Merline Lovelace (5 page)

Strangely, though, as he stepped into the sampan that would take him to the three-masted schooner riding at anchor in the roads, it was Sarah Abernathy’s disdainful face that hovered in the back of his mind, not Abigail’s more classic features. He wouldn’t mind hauling the missionary back with him if for no other reason than to make the snippety spinster eat her pride enough to thank him, Jamie thought with a grimace.

The moment the sampan sculled around a bulky merchantman and the distinctive silhouette of the
Phoenix
appeared, all thoughts of the Misses Abernathy vanished instantly. The schooner rode at the end of her anchor chain like the thoroughbred she was. Purchased from a Yankee who’d made his fortune privateering, the Phoenix was sleek and sharp-built by a Baltimore house known for its fast ships. At a little over three hundred and twenty tons, she sailed with a crew of twenty-nine…most of whom, Jamie knew,
would now have to be rousted from drink shops and brothels.

He leaped agilely from the sampan and felt the familiar roll of the deck under his boots. Tugging his linen stock from around his neck, he shouted for his first mate.

“Burke! Get yourself topside, man, on the double!”

While he waited for the brawny Irishman, he squinted up at the sun. They had three hours until the tide started to turn. Three hours until they hauled up the anchor, doused all lights, and slipped past the shoals. Three hours until they made for the dangerous waters of South China Sea.

Damn! He hoped to hell Cook’s brother’s whoever-he-was knew his business.

The short, stocky Chinese came aboard an hour later, leaping nimbly from a sampan to the taffrail and then to the deck with a skill he thoroughly enjoyed displaying to the foreign demons. His bare feet gripped the boards with an easy familiarity as he strode to the poop deck where Jamie conferred with his bleary-eyed third mate. He waited respectfully until the captain had sent the mate off with a curt order to soak his head in a bucket of seawater.

“Then go in search of Hardesty, O’Rourke, and Smith,” Jamie called after the staggering seaman. “I don’t want to leave without them.”

When he turned to the Chinese who awaited him, the man met his eyes with a directness unusual in one of his polite, self-effacing culture.

“You wanchee pilot, cap-i-tan?”

“Aye, I wanchee pilot.”

“I werry fine pilot.”

“Werry fine maybe, but can do nightee time fast fast?”

“Day time, nightee time, all same same. Can do werry fast.”

Despite the limitations of Pidgin, Jamie conducted a brief but thorough interrogation of the man’s nautical experience and navigational skills. The pilot was named Wang Er, which translated into Son of the Second Harvest. He owed his name, he explained earnestly, to a bountiful rice crop in the year of his birth. A native of Amoy, some miles up the coast, Second Harvest rose to chief oarsman of a war junk in the mandarin’s personal fleet before being accused of sucking eggs pilfered from the captain’s coop. He was sentenced to beheading, escaped, and eventually married a relative of the Abernathy’s cook.

Jamie rocked back on his heels, his eyes narrowed and his ears half tuned to the buzz of activity behind him. During his years at sea he’d learned to trust his instincts where men were concerned. Some, he wouldn’t turn his back on in the narrow confines below decks. Others, like this one, he felt a decided affinity for.

His mind made up, he informed Second Harvest that he was hired. His first piece of business was to make some order of the flotilla of junks and sampans bobbing at the schooner’s waist, all fighting to off-load their supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables and water.

“Ai yah! Can do easy, cap-i-tan!”

Jamie kept a close eye on the pilot as he gestured and shouted the small fleet into submission. At his command, a number of Chinese leapt agilely aboard. They joined the
Phoenix’s
crew in a human chain that fed basket after basket of stores into the hold. Satisfied
that Second Harvest had the replenishment effort well in hand, Jamie turned his attention to the ship’s armaments.

Slowly, inexorably, evening fell and the tide began to turn. The huge ships in the bay began to swing in a half circle at the end of their anchor chains. Towering East Indiamen, each a thousand tons or more, moved ponderously, their lines creaking and their distinctive black-and-white checkered sides swaying. The smaller ships dipped gracefully on the swells. Sampans and double-tiered junks floated lightly.

