Desire In His Eyes (9 page)

Draped in sheets they sat in bed and shared a loaf of warm, crusty bread and fine cheese, paired with a bottle of wine that Harrison had gotten from a vineyard in France a few years ago.

“I feel so decadent,” Juliette whispered in a confidential tone.

“Because you’re naked with a man in bed?” he asked.

“No”—she shook her head—“because I’m eating in bed.”

He could not help but laugh at her before placing a kiss on her wine-sweetened lips.

“I’m very serious, Harrison,” she explained. “I’ve never spent such a lazy day.”

“I hardly think that last bit of exercise we engaged in could be described as lazy.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she giggled, a slight blush suffusing her cheeks.

“Forgive me,” he teased her. “I forgot you are used to toiling away the hours in a bookshop.”

“That’s true. I used to have to spend hours working in the shop day after day. But ever since Colette married Lucien, I am no longer required to tend the shop. Thank heaven!”

“I would have thought you would enjoy managing a store.”

Juliette took another sip of wine. “Well, I didn’t. To be honest with you, I detested it. Oh, Colette and Paulette, they loved working there. They lived for the bookshop and would have done anything to keep it, while I despised it.”

“Why is that?” he asked, breaking off a piece of bread.

She sighed heavily. “It was deadly dull. All those books! Ugh. I felt suffocated by the heaviness and weight of it all. I suppose I take after my mother. She hated the bookshop too, which did not help her marriage to my father.”

Harrison was aware that her father had passed away, but he had not met their mother while he was in London. “I seem to recall hearing that your mother is French.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “that’s why my sisters and I all have French names.”

“And you all look remarkably alike,” he offered. He remembered that distinctly from his visit to Devon House. In fact he had difficulty telling the extraordinarily beautiful Hamilton sisters apart at first, especially the two younger ones, but even from the little amount of time he actually spent in their company he had found all of them to be very intelligent and charming women.

Juliette gave him a lazy smile. “Yes, we’ve been told that we look alike.” She leaned back against the pillows, propped up by the massive headboard, and held out her glass to him.

Harrison refilled it.

“I like your accent,” she said to him.

“I don’t have an accent,” he retorted. “
You
have an accent.”

She giggled lightly. “Yes, but do you like my accent?”

“As a matter of fact I do.” He kissed the tip of her pert nose and then sipped his wine.

“Who is Melissa?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

More than a little surprised by her abrupt question, he asked, “How did you hear about Melissa?”

Without the slightest hesitation or sense of shame, she confessed, “When I was locked in your cabin and went through your things looking for the key, I found a photograph of her. She’s very beautiful.”

Yes, Melissa was beautiful. Delicately beautiful. Heart-breakingly so. “She’s my younger sister.”

“Oh…” Juliette breathed. “She’s your sister.”

If he were not mistaken, an expression of relief crossed Juliette’s face. Or at least it gave him great satisfaction to think that was what is was. He nodded and drank some wine. He did not discuss Melissa with anyone, except Annie, because Annie took care of her and needed no explanations from him.

“Where does she live?” Juliette asked. “Is she married?”

“She lives with me. And no, she is not married.” Unfortunately. He doubted Melissa would ever get married.

“I see.” Juliette murmured, but clearly she did not see.

“Melissa is not well. I have a nurse looking after her.”

Juliette thought for a moment before asking, “Didn’t you tell me you had two sisters? And a brother as well?”

“Yes.”

She would not let up. “Where are they?”

“My brother Stuart is aboard a ship on his way to China. He is employed by my company. My sister Isabella is married to a clothing manufacturer and lives in Boston.”

“How old were you when your parents died?”

He paused. His family was not a topic he discussed readily. “I was fifteen when my mother died.” The day his mother passed away filled him with regret. He was sailing off Cape May and had not been able to return in time to say good-bye to her.

“And your father?”

“I never knew my father.”

Juliette’s puzzled expression forced him to explain.

“You see, Juliette, my sisters, brother and I all had different fathers.”

Her voice rose an octave in surprise. “Your mother was married four times?”

