Virginia Henley (30 page)

Kitty soon discovered that he wanted nothing more than someone who would listen to him. When he was crude and used thinly veiled innuendos to shock her, she serenely ignored
his words and pretended she hadn’t heard them. She looked at him often now and wondered how she could ever have thought him ugly. His golden beard was magnificent, and when he smiled, tanned, crinkled lines gathered about the startling blue eyes. Proximity had turned strangers into friends. He loved nothing better than to sit with her, spinning yarns of his voyages, especially the fights which pointed out his physical strength.

“Guess how much I measure about the chest?” he challenged.

She hid a smile and guessed a deliberately small forty-two inches.

“Ha! Fifty! More if I expand it. You don’t believe me. Go! Go on, fetch your tape measure and I’ll prove it to you.”

There was nothing to do but get the tape measure. Then he insisted she measure his biceps. Enormous!

He said now, “Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the fanciest brothel in the world?”

She ignored his coarse talk.

At other times he quoted poetry or Shakespeare. Once he intrigued her by speaking at length of a book he had been reading.

“It’s called
Ecstatic Voyage.
It was written in 1656 by a philosopher called Athanasius Kircher. He went on a celestial voyage to the planets. Venus was the best place he visited. Its air was perfumed with amber and musk, where beautiful young angels sang and danced while strewing flowers about. I’ve seen places like that, Kitty. He could be describing Ceylon.”

“What about the sun? I love the sun,” said Kitty, listening raptly.

“The sun is inhabited by angels of fire who swim in seas of light round a huge volcano. I’ve seen places like that in the South Seas. Saturn is full of evil spirits who spend their
time meting out divine justice to the souls of the wicked.” The lines crinkled around his eyes. “Genius or crackpot? Who’s to say? Not me, Kitty, not me.”

She looked at him and pinpointed his attraction. He was a paradox. So coarse on the outside; so fine within.

“Are you married, Jim?” she asked.

“I was once,” he said reflectively. “She was unfaithful to me. She liked to go dancing. She picked up with this fellow who took her dancing.”

“Dancing with him doesn’t mean she was unfaithful,” she said gently.

“Oh, aye, she was. I followed them one night and copped him with his pants down! I half killed him. The next day they found him on the high road. They thought he’d been run over by the mail coach. I don’t miss her, she was a whore, but I miss my children unbearably.”

She looked at him with compassion and saw that he was crying.

During the second month out they ran into a hurricane. Jemmy came into Kitty’s cabin and found her huddled in a corner.

“The captain ordered me below till it blows over. I know I’d be safe enough up there, but Captain Harding’s afraid I’m such a lightweight, I’d get swept overboard.”

They sat in the cabin for over an hour and finally Kitty could stand it no longer. “I’ve got to go up and see what’s going on. I can’t stay below like a rat.”

“It’s not safe up there, ma’am, you have no idea what it’s like,” he shouted over the roar of the storm.

Kitty opened the cabin door and crept up toward the deck. Her eyes opened in amazement as a wall of water as high as a mountain towered above them, while the ship seemed to be down at the bottom of a deep valley. Suddenly, without
warning, everything switched positions and the ship was perched on the precipice of a mountainous wave, and a gorge opened up in the sea below them and threatened to engulf the ship once it plunged from its great height. Kitty was rooted to the spot, too terrified to move. A terrific crack like thunder rent the air, and the mast fell amid shouts and screams. The bloodcurdling screams continued until a gunshot rang out. Kitty scurried like a rat back to the cabin.

After the storm, when the sea was calm again, Jemmy went to see what the damage was. He came back to tell Kitty the mast had fallen on one of the crew, and the captain had shot him to put him out of his misery.

“My God, how could he shoot down a man in cold blood?” she demanded.

“He had to. His legs were gone, he was almost cut in half!”

The captain locked himself in his cabin for three days.

On the third morning Kitty took the captain’s breakfast tray from the cabinboy and after a perfunctory tap on the door, she plunged through the doorway with a confidence she did not really feel. Big Jim sat on the edge of his bunk with a brandy hangover. He swiftly averted his eyes from the tray of food and said, “Get shut of that, for starters!”

Without a word she put it outside the door and reentered. “Are you all right, Jim?”

“My mouth tastes like I’ve been sucking on a shepherd’s stocking.” He grimaced. He hauled himself across to the washstand. He looked in the mirror and said, “Christ! My eyes look like two piss holes in the snow!”

Kitty’s lips twitched. The Irish could be vulgar, but not one had quite the coarse touch that Big Jim Harding lent to a phrase. She knew she could leave him now and everything would return to normal.

Dismay clutched Kitty’s heart when she discovered her
money was missing. She went up on deck and accosted the captain in front of his men. He could have cursed her and ordered her below, or delivered a stinging slap to silence her tongue, but instead he swept her up into the air, planted her firmly with a kiss and carried her below to his cabin.

“Filthy, thieving bastards!” she shouted. “I should have known something like this would happen!” she screamed.

He eyed her appreciatively as she spat and fumed, cursed and threatened.

“Are you finished? Then listen to me. When a woman comes aboard a ship, traveling alone, the first thing she should do is choose the biggest, strongest sailor of the lot and he will protect her.”

“In return for certain favors!” she spat.

“Kitty, everything in life must be paid for,” he said quietly. “Now, the biggest, strongest sailor aboard is myself. Be my woman, Kitty?” He took her hands in his and bent to kiss her full on the mouth. It was a nice kiss; a good kiss. His lips were firm and dry, his soft beard brushed her cheek gently. His eyes were kind, his aroma was pleasant, his hands gentle, yet she pulled away and said, “Please don’t force me! I’m still a maiden,” she lied. “If you force me, you’ll lose your job,” she threatened.

