Quintspinner (21 page)

Edward had casually added that he found the ring she wore to be quite attractive and probably of significant worth in itself.

Good riddance to it,
the doctor thought. He was no more than fleetingly curious as to the real story of its acquisition, feeling only alarm at the thought of it and of the possibility of someone reporting it to have been stolen.
A gift from the Crone, indeed!

Dr. Willoughby had, however, shared the details of Edward’s request for Tess’s hand in marriage with his wife. Elizabeth had remained poorly since they had sailed away from the Port of London, not venturing far from her bed except to make use of the chamber pot. The news of Tess’s impending engagement, though, seemed to lift her spirits.

“Charles,” she had sighed softy with a hint of a smile tugging upwards on the corners of her mouth. “It is a great relief to me to know that Tess’s future has been decided–” A harsh bubbling cough interrupted the blossoming smile on her face, replacing it with a grimace as she held her linen handkerchief to her mouth in time to catch the froth of blood stained sputum. Her eyes were sunken and deeply rimmed with gray circles, and as she closed them her lashes lay softly on her cheeks. Cheeks that were pallid, but just now rosy colored from fever, belying her underlying poor health. Skin the color of the consumption, Dr. Willoughby noted with a twinge of alarm.

“It does gladden my heart ….” Her voice faded away and she laid her head back on the pillow, drained with the effort of her cough.

Not much else gladdens your heart,
Dr. Willoughby silently despaired. His medical knowledge and use of tonics had had no effect on her melancholy and it seemed to him that his wife was slipping away from him before his very eyes. He had even halved the dose of laudanum he was using in her tea–surely her nerves did not need any further calming at this point.

His daughter’s state of mind was another thing.

Perhaps a drop of two of the nerve tonic in her tea would be just the thing to calm Tess down and restore her attitude to something nearer civility. He anticipated getting resistance from her when she was to be informed of her engagement. He even thought he knew what her specific objections would be. Edward would be too old. She did not know him well enough. She would not feel ready to leave her family and start one of her own. She had had no say in the matter. Yes, the excuses would be plenty.

His daughter’s matrimony had been left too long. She’d become too headstrong already. A touch of the tonic would be just the thing.

Tess was standing near the railing of the quarterdeck when her father’s summons arrived.

Miss Willoughby?” a male voice softly inquired.

Tess turned towards the messenger, surprised that anyone would know her name. The tall, leanly muscled young man in worn breeches and a sleeveless white tunic stood a stride away from her. Tess’s eyes flickered over his face and body. Light blue eyes blazed out from beneath a thick shock of sun bleached hair, his bangs having escaped from the bandana that held the rest of his hair in place. His skin was tanned to a deep golden brown, and his muscled arms folded across his broad chest. Pink licks of scars laced his upper arms.

Newly healed,
Tess assessed,
and no older scars, so he’s recent to this life of a sailor.

“Miss?” A small grin appeared on his face. Tess blushed, suddenly aware of her bold gaze.

“Yes?”

“Excuse me, Miss, but Dr. Willoughby sent me to find you, with the message that you are to meet him in the officers’ galley right away.”

“He sent
you
?” Tess was confused.

As if they had a mind of their own, his eyes dipped momentarily, scanning over the curves of her dress’s bodice before wandering back up onto her face. “Yes, Miss. I was helping him in the apothecary and he sent me to tell you that you are to wait for him there.”

Helping my father?
Recognition dawned on her.
Of course! He’s the sailor who helped with the carpenter’s amputation. What did he say his name was? William?
Tess felt a twinge of possessiveness towards her position as her father’s aide.

William continued to smile at her and his nostrils flared ever so slightly. Tess stared back.
He’s… is it possible that he’s smelling me?
In a moment of pride, she hoped that her clothing had not taken on the stench of the ship’s stale air in the tiny cabin that she shared with Cassie. She and Cassie had, at Mrs. Hanley’s suggestion, rubbed the skin on their wrists and throats with either a dried stick of cinnamon or a tiny handful of crushed lavender each morning in a desperate attempt to counter the smell of wet mould and rotting fish that seemed to permeate everything aboard.

William studied her with those sky blue eyes, his lips stretching out in an approving smile. His bronzed skin glistened with a thin sheen of sweat in the morning’s sunlight. She felt at once timid yet at the same time complimented by the intensity of his gaze and she squared her shoulders back in an unconscious gesture.

William’s nostrils flickered again. Now she was sure of it. He
was
smelling her! Tess blushed and felt the heat of her blood coloring her cheeks. Men had looked at her before, even ogled her, but to be … smelled? Somehow that seemed so personal.
So intimate. So … attractive.

“Your father, Miss. In the galley?” William spoke again, reminding her of his assignment and bringing her out of her private thoughts.

Not wishing to be seen as bowing to the whims of her father, Tess lingered. She allowed herself one quick sweep of her eyes down his sculptured torso, her gaze sliding down the front of his breeches before dropping to the wrappings around his foot.

