Chapter Six #3
Thankfully, the door through which Captain Seaton had disappeared was only one additional lunge from the friendly sailor, and so Michael managed to reach it with very little difficulty—though he could have done without the laughter of the sailors on the deck.
What surprised him about the door was that it led to—
“Yes, stairs,” came the jolly voice of Captain Seaton from somewhere below in the gloom. “A tad difficult to navigate on a ship at the best of times, but during a storm—”
“We are not in a storm,” Michael managed, grasping the rail to his left and accomplishing an entire two steps before his stomach lurched most unpleasantly.
“No, we’re not,” agreed his hostess dryly. “And yet you are still struggling.”
By the time Michael had gotten to the bottom of the stairs, he almost had the trick of it. The trouble was, the person waiting for him was not a beaming, pleasant woman, but the stern Captain Seaton.
“Right. This is where you’d sleep.”
She thrust him forward and Michael had no choice but to stagger through an open doorway that did not appear to have a corresponding door.
The room… Well, to say it smelled would have been underplaying it.
Michael lifted his sleeve to his nose in an instinct to preserve his life, half-certain that the odor alone could be sufficient to cause his nose to explode. It was a heady mix of unpleasantness, rank food, sweat, and something he was not going to think about.
He would have to ask his father’s valet to give his shoes an additional clean.
As the gloom before him slowly formed into objects, Michael was astonished to find his cabin appeared to have a few items within it that he could see no use for.
“Why all the rope things?” he asked from behind his sleeve. “And where’s the bed?”
It was most unfair of her to laugh so thoroughly, Michael could not help but think. He had only asked a question.
“You’ve never seen a hammock before?” crowed the captain behind him. “That’s what you sleep in when you’re at sea, you filthy bilge rat. There’re no beds on this ship—none except mine.”
Forcing himself not to think of the woman teasing him in a bed, for that would certainly have been too much for his body to handle, Michael cast his eye around the room again with that fresh knowledge. But it still didn’t make sense.
“But why on earth would I need…six places to sleep?” he wondered aloud.
It should have been against the law for her to chuckle like that. “Oh, Mr. Chance,” said Captain Seaton, raising a fist to her mouth to prevent more laughter from escaping. “You truly think you would have this room to yourself?”
Only then did understanding dawn. This wasn’t a gentleman’s lodgings. This was the crew’s.
“But a paying visitor—”
“This is the sleeping arrangements for passengers and crew in almost every ship along this dock,” Captain Seaton said matter-of-factly, as though he could not have expected anything more.
“If you have real money, then you can pay for lodgings, but the ship will be larger, less nimble. More prone to flooding in winter and needing more stops—that will slow your journey down by, what, a few weeks?”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “‘Weeks’?”
“Oh, it depends where you make port.” Captain Seaton leaned against the wall with a knowing look.
“And what supplies are available. Best to travel in the autumn; that’s when harvest fills up every store and you’ll find fruit and vegetables, and the early slaughters will give you your salted pork and bacon—summer, it’s too early for the best food.
Leave in winter and you’ll lose yourself a month to get to America.
If you make it without scurvy, of course. ”
It was dazzling, the way she rattled off information in that calm and unconcerned way, as though she had no idea how knowledgeable she was.
Very much against his better judgment, Michael had to admit he was impressed.
“But then you risk autumn storms, of course,” continued the captain, her distaste for him swiftly fading as she continued on with what was evidently a favorite topic. “You have to be careful, for there’s nothing to stop… Why are you looking at me like that?”
Michael swallowed. “Like what?”
“Like… I don’t rightly know.” Somehow, he had put the wind up Captain Seaton, and she glared as though he had done it on purpose. “Like you’re…impressed.”
“I am impressed,” he admitted. “I had no idea there were such complexities to a voyage.”
For a moment, just a moment, Captain Phylis Seaton puffed with pride, a smile on her face that she directed at him and Michael—
Michael melted.
She was beautiful. And she was clever, and she lived a life of adventure he could only dream of. Sailing from place to place, never staying in one place long, never staying where one did not want to…
She had everything he wanted, everything. And she was alluring, to boot, with a fierce and specific intelligence that took no prisoners.
Michael swallowed. “Do you take passengers, Phylis?”
And then the smile was gone, and the shutters went down, and Captain Seaton snarled, “Get off my ship.”
A spark of mischief flared in Michael and he could not help but quip as he started up the stairs to the deck, “It’s a very nice boat, I must say.”
“Off!”