one he sailed in on, he was not going to be back in time to stop the wedding. He told himself it didn’t matter. That’s why there was such a thing as annulment. Jaxon was so smitten by this Jezebel, he would probably refuse to believe him, but Grayson would have his proof in spades.
26
The smile left Jaxon’s lips. “I guess we should go say hello.”
Jaxon put his arm around her shoulders unconsciously displaying his possessive emotions. He carefully led her out of the dancers to the doorway where his brother and rival stood.
Morty, tall, flaxen haired, built like the Norse god, Thor, searched the dance floor looking for Charlie. It wasn’t until they were nearly to him did he recognize Charlie in her new garb and hairstyle.
Suddenly, he lunged forward, embraced her, and swung her in a circle, pulling her out of Jaxon’s grip. He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head.
Charlie squealed and giggled. “Put me down you big oaf.”
Morty set her on her feet, but kept his hands on her waist.
“Charlie, you look beautiful.”
When his eyes traveled downward, pausing at her breasts, Jaxon could take no more. He shoved him back and stepped between them.
“What the—?”
“Keep your hands off of her!” Jaxon growled.
Morty should have deferred to the captain’s uniform alone, but Jax wasn’t his captain nor were they at sea. Morty bowed up.
An Officer but No Gentleman Page 20