Chapter 14 #2
His mother ignored her request like she would have with most. “Men are cheered for their endeavours, whereas women are scorned, dear. She was worried her men would be jealous, so she paid for them to have a night of the same on her behalf.”
A cold rush rolled over him. It’s because of me?
“I’m leaving,” Rosetta said, quickly sliding her chair back before he could stop her. She stepped away and then turned to bow at Lillian. “Thank you for your help, Madame Lillian.”
“You will be coming back here,” she demanded with narrowing eyes, eyeing her up and down carefully. “I won’t have you disappearing on me after everything.”
Rosetta’s lips thinned, as if that was exactly what she’d planned, before she gave a curt nod. “I promise.”
Then she turned from the room and exited.
“How much was it?” he snapped when she was gone.
She gave a sigh, brushing her hand over his cheek as if she missed doing it. “Four hundred and ninety-two pounds.”
He frowned. That wasn’t so expensive. “I expected more.”
She gave a delicate scoff through her nose. “I owed her for what she did for me. She almost died saving this place from ruin. She didn’t get that scar from standing by and doing nothing while three men terrorised the place.”
Alister had been furious when he’d come into port nearly a year later to discover what had happened.
“You mean the one across her stomach?”
She nodded. “That very one.”
His gaze wandered across this room. It wasn’t the one he’d grown up in.
No, this place was new, and he was the reason for it.
He’d built this place eight years ago so she could take in women she wanted to help and offer them a safe place.
It gave her meaning. He also wanted to make sure she always had a roof over her head, food in her belly, and people around her, so she wasn’t alone while he was out at sea.
A way she could be surrounded by guards and be protected.
He knew he had a sister, one he counted as a half-sister since his father had never claimed her. However, Agnes was rebellious and avoided their mother as much as possible, even though they lived on the same island.
Alister cared for one person in his life, and it was the frail woman in front of him. No expense was too great to make sure she was comfortable. Her business now made her so self-sufficient that Alister didn’t need to give her coin unless he wanted to.
No one except for Derek and Pierre knew their relationship.
As much as learning Rosetta was taken under his mother’s wing came as a shock to him, at least he knew it meant she’d been taken care of, since Lillian wouldn’t have let her go without.
“How did she come to be in your employ?” Alister asked, turning his eyes to the window in thought.
“It’s not my story to tell, dear.”
“Aye, but you’re going to anyway.” He brought his gaze back to her with a look she knew would mean he wouldn’t let this go. “If it was before the last time I came to port, then it wasn’t long after she left Luxor.”
Lillian leaned back to sit comfortably in her chair while grabbing the pot of tea and refilling her near-empty cup.
“I’d heard about a young girl working the streets, someone who was new in port but quickly making a name for herself.” His mother raised her cup and gave a humourless snort. “That’s not always a good thing.”
“She was popular?” Alister wasn’t sure if he liked hearing that. I did ask.
“Yes and no.” She eyed him warily, her gaze flicking to and from him when usually it was able to remain fixed on his face.
“She was violent. If a man treated her wrong, she’d lash out.
If she witnessed one hit another street girl, she’d turn a knife on him.
Men wanted her because she was pretty; they wanted to be the one to tame her. ”
Her lips thinned as she paused.
“If it wasn’t for Naeem watching her back while helping her steal coin by pickpocketing as well, I don’t know what would have happened.
The girls on the street loved her because she protected them.
They had someone to turn to when they were wronged, someone who would fight for them when no one else could or would. She wanted to mete out justice.”
“You brought her in because of this?”
She shook her head. “No. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring someone like her into my business. I didn’t want her to attract trouble.”
“So then how–?”
“The girls who worked here begged me to, especially when they brought her and Naeem here, injured and bleeding because someone cruel discovered they’d been sleeping on the street and were easy targets.
” Her eyes bowed in deep sadness. “She was a broken woman, Alister. She was so determined to get her ship, she wanted to make coin any way she could and refused to pay for somewhere safe to stay so she didn’t spend it.
She didn’t care for her safety. I couldn’t bear to know I’d turned this girl away. ”
She cleared her throat of the clogged emotion in it and recomposed herself.
