Caution to the Wind (17 page)

Now, they greeted her whenever she saw them, asking how she fared and wishing her continued health. They were such polite men. How could anyone ever confuse a privateer with a mere pirate?

Of course, they would be curious about her book and tempted to stop what they were doing to ask her about it. It would be just her luck to draw the captain’s attention by attracting a crowd of idle sailors. In all likelihood, he would accuse her of breaking down order on his ship and order the captain’s skiff to row her to Baltimore.

Straining her eyes to read in the dim light, she heard the doctor’s voice drift through his open doorway.

“Next time we take a prize, see if you can get me more gauze before you sail her off.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she heard Buck reply.

Amanda drew back just outside the doctor’s open door to listen. She felt bad about eavesdropping, but this time she was the topic of discussion even if Buck and the doctor didn’t know it.

“I know I asked for more to be brought on board before we sailed, but we must have used it faster than I anticipated.” The doctor paused and Amanda could imagine him polishing his glasses as he usually did when deep in thought. “That would be odd though, since our casualties have been light this voyage.”

Heat rose to Amanda’s cheeks. She had neglected to consider one element of her transformation to an adolescent boy. Still, even if she had thought about it, she could have done little. She may look like a boy on the outside, but her body still worked like a woman’s no matter how much she wished it wouldn’t.

At any rate, packing more than a month or two of her own paddings in her small sack would have been impossible. If someone had chanced to open her sack, her monthly supplies would have been hard to explain away.

Buck turned to leave and Amanda ducked further into the shadows. She held her breath and hoped he wouldn’t notice her skulking in the corridor. When he headed in the opposite direction, she let herself breathe again.

“Oh,” the doctor said with a start when he discovered Amanda standing just outside his door. “Were you looking for me?”

“I was searching for a quiet place to read,” Amanda said, glad to have a ready excuse for lurking in the dark corridor.

“What do you have there?” The doctor held out his hand for the pamphlet. “Ahh,
Common Sense
,” he said, taking it from her and reading the worn cover in the lamplight that shone through the door of his quarters. “I remember this.”

“You’re familiar with it?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, yes.” His eyes sparkled behind the round wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He handed the pamphlet back to her. “Very familiar with it. In fact, I think the captain may have a copy.”

Amanda’s heart beat faster. Could Bull have borrowed the pamphlet from the captain? If he had, why hadn’t he said so? At the very least, she hoped he asked permission before loaning the captain’s belongings to her. Captain Stoakes already thought her a nuisance. She didn’t need him thinking her a thief.

“You could read in my quarters,” the doctor offered. “Fortune seems to be smiling on us, and we have no patients at the moment. I’m sure you won’t be bothered. Plus, I have business elsewhere that I must attend to.”

“That would be wonderful!” Amanda replied, delight at finding a place to read outweighing her concerns about the source of the pamphlet.

The doctor removed his glasses and started polishing. “Actually, I have been thinking, would you like to move your hammock to my quarters?”

“Your quarters?” Amanda asked.

She would have sworn he blushed, but she couldn’t tell for sure with the shadows playing against his face in the dark corridor.

“I can assure you all the privacy you need to uh…read and such,” the doctor added, his voice wavering.

Amanda considered for a moment. Oddly enough, privacy was the one benefit she had not thought of. She had spent the last several weeks in the company of men and had grown quite adept at finding privacy when needed. Still, changing the arrangement so she shared a room with only one would ease matters considerably.

Doctor Miller had always been so kind and courteous to her. She guessed him to be around sixty, and more than once, he mentioned his wife while they worked together. Sharing quarters with him didn’t seem scandalous in the least.

To have her own private quarters, or at least semi-private, seemed a luxury beyond comprehension. Maybe she could even find time to wash at a basin while the doctor was away. The thought of washing in something other than salt water, even standing at a basin, seemed heavenly.

“Thank you, Doctor!” Amanda said.

