Caution to the Wind (23 page)

Amanda wondered if he had actually said those words, or if Cookie had made his little piece of gossip a tad juicier by dressing it up. Surely, the captain didn’t think Miss Bowersley would go that far, did he? Would a mere girl have that kind of power?

The galley cleared, she mumbled an excuse to Cookie, saying she needed to go on deck to speak with her brother. She struck up a half-hearted conversation with Neil by the main mast, but her gaze kept straying to the captain and his guests. She barely noticed when her brother drifted away to join Nate at the ship’s bow.

The transport boat had been lowered and the makeshift hoist readied, but Miss Bowersley still didn’t seem inclined to let go of her tight grip on the captain’s arm. Amanda waited to see how Captain Stoakes, his restrained politeness back in place, would extricate his arm without causing undue offense to her or embarrassment for himself.

“Oh, Captain, I do have a request that I hope you’ll grant,” Miss Bowersley said, removing her hand from his bicep and placing it on his chest in an intimate gesture that made Amanda squirm. “I wondered if I might be allowed to remain on this ship tonight.”

“On this ship?” The outer corner of one of his dark eyebrows twitched.

Amanda cringed at the breathy tone in Miss Bowersley’s voice, and she imagined the vulnerability in her blue eyes had helped her win many favors in the past. Wrinkling her nose, Amanda waited to see if the captain also had a weakness for helpless women with luminous blue eyes.

The captain of the merchantman cleared his throat and shrugged. “She would like to be able to tell her future friends in North Carolina she spent the night on a pirate ship.” His tone held a note of apology.

Captain Stoakes didn’t comment on the insult of being called a pirate for the second time that evening, but Amanda felt the air around her thicken the way it did when a storm approached.

“Besides,” Miss Bowersley chirped, “you agreed to transport me to my uncle’s plantation in North Carolina. I will have to be with you for several days at least. Why not begin our journey tonight?”

Amanda didn’t care for the way she leaned in when asking the question.

“My prize crew will take your ship and all its passengers to North Carolina.” Captain Stoakes stepped away from Miss Bowersley so she had no choice but to remove her hand or appear to be clinging to him like a monkey in a tree. “That way, you will not have to transport your belongings to the
Amanda,
and you will not be forced to spend several days on such a small ship in cramped quarters.”

“Oh, but I don’t—” Miss Bowersley started to protest, but before she could finish, the captain of the merchant ship interrupted her.

“Won’t that delay the auctioning of your prize, sir? North Carolina is hardly on the way to Boston.”

The man’s shoulders were slumped and his voice a near whine. Amanda feigned a cough so she could cover her smile with the back of her hand. She had never seen a captain so eager to give over his ship and his cargo.

“The loss of time is inconsequential,” replied Captain Stoakes. “If the winds and seas are favorable, my crew can continue on to the court at Martinique.”

Miss Bowersley’s eyes widened, even though her tight smile remained. She looked desperate to stay aboard the
Amanda
, and behind those clear blue eyes, Amanda could almost see the woman searching for a way to force the captain to allow it.

“Besides, I regret I have no chaperone for you, Miss Bowersley.”

Amanda stifled a groan, disappointed that a man like Captain Stoakes, who could out sail any vessel on the ocean, could not outmaneuver one young woman.

A slow cat-like smile replaced the look of desperation on Miss Bowersley’s delicate features.

“Oh, I do not believe I need one. I am sure your men are all honorable unless...” she drew out the words as though considering them carefully. “Did you think I might be in danger from anyone in particular, Captain?”

Amanda scrunched her face, feeling pain on the captain’s behalf. Miss Bowersley was a formidable foe. She had let loose her own volley by impugning the captain’s honor. The broadside was made doubly powerful by the implied insult to the captain
and
his crew.

Even if Captain Stoakes didn’t understand women like Miss Violet Bowersley, she certainly understood men like him. Amanda sensed he would yield even before it happened.

“Buck, see to it that Miss Bowersley has a cabin to herself, and post guards outside her door,” he said with a slight sigh of exasperation.

“Yes, sir.” Buck turned on his heel.

