Chapter Seventeen
“Just five more,” Phylis called across the deck without expecting much of an answer. There was no answer required, just a few grunts of acknowledgment as the heavy crates were passed from person to person.
She was leaning against the balustrade in the midday heat, her wide-brimmed captain’s hat keeping the worst of the sunshine from her face, though the air itself was so hot, it barely made much difference.
The day had begun early, as it always did. Phylis had broken her fast with her crew, picking at her porridge and not eating much, her stomach lurching each time she’d tried to take a bite.
“The world does not revolve around you, Michael. It’s not all about you—”
“I know that—and I never thought that! But I thought, that night—I thought we came to an agreement!”
She’d signed the last of the paperwork, berated Jack the cabin boy for a small mistake he should know better about by now, and now watched as her crew carried out the last of her orders.
Pack up. Say goodbye to your women. Get ready to leave.
Phylis swallowed, ignoring as best she could the lurch in her stomach, but unable to stop the echoing from inside her own damned mind.
It was stupid. Foolish, even, to allow such an argument to linger.
She had broken ties with the man and she was off to Amsterdam by the end of the day.
London would fall behind her and the fresh, salty seas would beckon, drawing her forward to new adventures, new experiences. It was what she had always wanted.
It was what she had always wanted.
Now Phylis could not stop seeing the look of hurt on the man’s face, the confusion, and the idiot hadn’t even understood why she’d been so angry and that, if anything, made her even more furious.
Idiot. Son of a blasted gun!
“You look cheerful,” came a voice to her left.
Phylis grimaced bitterly. “Go away.”
“I mean it. You look absolutely ecstatic,” Drummond said with a chuckle as he moved to her side and examined the crew alongside her. “I thought you’d be eager to be off.”
“I am,” Phylis lied.
Well, it was not entirely a lie. She had been in London too long—staying in any one place for more than a few weeks always made her unsettled, and she’d been here now for six of them.
That was too long.
And it was all because of him. All Michael Chance’s fault. If he hadn’t been so damned charming and utterly charismatic, they would have been in Amsterdam weeks ago. They would have been earning more money weeks ago—better money than traipsing up and down the English coast.
Phylis bit her lip, but was careful to keep a sturdy, steady gaze out to her crew. The last thing she needed was for her men to sense weakness.
Men did not want a weak captain.
“You’re quiet.”
Phylis snorted, glancing at her first mate with derision. “I have nothing to say.”
“That’s not like you, neither,” said Drummond steadily, refusing to be cowed by the stern look that she gave him. “That’s never been like you, not since you were knee high.”
That’s the trouble, Phylis thought ruefully, of having a first mate who was your own father’s first mate. The blasted man could see right through her, he knew her so damned well.
But she was hardly about to unburden her heart. Not to Drummond, not to any of them—not to anyone.
She wasn’t even certain she could explain it to herself, let alone another person.
“That’s the last of ’em!”
Phylis wasn’t quite sure who had called it, but sighs and groans of relief welcoming the news rippled through her crew as a few of them stretched out pained arms.
“Good,” she called. “Free time, then before—”
“Captain,” Drummond said quietly. “The crew wish to have a word.”
Phylis froze.
Well, those words never boded well. They never had, not in the whole history of sailing.
When a crew wished to have a word with their captain, that meant they were unhappy. Unhappy crews were known for marooning their captains.
“A word,” she repeated carefully, as though if she spoke too hurriedly, the cannons would go off.
Drummond shuffled his feet—another bad sign. Her first mate had always been able to talk to her; he’d served her father, and now her. She trusted him.
So what did he not trust himself to say?
“All right, let’s have it,” Phylis said, bracing herself for the absolute worst even as her hand moved to her belt.
Damn. Her trusty knife wasn’t there. Not that she was about to attack Drummond, but she felt awfully cornered, with the lot of them staring at her…
“Captain,” Drummond said quietly. “This is because we care about you.”
Phylis’s hand stopped meandering to her belt.
Oh. That had been rather unexpected.
“You…care about me,” she said carefully, as though checking each word for a twisted meaning that could alter her understanding of the whole thing.
Her first mate nodded, his grizzled hair tugged by the sudden breeze. “Y’know y’father asked me to keep an eye on you, when he…when he left us.”
I am not going to cry.
Phylis gritted her teeth and nodded. “Yes. Yes, he did.”