He smiled ruefully at her naïveté. The familiar shame he felt about his childhood welled uneasily within his chest. “Unfortunately, my mother was never married. She was a prostitute.”

“Oh, Harrison.” She stared at him, her blue eyes wide in astonishment yet filled with compassion. “I don’t know what to say.”

Harrison looked away from her. “There is nothing to say. Unfortunately, it’s not an unusual or new story. My mother was an uneducated but pretty young woman struggling to survive under terrible circumstances and she did the best she could.” He shrugged lightly, surprised that he had divulged as much as he had to Juliette.

Yet for some reason, he felt compelled to continue, to explain. “Apparently she loved the man who was my father. He simply did not love her. She was the daughter of a small farmer near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and he was a farmhand who worked there one summer. When he learned she was going to have a baby, he disappeared. So at sixteen her father banished her from her home and she ended up traveling to New York with another gentleman, George Fleming, who eventually became Melissa’s father. My mother gave me his name when I was born. He was a salesman of sorts, of housewares. She stayed with him for some time, but they never married, because he already had a wife back in Philadelphia. They rented a small tenement apartment in New York City and that’s where I was born and spent the majority of my childhood.”

“Then what happened?”

“Eventually Melissa was born, and we were a happy enough family for a time. George taught me to read and write. He even tried to teach my mother to read but she was hopeless. He had odd spells of melancholy when he would not leave the house for long periods of time. My mother would cry and try to coax him out of his dark moods. Then suddenly, he would be fine and things would go back to normal. During one of his particularly dark moods when Melissa was six years old and I was eight, George Fleming shot himself in our kitchen. Melissa and I found him first, covered in blood and lifeless on the floor.”

Although her blue eyes widened, Juliette said nothing, but reached out and took his hand in hers. In spite of the look of horror on Juliette’s face, he continued. He could not seem to stop himself from telling her things he had never told anyone before.

“My mother had a very difficult time after that. Practically illiterate and possessing no skills, she did the only thing she could. She found another man to take up with. This one only lasted long enough to father my brother, Stuart. I barely even remember him. Then she met an Irish dockworker named Dan O’Malley, and he was a big bear of a man. He took a liking to me and showed me around the ships that he helped to load and unload. I adored him and would have followed him anywhere. He was very good to us and more importantly good to my mother. The only time I remember my mother really laughing was when Dan lived with us.”

Harrison paused and drank more wine. “But Dan ended up in jail, accused of stealing from one of the ships. I don’t know if he was truly guilty or not, but we never saw him again. After she lost Dan, I think that’s when my mother truly turned to prostitution. She never knew who Isabella’s father was. But she loved us and kept us safe for as long as she could. And when she died, as the oldest I took over the job of looking out for my younger brother and sisters. I never wanted the girls to have to go through what my mother did.”

“Oh, Harrison,” she murmured, full of anguish.

The compassion in her voice forced him to continue. “I wanted to have some semblance of a family. So I did what I had to do to protect them. I worked hard and I learned everything anybody taught me and I saved every penny I could. When my mother died we moved in with an older woman who lived in the same building. She was like a grandmother to us. Her name was Margaret. She watched over my sisters and Stuart and taught them to read and write, while I worked on the ship. Whenever I made any money I sent some of it to Margaret to help with my sisters and brother, and I saved the rest.”

“And you bought your first ship?”

“No.” He cast her a reluctant grin. “No, I won my first ship in a card game. I was nineteen.”

“That’s quite impressive.”

“Partly.” Harrison shrugged. “And partly very good luck that my opponent was extremely wealthy and too drunk to play well.”

Juliette stared at him, her expression one of awe and respect. He felt an odd tingling sensation in his chest at the thought of her admiring him.

“You are a very remarkable man.”

Surprised, he shook his head. “No. I just did what I had to do.”

Which he did, while making the decision that he never wanted to be without money. He wanted enough money so that he did not have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. Or that they would be evicted from their home and thrown out on the street because they couldn’t afford the rent and could live in a safe place. He wanted enough money so that his little sisters would never have to face the life their mother had in order to survive. He wanted to protect them.

