Chapter Ten
Six hours later her hands are raw from hauling on ropes.
A fire burns inside every muscle in her arms and back, her mouth is dry with thirst, and her mind numb with exhaustion.
The wind has lain itself down to rest at last, just in time for the sky to acquire the first pink-gray hint of dawn.
The sea still moves like a living, breathing creature, but it’s a slower roll now and the ship slides through the waves like a needle through a length of silk.
Jack comes down the two steps that separate the aft of the ship from the bow.
His face is so pale it’s nearly gray, and she remembers with the same shock as before that he was shot in his side only three weeks ago.
The worry writhes inside her. What if this voyage is too much for him?
She has already lost George aboard a ship; she cannot bear to think of losing…
She shakes her head. She cannot allow herself to think this way. Jack can in no way be equated to George. It’s simply impossible. Keep your distance, she tells herself again. It’s easier said than done on the ship, but she must try.
When he’s nearly at her side, Jack says something, but the last of the wind blows his words apart and she calls back, “What did you say?”
Closer still, he says, “It’s calm now. I’m sending most of the crew below so they can get some sleep. You should go and rest for a few hours.”
The thought of a bed is like stumbling upon an oasis after forty days in the desert. She says, “I should like that. Thank you. Are you well?”
“Fine. Weary to the bone, but we all are. Do you mean on account of my wound?” When she nods, he says, “I’m pleased to report it has not bothered me in the least, but then I’ve avoided hauling on any ropes.
Unlike yourself. I admit I had my doubts about you coming on the voyage, but you’ve proved me wrong tonight.
Are you hungry? Tom is making some toasted cheese. ”
“I’m too tired to eat.”
“I’ve had Will put your bag in the cabin. Go and rest.”
“Which cabin?”
“It’s toward the stern on the lower deck. The door is next to the ladder. You can’t miss it—there’s only the one.”
Only the one…His words filter through the numbness. “What did you say?” she says to make sure she heard correctly.
“I said there’s only one cabin.” He gives her a quick smile. “I’m afraid you and I will have to share, unless you prefer the company of the rest of the men. They’ve got a nice row of hammocks strung along the length of the hold.”
She’s staring at him. “What do you mean, only one cabin? You can’t be serious.” When he merely keeps smiling at her, she says, “Jack, tell me you’re not serious.”
“The cabin is on the small side, compared to what your husband will have seen aboard a man-of-war, but I’ve got a large hammock.
One of the perks of being the captain. There’s enough space for two, easily, and you’ll have it all to yourself for the first couple of hours today.
I’m staying on deck with Harry until the first watch is up. ”
“But…surely we can’t…”
Seeing her consternation, his smile fades. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were aware of the layout of a ship this size. Where else did you expect to sleep?”
“I didn’t…I hadn’t…” She’s stuttering. The worst is, it’s not because she’s horrified at the thought of sharing a bed—a hammock—with Jack. It’s because she’s not. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sounding exasperated, he says, “You married a naval officer. Your father was an admiral. I thought you knew about ships—about the lack of space in them. Did you think we’d have a spare cabin set aside just for you?
” When she shakes her head, Jack says mildly, “It’s not as if we haven’t shared a bed before.
The crew won’t talk—you have nothing to fear on that account. ”
“Couldn’t I put up a separate hammock somewhere at least?”
“I’m not sure where you’d put it, if we had a spare one. There isn’t any space. Unless you mean in the hold with the rest of the men.”
The idea of sleeping in the hold of the ship alongside ten strange men is even more disconcerting than that of sharing a hammock with Jack.
But how in Heaven’s name is she supposed to keep her distance from him if they share sleeping quarters?
She was so taken with the idea of going to sea at last, of sailing on a ship across the ocean—“only the Channel” Jack calls it, but it doesn’t signify, because it’s the ocean to her—that she never once considered where she might sleep.
She says, “I’m afraid the sleeping arrangements are wholly unsatisfactory.” She hears how she sounds saying it. Prim and foolish—as if she could fall back on the manners and habits of her upbringing here, aboard a smuggling vessel filled with contraband bound for France.
