Sea Change (13 page)

The head pirate came over as she was brushing sand off of herself.

"I seem to be unneeded, Doctor. Mr. Bryant and Henry have everything under control. I'm going to take a walk inland. Would you care to join me?"

Charley knew what the right answer was. It wasn't: "Yes, I would like that, Captain."

She hoisted her satchel and slung it over her head so the broad strap rested against her shoulder. It was sturdy leather and gave her father many years of service before she took it for her own following his death. Now the battered and worn case sat against her hip, a familiar weight as she followed behind Captain Fletcher.

The view of Handsome Davy from in front, in the boat, had been enough to warm the senses. The view from behind did nothing to cool her down. The island breeze molded the Captain's thin linen trousers against his legs, outlining their length and the play of muscles beneath the surface.

He's just a man, she scolded herself, made up of the same parts as all the others.

Which was, of course, a colossal fib. The
Fancy
was made up of rugged men, some of whom any woman would term "handsome," but its captain was in a class by himself. It was like the difference between Captain Denham's brig and Captain Fletcher's Baltimore schooner. One ship was steady and reliable, and able to get the job done. The other was all rakish lines and polished surfaces, glittering in the sunlight, making others look lumbering and heavy.

She sighed.

"Having trouble keeping up, Charley? It's not much farther now."

"I can keep up, Captain. But my legs aren't used to this."

Charley was trying not to huff with the effort, but the combination of the heat, her woolen attire and the effort of navigating the land after months aboard ship had her staggering.

The man in front of her chuckled. "Yes, you always seem to forget that it takes a while to get your land-legs back. But look, we're here."

"Here" was a glade in the foothills of the mountainous land, a little piece of paradise with a waterfall snaking over a ridge to fill a shaded pond. Around the pond were clusters of creamy frangipani, their perfume filling the air while coconut palms rose above to search for the sun. Purple orchids peeped out from the jungle of greenery and the sound of the waterfall soothed her. The trees filtered the sunlight and softened it, making the tropical heat more bearable, and Charley heaved a sigh of relief.

But what Captain Fletcher said next sent her pulse racing again.

"I knew you might have felt uncomfortable, taking off your clothes in front of the men, Charley. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But here, in the privacy of this glade, you can feel more at ease."

Charley stared at him. Did he know? Was this mild speech his response to her deception?

What he said next clarified his statement and saved her from making a terrible mistake.

"...I know young men are sometimes shy. But you don't have to worry about me, Charley. I just thought you might enjoy cooling off."

Confusion raced through Charley's mind. If he thought her a boy, was he asking her to take her clothes off because he had designs on her? Or was everything he said to be taken on its face?

God's Teeth, she was tired of this! Tired of the tension, of always having to lie, to pretend, to wonder!

And the alternative?
her inner demon whispered.

Is worse, Charley acknowledged as she glumly sweltered. Once her secret was revealed, nothing could ever be the same again. The status quo, uncomfortable as it was, was still better than the unknown future as Charlotte Alcott.

David Fletcher left Charley to make up his mind. He wasn't about to waste this opportunity to bathe in fresh water, and if young Dr. Alcott was too missish to participate, that was his problem.

He hurriedly stripped down to the skin and dove headfirst into the pool. The shock of the cold water after the heat of the afternoon made his skin sizzle and brought all his senses alive. When he brushed his wet hair back from his face he saw the doctor sitting on a boulder, with a pad of paper and pencil.

"Are you sketching?"

The doctor looked up at him and he saw a flash of that grin from beneath the brim of Charley's hat.

"If I am not going to swim, I will use this opportunity to draw some of the unusual plants here. At least, they're unusual to me. They may have medicinal purposes, and I can compare notes with Dr. Wilson in Jamaica."

David merely grunted at the mention of Jamaica and eased himself onto his back, floating there as the sun drifted through the branches.

"Look, Charley, I'm a narwhale!" He laughed, pointing to himself.

