The Charm School

by Susan Wiggs

  “Stop that,” Isadora cried, trying to wrench away from him. “Stop that, I say!”

  He held her ankle in a ruthless grip as he removed the other shoe. She flinched, for he pressed his thumb hard where she’d injured herself the first day at sea.

  “I’ve watched you stumble around the ship until I was sure you’d topple overboard. No more.” He pitched the shoe over the rail.

  She put both hands to her head, feeling the barren place where he’d hacked off her hair. “Dear heaven,” she whispered, “what have you done?”

  He met her shocked gaze with a steely stare. “It’s only hair,” he said. “It’ll grow back.”

  She sat immobile, too stunned to do anything but gape like a codfish. It was some dreadful Samson-and-Delilah scenario in reverse. What sin had she committed, what god had she angered, that Ryan Calhoun would visit this calamity upon her? To think she had left behind her home, her family and all she held dear for this terrible misadventure.

  She dropped her hands into her lap. A fresh wind blew tendrils of her newly cropped locks against her cheeks and neck. She shivered from the light, cool breath of the breeze on her neck. Her feet, covered by only thin black stockings, felt shockingly bare.

  “What—” She stopped and swallowed, feeling the awful press of tears in her eyes. No. She would not cry. She took a deep breath and tried again. “What have I ever done to make you hate me so?”

  He shook his head. “Miss Peabody, I don’t hate you. Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “To begin with, you threw my spectacles overboard.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  She hesitated. In truth, she barely noticed the lack. “That is beside the point,” she said. “They belonged to me, as did my shoes. As did my hair. You had no right.”

  “On the contrary, Miss Peabody. I have every right.”

  “Ah, yes. How could I forget? You are master of this ship. Your word is law. I wouldn’t be surprised if you appointed yourself lord high executioner.”

  He caught her in his angry stare. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “You have robbed me of my spectacles, my shoes and my hair.”

  “You’re better off barefoot. Those heeled things you wore made you as useless as tits on a fish.”

  The image made her shudder. “Why does cruelty come so easily to you?” she asked softly. “Doesn’t that scare you sometimes? It would scare me.”

  “Everything scares you, Miss Peabody.” With that, he straightened up and walked away, casually slipping his knife back into its hip sheath.

  She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto them. She would not cry. She would not cry.

  “B-begging your p-pardon, miss,” someone said.

  She lifted her head. “Timothy.”

  “I have some sk-skill at barbering,” he said in an explosive rush. He showed her a slender pair of scissors. “If you like, I’ll make a straighter job of the skipper’s handiwork.”

  “Very well.” She surprised herself by agreeing and following him into the deserted galley. The deck felt hard and alien beneath her stockinged feet. “Do what you can.”

  He moved behind her and gently lifted the hacked off strands away from the nape of her neck. She heard a deft snip-snipping sound as he set to work.

  “Timothy.”

  “Y-yes, miss?”

  “May I ask you something?”

  “C-course.”

  “Did all the men on deck witness this incident?”

  “They did, miss.”

  “And did it not occur to any of you to intervene? To stop the captain from abusing me?”

  “I didn’t see no ab-abusing, miss.” He smoothed his hand over her hair. Her head and scalp felt light as if a great tugging weight had been removed. “See, miss, on the last sail, Rivera lost a finger on the capstan. I expect the sk-skipper, he—he acted right quick so’s nothing like that would happen to you.”

  She fell silent and sat still as Timothy finished her hair. He stood in front of her, scrutinizing his work, evening things out here and there, then nodding with satisfaction.

  “See, miss, the skipper, he ain’t a bad man. He’s—”

  “Walking in on you before you say something foolish,” Ryan interrupted, stepping into the galley.

  “Y-yes, sir!” Closing the scissors, Timothy straightened up and hurried out.

  Isadora regarded him stonily. He was going to apologize. She was not going to accept.

  “Mr. Datty did a yeoman’s job on that hair.” He blinked, then narrowed his eyes keenly as if something startled him. His mouth curved subtly up at the corners. “He did indeed.” He held up a very small shaving mirror.

