Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor (256 page)

She returned his gaze, irritated by his barely concealed desires. Years of enduring stares and innuendo from males of all ages had left her inured to such behaviour. Besides, the captain, courteous as he was, did not ignite her firmly tamped emotions. He moved his head and she was surprised at traces of softness in his profile. In his youth, he would have been handsome, even dapper, but years of salt and wind had taken their toll.

Opinions on the ship differed with regards to the captain, but whatever they may say about him, she knew his orders were obeyed without question. However, despite the ease with which he commanded his ship, the captain seemed uneasy in her company. As to why, she could not fathom.

“Humph, right then, Miss Shipley. I am aware of your conviction for embezzlement. However, my situation forces me to put aside my concerns in the hope you might also deal honestly with books of account.”

She bit back a caustic response. Her old tutor had been right, she thought. He said a woman should not involve herself with mathematics; it was unseemly and would only lead to trouble. But she had always been a woman who had a mind of her own and found once she had experienced the beauty and symmetry of mathematics, she could not leave it alone. She bristled anew at the old accusation.

“Honesty is
all
I know, captain.”

The captain seemed disconcerted by her response, and she saw his eyes soften as he continued to regard her. He tapped his fingers on the scratched teak desk, and then moved toward her, seemed to reconsider, and stepped back again. She could see undefined emotions in his eyes and in the slight tic on the right side of his face. He seemed ready to speak. She waited.

Instead, he offered her a chair, sent for tea and bread with jam, and explained his predicament.

“My purser took ill days before we set sail leaving me no time to seek a replacement. I find I cannot effectively undertake his duties as well as my own, and require someone with the skills to record purchases and supplies used in the ledger.”

“You have only to instruct me and I will follow your lead, captain.” She exhaled silently with relief. It seemed she was not to be forced to submit to the captain’s approaches after all.

He frowned at her forthright manner but her stubborn pride would not allow her to play the cowering convict.

Without leave from the captain, she drew a chair over to the desk and sat beside him. His eyes looked straight ahead but she did not miss the twitch of his lips at her actions.

The books were stained with years of handling, and many entries were illegible from smudged ink and spilt liquids. Even making sense of the previous entries would test her capabilities. He presented a bundle of receipts and explained how he wanted the entries made.

Once the captain was satisfied with her skills, he pushed out his chair and stood. “I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?”

She looked up, surprised again at being trusted with the task and treated with such courtesy. “Yes, I can manage, thank you.”

The ledger lay open before her but her eyes were drawn to the small round window where foaming mist spattered against its cloudy surface. The ship was under full sail. Propelled by brisk winds, it rose and plummeted into the heaving sea as it carried her closer to the penal colony. What did the future hold? Would she survive to see England again? She sighed, her defeated imagination unable to project beyond her seven-year sentence. A sentence based on lies and bribery. But survival was all that mattered now. And despite her uncle’s betrayal, she was determined to survive. Seven years imprisonment would not break her, she vowed. Seven years …

She had told the captain she would manage. Was that the truth? She drew in another deep breath of the fresh, salty air. Her father had raised her to be brave, resilient and determined. But he could never have imagined the horrors she had been forced to endure. Four months in the cold, dispiriting malignance that was Newgate Prison, two months moored on the Thames in the fetid hold of the good ship
Liberty
— a
wry grin moved her lips at the irony of the ship’s name — and now six weeks at sea.

She shuddered and lifted her pen to begin, but another thought interrupted its path toward the ledger. If she were honest, her removal from England and society did have some small benefits. There was no longer the need to entertain the band of witless suitors who had jostled and pestered her for attention. No necessity for her to sip tea and make mindless chitchat with other women. No need to ever see Edward again.

A tear slid down her face and dropped onto her skirt at the memory of his despicable behaviour. To think she actually believed he loved her.
Blast him! Blast them all! I will get through this and clear my name without them.
She straightened, brushed a hand across her wet cheek, then turned to the ledger to begin her task. She would survive.