He sold that first ship he had won in the card game, took the money, and invested it in a small shipping company, which did extremely well. Over the years, he kept buying and selling ships at a profit, always going with his gut instincts and always investing wisely, which it seemed he had a natural gift for. Harrison had sailed the world, founded his successful shipping enterprise H.G. Fleming & Company, as well as other businesses, and owned a number of homes. But most importantly he had managed to keep his siblings safe, because he was an extremely wealthy man.

“Harrison?”

He pulled himself from thoughts that he had not dwelled on in many years and looked to Juliette. She lay back on the pillows, looking quite relaxed and stunningly sexy. Naked with a sheet loosely draped around her breasts, her shapely legs lay exposed on the bed. Her silky dark hair was tousled seductively about her face. She had not the faintest idea how desirable she appeared.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Do you know that you’ve led an extraordinary life?”

He winked. “I’m not finished living yet.” Harrison took their glasses and plates and placed them on the bedside table.

Juliette’s expression remained serious, almost contrite. “I feel ridiculous for complaining about working in a bookshop.”

He gathered her into his arms and sank back into the pillows with her, enjoying the feel of her next to him. Placing a kiss on her soft lips, he beamed at her. “You are the most amazing woman I have ever met. You don’t need to feel ridiculous about anything.”

“Don’t I though?” she asked.

“Not at this moment.”

He then gave her a kiss that definitely did not make her feel ridiculous.

“Just so you don’t end up killing yourself by doing something foolish, I will show you how to get around on the
Sea Minx
,” Harrison declared with determination.

After the day they spent in bed together, Harrison put Juliette to work in a different way, learning about the workings of a clipper ship. No longer confined to his cabin, Harrison now allowed Juliette full rein of his ship.

The better she knew Harrison, the more she admired him and the more she found that she could not resist him. Since that first night in his bed, their relationship sped into vastly uncharted waters. Now that she was finally let in on a widely kept secret of the great mystery between men and women, Juliette felt a glowing sense of triumph in her glorious discovery. There was so much more involved than she would have guessed!

Harrison’s kisses filled her with passion and evoked sensations within her that she had never imagined. She slept with him each night, lying in his arms, watching him sleep, listening to the sound of his breathing. Having Harrison’s muscular, naked body next to hers gave her a sense of contentment. For the first time in her life, she did not think of the future or the past. She simply lived in the moment. Every delicious and thrilling moment.

Being on the
Sea Minx
gave her the freedom to do things that she never would have done at home in London. It was as if she and Harrison were suspended in a special cocoon, separated from reality. Nothing and no one else seemed to matter but the two of them.

Sometimes Juliette and Harrison dined alone in his cabin, where they talked and made love for hours. Sometimes they joined the crew in the main galley. Harrison had introduced her to every man on board, from the cook to his first mate, Charlie. Although Juliette assumed they knew what was going on between her and Harrison, the men were incredibly respectful to her and never let on. They regarded her as the captain’s lady and she couldn’t refute that claim.

She spent nights in Harrison’s arms and days at his side, learning about the things he loved.

Harrison showed Juliette every part of the ship, from the cargo hold, which was stowed tight with barrels and crates to the officers’ mess and the galley. He explained to Juliette in detail how the many sails captured the wind to increase the ship’s speed. He defined nautical terms, described how the rigging was laid and how the sails were lowered and raised. He taught her how to read the compass which was housed in the binnacle box, how to use a sextant to find their latitude, how to use a chronometer for determining their longitude and how to chart a course on a map. He even admitted that he was amazed by her aptitude. He showed her how to make entries in the logbook about the weather and had her ring the bell to signal the change of the watch. He let her climb the rigging again, but only once, when the sea was extremely calm. When he discovered that she had never learned to swim, he demanded that she wear the cork lifejacket, in case she fell overboard.

