Sea Change (23 page)

"So I ran off to Plymouth, dressed as Charley Alcott, not Charlotte. I struck a bargain with Captain Denham of the
Lady Jane.
I would physic his crew and watch over his pregnant wife in exchange for passage to Jamaica. I slept in the sick bay there, too, and that preserved my disguise."

"Why were you going to Jamaica?"

"My godfather, Dr. Curtis Wilson, lives there. I hoped he might allow me to continue my studies with him."

"Instead, you were kidnapped by privateers."

"Indeed. An unexpected sea change, into something rich and strange."

That smile moved across her wine-reddened lips again, and sweat broke out on his brow. He shifted, trying to ease the pressure of his cock swelling in his trousers. He didn't want to be attracted to Charley Alcott, man or woman, but his prick had a mind of its own.

Some of the humor of the situation finally penetrated his own lust sodden brain, and he smiled.

"I will grant you, Dr. Alcott, it has been a rich and strange experience indeed."

At the change in his expression her own face lightened, and she cleared her throat.

"Are you going to make an effort, Captain, to maintain a cordial relationship with me if I stay aboard the
Fancy
?" A wisp of color came into her cheeks and she looked down at her plate. "I know we can't have the same relationship we had before you knew my secret, but I hope we can still be friends."

Friends? She wanted to be friends when all he wanted was to pick her up, take her to his bunk and unwrap all those layers that kept the real Charley Alcott hidden from him? She wanted to be friends when he tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep for thoughts of her? He'd loathed and feared himself when he thought Charley Alcott a man he lusted after. At least then he'd been able to convince himself Charley was untouchable. Now, knowing that she was a woman, and aboard his vessel, and attracted to him, it was even worse.

"I do not know that friendship is something we can have between us, Doctor. Not now."

He looked at her in the lamplight, dressed so neatly in her blue coat and plain white shirt and cravat. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before or would be likely to meet again, a woman who was comfortable in her surroundings with men, sure of herself in her sick bay, able to hold her own amongst a crew of hardened privateers.

But now she looked rather lost, and vulnerable. It was all he could do not to go to her side of the table, pick her up and put her on his lap while he soothed her fears, preferably with his mouth, his hands, and other parts of him longing to get closer to the doctor.

He cleared his throat.

"I once talked to you, Doctor, about settling in the United States. It occurs to me that you might still find that a more congenial spot than Jamaica."

She looked at him steadily, once again the Dr. Alcott he knew, or thought he knew.

"Really, Captain? You think that in Baltimore, or Boston, or somewhere else in the United States I would find a community that's open to the idea of a woman practicing medicine? Performing surgeries?"

He opened his mouth to defend his country, then shut it. No. He could not say with any certainty that there was any community in the United States where Charley Alcott would be accepted.

"Will your godfather accept you and allow you to practice medicine?"

"I do not know." She clasped her hands on the table. "I have hopes that Dr. Wilson will take me on and further my education, because right now, that's the only hope I have."

"You could marry and busy yourself with your home, like other women!"

She looked at him, wide-eyed.

"Truly, Captain Fletcher? I can throw away all my dreams and be just like every other woman you know? The ones who aren't like Madame Olifiers, anyway. I have no doubt there will be men lining up at the docks to take on a wife who spends her days in the company of privateers, many of whom take off their clothes in her presence."

He scowled at that image. "The rules on sarcasm have not changed, Doctor!"

"Then do not say such patently foolish things to me, Captain!"

And then she startled him by grinning at him. She shook her head, and rose to her feet. "If our relationship was not what it was before, at least we're talking, Captain. But I believe I will leave now, and bid you good-night, while we are still on speaking terms."

She stuck out her hand, but as soon as he grasped her warm hand in his David knew it was a mistake. He would never again have the relationship with Charley Alcott that they'd had when he thought Charley was a man.