Lights flickered amidships, and the night came alive. Oars splashed. Laughter carried across the water. An occasional shout rang out. A drunken English Jack called out a price to one of the girls on the Flower Boats, as the decorated junks that served as floating brothels were called.

Jamie ignored the familiar sounds. Leaning both palms on the
Phoenix’s
rail, he studied the pinpoints of light that identified the British warship patrolling the mouth of the bay. Once, he’d served on a sister ship to that very frigate. He’d strutted her decks with the pride and arrogance that came with wearing Naval colors, and sweated alongside his cannoneers during pitched battles at sea. Now, he used his intimate knowledge of her capabilities and maneuverability to his own purpose.

His first mate’s rich Irish brogue came out of the darkness beside him. “It’ll be a foine trick, slippin’ past that one in the dark.”

“We’ve done it before,” Jamie replied, his intent gaze on the distant lights.

“Aye, that we have.” Burke looked to the shore to
gauge how much the ships had turned with the tide. “If we’re a’goin’, we’ll have to go soon.”

“Are Hardesty and the others aboard?”

The fiery-haired Burke gave a snort of disgust. “In a manner o’ speakin’. They’re hangin’ over the bow rail, pukin’ up their guts.”

Jamie shook his head in sympathy, knowing from personal experience that it would take some time for his crew to recover from the potent concoction of alcohol, tobacco juice, sugar and arsenic served in the drink shops.

“We pulled them out of a brothel on Donkey Lane,” Burke added wryly. “The bluidy sods screeched at the top o’ their lungs because we interrupted them just as the girls were going to demonstrate Reversed Ducks Flying.”

Jamie sent his mate a quick, slashing grin. “They’ll not soon forgive us for that piece of bad timing!”

“That they won’t.” Burke shook his head. “Reversed Ducks Flying! That damned book will be the death of us all.”

Jamie’s grin widened at the reference to the crew’s most precious treasure. During a run up the coast some years ago, they’d rescued a Jesuit priest about to be beheaded by the irate mandarin he’d somehow offended. In his gratitude and relief, the priest had let slip that he’d translated into Latin one of the ancient manuals that instructed on ways to increase the pleasures of the bed.

The crew of the
Phoenix
could become as piratical as anyone on the seas when the occasion demanded. They’d wheedled, cajoled, then forced cup after cup of rum down the priest’s throat. Eventually, the drunken cleric had penned a copy of the translation
for the delighted men. Jamie suspected that, out of fear for his life, the Jesuit had employed his imagination when his memory failed, since a good number of the thirty-two positions he described were physically impossible to emulate. Nevertheless, the crew had adopted the handwritten translation of
Ars Amatoria of Master Tung-Hsuan
as their personal manifesto. To a man, their goal was to accomplish every one of the positions described in the now yellowed and much handled booklet.

Reversed Ducks Flying had yet to be achieved by anyone aboard the
Phoenix.

Jamie could understand his men’s ire at being interrupted in the attempt. Still grinning, he sent Burke to disperse the sampans clustered about the schooner like minnows about a pike. A shout to the crew alerted them to be ready to raise the sails.

The need to be off pulled at him. Like an impatient mistress, the dark sea beckoned. He took a last look over his shoulder at the lights of Macao. He wouldn’t see them again for weeks, perhaps months. As if drawn by a beacon, his gaze went to upper reaches of the city. Flickering torches illuminated the outline of the old Portuguese fort on the crest. Below the fort, Jamie knew, perched the Presbyterian Mission House.

Unbidden, the image of a prim, disapproving Sarah Abernathy flashed into his mind. Almost immediately, that gave way to a vision of the woman who’d faced him at the House of the Dancing Blossoms, her sherrycolored eyes alight with laughter. Who would have imagined a missionary’s daughter would have the pluck to enter such an establishment? She was, Jamie concluded once more, a most unusual missionary’s daughter.

He discovered just how unusual the very next morning, when the daily monsoons blew up their usual storm and a fierce gust tipped the
Phoenix
bow down into a deep trough. Masts groaned. Sails whipped. Waves creamed the decks, and a white-faced, wide-eyed Sarah Abernathy tumbled out of the rope locker.

