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He knelt beside her, followed the length of her shoulder to her hand and placed the flannel in her palm.
Then he stood. The oilcloth coat left behind by the previous seaman didn’t fit his shoulders and the arms of it stopped just below his elbows, but he dressed quickly, donning the coat last.
He hadn’t been Cassandra’s first and had been too green to realise it until she taunted him with it.
Now, when he least wanted one, he’d bedded a virgin.
Chapter Seven
The sky sparked and the rain pounded with an unthreatening insistence. Nothing inside Warrington flowed as serene as the sea.
Lowering his head from the drops hitting his face, he kept close to the ship’s upper cabin walls, moving slowly towards the bow. He stood with the wind behind him, facing the bowsprit, and his back pressed into the outside of the cabin. Shadows concealed him. Only men who must stayed out in the weather and they would be too busy staying alive to notice him.
He’d had to be away from Melina and think.
A virgin. She’d been recompensed, but he’d actually paid nothing for taking her innocence. Having her on board the ship had taken no funds from his pocket.
The London docks at Wapping couldn’t come quickly enough. He should not have agreed to the journey. He’d never step willingly on a ship again, unless the whole of the world began to fall into the ocean, and then he would consider sailing briefly before drowning at peace with his decision to avoid the vessel.
A movement at his side, not in harmony with the rhythm of the sea, caught his attention and he stepped sideways, avoiding being stumbled into. The slight build could only belong to one person.
‘Stubby.’ He spoke to the small form of the cabin boy, who’d huddled into the space beside him. ‘You are not to be on deck. Go below. Now.’
He heard no sigh, but saw a heave of thin shoulders.
‘Gid says this storm’s still just a baby. Shouldn’t scare anybody but a lady. Supposed to get worse by morning, though.’
‘Stubble it. You’re to be asleep.’
‘Can’t sleep. The thunder pitched me from the hammock.’
‘Stub. The bed wraps around you. It’s hard to fall out of the hammock once you’re in it.’
‘But once you’re out, it be hard for me to crawl back in without help. I’d sleep under it, but I’d be rolling around all night.’
‘I’ll get you a place to sleep.’ He moved to the stern of the ship, borrowing one of the quartermaster’s lanterns, and Stubby trudged along behind him.
‘You be out here because the woman’s in your berth?’ Stubby said, his voice still imbued with youth.
‘Yes.’ Warrington truly didn’t want to speak.
‘I want to stay here with you.’
‘You’re going below.’
The lad who could scamper through the rigging faster than a breeze immediately changed his speed to that of a sore-footed turtle, grasping at the sides of the ship’s cabins, as if he could hardly stand upright. Warrington locked his jaw and grabbed Stubby’s shoulder, turning the lad around the edge of the cabins and towards the opening to the lower decks.
Stubby stopped. ‘Gidley says the woman’s showin’ you her treasure. You seen her treasure?’ His voice bounced with excitement.
‘Just a bit of marble stone.’ He gave another push, moving Stubby faster. The lad would not take a step without a nudge. Warrington kept a hand on Stubby’s shoulder, propelling him forward.
‘Can you show me?’ Stubby moved to the steps to go below deck.
‘No.’ Warrington ducked his head and followed Stubby down the rungs, into the bowels of darkness, the lantern giving just enough light to guide their way. They followed the men’s snores, which made Ascalon sound like a beast with a rumbling stomach.
‘Why?’
‘Stubby.’ He spoke sternly, hoping to quiet him.
‘I know. I know,’ the cabin boy grumbled in the darkness. ‘Stubble it. Stubble it. That’s not my real name. But I been called Stubby so much I forget the other one.’
‘You’ll remember some day.’ Warrington hoped he told the truth. ‘Or you can pick out something you like.’
Stubby paused, a delaying tactic. ‘I’m trying to think of one.’
Warrington reached the crowded hold and, clutching the shoulder of Stubby’s shirt, walked by hammocks with sleeping men until he found an empty one. He hung the lantern, the scent of burning oil mixing with rain and musty men.