How could he, when he was so aware of her, her clean scent, her lean lines displayed by her men's clothing, even wrapped and hidden as they were, her laughter and her wit, her compassion for his crew? No, he could not go back to his old footing with Charley Alcott.

Then, against his own judgment, and knowing he'd regret it later, he tugged her closer, and putting his hand beneath her chin, tilted her face up. His lips brushed against hers, a whisper of sensation only, but he felt it down to the soles of his feet. He wanted to deepen that touch, to fist his hands in that silken hair and pull her into his arms and teach her everything she didn't know about kissing, and about men who'd been at sea too long without a woman, but he drew back into himself and gently maneuvered her out the door.

"Good night, Doctor."

When the door clicked behind her, David spent a long moment staring at the air where she'd been.

The
Fancy
resumed its cruising for prizes as the crew took the revelation about the doctor in stride. David watched as she continued to physic and patch them, dispensing medicine and advice without them questioning her knowledge or ability. He had his own uneasy truce with the doctor, and to that end he invited Charley to resume their evening chess matches.

David debated propping his cabin door open this evening, then realized how foolish that would be, and how counter-productive. If the goal was to maintain the doctor's relations with the men on an even keel, he couldn't start treating her like a woman. Not when the crew was all sharing in a mass hallucination that Charley Alcott was a man--or at least that's how it sounded to him every time they used male pronouns regarding their ship's doctor. When he thought about it, and he was trying not to think about it more than fifty times a day, David attributed it to their insistence that she not wear a skirt. Just as a priest's or an admiral's attire caused one to respond in a certain fashion, seeing the doctor dressed as one expects a doctor to dress contributed to their perceptions of Charley Alcott.

Or was it his own sanity he wished to preserve by leaving his door open?

While there was an overwhelming relief in his heart of hearts that he wasn't a sodomite, he was being driven crazy by the realization that now Charley Alcott was available to him, even if she wasn't. Not if he wanted to treat her as just another member of the crew.

Despite his best intentions, his mind--and his cock--refused to listen to him. Charley Alcott invaded his thoughts, awake and asleep. Awake he knew immediately if she was in the vicinity. He could sense her, and his eyes would begin tracking her, his nose trying to get a whiff of her unique scent, his unruly manhood acting like the needle of the compass, pointing upward as if she were true north.

He'd given up on trying to figure out why it was her he wanted as he watched her now, concentrating on the chessboard. She wasn't pretty. He was honest enough to acknowledge that. She looked every bit as much like a young man as she had when he sent her off to the whorehouse--and someday he was going to get the true story of that evening!--but when he dreamed at night of tangled limbs and sweaty bodies and straining to bury himself inside his partner, it was her he saw. Her body, lithe and clean-lined, the curves subtle, but when seen by a discerning eye, all the more enticing. He'd had a glimpse of heaven while he had her up against the wall in her cabin. Her skin was soft and creamy, the nipples of those bound breasts a pale pink against the rest of her. They'd darken if he were to suck on them, darken like raspberries kissed by the sun, standing up like berries waiting for the right hand to pluck them and savor their sweetness.

He cursed and adjusted his trousers beneath the table, glancing anxiously at her, but she had her head lowered and her chin fisted on her hand. He needed to get his mind back on business. He'd invited Charley here for chess, nothing else. He was keeping an eagle eye on the crew, but none of them had made an inappropriate gesture or said anything that would get them better acquainted with his fists. He'd be a sorry commander if he could control his men, but not himself. He could control himself, he was not a beast, and she was not a ravishing beauty. There was no explaining why he was attracted to her.

Maybe it was like asparagus, he mused. Some people loved it, some hated it. He liked it. Very much. If Charley Alcott were a plate of asparagus, he'd pour butter over her and lick it off, starting with...

"What are you thinking about?"

"Vegetables."

She made a noise, as if this answer made perfect sense somewhere, and went back to studying the chess pieces arrayed before her.