His eyes narrowed. “Who is your man?”

“Patrick O’Reilly,” she whispered.

The captain threw back his head and laughed. “I’d do more than lose my job, I’d lose my life, girl! The O’Reilly has sailed with me, and I have his measure. Kitty, what I feel for you is love, not lust. If you’ve chosen the O’Reilly to be your man, I’ll send you to him untouched.” His eyes sparkled with mischief as he held her purse and money aloft. “Just for safekeeping and the hope of a reward, you understand.” He held it too high for her to reach until she gave him the kiss he wanted.

*   *   *

That night, as she lay in her bunk, she admitted to herself that she was tempted. She realized you could feel different kinds of love for different people. With Patrick it was special, wild, passionate. It was all highs or lows, no in-betweens. Ecstasy or hell, pleasure or pain. With Jim Harding it was so disconcerting to have a man who looked ferocious enough to kill you, but who put you on a pedestal and worshiped you.

He set himself the task of amusing her, and she really did love him for it. They had been at sea so long, cut off from the rest of the world, they had formed an attachment for each other. When the weather was bad, Jim did everything from steadying her with his strong hands to making her laugh so she would forget her fears. As the sun began to get warmer, Kitty’s skin darkened into a healthy tan. Her baby was beginning to show, and though she cherished it in private and spoke to “him” quite often, when she went up on deck, she concealed her stomach with her large cloak, and when she took supper with Jim, she was always careful to drape a shawl about her.

One night after dark, one of the seamen grabbed her. She managed to tear herself away and run like someone demented. She crashed into Captain Harding, who led her to her cabin to wipe away her tears and still her frantic pulse. He held her securely and murmured soothing words until her tears stilled and she began to relax.

In a quiet voice Jim began to quote Shelley’s “Love’s Philosophy”:

When their lips sought and found each other it was the most natural thing in the world. His arms were both strong and gentle, his lips tender and firm. His hands were sure, his touch magically arousing. It felt so natural to go to a reclining position, where they could lie in each other’s arms. Inevitably, Jim’s large body covered Kitty as he rolled her onto her back. The child within her turned over and “quickened” at that moment and she was swept with such a sudden wave of nausea that, groaning uncontrollably, she tried to sit up. Jim immediately sprang up, thinking he had hurt her. Kitty wasn’t quick enough. Before she could struggle upright, she had begun to vomit. It covered her dress and even the bed where they had been lying. Jim fumbled with the lantern in the darkness, finally managing to illumine Kitty’s miserably huddled figure in a corner of the bunk.

“Please, Jim, go away and leave me. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

He waved away her pleas with an impatient hand and briskly poured water into her washbowl and brought over a fresh towel. He took hold of the soiled dress and took it off
over her head. Kitty was too weak to protest and allowed herself to be undressed like a rag doll.

“Sweetheart, you’re with child! Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shook her head miserably and began to retch again.

“Hush, now; hush, lass,” he murmured as he washed away the filth. He found a clean nightdress and slipped it over her head.

“You can’t sleep in this bunk until it’s been stripped and cleaned. Come on, sweetheart, I’ll carry you to my bed. You can’t stay here. It stinks!” He put a glass of wine to her lips and slipped her into his bed. He couldn’t have treated her with more loving care had she been his child. In that moment she loved him with all her heart. He bade her rest and went off with his incredible energy to strip and scour her cabin. No sooner was her bunk made up clean and the air made sweet-smelling again than she fouled Jim’s cabin as she had her own. With infinite compassion he washed her again, changed her nightgown and carried her back to her own cabin. Each time she awoke, Jim’s comforting presence was beside her.

In the early hours of the morning he asked, “Are you feeling better, lass?”

“Yes, Jim. I’m sorry about what happened,” she said, embarrassed. She awoke later to find Jemmy taking his place. He looked at her kindly and said, “Have your ideas about the captain changed, ma’am?”

“Jemmy, that man’s a saint.”

He grinned. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He prefers to think he’s the devil.”

She smiled a secret smile. “We know differently.”

After breakfast, Captain Harding returned and sat on the edge of her bunk. “Why didn’t you tell me about the babe, lass? Your little belly looked so pretty, all rounded and swollen with the sweet burden you carry. I’m fond of you, lass, but it just wasn’t meant to be. You’ve found your man and
I’m not one to come between a man and his woman. Still, it would have been an adventure—two Gypsies sailing the seven seas. I’ll think of it on lonely nights.”

She reached up and touched his face where his beard curled softly. “I’ll think of it too, Jim.”

“Rest now. We’ll sight land tomorrow.”

Patrick had arrived in Charleston a full month before Kitty. He quickly arranged for the disposal of his profitable cargo and so was free to make plans to fill the ship with goods to take back to Liverpool. He would buy cotton from Bagatelle, travel to Wilmington to pick up tobacco grown in Virginia, then sail to Philadelphia and New York to the branch offices of the Hind Food Company, which was expanding faster than he had ever dared hope. He purchased a carriage and a fine team and arranged for a young seaman, Rob Wilson, to drive him to the Carolina plantation.

When they arrived at Bagatelle, Patrick was surprised to find that Jacquine had not remarried. He couldn’t believe that a woman of her passions could lead a celibate life, so kept his eyes peeled for evidence of her bedfellow. Surprisingly, he found none. He took young Rob aside and spoke seriously to him. “There’s an extra fifty pounds in it for you, Rob, if you stick to my side like glue.”