“Isabel,” Jack says gently. He reaches out and nearly touches her cheek again, and oddly she thinks she might cry if he touched her now, because she wants to share the hammock with him, she wants to be close to him, but she cannot; she should not want it and, above all, she is so desperately weary anything could make her cry.
“Go get some sleep. I promise I won’t lay a finger on you. ”
This is not what she’s worried about, but she is too tired to explain, so she merely says, “Thank you.” Half stumbling with exhaustion, she makes her way down the ladder and through the door.
The room covers the width of the stern but isn’t very deep.
Besides the hammock it holds a desk and chair; there isn’t space for anything else.
Early morning light filters in through a pair of rectangular skylights set at a slant in a raised section of the deck above.
The hammock is wide enough for two, though it will be a tight fit, the canvas framed by wooden slats on either end.
The sides consist of separate pieces, about a hand’s breadth in width, giving the whole an impression of a high-sided canvas bed suspended from ropes.
Since the rain stopped, her dress has largely dried in the wind.
She doesn’t bother to remove it, nor does she take off her shoes; she’s too exhausted.
Instead, she drops into the sagging depth of the hammock as if it’s her own feathered, velvet-clad, and canopied bed in Greenwich and sleeps the moment she shuts her eyes.
When she opens them again she’s pressed against George.
She feels the warmth of his chest under the side of her face, rising and falling with every breath, and she can hear the beat of his heart, steady and strong.
She smells the sea air and sweat on him and knows he has come home to her.
A deep, vast happiness surges inside her and she turns her face into his chest, wanting to both laugh and cry as she presses her lips against the cotton of his shirt.
Then she wakes fully and it isn’t George she’s pressed against, but Jack. He stirs underneath her, his right arm shifting until it’s half draped across her, holding her in place.
She reels with the discovery. Lying very still, she waits for her heart to resume its natural pace.
The cabin bathes in light. The patch of sky visible through the protective wooden grille covering the glass of the skylight is a light, clear blue with a white sun at its zenith.
Slowly, careful not to touch the side of Jack’s stomach that sports the scar from the gunshot wound, she turns around and glances over the edge of the hammock.
Jack’s coat hangs over the back of the chair by the desk, together with his neckerchief.
How long has she been asleep? She never noticed Jack joining her in the hammock.
The warmth of him against her makes her dizzy with sudden yearning.
She wants to wake him and ask him to kiss her.
Mad impulse, of course. She cannot; she must not.
She’s not really longing for Jack to kiss her, she tells herself.
She’s longing for George. She misses him and she misses how he made her feel.
He knew how to kiss a girl, and even though their times together were few and far between and the act itself performed with an air of hesitance, she enjoyed being close to him.
She must keep her distance from Jack, despite this absurd situation with the hammock. Besides that, Jack stayed on deck while nearly everyone else slept. He has probably only been asleep for an hour or two at most. All other considerations aside, it would simply be unfair to wake him now.
Carefully, she lifts his arm and hauls herself up on the edge of the hammock.
He shifts again, half turning away from her and mumbling something sounding like “I couldn’t,” and then what sounds like a name—Marianne, she thinks.
Or something like that. Slowly, slowly she swings her legs over the edge of the hammock, and then her toes touch the deck and she climbs out.
Jack stays asleep. She breathes a heavy sigh and is about to turn away from him when she recognizes his shirt.
It’s the shirt that got torn when he was shot, the shirt she mended for him.
Something tightens in her chest. Turning away quickly, she wipes her eyes angrily. What should it matter that he chose to wear the shirt? She must master these ridiculous feelings.
She takes out the pins from her hair and repins it as best she can.
There is no looking glass in the small cabin.
She imagines the result will be somewhat disastrous.
Quietly, she steals out of the cabin and climbs the ladder to the main deck.
The hatch is open, sunlight pouring down it.
The sea is a mass of sapphire, here and there accented with foam, the horizon a thin, nearly invisible line between heaven and earth.
There’s not a sail in sight except for the full red mainsail of the Rapide as she cuts through the swell.