F
rom the moment Sarah had climbed aboard the
Phoenix
with the streams of Chinese bringing supplies, she’d debated over the right time to leave the tiny, airless rope locker where she’d hidden herself and make her presence known to the captain.

She certainly didn’t wish to do so until after Macao had fallen well astern. She’d wanted to wait until they were too far out for Straithe to turn about…or toss her over the side to swim back to shore, which possibility she considered far more likely.

And she had more sense than to cause a disturbance during the nerve-racking run past the warships patrolling the entrance to the bay. Even from her uncomfortable perch atop a coil of prickly hemp inside the dark closet, Sarah had sensed the tension that gripped the entire ship as the captain ordered all lights doused and absolute quiet above decks.

For what seemed like hours, she’d huddled on the rope, her every nerve tingling, with only the sounds of the timbers creaking and the sheets rattling to disturb the silence of the night outside. Sarah knew that the heavily gunned frigates had orders to blow out of
the water any smugglers caught trying to slip up the coast. Only by such draconian measures could England hope to maintain the East India Company’s tight grip on the China trade and, coincidentally, enforce the Emperor’s edict that all barbarians conduct business only at Canton.

When at last the
Phoenix
had gained the wide, seaswept straits and the captain ordered the sails rigged to run with the stiff southwest winds, she was so limp with relief that she couldn’t quite summon the courage to emerge from her hiding place. Instead, she scrunched her legs under her and folded into a pillow the loose, padded jacket she’d worn over her blue cotton trousers and robe. Lulled by the slap of the waves against the hull and the steady rise and fall of the schooner, she soon fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the early dawn, the ship pitched violently and dumped Sarah out of her prickly nest. She banged her head against the locker’s wall and came awake to the realization that the monsoon winds had caught the
Phoenix
firmly in their grip. She was struggling to right herself in the tiny space when the ship dipped again. This time, it seemed to stand almost on its head.

Looped lengths of rope dropped from their pegs and pounded Sarah’s head and shoulders. The timber walls around her groaned. Without warning, the latch securing the locker entrance popped. The door banged open, and Sarah tumbled out.

Instantly, warm, driving rain pelted her body. Waves foamed the deck, which tilted at a sharp angle under her. Floundering helplessly, she slid across the slick boards and came up hard against a raised hatch. Grabbing the coaming to anchor herself, she scrabbled
onto her knees and flung her head back to clear her wet hair from her face.

The first thing that caught her eye was the seaman hanging onto the halyards a few feet away, his mouth slack with astonishment as he gaped at her. The second was the towering wall of green that rose above the rail behind him. Sarah opened her mouth to shriek a warning. The cry never left her lips.

A hard band clamped around her waist, cutting off her breath. She was yanked upward and carried like a sack of beans away from the illusive safety of the hatch cover. A heartbeat before the onrushing wall crashed down on the
Phoenix,
her rescuer pulled open a door and tossed Sarah down a shallow flight of stairs. She landed on a hip and an elbow in a narrow companionway.

The figure behind her braced a huge shoulder against the door to hold it against the smashing force of the water. When the surge subsided, he swiped dripping dark-red hair from his eyes and shouted an order over his shoulder.

“Stay below! The captain will be seein’ to you when the winds break!”

With that, he plunged back outside. The door banged shut behind him. For a few blessed seconds, the ship leveled. A momentary calm descended. Then the
Phoenix
dropped into another trough and the wild ride began again.

Sarah knew the daily monsoons that came with late summer usually blew through within an hour or less, but this time it seemed as though the ship plunged and rolled forever. After a while, she gathered enough strength to slowly, carefully, push herself to her feet.

With an arm braced against either wall, she made
her way down the narrow passageway. She passed two minute sea cabins on her left. The mates’ quarters, she assumed. On her right was the open space that served as the dining saloon, where the captain and his officers would take their meals. The door at the far end of the passageway opened into the master’s cabin.