He rose and stood behind her, refilling their glasses with rum, and he studied her as she studied the board. Her subtle scent of soap and lemons, her hair gleaming in the lamplight, the nape of her neck, looking vulnerable and kissable at the same time. A few wisps of hair curled there and he longed to touch them, to see if they felt as silken as they appeared. He saw his hand go out, hovering in the air over her head, and he had to stop himself, force himself not to lean down and put his lips on that scented skin.

"This isn't working."

She tensed at his words. She was no fool, and she knew what he meant.

"You are correct. At this rate you will lose in two moves. Maybe I should just leave now."

She stood abruptly, but he was standing behind her and he watched his arm wrap around her slim waist to hold her against him, almost as if he watched someone else do this thing that was so very dangerous. She stood there, imprisoned by his touch, frozen, and a tremor raced over her frame, like a rabbit that fears to move when it senses the wolf in the clearing.

Wise rabbit.

David lowered his head to where her neck rose over the edge of her collar and he rested his lips along that patch of skin and took a taste, the softness still surprising him. She shuddered in his embrace, not daring to move, or not caring to move, as he inhaled the scent of her clean hair, stroking his cheek against the soft curls that protected the delicate nape. Her essence filled his lungs and his mind, so different from any other woman he'd known, clean and fresh and wholly Charley.

She moved then, a fraction forward, but he pulled her back against him and at her startled reaction he knew she could feel him against her, the full length of him straining to get closer to her, to be buried inside her warmth.

He turned her in his arms, to face him.

An eternity passed as he watched her, memorizing the details of her face, the arched brows, the smooth cheek, and those eyes that held so many secrets. Around them there were the night sounds of a ship at sea, but all of it faded away as he looked into those eyes.

"Do you want to leave, Charley?"

He ran his thumb over her moist lower lip, and a noise was wrenched from her, a gasp at the sensation.

"Or do you want to be kissed?"

A shadow crossed her face and he said, "That was not a kiss, the other day, that was an assault. A kiss is something to be shared."

"Do you know how an inoculation works, Captain?"

Her voice was low, and husky, and despite her prosaic question, made him even harder, if that were possible.

"An inoculation gives you a taste of a disease. Just enough to strengthen you against it."

"Am I a disease then, Doctor?"

"If I kiss you, I may be inoculated against you, and I can sleep easy again."

Her hand moved up to brush at the hair falling across his forehead. He took her hand in his and turned it, placing a kiss in the palm, then on the pulse at the wrist that raced beneath his lips. He looked back down into Charley's eyes, dark now, dark and wide and ringed by silver fire.

"Is that what you want, Charley? To have a taste, and then be cured?"

She swallowed.

"Sometimes, the inoculation brings on the disease. It can consume you and there is no cure. I must try it though, for it is the only way to know if I can survive this, David."

It was an invitation no sane man could resist and at the moment he was feeling far from sane. If he wasn't plagued by insanity he wouldn't be lowering his head to brush his lips against hers, savoring the softness, the small sound she made at the contact. He wouldn't be resting his mouth against hers, waiting for her untutored understanding of what it was he wanted, reveling in his victory when she parted her lips and gave him access, an invitation he seized just as he pulled her tighter into his arms, or was it she who pulled him against her? It didn't matter when all he could focus on was the taste of her mouth, the wonder as he slipped his tongue inside, her body moving against his in acceptance.

She sighed and moved her arms up until they encircled his neck, and he understood in that moment that the reason he wanted her was she felt right, fitting into his embrace as no one else ever had. Maybe that was all the explanation his attraction to her required.

When he finally came up for air, he was resolved.

"I do not feel inoculated, or cured!" he said harshly. "I cannot go on this way, Charley. Leave, or in a very short while you will be naked in my bunk!"

The last shred of sanity still lingering in his brain knew it was best if she left.

But the rest of him, the parts that came to life as blood flowed south of the equator, cheered the doctor's decision when Charley Alcott's eyes widened and she whispered, "I am going for naked, Captain."

He knew he should talk her out of it.