At first the crew treated her as a special and most welcome guest, and then as they got to know her better, they considered her as one of the boys. They called her “Miss Juliette” and assisted with her nautical education, insisting she learn the ropes of a clipper ship. They enlightened her on everything from the correct usage of the basic terms of stern, bow, fore and aft to teaching her how to tie strong knots in the ropes to the names of the many sails on the masts. Juliette could easily tell the difference between the tiny skysails, the royals, the topgallants, and the wide topsails and mainsails, but did not think she would ever be able to distinguish which rigging lines were main-topmast backstays and main-topsail buntlines. However, she now knew that eight bells meant noon and could tell which bells signaled when a watch began and ended.

Robbie Deane, delighted with her progress and apparent elevated status on the ship, took over her sailing lessons when Harrison needed to devote his attention to the actual sailing of the
Sea Minx
.

“It’s good to see you and the captain getting along so well,” Robbie said shyly to her.

Slightly uncomfortable with his veiled reference to her intimate relationship with Harrison, Juliette merely said, “Thank you.”

“The captain ain’t never had a woman on the ship before.”

“You look up to Captain Fleming, don’t you, Robbie?”

“Of course I do! We all do. He’s a good captain. The best. You always know where you stand with him and he’s fair. And there’s not one of us on this ship that he hasn’t helped out in some way or another.”

“How does he help?” she asked curiously.

“Oh, he pays us well, first off. And he has helped with our families and problems like that,” Robbie explained, as he slowly coiled up some rope. “Last year the captain gave money to my mother for a house, when my father died and left her with nothing.

“He just helps that way. Quiet-like and without a fuss,” Robbie continued easily. “You won’t find a crew more loyal to their captain than us.”

Juliette could not argue that point. Even she had picked up on the fact that Harrison’s crew admired and respected him.

“That’s why it was so unusual to see him angry with you. He hardly ever gets angry.”

“Yes, he was quite angry with me for climbing the mast that first day,” Juliette admitted, recalling how he had dragged her to his cabin.

“That was something!” Robbie laughed. “Afterwards I told the captain straight off that I thought you were a natural born sailor,” Robbie stated with a bit of awe in his voice. “You took to those rigging lines like I’ve never seen anybody do. Me and the other fellows couldn’t get over it.”

Juliette too had wondered at her easy adaptation to life at sea. “It is funny, isn’t it, considering I have never been on a ship before in my life?”

“My point exactly,” Robbie agreed. “And that you are a lady to boot!”

Yes, she was a lady. But she was also a woman. That was something that Harrison never let her forget once she was in his arms. And she did not mind it one bit.

Nor did she mind the company of the other sailors.

The men sang bawdy songs, including one about a sailor named Barnacle Bill, which they promised they toned down just for her, but she laughed with them just the same. One night they held an impromptu concert and took turns dancing with her. Dancing with Harrison had been the highlight of the night for her, for he surprised her by lifting her off her feet and spinning her around until they both collapsed with laughter.

The crew let her join in on some of their card games as well. The men confided in her about their families, their wives, and their sweethearts and asked her advice, which she readily gave. Having spent her entire life in a household dominated by women and feminine ideals, Juliette delighted in this sudden exposure to male company. She had never laughed so heartily or so often before.

Harrison had changed in his approach to her as well. He allowed her to be herself on the ship. He didn’t censure her or demand that she behave like a lady. He let her do as she pleased. If that meant wearing trousers all day or playing cards with Robbie and Charlie and others, he did not mind. Harrison was almost amused by her.

He seemed to be oddly fascinated by her interest in his ship and he took pride in showing her how to do whatever it was she wanted to do. With his guidance and by placing his hands over hers, he let her steer the wheel of the ship one afternoon.

“You have the sea in your blood, Juliette,” Harrison declared with a sense of wonder. “I should take you on as one of my crew!”

Feeling happier than she could ever remember being, she gave him a sly glance and whispered pointedly, “I think you have already taken me on.”

He grinned lustily, drew her into his embrace and kissed her, heedless of the crew watching them.

Nights in his cabin were no different than her days aboard the
Sea Minx
. She gave herself over entirely to the captain’s expert tutelage. In Harrison’s bed, Juliette became completely uninhibited as she learned how to give and receive pleasure, as they spent hour after hour endlessly making love.