Thankfully, Sarah stumbled inside and flopped into one of the chairs bolted to the floor on either side of a similarly anchored round table. It was some moments before she’d collected herself enough to take stock of her surroundings.

Not much larger than the room she shared with Abigail at the Mission House, the cabin contained only the table and chairs, a bunk built to the captain’s rather large proportions, and a massive sea chest secured to ring bolts in the floor. A railed shelf running the width of the room at eye level held an assortment of books, decanters, instruments, and smaller chests, all secured against the pitching sea by straps.

Despite its unpretentious size and few furnishings, the cabin still conveyed a sense of richness and warmth. Perhaps it was the way the brass fittings gleamed in the gray light that seeped through the high, narrow transom window. Or the dark sheen of the Spanish mahogany paneling and trim. Or the exquisite gold embroidery decorating the green silk covering the bunk.

Richness and warmth…but not opulence.

How strange, Sarah mused. Straithe risked his life with every run he made up the coast He also gained enormous profits, if the rumors whispered about him were to be believed. Yet his private quarters displayed little evidence of a man addicted to wealth. No doubt he squandered his ill-gotten gains on drink, games of
chance, and the denizens of such establishments as the House of the Dancing Blossoms, Sarah decided with a sniff.

One sniff led to another, and then to a sneeze. Shivering in her clammy clothes, she wrapped her arms around her chest. She was wet to the bone and most uncomfortable. The change of clothing and few personal necessities she’d smuggled aboard with her lay under a pile of rope in the locker…she hoped! She desperately wanted to shed the thin, wet cotton, but didn’t wish to open the captain’s sea chest to search out dry clothing. Secreting herself aboard his ship was one thing. Pawing among his personal possessions was quite another.

The
Phoenix
plunged on, its timbers creaking and groaning like a discordant chorus. As the minutes passed, Sarah’s eyes returned to the green silk coverlet again and again. Finally, she pushed herself out of the chair and crossed to the bunk. Bracing against its side, she quickly peeled off her robe and trousers. She hesitated a moment longer, then unwrapped the length of unbleached cotton she’d bound around her upper chest to disguise the
generous
bosom Straithe had referred to in such an ungentlemanly way.

The wet breast band dropped to the floor with a plop, and Sarah gave a sigh of sheer relief. Clad only in her clammy linen drawers and camisole, she swirled the silk coverlet around her shoulders. It settled over her body with a warmth welcome even in the muggy dampness. Feeling much restored, she returned to her chair to await the captain.

As suddenly as it had come, the monsoon blew through some moments later. The
Phoenix
ceased its violent bucking. The sea calmed. In contrast, Sarah’s
heart started thumping painfully. By the time she heard the door to the companionway open and Straithe’s deep voice bellowing to someone to hold her hard to the wind, she could hardly breathe. She clutched the embroidered silk and braced herself for a storm of a different sort.

Sure enough, Straithe entered his cabin with the force of a typhoon. The door crashed back against the bulkhead. The captain stood on the threshold, his wet clothing plastered to his body and his blue eyes so dangerous that Sarah scrambled to her feet.

Under his soaked linen shirt, she could see every tight, corded muscle clearly delineated. He looked as wild and untamed as the sea he’d just battled. In that moment, Sarah understood why the Chinese sometimes referred to the elemental masculine force as a white tiger.

And the female as a green dragon, she reminded herself.

“I knew it,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “The moment Burke told me that an Englishwoman dressed in Chinese clothing had stowed away aboard the
Phoenix,
I knew it could only be you.”

Since the scathing remark didn’t seem to call for a response, Sarah made none.

“Are you mad?” he demanded, advancing slowly into the cabin.

No coward, Sarah nevertheless took a step back, then another, until the table behind her blocked any further retreat.

“Not mad,” she returned with somewhat less confidence than she would have liked. “Only determined.”

“To do what?” His anger leapt across the few feet
separating them. “To prove yourself as addlepated as your father? To destroy your reputation completely?”

The idea that the notorious Lord Straithe might harbor any concern for her reputation struck Sarah as so novel that she didn’t answer immediately.