“I let them stay in two of the rooms for free, knowing they wouldn’t stay if I made them pay.
There were many unoccupied, so I knew it wouldn’t matter.
Naeem became a guard while Rosetta worked as a girl and helped to protect this place along with him.
If a man mistreated one of the women, she was the first to step in and help her.
” His mother gave a great laugh. “She also hunted them down and took all their coin to give to the girl as compensation. Once she was safe, she started to flourish in the year she was here. She eventually got enough money together to buy a small ship and a crew, right before you came back two years ago.”
“You didn’t tell me about this last time I was here. You only told me people tried to ransack the place.”
She reached forward and cupped his cheek once more to rub her thumb over it. He felt the hairs on his face bend the other way, and the sound of it scraped his ears like sandpaper.
“I didn’t want to worry you, since I knew there was a chance she’d return.” She gave him a small smile. “And she did, with a newer and bigger boat each time, with more men who wanted to follow her.”
He gave a light chuckle. “She’s got a way of getting men to do what she wants.”
Alister had been the victim of that time and time again.
He wasn’t happy to learn this part of Rosetta’s past. She had endured much more pain and suffering than she originally let on.
She can be so light and bubbly sometimes, he thought to himself as he rubbed the back of his neck. It made it hard to see she hadn’t had an easy life. It often made him forget.
What else has she gone through?
“Leave her alone, Alister,” his mother pleaded, her eyes bowed into heavy arches of concern. “She’s been through enough. Don’t make it worse.”
“She’s a grown woman,” he answered with a dead expression. “She can make her own choices.” He rather liked that one of them was sailing with him, so he could ride out this lust he seemed to have for her.
“If you hurt her...” His mother’s voice turned stern in the way it did when he knew he was deeply angering her. “I will be very disappointed in you.”
He pointed two fingers at her. “Don’t turn me into the bad guy. I don’t lay a hand on her that she doesn’t want!”
She lightly smacked him upside the head. “I’m not talking about that. I know you wouldn’t – I taught you better than that.”
Yes, she did. His mother was the reason he didn’t like to lay a heavy hand on women or do anything violent or unkind to them. If he didn’t like the idea of it happening to Lillian, then why should he do it to others?
He finally understood what she was trying to say, and he gave a deep, bellowing laugh while tilting his head back.
“Nay,” he chuckled with deep-seated humour. “She’s too smart for that, knows it would be foolish.”
“Then don’t do what your father did to me!” He opened his mouth to say he would never, but she pointed to a cup on the table. “I had to give her special tea today, so don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t.”
He winced. Damn, lass. You really threw me off the pier here.
“It was an accident.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with his own mother!
She squinted her eyes at him. “Men always say it was an accident, but you’re not the ones who have to deal with it!”
Before she could get into one of her tantrums about his father, he dragged her in for a tight hug. He patted the back of her hair, taking in her motherly scent that had been a comfort for him since he was a child.
“How have you been, Ma?”
“Been missing you, you ungrateful child,” she murmured against his broad chest.
Nay, never been ungrateful.
Rosetta was working with Naeem to make sure everything was shipshape before they set sail.
She had long ago changed into her new brown tights and the white button-up tunic. She threw her now worn-in boots onto her feet, and they almost came to her knees.
“I’ve chosen Mr Andrews as our new helmsman for the night shift,” she told Naeem as they walked through the hallways below deck.
They had just gone through the stocks and supplies one last time, making sure they had everything they could possibly need. She also checked on the livestock they’d bought, checking how much feed they had to keep them alive for as long as possible.
They had cows, chickens, a pig, and a goat she was set on calling Reginald. She called every goat Reginald, and she would grow close with it over the course of the next few months.
Men had been tasked with caring for a certain animal, and they would treat them like a beloved pet before they were sadly eaten. It gave them something to enjoy doing on the ship while out at sea.
“Thomas Andrews?” he asked, putting his hand over his chin in thought as they rounded a dimly lit corner. “He’s a good man; strong, too.”
“Yes, well, he’s been with us for just as long as Mr Smith and I know he can do all the same tasks.”