“How is your ankle now, Mr. Taylor?”

His face looked startled. “Uh, it’s on the mend, thank you.”

“I see you are without a limp now. Mostly.”

“Yes, Miss. Mostly.” Her attention brought forth a shy grin from him; he was uncomfortable to be the topic of their conversation. There was an awkward moment of silence and he shifted his weight momentarily onto his wrapped foot and then just as quickly back to the uninjured side. “Begging your pardon Miss Willoughby, but your father–”

Tess lifted her eyes back up to his tanned face. He shot her a cocky grin as though he was enjoying her visual assessment. She felt her own cheeks turn scarlet as though he had been able to read her thoughts.

“May I inquire as to what it was that you were assisting Dr. Willoughby with?” she asked with as much dignity as she could muster.

His smile shrank to a tight pursing of his lips. His gaze shifted to a point in space past her shoulder.

“Well?” she pressed.

William cleared his throat and returned his stare to her. “Medications, Miss Willoughby.”

“What medications?” Tess felt defensiveness rising.
That
had been
her
responsibility until now.

“Uh … giving some of the boys a ration of mercury, Miss.” His tight smile spread into a wide grin, anchored to each cheek by a small dimple. He glanced at his feet for a moment and then back up at her.

Tess blushed again. Mercury. Treatment for syphilis. So he had been helping her father while he checked the crew’s private parts, looking for the telltale chancres. And when he found any, they would have administered a dose of mercury to the unfortunate man using a urethral syringe. Back home, Tess had seen the syringe lying on a shelf. And now, having spent several days on a ship in close contact with an almost entirely male population, she had seen more than just occasional glimpses of the men’s private appendages as they blatantly lowered their trousers to relieve themselves along the pissdales and bowsprit. Only the females, she quickly came to realize, ever used a chamber pot.

Her father would have never have asked her to assist with the particular duty of treating genital diseases back in London, but she had heard moans and sometimes screams coming from behind the closed doors of her father’s treatment room as he administered the mercury via the patient’s penis with the wicked looking device. Not only would it have been absolutely unacceptable to Dr. Willoughby for a young female, especially his daughter, to participate in such a physical assessment and treatment procedure, but he would never have had so many patients to check at once. No wonder he had insisted upon this sailor’s help.

“I see,” Tess mumbled, embarrassed with the territory into which her questioning had suddenly taken them.

William cleared his throat. “I hope I haven’t offended–” he began.

“Not at all, Mr. Taylor,” Tess covered her discomfort with a forced smirk. “But now I suppose I must see what it is that my father desires of me.” She turned and walked away two steps before pivoting to look back at him.

“Thank you, Sir, for your delivery to me of my father’s message.” Her smile blossomed into a genuine grin. “I have enjoyed our conversation.”

“And I, too,” he replied, the husky tone of his voice emphasizing the truth of his statement.

Pondering what her father was summoning her for, Tess played nervously with her ring, setting the silver band to spinning again in its polished golden track. A sudden vision of the ring being handed over to a waiting pair of hands flooded her mind. Tess worked her jaw open and closed in an effort to clear the maddening itch she felt tickling deep within her ears. Neither the thought of her ring being given away nor the itch in her ears had lessened as she knocked on the door of the officers’ galley and entered the room. Finding herself alone she settled in one of the chairs to wait.

Moments later, she heard laughter. Polite business laughter. Her father’s voice was joined by another male voice that she recognized as being Mr. Graham’s. Fear gripped her chest at the thought of being in his presence and having him identify and accuse her as his assailant. Her breath came in quick shallow gasps and she felt her blood racing through her.

“Tess!” her father’s voice boomed out as they entered the room. “It seems that you have caught Mr. Graham’s eye.”

Oh my God!
Tess could hardly breathe.
He knows! He’s recognized me!
She felt dizzy and the room began to spin, her pulse pounding hard in her temples. She barely heard what her father had to say next as she concentrated on staying upright in the chair.

“–And I have agreed. We shall have a snifter of this, the Captain’s finest brandy, to seal the agreement.” Her father held up a glass decanter containing clear amber liquid.

Agreement? To what? Am I going to jail?
Both men were smiling. Even as much as she and her father had had recent disagreements, Tess did not think that the prospect of her being arrested would make her father look quite so happy. And Edward Graham was staring intensely at her, his mouth smiling politely, but his dark eyes hungry for her, roaming over her. His interest was unmistakable.
No jail, then what?

Dr. Willoughby poured the glasses of brandy, and turning around to face the two of them, handed one carefully to Tess and another to Edward Graham. He raised his own glass, a look of satisfaction spreading on his face.

“Let us all drink!” her father commanded. Tess held her breath and gulped the fiery liquid down in a single swallow. Her father looked on in surprised amusement, then looked at Edward and smiled again.

“To your engagement!” he toasted.