"Droll, Captain, quite droll. I vow, before I set foot aboard your ship I never knew such wit was missing from my life."

David chuckled and drifted, his eyes closing. He nearly fell into a doze, letting the fresh water soak into his pores and wash away some of the salt that was always with him.

"Captain?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Do you like being a privateer?"

He grinned to himself as he floated, the sunlight warming his body, relaxing him and soothing the stress from his muscles.

"Who wouldn't enjoy being a privateer? Next to having a rich old uncle name you his heir, it's one of the best schemes I know to get wealthy in a hurry. All you need is one good haul, Charley, and you could be set for life. A specie ship, a ship carrying munitions--there are many possibilities."

"Yes, but as I understand it, you need a war to be a privateer. Otherwise, you're just another pirate. Will you turn pirate when the war is over?"

He turned over and stroked through the water until he was close to where the doctor sat with his sketchpad. He rested his arms on a sunwarmed rock and studied the odd fellow who'd rather sketch than swim. Charley glanced up at him, then back at his sketchpad, lips pressed tight together as he concentrated on his drawing.

"No, much as I enjoy privateering, it being the happy marriage of commerce and warfare, I will give it up when we have peace." David treaded water as sunshine dappled the surface. It was a glorious afternoon away from his responsibilities for a few hours, and even the doctor's allusions to David as a pirate couldn't spoil his good mood.

"Despite your desire to cast me as a villain, doctor, I have no intention of being a pirate. If I am no longer a privateer, I will go back to being what I was before the war. A merchant captain."

He turned over on his back again, catching a glimpse of the doctor fumbling as he dropped his sketching pencil.

Maybe the boy was unsure of himself because he was not comfortable in his own body. David remembered those days of adolescence, and not fondly, when he would shoot up so quickly that he would see inches of wrist sticking out from his shirtsleeves, and hit his head against lintels that he'd been able to clear scant days earlier.

He knew what Charley needed, and he would have to think about the best way to bring it about where the outcome would be satisfactory to all involved.

Charley retrieved her pencil and watched Captain Fletcher gliding away on his back. She sighed. He was like a sleek merman, enticing her to forget her woes and join him, drowning in the sensations she was sure he could provide.

If he didn't actually drown her for lying to him every minute of the past weeks.

So even though the water looked like pure liquid delight, and she itched with heat and discomfort and wondered if she would ever be able to scrub her entire body again, she took up her pad.

At least she could get this small satisfaction out of the day's events. She hadn't quite lied when she said she was sketching the plants, but she was not totally truthful either. At the moment she was sketching Black Davy Fletcher, his sharp profile and silken hair, the muscles that bunched beneath his skin, his wonderfully long legs and buttocks that looked so firm and tight she could bounce a shilling off of them.

He was beautiful everywhere. She had seen the privates of all the men aboard ship and thought there was nothing remarkable about most of them, but Captain David Fletcher was in a class by himself. Her face felt like it would burst into flames from the heat of her blush as she sketched him standing now beneath the waterfall, brushing his hair back from his face, his penis in repose looking like a dark ivory shaft amidst the ebony hair that curled 'round it.

She acknowledged to herself that there was anatomy...and then there was anatomy. And all men were not created equal, despite what these Americans claimed.

Charley shifted on her boulder. Her breasts ached in their binding, and she suspected if she could check herself she would find she was damp, her body's natural response to the attraction of the male animal before her. He leaned down to pick up his shirt, and used it to dry off. Some moisture escaped to bead on the column of his neck. Charley watched that silver drop trickle downward, wending its way over the chiseled pectoral muscles, and she swallowed. Her mouth was so dry, and that water looked so tempting, so...lickable.

"I'm heading back down to the beach, Charley."

Charley blew out her breath and waited until Captain Fletcher was dressed before putting away her sketch book. With the fresh water brought aboard the
Fancy
she'd be able to lock her door and wash her entire body back in her cabin. That cheered her, even as he said, "You should have come in, Doctor. The water was wonderful."

