Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Present Day
Bere House Tavern
Southampton, England
Outside, the boisterous sound of sailors and working men called from the quay.
Inside the Bere House, under the low-timbered ceiling, Julian sat with Sam Worthing, his chair tilted against a plastered wall.
Rough men in worn clothes hunched and lolled and drove home their points with fingers and fists, ready to thrash, laugh, and drink.
Sometimes, all at once. This world, always on the cusp of violence, Julian understood as much as the noble one he’d been born into.
The hard day-to-day living, the pride of a job well done, the need to forget one’s troubles in drink and a brawl.
And he felt more at ease with those who worked than those who lived on the work of others. Much to his father’s dismay.
Julian dipped into his fourth ale.
The three previous had gone down easily in light of his failure to recruit men to his yard after two months of trying.
Jack Johnson, a carpenter who had taught Julian how to shape a keel and given him a blackened eye twice for his mistakes, hunkered down at the table.
They shared conversation on their work, their families, but mostly on the red-haired serving wench, Angel.
Jack, married with five children, had known Angel’s bosom and buttocks and quim on numerous occasions. Which he described in ribald detail.
“Lots of cushion for the pushin’,” Jack said with a wink.
This reminded Julian he should be getting on with his adultery. Not adultery, since Kitty sanctioned it. But still. It was adultery.
Julian rubbed his unshaven jaw. He no longer worried about looking pretty.
His face required a daily shave, and if circumstances required a clean face for evening, one then.
He queued his hair, barely. At six and twenty, there were the beginning of lines about his eyes, from worrying and lack of sleep.
“If you’re interested,” Julian said to Jack, affecting a take-it-or-leave-it demeanor, “we might have a position for you at my yard.”
“Wish I could,” Jack replied. “Yer a good ’un, St. Clair. Not like the rest of them toffs. But I got five children and a wife who touches me ballocks only to twist ’em. Not like Angel, you follow.”
Julian grinned. “Mind your ballocks, man. I’ll not have making you a eunuch on my conscience.”
He watched Jack return to his friends.
Southampton had a long memory. Julian had walked away from his yard, and though he had paid the men out as if the boats had been completed, all of them remembered. No man would risk leaving steady employment to be left without a living again.
The Valiant, which Julian had left to rot in the slipway three years ago, had been good for nothing but firewood.
They had been forced to start over again with a cutter and no commissions.
St. Clair Shipwrights’ only source of labor?
Sam Worthing, his three sons, and two boys from the workhouse.
And Jim, a drunkard who showed up half the time.
He needed joiners, carpenters, and more laborers. Soon would come the additional need for caulkers, riggers, and sailmakers. And when their next boat was started—it should have been already—he would need all of them. More than a hundred men.
Instead, he had two men, five boys, Miss Althea Dixley with her prayers, and Kitty.
Each day, when not laboring, there were Kitty’s questions on the business.
Each night, when returning from the inns and publics, there were Kitty’s hopeful inquiries.
How many men did you hire? Surely, once they ponder our offer further, they will join us.
Maybe if she ever truly smiled—not that tight-lipped affair one might call a smile—he might not see the disappointment in her eyes.
Every night, before dropping alone to his bed, he told her he would be successful. The next time.
Was he desperate? He would never show it.
Would he surrender? He had stared down death hanging headfirst 150 feet above a ship’s deck.
He had two working legs, one he’d had to fight from being sawed off.
And he didn’t even walk with a limp. Kitty had said their ability was only limited by their doubts.
But he had doubts. Which he would never show, especially to his wife.
With Sam Worthing, Julian didn’t have to feign confidence and look Kitty in the eye, flash a careless smile, and tell her that it was just a matter of days before they had more men clamoring for a job than they needed.
Every day he assured her she would have her success.
But what he really meant was he might give her the yard regardless.
Julian drained his ale. Angel refilled his cup, and when she perched her round bottom on his lap, he hadn’t the energy to stop her.
“Been wondering when you’d be back,” she said. “My name’s Angel, in case you forgot.”
In the timeless way of men, Sam turned to a sailor at his right and gave Julian leave to have his adulterous fun.
Truth was, Julian didn’t want fun and didn’t like anyone giving him leave.