• • •

Soon after dawn each morning, Electra rose from her bug-infested bed. It took all her self-control not to scratch frantically at the festering bites on her arms and legs as she dressed and splashed water on her face. The smell in the women’s hold was as thick as the sewers of London, and she watched the door like a cat at a mouse hole, waiting for the lieutenant to fetch her. Such was her relief at escaping the confines of the hold and the cruelty of the other women, even the jibes of the foul-mouthed crewmen above decks were preferable.

At first, she believed if she ignored the women they would lose interest but she underestimated their hostility. They hated her difference and determined she would suffer for it. Lizzie Cranston was their ringleader.

Electra gathered snatches of Lizzie’s story from gossip and whispered warnings. It was not much, but it was enough to make her fear the woman. Lizzie’s husband had been hanged four years past for murder and thievery. It was said Lizzie took over where he left off and trained their three sons to work in the
family business
. Her two youngest sons ended up in Newgate and Lizzie carried an inveterate hatred for those who put her boys away. Electra’s breeding made her the perfect brunt and the others were only too happy to back Lizzie up. The taunts and abuse began the minute they roused themselves from sleep each morning.

“Ooh, was that your cup I spat in, duchess? I’m jes’ too clumsy for me own good,” cackled Lizzie, as she thrust her hip into Electra and jammed her against a wooden beam.

“Goodness, I think as ’ow I’ve splashed what’s in the privy onto yer bed, duchess,” hissed Hetty Bender, as she passed by.

If Electra tried to move across the room, a foot would jut out to trip her as she passed. Or an elbow would happen to jab into her ribs by accident. By the time she escaped to the upper decks, she was bruised, humiliated, and angry.

She recalled the first time they called her “duchess.” The turnkey was delivering Electra and four other women from Newgate to the
Liberty
. She had not climbed from the small boat quickly enough so he had shoved her over the ship’s railing and sent her sprawling onto the deck. She picked herself up, lifted her chin, and admonished him for his rough handling. At least the beating was swift. The women’s exclusion and brutality that followed continued throughout the journey. Her present status as the captain’s assistant only confirmed the women’s jealousies and prejudices.

The hostility escalated until one evening young Mary Buckley blocked her path to the deck. She grasped Electra’s arm and hissed through clenched teeth, “Yer got the golden eyes of a witch an’ we got ter pertect ourselves from yer.”

At Mary’s comments, Lizzie nodded slowly, her eyes riveted to Electra’s face. A chill ran up Electra’s spine as she read the intent in Lizzie’s eyes and in the faces of the women around her. She had already learnt through bitter experience that this was not a world where a woman squealed for help when threatened. No, it was clear she was on her own, with vigilance her only friend. She didn’t know when they would come but she knew it would be soon.

• • •

Nights were the worst.

It was past midnight the third day after Mary’s comments and Electra lay rigid on her sleeping shelf. Her head spun and her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep. But she would not succumb until she heard the heavy snores of the women around her.

At last, all movement ceased and the steady rhythm of snores reverberated through the hold. As she relaxed, she felt an urgent need to use the privy. Hardly daring to breathe, she tiptoed to the far end of the room. She resisted the desperate urge to scratch the hundreds of tiny flea and lice bites that covered her body for fear she might disturb someone. As she made her way back, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The snores and snorts had stopped. Silence enveloped her like a dark cloud.

Like wraiths they appeared. Rough hands lunged from the shadows and slammed her against the bulkhead. She flung up her arms to protect her face as claw-like fingers lashed at her eyes and gouged skin from her cheeks. Others wakened by her screams either joined the melee or stood silently and watched. Bent purely on self-preservation she spun around, fists clenched and punched wildly. She kicked and she bit. She scratched; she plunged her elbows into windpipes, wrenched handfuls of hair, and refused to be beaten. Suddenly, at an unspoken signal, the women backed off and returned to their beds. And in minutes the grunts, snorts, and snores resumed.

Electra huddled in terror behind the curved rib of the hull until dawn. When she crept back to her small space, no one paid her the slightest attention. It was as if she had dreamed the night’s events.