  She had a vague impression of a cloud of unkempt curls, an unhappy face flushed with anger. She pushed the mirror away.

  She felt naked without the long tangle of hair that had cloaked her for as long as she could remember. The hair was her shield, her covering. What would stand between her and the world now?

  “You seem determined to see me shorn of dignity,” she said.

  “Quite the opposite,” he said in his maddening drawl. “I would say there is more dignity in a woman who walks with ease and confidence rather than tottering around on tall-heeled shoes.”

  “And when did your opinion matter?” she demanded.

  He took a step toward her and went down on one knee so that their faces were level. She felt an odd jolt of…something. Fear? No, for there was no urgency to get away from him. On the contrary, his stance before her, his expression and the way his hands came to rest on her shoulders made her want to stay exactly where she was.

  She had no idea why this reaction came over her, particularly in the midst of her rage. But there was something compelling in the way he waited, not answering her question but simply watching her.

  Determined not to let him stare her down, she studied him, trying to discern some clue as to why he insisted on tormenting her. He had the sort of face one would describe as boyishly handsome, a face that would probably still be handsome even when he reached fourscore years of age. A finely drawn mouth that smiled too readily. Dimples that softened the chiseled effect of his nose and cheekbones. Eyes that crinkled at the corners and that had in their depths the strangest combination of mischief and pathos.

  There was, in her heart, a heat she had never felt before. A knowing. Here was a person who had the power to stir her blood. And this was not, she knew instinctively, a good thing.

  “Well?” she prompted, telling herself such thoughts were fanciful, ridiculous. He was someone whose actions she must report to his employer.

  He kept his hands on her shoulders even though she wished he’d move them. “Miss Peabody, I know you’ll be disappointed to hear this, but my opinion matters. Everything I think, say, do, or wish matters. That is the nature of being the captain.”

  She sniffed. “So you will use your power to make me miserable.”

  He smiled, his face softly lit with infuriating sympathy. “Miss Peabody.”

  She glared at him.

  “Isadora. May I call you Isadora?”

  “Why ask permission? You’re the captain, the despot, the most high admiral of the ocean sea.”

  “Not the ocean. This ship.” Very slowly, deliberately, almost insolently he let his hands skim across her shoulders and trail down her arms. “Isadora, you surely don’t need me to make you miserable. You’re doing a fine job of that on your own.”

  She caught her breath in fury and surprise. “How dare you?”

  He laughed, his hands cradling her elbows. “Because I have nothing to lose, Isadora. Not a damned thing to lose.”

  Despite his laughter, she heard pain in his voice, saw it in his eyes. She had never met such a maddening, interesting, complex individual.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You despise me already, sugar. So it doesn’t seem to matter what I do.”

  “Your mother is a woman of such admirable
manners. I find it surprising that she raised a man who would say such a thing. Particularly after hacking off a lady’s hair with a sabre.”

  “It was a midshipman’s dirk.”

  “It was the height of rudeness.”

  “We’re talking in circles here, Isadora. We’ve been over this. I’m not going to apologize. And you’re not going to be miserable any longer. You were supposed to leave that unhappy mode of life behind when we left Boston.”

  “Unhappy? How dare you suggest I am unhappy?”

  He let out a sigh of exasperation. “My dear, you are unhappy to the last inch of your shadow. I fear this state is so familiar to you that you no longer recognize it as unhappiness.” Finally he did the unthinkable. He moved his hands to cover hers, making an insistent circular motion with his thumbs in her palms. “What I want you to know is that you don’t have to live like that, Isadora. At least, not while you sail under my ensign.”

  She had a strange urge to shut her eyes and simply feel the sensation of his thumbs rubbing her. His fingertips were sinfully warm and leathery from work, so different from the clammy clutches of men forced to partner her at Boston dance parties.

  She made herself sit very still, eyes wide open as she fought the inexplicable slow warmth that filled her, beginning with the tips of her fingers and flowing through her body, settling in its more unmentionable places. “I really don’t think,” she began, then had to pause and moisten her lips before going on, “I don’t think you need concern yourself with my happiness or lack thereof.”

