We’ll drink and be merry and drown melancholy
Singing here’s a good health to each true-hearted lass!”
Nick listened but couldn’t look. Once again she was up in the foretop with Jack, Tucker and Chang. His gut clenched and he found it hard to breathe.
“I could call her down, Cap’n,” Bos’n said, standing near the bell.
Nick was sorely tempted but he shook his head. “I trust you to manage your watch as you see fit.”
“There’s three types o’ sailors, as I see it,” Bos’n rasped quietly. “Them like Jack what loves the foretop, agile on the ropes like a monkey. Them like Big Jim, who don’t want to climb above the mains’l but likes the sea enough to go up there anyway. And them who go aloft on one voyage and then go ashore for good as soon as they can.”
Nick stared at Bos’n. It was the longest speech Nick could remember his second mate uttering that didn’t include directions for trimming sail or dressing down a crew member.
“Harry is like Jack. She may not be strong enough to move a full water barrel by herself, but she’s nimble. Being small works to her advantage in the foretop. Got over her fear right fast once she got up there.”
Nick heard the admiration in the other man’s voice.
Just his luck that Harriet overcame her fear of heights right when Nick discovered his fear … on her behalf.
The song ended and they started another, Tucker singing the call and the crew giving the answer.
“Could hold forth in a musicale, eh?” Zach said from beside Nick, joining him at the maphouse. “She wouldn’t even need a pianoforte to carry a tune.”
Nick grunted. “I’d wager no miss ever sang that in a London drawing room.”
Zach chuckled. “How about you put us ashore at Torquay,” he continued, sobering. “Offload the horses there.” He dropped his voice. “I’ll see that she gets home safely to Brixham. No tongues a’wagging.”
Nick finally looked at him. He saw only sincerity in Zach’s eyes. No recrimination. “You haven’t told me lately how inept I am.”
Zach clapped him on the shoulder. “No need to be redundant, lad.”
* * *
When they entered the harbor at Torquay, Jack called Harriet to the bow and handed her a line. “One task ye ain’t done yet, Harry,” he said. “Tie up the bow, and I’ll do the stern.” With a grin he set off to the stern, grabbed the correct line, and gracefully swung down to the dock.
Harriet took a deep breath and stepped up on the rail. She could do this. Her muscles had become stronger from all the work she’d been doing—which made it easier to not think about her breaking heart.
From the dock Jack waved for her to get on with it.
She grabbed the line and swung out and down and didn’t even jar her teeth when she landed. She let go and gestured for Chang to toss her the line to tie up the bow. After she made fast the line on the bollard, she met Jack to catch the gangboard Tucker and Dieter pushed out. She couldn’t suppress a grin when Jonesy caught her eye and gave her an approving nod.
They finished the docking procedures. Soon Zach was in the hold to help fasten the slings and blindfolds on Tesoro and Button, sending them up one at a time, loudly whinnying in protest. Harriet stayed on the dock to help free them from the slings and walk them so they could get their land legs back, rewarding them with carrots and pats.
While Zach took care of getting them saddled, it was time for her to go below, gather her packed portmanteau, and take a look around to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. Since she’d given Betsy her trunk when the maid went ashore at Gravesend, Harriet was tight on packing space. She’d almost decided to chuck her wrinkled green muslin gown overboard—or sell it to Smitty for the slop chest—to make room for her Portuguese blanket. In the end she wrapped the colorful blanket around the outside of her bag and tied it on.
She checked her knife in the belt strapped around her waist. Last night she’d finished the scrimshaw design of dolphin and waves on the handle. Jack had pronounced it fair to middling, which she took as high praise. She committed the foc’s’le to memory, where she’d spent so much time with the crew. The table and benches where they’d eaten, played checkers, and told yarns, were hauled up and fastened against the bulkhead. Hammocks were neatly rolled and stowed on hooks, including the one she’d slept in the last few nights. Tucker snored, it turned out. One of the lads always broke wind in his sleep after eating oatmeal and peas. She tried not to figure out who.
This morning she’d said good-bye to the goats and Oscar when she’d done the milking. Nick was up on deck talking with the harbormaster, so she took a fortifying breath and headed for his cabin. She couldn’t leave without one last look. She hadn’t been in the cabin since that disastrous night.
She’d spent an hour in hysterics after she’d left Nick in the cargo hold, wildly swinging between calling herself a fool for turning him down, and crying into the pillow, assuring herself she’d done the right thing.
The woman who couldn’t bring herself to put on breeches in her cottage bedroom two months ago would have been content with the married life Nick described. Happy, even. It was the predictable life of safety and security that marriage to Percival had promised, that she had once thought she wanted … albeit with long absences and the chance Nick would die at sea in a storm or battle.
The navigation book still lay on the table, open to the last page she’d been reading, inviting her to continue her study. She closed it and put it away in the chest at the head of the bunk, caressing the embossed leather cover before firmly shutting the chest lid.
Nick filled the doorway when she stood up.
She gulped. “I- I thought you were busy on deck.”