• • •

Scratched, bruised and weary from lack of sleep, Electra dragged herself up the stairs and scanned the deck. Please let them leave me alone today, she prayed. As she hesitated, eight bells signalled the end of the watch. Perhaps she wouldn’t be noticed as the crew changed shift. She took a deep breath, put her head down, and took her chances.

The captain’s cabin was in sight when one of the crewmen, a flabby, unpleasant creature called Critchley, blocked her way.

He grinned with a marked lack of teeth. “Well, if it ain’t the duchess! Looky here lads, the captain’s whore has come to show us her wares. An’ by the look of her face, I reckon yer’d have ter fight for a look.”

One grimy hand gripped her arm while the other stroked down her neck to her shoulder. She shuddered, repulsed by his damp touch, and jerked free to dash across the deck to the captain’s cabin. The image of Critchley’s small, cruel eyes chilled her long after she reached safety.

She dropped her head onto the desk and prayed for the strength to survive the endless horrors of the journey. What peace to just slip over the side of the ship and be done with it all. She could already feel the cool water close over her head as it carried her down into the eternal depths; free at last.

But then, she reminded herself, her uncle would win. She had come too far and borne too much to give him that victory. There was no option but to endure.

She lifted her head and turned as the captain stepped through the doorway.

“God in heaven! Who did this to you?” he slammed his fist hard against the bulkhead.

“It was entirely my fault. I fell,” she said.

“Do you take me for a fool? I want their names. I won’t have you hurt. Do you hear me?” His voice faltered with his last words.

She started at the betrayal of his previously well-hidden feelings for her. There had been occasions over the past weeks when the captain had held her gaze overlong, or brushed her hand as he reached for an object. She had begun to suspect his interest had gone beyond that of a friendship. However, she had given him no encouragement and so he had never spoken of his attraction.

“Please captain, you know any punishment will make it worse for me.” She reached for his arm. He shook her away but his eyes told her he understood. “You can’t save me from this. I have to earn my place according to their rules.”

Her eyes followed his rigid back as he strode to the other side of the room. He faced the window and growled, “Any further injuries and they will be flogged. I have my limits.”

• • •

For reasons she could not divine, since the attack, the overt hostility of the women had shifted to small jibes or indifference. Perhaps in the fight she had acquitted herself to their satisfaction. Or more likely, as there had been no repercussions, they knew she had not exposed them to the captain. It didn’t matter why: she was grateful nonetheless.

One day as she hurried to the quarterdeck, she stopped in mid-stride as a loud rip sounded from her skirt. She bent down to free the fabric from a nail that protruded from a large wooden crate. As Electra straightened, she spied Critchley trudging toward her and crouched behind the crate until he passed. He and another seaman stopped feet away to check the bowlines on the mainmast.

Critchley hiked up his breeches and wiped spittle off his mouth, then turned to the small, ferret-faced man beside him. “That one, the duchess, thinks she’s a bit good, eh Sneed?”

Her breath caught; they could only mean her.

Sneed giggled. “Out o’ your league, Critchley. Cor, even the whores down the docks won’t let yer near ’em. Not after yer roughed that ’un up an’ all.”

“Shut up yer whoreson. The slattern wouldn’t put up a struggle, she lay there all open like. They knows I likes ‘em ter fight a bit.” He slapped Sneed on the back. “That ’un would fight though. Yar, I’d like ter break that ’un. Pity she’s the captain’s whore.”

Revulsion overcame fear; she jumped up from her hiding place and ran toward the captain’s cabin.

Critchley cackled and yelled, “Yer can run but yer ain’t goin’ ter escape what I got for yer.”

She slammed the door shut and stood against it, desperate to put a barrier between herself and the vile seaman. Her heart hammered her chest and she had to fight to draw breath. It took some minutes before her heartbeat slowed and her mind began to think coherently again. A shiver ran down her spine. What was the horrid creature capable of? Maybe the captain would know more.