"No doubt it is, Captain, but I got a great deal accomplished. I don't feel like I wasted an opportunity."

She smiled to herself as they started down to the beach.

"I have some memorable sketches of my visit to Santa Rosa, and I am sure they will delight me for years to come."

They feasted that night on roast pork cooked in pits on the beach. The hunting party returned with a descendent of the pigs brought by the Spanish centuries back, and the crew took full advantage of the opportunity to dine on fresh meat. Henry was in charge of the land party and would be spending the night ashore, and David issued an extra tot of rum to the crew even as Henry scheduled guards in watches to keep a look-out for trouble.

Henry was coming into his own as a leader of men, and it made David proud. He'd had most of the rearing of his brother after their father died, and while many of the lessons were punctuated with David's fist, they took hold. If the Fletchers got the funding they needed, it wouldn't be long before Henry had his own ship to command.

The men returning to the ship rowed David and the doctor back. The doctor leaned over the side, entranced by the silver schools of fish darting just below the moon-lit surface.

"Join me for a drink, Doctor?"

David had already made inroads into the rum when they ate the pig, but it was too early to call it a night.

The doctor paused for a moment, then said, "Allow me to put up my gear and wash up, and I'll meet you in your cabin, Captain."

When Charley entered a short time later, David gestured to the bottle, too relaxed to get up from his bunk.

"Pour yourself some, Doctor. I know you're not much of a drinker, but this is an excellent rum. Smoother than the gut rotting swill we usually get."

Dr. Alcott poured a moderate amount and sniffed it, before taking a small swallow.

"It is good, Captain. Better than the usual."

David chuckled. He was feeling mellow, and he was glad he had someone to share the evening with, even if he could have longed for a prettier companion of the opposite gender. But the doctor was pleasant company and, in the absence of Henry and Mr. Bryant, the one person David could feel comfortable around. The doctor was educated and had a sense of humor, and even smelled better than many who'd been in this cabin to see him.

Perhaps that was part of his bedside manner, not to offend the nose of his patients.

The doctor seated himself and propped his feet on a seachest. He looked over at the silver framed picture on the shelf.

"I imagine you are looking forward to seeing Miss Dixon again."

David didn't respond to this, but instead poured more rum into his glass for himself. When he offered the doctor the bottle, the man shook his head.

"I need a wife, Charley, and I intend to make an offer to Miss Dixon when I return to Baltimore."

"Miss Dixon is a beautiful lady," the doctor said a bit wistfully.

Poor lad, he was thinking he'd never have a chance with a lovely girl like Sarah Dixon. And likely, he had the right of it.

Charley Alcott had a nice smile and eyes like the morning mist. If he wasn't handsome, at least he made you want to smile back at him. Right now though, he looked serious, and downcast.

"Aye. Miss Dixon is all a man would want in a wife. Lovely, plays the pianoforte, is brought up to be a good hostess and run a fine house. No, Charley, a man would be a fool not to marry her."

Charley was watching him, his head cocked to the side.

"But you say she is not your betrothed?"

"Not yet. When I return from this voyage her father wants me to make it official."

"Don't you want to marry her? Do you love her?"

The doctor looked surprised at his own boldness in asking this and stared down at his glass, as if wondering how it got there. Maybe the rum was affecting him more than he realized.

"What a romantic you are, Charley! Marriage is not about love. It's about...I dunno. Combining families. Merging businesses. Money. Raising children, of course, but love?" He shrugged. "That's a game for poets and silly girls with nothing to fill the empty spaces in their heads."

"I want to marry for love," Charley said firmly.

David took another swallow of his rum.

"Charley, you are a foolish romantic who has not seen much of the world if you believe that. Love doesn't fill the coffers or keep food on your table, gold does. I know that. Obadiah Dixon knows that. Y'see, Charley, Sarah Dixon's father is also a sea captain. A successful one. Not like me."

"Why is Captain Dixon more successful?"

David looked down into his glass, seeing ghosts swirling in the brown liquid. He drank to drive them away.