Chapter 7
Chapter
“Please.” It’s the word from her that undoes him every time because it has a crack in it. He’s heard that same crack in Esmee’s voice once or twice. When her husband died and when Barclay laid out his terms for her to keep the distillery on his lands that were nothing short of larceny.
He hears it in his own voice, too, on occasion. That crack is the sound of strength wavering, and he hates it. He hates it when it comes from his sister and from himself, and it surprises him to find he hates it when it comes from this quarter-sized Sassenach as well.
He wishes he didn’t care. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, or so the saying goes.
And he knows that when it comes to her, he is nothing but a beggar and a by-blow and will never be anything more. He knows because she all but told him so herself.
He steels himself against that please and leaves her there. There’s nothing else he can do. He can’t just let her alone in the wilds of America.
He can’t.
He won’t.
Goddamned menace.
Catherine stares at the closed door to the captain’s cabin that McGann just exited. Beneath her feet, the ship’s deck tilts with the movement of the sea; inside, her stomach roils in a much less gentle manner.
She isn’t going back to London. She can’t. She won’t. Not now when freedom is so close. Ten days away.
And no matter what McGann claims, he can’t make her. She snuck aboard this ship, and she can just as well sneak off it when they land in Boston. She has ten days to figure out how.
But today—right now—she needs to focus on the issues at hand. She’s cold and hungry and dirty. And she’s still wearing her wedding gown that’s too much in disrepair to ever be serviceable. She examines the clothes he laid out for her.
These will not do.
The trousers are so long she’s certain to trip and fall flat on her face with every step, if she can even keep them up at all, which is doubtful. But she wriggles out of the remains of her dress to try them on.
They indeed slide down her slim hips as she thought they would. She kicks them off and tries on the shirt, which hangs down nearly past her knees.
Well.
Of all her problems, she can fix this one. She leaves the shirt on as a kind of dressing gown while she untangles her crinoline and stays from the mess of her wedding dress.
Now, for a needle and thread.
She turns and surveys the room; she hadn’t really had an opportunity to look at it last night in her rush to come aboard out of the rain.
The room is, well… It’s quite a lovely room, as a matter of fact.
There’s a single, large window through which she can see the sea and the sky and the clouds.
A desk with a chair, a wall full of bookshelves, and a small dining table.
A bed is placed along the other wall, along with a wardrobe and trunk.
There’s even a small washroom. The whole place is made of warm wood and sunlight and masculine charm, both comfortable and powerful at once.
Everything a lady of business might need, she thinks with some satisfaction, if she can just fix her trousers.
She begins her search for needles and thread in the trunk.
Finding none, she moves on to the wardrobe, but there she discovers only the smell of him—peat and pine and rain—that washes over her each time she rustles a piece of his clothing.
She inhales deeply, wondering not for the first time what that top note is.
Something floral but not jasmine or rose or freesia or any other flower she knows.
She shakes her head and stands abruptly, making her way to the desk.
Concentrate, Catherine.
She pulls open the first drawer and then the second and the third. Each is so well organized, she doesn’t even need to rummage around. There’s a section for pen and ink, one for neatly stacked paper, and one for navigational instruments.
And there, finally, in the bottom drawer, is a sewing kit. She lifts it out, resisting the urge to snoop, although it would serve him right if she did.
Put me back on a ship to London, indeed.
As if he owns her. He does not. No one does, not now. And no one ever will again.
She gathers the sewing kit and settles in the desk chair by the window, where the light is strongest. First, she shortens the trousers, carefully hemming the legs so she won’t trip.
Then she unwinds the wires from her crinoline, bending them into a makeshift belt, and tears strips of fabric from her ruined skirts to stitch into loops.
At last she threads ribbons from her underthings through the linen shirt, fashioning a crude drawstring at the waist.
She’ll have to go without her usual corset, but being rather on the small-chested side to begin with, she really has no need of it. She lightly binds her breasts with a torn piece of linen from her petticoat and twirls. This will do just fine.
And, she has to admit, her cousin was correct. Violet is a staunch advocate for the new, more liberal dress for women, and although Catherine had always been a fan of a little frippery, the ease in which she can move her body in this new attire cannot be overstated.
A rush of guilt washes over her again at the way she treated Violet.
Drat.
She’ll apologize just as soon as she can. She hadn’t meant to hurt her cousin, she just hadn’t been thinking. From now on, she’ll think more. Before she acts, not after.
She picks up her slippers just in case they might have miraculously returned to their previous incarnation as wearable shoes since this morning.
They have not. They’re as bad or even worse than she remembers.
The silk is torn, and the combination of mud and salt water has shrunken and distorted their shape.
Still unfixable. Still like my reputation.
She half-sighs, half-laughs and stuffs them back under the bed next to the jewels she stored there. The diamond and pearl parure she’d worn on her wedding day is the only money she has, and she wants to keep it safe and out of sight.
She’ll need it when she gets to Boston. She’ll need footwear, too, but that can wait. For the time being, she quickly stitches up her jewels in the hem of her destroyed wedding gown and sets it aside in the corner of the room.
No one will go ruffling through that mess of a dress, at least not until she can find a better hiding place. And now it’s time to explore the ship. She makes her way to the door but pulls up short when a resounding knock booms against it.
“Are you decent?” McGann calls.
“Of course,” she answers as he comes striding through, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.
The cabin boy follows with a food-laden tray.
Catherine glances out the window. The midday sun is still shining brightly.
It’s too early for dinner and too late for luncheon, but she’s hungry, so she isn’t about to object.
“It’s supper, Menace,” McGann says as if reading her thoughts. “Sailors only eat twice a day. If we’re lucky.”
“So early? I’m not complaining, mind you. Just curious.”
“Aye, so early. But you won’t think so when you’re awake before the sun. Now sit before it grows cold.”