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The captain grabbed her hand in his. “You will have your passage to Dundee if your feet are fast enough to carry you to my ship.”
Before she had a chance to respond, he set off, drawing her along in his wake as he broke into a run through the gloomy dockyards of Billingsgate. It was dark and mist clung in patches. She could barely see, and yet the path he forged was not straight, which was apparently his intent. Maisie wondered how he knew this place so well, but she was glad he did. It was also a mercy that the whistle had made him take action. The sound had set his deliberations to short shrift. Could it be that she would truly be on her way to Dundee that night? Hope lit in her heart.
The captain’s stride was long and fast, and even though she lifted her skirts and hurried along behind him, still clinging tightly to his large, callused hand, her breath was soon labored. She rued the tightness of her corset. It had been appropriately laced for sitting in a theater box, but not for such a vigorous activity as this.
The captain made a sharp left turn, pausing briefly as he did so. The moonlight broke through the clouds and she saw the dark looming shape of a ship up ahead. He glanced down at her. “I’m sorry, but the haste is necessary.”
Maisie realized that he, too, was fleeing. “Why is it that you must run?”
The captain grabbed her bundle with his free hand and urged her forward again even while he answered her question. “There are those in London who will pay highly for the best French wine. My men have delivered several cases under cover of darkness and risked their neck in doing so. The excise men have been alerted. I was on my way back to my vessel when you called to me.”
Maisie silently corrected her previous assumption about his honesty. Not entirely honest in matters of commerce. With some trepidation she hoped that he was an honorable man, and not brutal by nature. Many traders sidestepped the excise man. Earlier that day she had ascertained that Captain Cameron was in charge of a free trade vessel, a merchant ship. She had no idea he might be hunted down for his dealings, but she would have had to approach him anyway, for his was the only ship bound for Scotland that night or in the days following, and she didn’t have much time to make her escape. It did make her feel a mite less uneasy about the fact she was tricking him into taking her, for in all likelihood she was every bit as dangerous to him as a bout of smuggling, if not more so.
Lurid laughter emerged from a shack to one side, and when she glanced in as they passed, she saw a woman ensconced with two men. One held a lantern aloft as she lifted her skirts for them. Shocked, Maisie stumbled on.
“Tread carefully,” her guide urged, and pulled her away from a tangle of net and rope.
They drew nearer to a ship and she thought their hasty dash was at an end, but he went beyond it, to another vessel. The closer they got, the more it seemed to loom above them.
Three figures perched on upturned crates close to the dockside were engaged in a huddled conversation. They lifted their heads as she and her guide approached. One, a scrawny lad, rose to his feet and saluted the gentleman at her side. “Captain.”
Just as she had expected, this was indeed Captain Roderick Cameron.
“On board at once, Adam,” he said in reply. “We are ready to set sail. Pass the order below deck.”
The young man picked
up a flagon and looped one finger through the handle at its neck. Then he turned on his heel and launched himself at a large rope net that hung down from the side of the ship to the dock. Maisie watched in astonishment as he climbed it with one hand, the toes of his bare feet gripping the rope with easy agility, his other hand holding tight to his flagon as he went.
Surely she and the captain would not have to board the vessel that way? Maisie swallowed down a fresh wave of anxious emotion.
“You appear to have company, Roderick,” one of the other men said in a wary tone, and nodded at her.
“The lady has to get to Dundee.”
The man shook his head, grumbled to himself and turned away. He crossed to the ship on a wooden plank that had been placed from the quayside to the vessel. When he got to the top he vaulted over the ship’s railing. The third man, who was elderly, with a pronounced stoop, followed the first, clambering up the rope net like a bird flitting from branch to branch, despite his apparent age.
“Make haste,” the captain urged Maisie. He glanced over his shoulder once more, then waved up at a man perched near one end of the ship. The man on deck signaled back, and she heard shouting, as if he was rousing others. Sure enough, several sailors came to the rail and started hauling up ropes attached to bags of sand that sat upon the quay.
“You go ahead of me,” the captain said. “I’ll bring up the rear and then we must be off.” He nodded toward the plank and smacked her on the behind, urging her along.
Maisie gasped at the sudden contact. Swallowing, she reminded herself she was amongst workingmen now, who did not behave the way she was used to gentlemen acting. When Cameron slapped her rump a second time and pointed, she realized that he meant for her to board his ship by walking up the plank. She put her hand on the place where he had stimulated her flesh through her gown and petticoats, and stared at the wooden walkway in disbelief. It was perilously narrow, and didn’t seem to be well secured. Rubbing her hip, she took a few tentative steps, urged on by the captain. The wooden board sagged and shifted as she moved sideways along its length.
Beneath her, the flash of moonlight on the murky waters seemed an ominous warning. An unsavory stench rose from the dockside, invading her nostrils—the odors of rotting vegetables and excrement. Her stomach turned, and Maisie bit back the urge to shake her head and flee. Swaying unsteadily, she berated herself for being so weak, well aware this swooning attitude wouldn’t get her to Scotland. Why, the captain and his men surely tramped up and down this wooden plank all the time, and she was making a fool of herself. Suitably emboldened by that notion, she forced herself on. She couldn’t turn back. With a wry sense of her own unhappy situation, she silently admitted that she’d rather end up in the filthy waters below than have to go back where she’d come from.
With that grim thought as motivation, she made it to the boat. Clamping her hands over the rough wood rail, she wilted with relief and gasped for breath.
As she wondered how she was supposed to mount the railing, the board beneath her feet began to bounce heavily as the captain approached. Without further ado—and hoping that no one was in the vicinity to see her unladylike actions—she hauled up her skirts and flung herself over the barrier. Staggering, she clung to the railing again and stood upright on the deck. The smell of wood and tar was heavy in the air. Voices called out all around her—the shipmen in action.
“Well mounted, my lady,” the captain said with some amusement as he vaulted easily over the railing behind her. He tossed her bundle to her, then bent to pull the plank onto the ship.
Maisie attempted to get her bearings. Farther along the railing, the men had finished hauling the sandbags onto the deck. Beyond them a fearful rattling sounded as a sailor cranked a wheel. “Anchors aweigh, Captain,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Captain Cameron shoved Maisie on ahead when he noticed one of the men who had pulled up the sandbags peering over at her, a hand on his hip. She couldn’t see the sailor’s expression, but supposed her unexpected arrival made him curious.
“Stay here in the shadows,” the captain instructed, leading her to a sheltered spot beside a ladder up to another level. He jerked his head, nodding down to what looked like a doorway in the surface of the deck. “As soon as we’re on our way and out to sea, I’ll take you below deck to my quarters.”
With that, he was gone, climbing up the wooden ladder quickly and shouting instructions as he went.