“Guards?” Miss Bowersley inquired with a tilt of her delicately pointed little chin.

“I trust my men. All of them. However, I should think you would be more comfortable knowing you are protected should
anyone
,” he paused to make his meaning clear, “be less than the man I think he is.”

The spark went out of Violet Bowersley, and Amanda was surprised to see her give up so easily. When not playing the flirt, Miss Bowersley looked far more plain and ordinary, but her ordinariness lasted no more than a moment before she cast him an artful glance from beneath veiled lashes.

“Well then, since you trust all of your men, would you permit Adam to attend me?”

“Me?” Amanda squeaked before she could stop herself.

“Yes.” She gave Amanda a slow appraisal from head to toe. “I won’t embarrass you by making you do the things a lady’s maid would do, but I would love the company. I’ve been sailing with nothing but old men for three months now.” She looked apologetically at the crew of the merchantman.

A couple of them rolled their eyes, and Miss Bowersley’s lip curled the tiniest amount before her smile returned.

“I know you are younger than me, but it would be like having a brother to talk to. I should so love the company,” she said in a voice that might have sounded petulant coming from a girl not quite so winsome.

Amanda thought she might choke when Miss Bowersley batted her eyelashes at her.

“You may go, Adam.” The captain gave Amanda a pleading look that had her stifling a laugh.

If she could save him from the designing clutches of this girl, she would gladly sacrifice herself for the evening. With that, Amanda found herself in Buck’s freshly made quarters. They had been given over to Miss Bowersley for the evening so she could tell her new friends in North Carolina she had “spent the night on a pirate ship.”

Amanda had been right about the ill effects of being around eligible men.
Violet
, she insisted Amanda call her by her first name, improved once they were alone. She supposed Violet considered “Adam” too young and not wealthy or powerful enough to be bothered with, so she felt comfortable allowing her true self to come through. When it did, she came across like a genuine seventeen-year-old, eager to get on with being an adult but often childlike in her view of the world.

Amanda caught the dress Violet flung over the top of the screen, while she changed into her nightgown. Shaking out the wrinkles and laying it over the back of a chair, she listened to Violet prattle on about the things a girl her age would normally talk to a friend about. She talked about the parties and social events she would miss being away from England, what life would be like at her new home in North Carolina and whether or not she would find a proper husband in the savage lands of America.

“I am already seventeen, I’ll have you know,” she said from behind the screen.

A silk stocking fluttered over the top like a butterfly.

“But, seventeen is still young,” Amanda captured the stocking before it could fall to the floor. She readied herself to receive the next one. “You have plenty of time.”

“Plenty of time? Plenty of time?” Violet sputtered and Amanda could imagine her ebony curls bouncing with indignation. “You are so lucky to be a boy.
You
have plenty of time. No man is worth marrying before he’s thirty, but no woman is worth marrying after nineteen. After that, she might as well give up. No man worth having will want her.”

Amanda frowned. What would Violet think if she knew the young boy she spoke to was really a woman the ripe old age of twenty-one? She caught her freckled reflection in the mirror above the basin and her frown deepened. Certainly, nothing about her life would prove Violet wrong. She would be twenty-two next month, unmarried and with no prospects in sight. Perhaps no man would ever want her.

“Why does a woman really need a man, anyway?” Amanda asked, feeling suddenly argumentative.

Violet poked her head around the side of the screen. “Are you serious?”

Amanda looked at her and nodded.

“Some husband you’ll make,” Violet replied, ducking back behind the screen. “All women need men to provide for them.”

“Provide for them?” Amanda asked.

“You know, take care of them. Put food on the table. Take care of the things woman aren’t capable of taking care of on their own.”

“Like what sort of things?” Amanda asked. Her farm hadn’t been doing that well, but she always managed to provide for herself and Neil.

“You know. Things!” Violet flailed her hand, a dark shadow batting the other side of the screen.

“Like hunt?” Amanda asked, trying to be helpful.