  “I’m the skipper. Every aspect of every crewman’s life concerns me.” He let go of one hand and cradled her cheek in his palm.

  She was too startled to pull back.

  “Even if it were not for that,” he continued, “I would care, Isadora. I don’t have many good qualities, but I do care.”

  “I…I…” She swallowed, then gave up trying to speak.

  “Be safe,” he said. “That’s what today was about. Wear your clothes and fix your hair for comfort, not confinement. No one would look askance at you if you entered the galley for supper without all this frippery.” To punctuate his statement, he ran his hand across the ornate worked trim around her throat. “We’re simple men of the sea, not ballroom snobs on Beacon Hill.”

  He stood, leaving her feeling curiously bereft, and went toward the door. “I shall see you on deck.”

  “Wait!”

  He turned back with an eagerness that startled her. “Yes?”

  “You forgot your mirror.” She picked it up and held the palm-sized glass out to him.

  “So I did.” He took it from her with a wink. “You’d not like to see me after shaving without a mirror. Not a pretty sight.”

  She sat very still after he left, listening to the creak of the timber and the rush of the water past the hull.

  Whiskers or no, she thought, Ryan Calhoun would always be a pretty sight.

  Ten

  Woman stock is rising in the market.

  —Lydia Maria Child,

  Letter (1856)

  Ryan stared into the little mirror with fierce concentration as he drew a straight razor along the side of his jaw. The ship plunged into a trough, causing him to list to one side. He felt the subtle bite of the blade in his chin and swore.

  But it was no less than he deserved, he decided. Isadora Peabody’s words still haunted him: Why does cruelty come so easily to you?

  He’d wanted to deny it, but the truth was, thoughtlessness did seem to come naturally to him. It had ever been that way with Ryan and women. He was all too willing to partake of their physical charms, but the involvement always ended there. The minute he started to care about them in a deeper way, he made it his business to push them away with careless, cutting words.

  Isadora, of course, was the first one he’d actually attacked.

  “Have a towel, Skipper.” Journey tossed him one.

  Ryan pressed it to his chin. “You’re my steward. You should be doing this.”

  “I’m busy,” Journey said distractedly.

  Ryan stopped the bleeding and lathered up again to finish shaving. “Did you take the morning readings?”

  “I did. I’m reckoning our position now.” Journey gazed intently at the papers on the table in front of him. He had a gift for the logarithms of navigation, figuring in his head with lightning quickness. He gave the task his total attention, yet with his left hand, he fingered the small pouch he wore on a leather strap around his neck. The pendant lay against his heart. Toying with it was a habit, an unconscious tic. Delilah, the wife he’d left behind, had given him the pouch. Inside was a tiny love knot fashioned from a lock of her hair.

  Ryan’s gut twisted with impatience and urgency. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t natural for a family to be separated like this. He recalled the morning he and Journey had left to go north. They had stopped at Bonterre, the neighboring plantation where Delilah lived.

  Ryan had waited in the open carriage while Journey dropped to the ground near the slave quarters. An anguished smile had strained his face as Delilah came running out of one of the cabins, a toddler held against her hip and her thin cotton dress outlining the ripe shape of her pregnancy. Putting Ruthie down, she’d placed her arms around her husband’s neck, then risen on tiptoe to kiss him solemnly. And then she’d said something Ryan would never forget, something he wasn’t supposed to hear. But her words had been imprinted on his heart forever. “Honey,” Journey’s wife had said, “Life don’t work right when you’re not around.”

  Ryan swore at the pain from that memory. He finished shaving and wiped his face, then went out on deck, leaving Journey to his navigational figuring.

  A balmy day greeted Ryan. With a sweep of his gaze he read the wind and the sea; this was his gift. Marble-hard swells rose beneath a brisk wind from the west. They would cover a good distance today.

