Chapter One #2
Perhaps it was not seemly to put quite so much emphasis on the last two words, but she’d had enough.
It was hot, hotter than she’d thought it’d be that morning when dressing, and this damned coat was stifling.
She only wore the blasted thing to meet landlubbers.
They expected this sort of thing, while Phylis had learned from experience that the damn layer was too cumbersome on an actual ship this time of year.
Something these men would never understand.
“We’re happy to sign now.” Mr. Murray was babbling. “If that will secure the lower pricing—”
Ah. Phylis smiled. “It will. Thank you, Mr. Murray. Well, if that is all, gentlemen, Mr. Murray and I will conclude our business—”
“No! No, I will sign on behalf of my clients—”
“I’ll sign too!”
Slowly, slowly, as though she were being leisurely persuaded by their coherent arguments—or incoherent prattling—Phylis lowered herself back into her chair and spread her arms wide with a shrug.
“Well, if—if you truly wish to sign six-month contracts, good sirs, I suppose I can make an exception.”
The hubbub paused. His head tilted and his throat bobbing, Mr. Todd looked at her curiously, and more than a little nervously, which was just how she liked it. “‘Ex-Exception’?”
“Yes, I typically offer twelve-month contracts only, you see,” said Phylis lazily, as though she had all the time in the world and was not glancing moment to moment at the longcase clock that now showed that it was fifteen minutes to three.
Fifteen minutes. If she got them all to sign in the next five, and she ran to the docks…she could just about make it. Couldn’t she?
“‘Twelve’… ‘Twelve months’?” repeated Mr. Calthorpe, jaw practically on the ground.
For a moment, Phylis hesitated.
Perhaps she had pushed too far. It was unusual, she knew, for any shipping contact to be longer than six months and in truth, she had none that were longer. She never had signed any that were longer.
But the security of her ship, of the Dreamer, of her crew—that was what mattered. To guarantee work for the next twelve months…that would be beyond her wildest dreams.
And if she could just get the men cornered…
Phylis batted her eyelashes. “It’s what the French and the Dutch are doing, yes. In truth, I think Britain is falling behind on this matter, but then it is not for me to say…”
“I’ll sign a twelve-month contract!” Mr. Acton flushed as all in the room turned to look at him. “I will! My clients will accept it—”
“I’ll sign!” Mr. Thurlow leaned his spindly shoulders forward with an eagerness that Phylis easily recognized as greed. “I won’t be the one left behind. My clients would never forgive me.”
And so it was done.
Really, Phylis thought delightedly as she leaned back and watched the men squabble over the order in which they would sign her twelve-month contract at prices that were at least fifteen percent higher than she would have agreed to, it’s almost upsetting, how easy it is to manipulate these men.
These men? Any men.
All men.
Phylis sighed as the paperwork was brought around—reams of it, pages and pages for each of the accountants still jostling to get their contracts signed before at least one other gentleman’s.
Time was running out; Drummond had his orders, but she would rather he didn’t have to obey them…
and yet that longcase clock in the corner was still tick, tick, ticking the seconds away…
“There,” she said with a flourish, wondering whether to slip the pen into her pocket and deciding against it. Phylis looked up and nodded at the five men now grinning to each other as though they had won a great prize.
Which she supposed they had. They were the first in England to be so easily taken in by her this month.
But the month was still young.
“And now I must be getting back to my ship,” Phylis said, standing with a scrape of her chair.
“Of course, of course,” murmured Mr. Todd. “And you will give our best regards to your captain.”
Phylis froze halfway through offering out her hand for the man to shake.
Her… Her captain?
Did the man understand nothing? Had she stuttered? At any point had she stated that she was anything but the captain of the Dreamer?
Mr. Todd’s smile had not exactly frozen, but he had hesitated and was now glancing between the other accountants, who had similarly befuddled expressions on their faces. “I mean…you are the wife of the captain, are you not, Mrs. Seaton?”
Phylis’s mouth was dry and for a moment, just a moment, her knees rocked as though she were standing on the Dreamer’s deck and she was trying to find her balance in a gusty squall.
But this wasn’t the Dreamer. This was dry land, a place where she felt even less steady on her feet.
Oh, she had known they hadn’t respected her, not truly. No man seemed to respect a woman in the world, and she had traveled across a great deal of it. She had never expected respect, just as she had never demanded it.
If you had to demand respect, you weren’t going to get it.
But she had at least hoped they had been listening to her.
“No,” Phylis said, her voice coarse as she tried to swallow. “No, I am not the captain’s wife. I am the captain. My title, as I told you when I entered, as you will see on the paperwork before you, is Captain Phylis Seaton.”
There were only furrowed brows and heads cocked sideways before her.