“That’s the spirit!” The doctor grasped her elbow and led her into his quarters. “Now let’s work together and see if we can’t make some more room in here. Here, grab the other end of this desk.”

Sometime later, he and Amanda managed to rearrange his personal quarters to provide enough room for Amanda’s hammock plus a small sea chest with a beautiful, intricately carved mermaid gracing the lid and tiny shells at the corners. When Doctor Miller asked about it, Amanda explained that Roger had given it to her as an apology for being so rude on her first day.

The doctor smiled.

A few of Doctor Miller’s experiments and supplies had to be moved into the hold, but when Amanda expressed regret at his having to accommodate her, he told her he had been meaning to do a better job of clearing out some of his older things anyway. In the end, she judged the arrangement cramped but cozy. Although less than a foot separated their hammocks, the doctor had hung a sheet between so she had at least the illusion of privacy.

Doctor Miller excused himself, saying he had some business to attend to, and Amanda flopped into her hammock with her copy of
Common Sense
. The solitude, the quiet, the
privacy
felt almost decadent compared to what she had been living. Her hammock swung in time to the gentle rocking of the ship, the hypnotic rhythm soothing her mind and body.

The pamphlet proved fascinating, but in the stillness of the small cabin, her thoughts wandered back to how Bull had come by it. She chuckled. Pestering him would be pointless. But obstinate though Bull may be, he would have never stolen something from his captain. Would he?

She sighed and flipped a dog-eared page.

Of course, Captain Stoakes wasn’t always the man he appeared to be either. She could see he cared about his men. Whenever a man lay in bed, recuperating from anything from injury in battle to a sore stomach, he always found time to speak with the doctor about his condition. It would be natural to be concerned about a sick crewmember, disease spread like fire through the close confines of a ship, but the captain’s questions showed genuine concern for the man’s comfort.

She snuggled into the flock-filled padding in her hammock, a gift from Cookie who had said he didn’t find it comfortable.

The captain had proven to be more than just the Sea Wolf his enemies knew him to be. With his amber eyes and fierce grin, the name was apt, but not always.

She flipped another page.

Then again, wolves had a softer side too. Her father had told her stories of how they traveled in packs with the alpha male and female mating for life and caring for their pups together. They were deadly predators and a danger to livestock, but, to her, their fierceness always seemed to carry a strain of nobility, a sense of honor and of duty.

It suddenly occurred to Amanda that the captain resembled a wolf in many ways. Did the alpha male take his obligation to the pack and his mate as seriously as the captain took his responsibility toward his crew? Did he have a mate?

She shifted in her hammock. That line of thinking would not help. Better to concentrate on her reading since the captain’s personal life was none of her business. True, he had kissed her twice, but that meant nothing. The first kiss in his cabin had been no more than a gentle touching of lips that left her dazed. His intention had undoubtedly been to throw her off guard so she wouldn’t react quickly enough to prevent her confinement in his quarters. He had succeeded.

But that second kiss... She ran her fingertips across her lips, remembering the way his kiss had robbed her of all sense of time and place, made her forget she stood in the doctor’s operating room, half a dozen pairs of eyes on her and the captain.

Amanda chuckled, remembering the varying looks of surprise and shock on the faces of the injured men conscious enough to bear witness. Undoubtedly, they were hoping he wouldn't kiss them in the same manner!

She settled herself further into the hammock. That kiss could be just as easily explained away. He had been overjoyed to see her alive. At least her death wouldn’t be on his hands. She gave the pamphlet a rueful smile.

“Argh!” Amanda groaned again, realizing she hadn’t registered a single word for several minutes. She flipped back a few pages searching for passages that looked familiar.

If she were to think of the captain at all, she needed to think of him as her commander, not as a man. Her top priority needed to be convincing him she did not pose a threat to his ship or his men. That way, she could continue on, living the life she loved, surrounded by men she had come to consider her family.