  “Morning, Captain.” Ralph Izard bent over the deck, securing a new winch, for Ryan had decided to add an extra lifeboat as a safety measure. Izard’s face, chapped and furred with the beginnings of a beard, crinkled as he smiled briefly. “A fair wind, eh?”

  “So it seems, Mr. Izard.” He indicated the tall leather-bound journal under the chief mate’s arm. “Is everything in order?”

  “Aye, though I think we took on too little ballast,” he replied. “And maybe too many victuals.”

  Ryan ignored the comment about the ballast. It would only be a problem in the heaviest of seas, and even then, his skilled crew could navigate an ugly storm. He didn’t much like paying for ballast, preferring to stoke the hold with paying cargo. Happily, the huge blocks of Vermont ice fulfilled that function.

  “I’ll pay what it takes for the victuals,” he said. A lot of skippers cut corners by laying in inferior food in skimpy quantities for their sailors. Ryan knew better than to test their loyalty by taxing their stomachs. “A well-fed sailor is a happy sailor.”

  “As you say, skipper. You’ll hear no back-slack from a crew that’s got its mouth stuffed with ladyfingers.” He winked, looking wise and world-weary at the same time.

  Ryan moved on, though he thought about Ralph Izard for a moment. He liked the chief mate; Izard was his prime minister, boatswain, sailing-master and quartermaster all at once, and he excelled at what he did.

  And he alone knew what no one else had guessed.

  Ryan’s first record-breaking voyage had been a fluke.

  It wasn’t his skill as a skipper that had brought the Swan to harbor so profitably, but a combination of good weather and blind beginner’s luck. Izard was well aware of this. He had never spoken of it, though the knowledge always hung between him and Ryan—unuttered yet undeniable.

  He climbed the companion stair to the foredeck. A startling sight greeted him.

  Isadora Peabody bent over a pair of deck chairs, tucking an olive-colored blanket around his mother and Fayette. The two women looked wasted and wan, still miserable with the sea sickness. Yet, finally, after Ryan
had tried for days to coax them from their beds, they’d come on deck.

  Isadora appeared different today. What was left of her hair was tied back carelessly with a ribbon, a few curls escaping to twine around her face. The sun, increasingly strong as they traveled farther and farther south, brought out a warm gold color in some of the strands. Her stiff brown dress appeared less cumbersome. Maybe she’d heeded his advice and left off a couple of those petticoats.

  He knew he wouldn’t be asking her.

  He stepped onto the deck, moving past the chicken coop. “Morning, ladies.”

  Isadora straightened, her face hardening to a mask of indifference.

  He scowled at her in annoyance. He wanted to ask her if she still wanted to be stuck to the windlass by her hair. God knew she deserved it.

  “Hello, Ryan,” his mother said.

  “Mama.” He bent and kissed Lily’s cheek. “It’s good to see you both out in the air.”

  “Isadora convinced us. Since we couldn’t feel much worse, we agreed to sit on deck for a while.”

  “I’ll see if your tea is ready,” Isadora said, moving past Ryan.

  He caught a whiff of the soap she used—something clean and herbal—and he didn’t realize he was staring after her until his mother said, “So what exactly did you do to the poor girl?”

  “What makes you think I did anything at all? Did she tell you—”

  “She didn’t say a word, Ryan. I honestly don’t think she’s the sort of lady to tell tales out of school.”

  Fayette chuckled knowingly. “Didn’t have to say a thing. But she shows up wearing parlor scuffs and her hair badly shorn, and we guessed you had something to do with it.”

  Ryan sat on a coil of rope and took out the Turk’s head he was braiding, adding to the ornamental knot strand by strand. “She’s a babe in arms when it comes to sailing. Stumbled around on her high heels and got her hair caught in the apparatus.” He blew out his breath in exasperation. “We had…words.”

  Lily shook her head. “Oh, Ryan.”

  Something deep inside him recoiled at her tone of voice. He’d heard it all his life. “Oh, Ryan” stood for a wealth of defects and disappointments. Each and every one of them richly deserved. Some things would never change. She would be “Oh, Ryan-ing” him until he was an old man.