“An’ I’ve done that to the best of my ability,” Drummond continued awkwardly, not quite meeting her eye. “Being as I ent much of a father, and never will be.”
Her jaw softened as Phylis smiled. “You’ve been an excellent mad uncle to me, Drummond.”
The man brightened at her remark. “Aye, I have, though I say so meself. And the lads and me—we like serving you, Captain. We all do.”
Ah. Right. So he’s been put forward, has he?
Phylis did not exactly look around her but just allowed her peripheral vision to take in a little more, now that she did not have to concentrate solely on her first mate, and yes—as expected, most of her crew had not gone about their business but were loitering.
Oh, none of them were actually looking over at her and Drummond. But they didn’t need to be.
A breath escaped Phylis’s lips. “What’s this actually about, Drummond?”
Her first mate sighed heavily and told his boots, “That Mr. Chance fellow.”
Her stomach lurched painfully.
No, she did not want to think about him. She didn’t want to speak to him, much less about him. Mr. Michael Chance was not a part of her life and now never would be, not after his ridiculous behavior on shore.
That was it; that was the root of the problem.
She should never have allowed herself to get so…
so caught up with a landlubber. They didn’t understand, did they, the draw of the sea, the pull of the ocean.
They couldn’t conceptualize a life of movement, of never stopping in at one port for long, of never knowing exactly where the wind would take you.
“Phylis, I told you, I love you.”
“You can’t love a caged bird.”
Phylis inhaled slowly, then exhaled all the bitterness and anger festering in her lungs. She had hoped to expel it completely, but it did not seem possible.
Michael Chance had taken her heart and carved it up.
And she should have seen it coming.
“There’s no need to talk about Mr. Chance,” Phylis said aloud, in the strongest voice she could manage.
Such a shame her throat wavered on the last word.
Her first mate looked at her with sympathetic eyes—far more sympathetic than she would have expected. “You can’t stop thinkin’ about him, though, can ye?”
Phylis was not going to cry. Crying was not for captains.
At least, if it was for captains, it was for captains once they had finished a hard day’s work and then retired to their cabins, where they could sob in peace.
As she had last night.
But crying was not for when she was on deck in front of the whole damned crew.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly, drawing herself up as best she could. “Now, then, dinner will be—”
“You don’t have to pretend with us, Captain,” said Jack meekly, taking a step closer but evidently unsure whether he should come farther.
Phylis stifled a grin as Drummond shook his head vigorously and the cabin boy instantly retreated, lowing his head.
“I just meant—”
“I know what you meant, Jack,” said Phylis, “and it’s very—well, kind of you to worry, but I’m fine.”
“We are all worried,” said Drummond gruffly. “We care about you, Captain. It pains us, to see you so downcast.”
Phylis managed a watery grin. “I’m… I’m fine.”
She was not fine. She had never felt less fine in her entire life, never more destroyed, never more…ha. At sea.
She had thought—somehow she had managed to convince herself that she and Michael Chance had a future.
Which was ridiculous. The man could barely stand up on a ship without falling over, she told herself furiously, and he didn’t have the first idea what to do with an oar.
He probably got seasick, and the blasted man was determined to leave a perfect life and start all over again because of some pique about nobility and family!
Which was absolutely not what her father had done… Well, actually…
Phylis swallowed, hating the treacherous thought that had risen in her mind as her father’s story flickered in her memory.
He’d run away, hadn’t he? Taken his daughter and run away to sea, back to what he’d known, rather than face a different life on land. She’d hardly known her grandparents, her mother’s family, and they were gone now.
Yes, Phylis argued with herself silently, but he’d lost the love of his life. He’d lost my mother. It’s not the same.
Oh, isn’t it? The nasty, little voice at the back of her mind sneered. So you haven’t just lost the love of your life, and you’re not running away?
“We have work to do,” Phylis said aloud, her voice far stronger than she had imagined, thank goodness. “We have contracts. Business to attend to. We can’t—One’s personal life… It doesn’t matter. Not like the Dreamer does.”
She managed to meet her first mate’s eye at the end of her little speech, something she was painfully proud of, considering how difficult it was to do.
Drummond’s gaze was unwavering. “But ye love him, Captain.”
I am not going to cry, Phylis told herself sternly even as the tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. “No, I don’t.”