And if he were interested in breaking his vows with Angel, he wasn’t sure he could.
His muscles ached from working in the yard every day with his scant crew, and his pride was raw from the endless days he had spent failing.
Julian and Sam had repaired one ship for the sum of fifteen pounds. Julian had visited shipping offices and merchants from Southampton to Portsmouth. No ship commissions were to be had. Not even discussions.
Julian shifted under Angel’s wiggling bottom. She turned and presented her freckled, overflowing bosom for inspection. “Poor love, I got just the thing to put a smile on yer face. A fine smile it is too. You got all yer teeth and speak like a lord, you do.”
Julian slapped a crown to the worn table. “Love, I’m exhausted. How about you fetch us two whiskeys.”
Angel’s eyes widened at the coin. “You willing to pay for a bed?”
“I’m willing to let you have the rest of that coin if you get us the whiskeys. Please.” With a pat on her plump hip, he eased her to her feet.
Julian was also angry. His father’s letter from a fortnight ago had caused him to further doubt himself.
It was more of the same. A litany of Julian’s faults, reasons why he would never succeed.
The earl had offered Julian ten thousand to walk away from trade, marry, and, as Oliver had only daughters, get to the urgent business of getting sons on his wife to ensure the succession.
How his father knew he had returned to England, Julian didn’t care. What he cared about was his father calling him a worthless spawn and then demanding his worthless seed impregnate the future line of St. Clairs.
Your sole task, the earl had written, if you can manage to do even that properly.
His father’s sole task was to get under his skin. When would the bastard give up?
He slipped the crown in Angel’s bodice when she returned with the whiskeys and considered the sailors and ship workers who caroused without a care.
They had cares, the base kind like food and clothing, hungry mouths to feed, and two-room homes to heat.
He offered three pence more a day and still, they wouldn’t work for St. Clair Shipwrights.
“Is that Childers’s man there, eyein’ us?” Sam asked.
“Let him eye away.” Julian kicked a leg to a chair. “Davy Burke’s his name.”
Five years ago, Childers, a master with four yards, had contracted three cutters and a schooner from St. Clair Shipwrights.
Julian had delivered the schooner and one cutter.
Since Julian’s return, Childers had let all those working in and around the Solent know that Julian St. Clair was never to be trusted again.
Childers had gone a step further and had Davy Burke deliver a letter to their yard threatening action if Julian took his skilled laborers.
Davy Burke came off his chair. Shorter than Julian, his wide, muscled shoulders were ready for a fight as he walked to their table.
“You get him from the left,” Sam said under his breath. “I’ll take ’im from the right.”
Julian should have laid Davy out on the slipway when he’d had the chance. He waved to a chair which would go along with Sam’s plan of attack. “Have a seat, Davy.”
“No one’s gonna work for ye in yer hen-frigate yard,” Davy said.
“Davy, my boy,” Sam said in a tired tone. “Don’t be a bleedin’ lobcock.”
Julian stretched his aching shoulders, now pulsing with fury.
Hen-frigate was a term for a ship bossed by the captain’s wife.
Kitty hadn’t bossed anyone. But her presence had been noted by the men he attempted to recruit.
One who had toured the yard had called Kitty a fine piece.
Another, Simon Cooper, a master carpenter who had also roughed Julian up as a young apprentice, had mused on what a comely French widow was doing keeping books.
Julian had been too furious to reveal Kitty was his wife and had shoved Simon Cooper off his property.
Davy was a proud, hard-living lobcock used to the easy opportunities afforded by drinking and dark, narrow streets.
Julian didn’t doubt the man’s abilities here but Julian unfurled from his chair anyway.
He was tall, more lean than hulking, but Davy appraised Julian’s height, and for a second, doubt dimmed the fight in his eyes.
“I’ll give you a chance to apologize,” Julian said.
Davy spit at Julian’s feet. Before the glob hit the floor, Julian drove his left fist into the man’s front teeth.
Chairs stuttered, and a deafening roar filled the room as Davy stumbled back, spit blood, and whipped out a knife aiming for Julian’s chest. Julian seized the knife and the blade sliced through his palm.
He shoved Davy down to the filthy floor, and in one yank, the knife was his.
One pivot, the knife point was at Davy’s scalp.