She didn’t mind farming. Even butchering a chicken wasn’t so bad, but she had never enjoyed hunting. Neil had taken her a few times, but it involved too much idle time, sitting and waiting for their prey to cross their path, or traipsing across cold, damp fields trying to flush out a flock of birds. Either way, her toes always ended up frozen. She preferred to let Neil do the job while she prepared the results of his effort. It seemed a fair trade-off.

“Hunting? I won’t allow my husband to hunt,” Violet said.

“Do they not hunt in England?” Amanda asked, amazed Violet thought she could take an American husband and deny him the pleasure.

“Of course they hunt in England,” Violet said, “but my husband won’t.”

The girl sounded so certain there seemed little point in arguing.

Besides, she imagined Violet’s future husband would probably spend a great deal of time hunting. She couldn’t imagine any man spending quiet days in front of a fire, discussing literature or politics with a wife like Violet Bowersley.

Violet emerged from behind the screen in the nightgown she had sent over from her ship. “If you ask me, men spend far too much time thinking about ways to kill things.”

There was nothing at all alluring about Violet’s white nightgown, but somehow the shapeless garment, with its ruffles set high about the neck and at the sleeves, made her petite form looked feminine and innocent. Her delicate ankles and bare feet peeked out from under the scalloped lace edging at the hem.

Amanda averted her eyes. She had played the boy for so long; instinctively she knew she had just found herself in a compromising position. Perhaps she should make an excuse and go. Then she reminded herself that Violet had no interest in her. She treated Amanda much the way a young, well-bred girl would treat her lady’s maid or perhaps even a little brother if she had no one else to confide in.

“Would you be a good boy and brush my hair for me?” Violet asked, sitting at the edge of the bed.

After a moment’s hesitation, Amanda took the brush from her hand. Violet turned her back and then wiggled into the hammock to make herself more comfortable. If there had been a man in the room, Amanda was sure he would have found the move provocative. But with only a “boy” in her presence, perhaps Violet had not intended it that way.

“How about for companionship?” Amanda removed a few hairpins holding the curls on the side of Violet’s face. “Don’t women need men for that?”

“Companionship?” Violet scrunched her face.

“Yes. Someone to talk to. Someone you enjoy being with.”

Violet twisted at the waist to give Amanda a skeptical look. “Have you ever met a man who could hold a conversation?”

“Well...” Amanda began, thinking about how much she loved listening to Captain Stoakes and about her dream of discussing literature with him one day. She felt certain she would find the captain fascinating if he could get over his aversion to her long enough to hold a decent conversation.

“Oh, never mind,” Violet said in an exasperated tone. “How could I expect you to understand when you are almost a man yourself?”

Amanda smiled. “Almost a man” indeed!

“But you seem to enjoy talking to me,” she said, brushing Violet’s long silky strands.

“Hmmm…” Violet murmured. Her shoulders relaxed beneath Amanda’s expert touch.

Amanda brushed, remembering the calm that always descended when her mother brushed her own long blonde hair. The warmth of long-forgotten memories came flooding back, and she mimicked her mother’s techniques, sweeping slowly with just a light pressure from the front of Violet’s scalp and all the way down to the ends of her long hair. She let one of Violet’s thick locks slide slowly through her hand, fervently wishing she’d be able to grown her own hair back one day. There was freedom in her short curls, but she missed putting her hair up for special occasions and the feeling of looking her best if not actually pretty.

Lost in her own thoughts, Amanda didn’t notice when Violet turned on the bed and rose to her knees. She only had one glimpse of Violet’s flushed face before her lips descended. At first, stunned surprise held her motionless, but when she came to her senses, she pushed Violet so hard she sent her sprawling to the floor.

The thud brought Buck in from the hall. “Everything all right in here?” he asked.

His voice held no clue to his thoughts, but Amanda cringed at what he must be thinking. She sat on the bed while Violet sprawled on the floor, the skirt of her frilly nightdress up to her knees and displaying her shapely white calves.

The seconds slowed and no one moved.

Without warning, Violet’s screech pierced the air, “He pushed me!”

Stunned, Amanda turned to look at her. She had no idea what to say. She had pushed Violet, but only to avoid the kiss. However, she didn’t imagine the vaunted privateer’s code looked favorably on pushing a guest, especially a woman, to the floor.