“Aye, I’ll—uh—go tell the captain.”
George left her, and Brianna looked around the small cabin. There was a window here too. A very small one, but she could look out and see the deep changing colors of the ocean. “Damn you, Treveryan!” she muttered. “If you aren’t always forcing me onto a ship!”
There was a tap at the door. She called out to enter, and George came back in, appearing very unhappy.
“I’m sorry, Brianna. The captain says that Michael is quite fine with him, and if you do not trust him, he is sorry. He says that he will send him back at suppertime so that you may dine together, and then put the lad to sleep.”
“Tell Captain Treveryan—” Brianna began explosively, but stopped to take a deep breath. She was not going to carry this fight on with George as a go-between.
“Bring him to me as soon as you can, George,” she said. George nodded, then left her. Brianna sank down on the small bunk and stared out the tiny window to the sea. How long ago had it been since she had sat for the first time, staring out? It had been Scotland she was leaving behind, and she was in turmoil then too. She had just sold her soul to a devil then—the devil Treveryan!
And she was doing so again. How long had it been since she had lain in a bunk beside him, felt him touch her, tenderly, and with the most searing intimacy?
She smiled then, remembering those first days when she had seen him in Salem again. She admitted that she loved him, and Sloan swore that he had loved her always.…
She started pacing the room, muttering to herself. In her mind, she saw him in all his guises; the man who had faced Matthews with a swagger and sword; the supreme aristocrat who had charged so furiously into the courtroom; and the crystal-cold stranger who had thrown her from him, determined that he was no cause of Robert’s death. She couldn’t remember what she said to him that night, the hurt and the shock had been so great to her. “I cannot give myself to you!” she whispered to herself. “It would not be right, and I swear that I am a curse to love! How many witches’ have been persecuted from shore to shore?”
Where will this lead us now?She told herself that she did hate him a thousand times over, and yet she had already begun to tremble for the night that lay ahead of her.
The day passed in this manner, then Michael was returned to her. He was so excited about sailing the ship that she could barely make out his garbled sentences. But when Paddy appeared with dinner plates of fresh smoked fish and New York harbor’s finest vegetables and summer apples, Michael began to calm down.
“I’m going to sail her alone one day, Mama. I will! Sloan has said that I will.”
“I’m your mother, Michael! I shall say what you do!”
He stared at her, his huge green eyes watering with confusion, and she relented. “I’m sorry, Michael. Someday—but a long time from now—you shall sail the ship.”
He was happy then, thrilled with his soldiers—if not impressed with his books. But after he had started to play with the soldiers, he turned one in his hand.
“They are not so nice as the ones Papa made,” he murmured, and then he turned to look at her. “Papa has gone to live with the angels, and I will not see him again.”
He started to cry, and Brianna picked him up to hold him to her. “Who told you that, Michael?” she asked him.
“Aunt Alyssa. She said I mustn’t mind, because God loved him dearly and would care for him for us.”
God loved him dearly…Surely, that was true.
“Come, Michael,” she said, “I will tuck you into bed and lie with you awhile.”
She put a nightshirt on him—a beautiful one, given to him lovingly by Alyssa. She stretched out beside him, and his whimpers became yawns, and he said at last, “Papa will watch over us from heaven. He loved us, Mama. And Sloan will watch out for us here.”
She tensed, hating how already Sloan had managed to ingrain himself upon his tiny heart, and yet wondering in a far corner of her mind if Michael did not have a better grip on the truth than she did herself.
In time he was asleep. Brianna thought about curling in with him for the night, and totally defying Sloan’s orders. If he came, he would find her asleep with the child and…
Possibly drag her out of the bed, she thought ruefully. By being here she had made her commitment—although he certainly wouldn’t be pleased, she fumed. Oh, she would be there! But if he thought he could force her into anything other than fury and loathing, he was wrong!
She left the small cabin and moved down the hall to enter the larger captain’s cabin. Near the bunk was a rough-hewn tub, filled with water, spouting a thin mist of heat. And on the bunk she found a note that sent her into a fury again.
It wasn’t signed, nor was it addressed. It said merely,Clean and fresh, smelling like roses—and eager!
She threw the note down, stamped on it, and thought she should let him come in—and douse him in the hot water. It was a pity, she decided then, that she could not manage such a feat.
And as the seconds slipped by, so did her nerve. She did not know him anymore. Was it possible, if she pushed him too far, that he could really see to it that she lost Michael?
She wasn’t very familiar with rum, but she decided she needed a good dose of it now. She uncorked the bottle and swallowed such a vast sip that she choked and coughed and wheezed—and burned from her head to her toes.
But it was an impetus that she needed. She decided that she could get her clothes off, and herself into the tub. And that she could pick up the rose-scented slab of soap left her.