In the quiet stillness of the empty cabin with only the lapping of the waves and the creak of the hammocks to break the silence, Amanda could hear her inner voice as clearly as if the words had been spoke aloud.
Why do you so desperately want to stay?

Because I am a good sailor, she argued without saying a word.

Are you?

Amanda shifted in her hammock, trying to find a comfortable position. She should have known there would be no point in arguing. She was a horrible liar, even to herself. Although she adored life at sea, she wasn’t particularly well-suited to it.

The voice spoke again.
So why stay?

Neil needs me.

No he doesn’t, and you know it
.

Probably not, she agreed with some reluctance.

So why stay?
Her inner voice had become impatient, demanding.

“Because the men need me,” she whispered, knowing how demented she would sound if anyone should happen to hear her arguing with a phantom.

No they don’t. Some will die with or without you. Others will live on, sailing, fighting, living just as men of the sea have done for thousands of years.

Amanda closed the pamphlet she had no hope of reading while her own conscience demanded she confront her deepest desires with brutal honesty.

“Because I can’t bear the thought of never seeing him again.” She said in a fractured voice that sounded suspiciously close to a sob.

The admission had the impact of a physical blow. To leave the ship would be to leave behind the captain. She inhaled a ragged breath. Regardless of his lack of feelings for her, she didn’t think she could live without him.

So do something about it!

Chapter Thirteen

After nearly two weeks of idleness, the prize crew returned, Neil among them. Joy settled in Amanda’s bruised heart when she glimpsed his ardent face between the shoulders of shipmates jostling for position, eager to hear accounts of their adventures.

Neil seemed to have grown a couple of inches and broadened about the shoulders. Or maybe he just stood a little taller. Caught in the excitement and relief of seeing her brother again, she wedged her way in and reached to give him a hug.

“Remember yourself!” he said for her ears only, then pushed her away.

Relief at seeing him safe mingled with the pain of the rebuff made her eyes well with tears. “So, how did it go?” Amanda asked, the forced cheer of her voice pitching it above the clamor.

“It was magnificent!” Neil said, looking at the other men and largely ignoring his sister. “The court accepted the legitimacy of our claim and we sold the merchant ship at auction. That took some time though.”

“What did you do with yourself while you waited?” Roger asked.

Neil’s gaze skittered toward Amanda then back to his mates. For the briefest of moments, he reminded her of the little brother he had once been.

“We spent most of our time at the tavern,” Neil said.

“Enjoying the entertainments and such,” Simon nudged him with his elbow so hard that Neil nearly toppled.

Neil righted himself, but a blush covered his cheeks. The color took Amanda by surprise. For all the trouble her brother had gotten himself into over the years, she couldn’t ever remember him blushing.

“Did you consort with any locals?” one man asked, his leering grin leaving no room for interpretation.

The implication of their questions dawned on Amanda, and she glared at the sailor.

She could protect her brother on the ship to some extent, but if his mates insisted on introducing him to
whoring
…she could barely say the word even to herself, well then, there wasn’t much she could do about it.

She would speak to the captain. He might think she coddled her brother too much, but this was different. If ever Neil needed a steady male influence, this situation surely called for it.

Then again, perhaps Captain Stoakes approved of this sort of behavior. He allowed no women on his ship, yet they could be at sea for weeks or even months at a time. He might encourage the occasional romp with a tavern wench. For all she knew, he engaged in all sorts of sordid activities while on shore.

She gritted her teeth. The captain could use his shore leave however he pleased, but he really should keep more careful watch over his younger charges. He had to know Neil wasn’t the fifteen he claimed to be. To expose a boy to such depravity was unforgivable!

The men were now talking in some sort of code of which Amanda could make little sense. She guessed many of the phrases referred to lying with a woman given the leering grins on their faces and the way they were elbowing each other and slapping each other on the back. Maybe she had given their honor too much credit. Men were men after all, and the captain was one of them!