Straithe put his own interpretation on her silence. His face hardening, he let his gaze drop insultingly from her face to her shoulders. Only then did Sarah realize that the silk coverlet had slipped down her arms. Her wet camisole clung to her upper body every bit as revealingly as Straithe’s shirt hugged his. Heat surging into her face, she hitched the coverlet up.

The captain took another step closer. His lip curled in what Sarah could only describe as a sneer. “I must offer my apologies, Miss Abernathy. Had I realized you were so determined to put yourself in my bed, I wouldn’t have allowed you to depart the House of the Dancing Blossoms as readily as I did.”

His nearness unnerved Sarah. She’d forgotten how overpowering the man was at close quarters. It took every measure of her courage to infuse her voice with the same no-nonsense tone she’d use if one of her brothers was up to some prank.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I don’t wish to put myself in your bed. I want only to find my father.”

“I told you I’d make every effort to find your father.”

Her chin lifted. “I didn’t trust you to keep to your promise.”

Jamie stared at her, the force of his anger colliding with the tattered remnants of his pride. He’d been accused of many wrongs in his day, most of which he readily admitted to. But for all his free-spirited ways,
he lived by the code that had been bred into him as surely as his black hair and stubborn nature.

He’d never killed a man except in battle or a fair exchange of fire. He’d never bedded a woman who didn’t want it. He’d never run opium or slaves, as the East Indiamen did. And never, ever, had any man…or woman, for that matter…accused him of not holding to his word, once given.

That this bedraggled missionary’s daughter would do so stoked his simmering anger at her recklessness into fury. His jaw working, he took another step closer.

“You might come to rue your lack of trust, Miss Abernathy. You chose to stow away on a ship crewed by outcasts and misfits. Until I can put you on another ship heading back to Macao, you will stay in this cabin. If you so much as show your nose outside the door, I’ll treat you as I would any man jack aboard who disobeyed my orders.”

“But—”

He grasped her chin in a cruel grip and tipped her face to his. “This is one promise you can believe. If you disobey me, I swear I’ll strip you naked, tie you to a rail, and lay a strap across your shoulders.”

The blood drained from her cheeks. “You…you would not!”

“Aye, Miss Abernathy, I would. With great pleasure.”

Jamie slammed the cabin door behind him, as furious as he’d let himself become in many a month. Damn the woman! Had she no sense? No thought for her own safety?

She didn’t trust him, yet she put herself at his
mercy! She’d be well served if he showed her how truly a master ruled his ship and all aboard. He could toss her onto the bunk at his whim, tear aside the strips of transparent linen covering her lush curves, and take far more than the lips he’d already sampled. The fact that Jamie wanted very much to do just that only fueled his ire.

He emerged onto a poop deck that glistened with the aftermath of the rain. As he’d expected, the crew had gathered, all agog to know about the female who’d stowed away. Taking a wide-legged stance, Jamie eyed the motley assembly. He’d handpicked every man jack of them, and would trust them with his life. He knew better than to trust them with a woman, however. If she placed any value on her virtue, Sarah Abernathy had damned well better heed his orders and keep herself from their sight.

To a man, they voiced loud and prolonged disappointment when Jamie informed them curtly that the female below decks was
not
an enterprising boat girl, eager to sell herself to the captain and the crew.

“Who is she, then?” a wizened, one-eyed veteran of the wars with France demanded.

Jamie hesitated. There was a chance, he thought savagely, a slim chance, that Sarah Abernathy could save her reputation if she returned to Macao before word of this idiocy got around. Not sure why he gave a groat for the blasted female’s reputation, Jamie was formulating a careful reply when the one-eyed veteran came up with an explanation of his own.

Hooking his thumbs in his waistband, he grinned. “Never say you convinced the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with you! The yeller-haired one, who come up you as brazen as any waterfront bawd, when you
was atryin’ to cut a deal for that twelve-pounder the Dutchies shipped in.”

“No, Hardesty,” Jamie drawled, “I did not convince the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with me.”

The seaman’s grin widened at the sardonic response. “Oh, aye! And I suppose you didn’t diddle the admiral’s wife, either.”