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“Yes, there were days when I’d have rather been almost anywhere else. During illness, which is never easy on ship, or when stores ran low and we dined on ship delicacies you’d rather not know about. Or during heavy storms when it seemed you’d be pitched clear off the deck, never to be seen again. Or during battle, when the shuddering report of guns made your ears ring for hours afterward, and the powder and smoke threatened to choke you. But for the most part, I felt at home on board ship. It was hard work and rough living, but I thrived on it.”
“I suppose, then, that press gang was a blessing after all. It gave you a life you’d never have known otherwise.”
“That’s true. Years later, I would thank them for taking me, though at the time, I could not have been more wretched. I thought I’d landed in a nightmare.”
“Poor Sam.” She squeezed his arm, and he brought his hand to rest over hers. “But you managed to survive. You were stubborn enough in those days that I imagine you forced yourself to make the best of it.”
He nodded. “In those early days, when the misery of the lower decks was something I could never have imagined, it was pure dogged determination that kept me going. There were more than a few villainous characters among the crew, each of them ready to make a new boy’s life a living horror. But I ignored them, and occasionally stood up to them, and they finally left me alone. Many boys younger than me, much younger, would shi
He stopped walking and turned to face her. “And while some other pressed men deserted at the first opportunity, I never once thought of bolting. As much as I missed you, I had my honor. I couldn’t abide the idea of presenting myself to you as a deserter.”
“How disappointed you must have been to learn how easily I had discarded honor while you held on to yours so tightly.”
“Willie. Stop berating yourself.”
“But it is true, is it not? I will never forget the look on your face when I first saw you after thinking you dead. Shocked disappointment, and anger, was writ clear in your eyes.” And in his words.
“It was not only that, Willie. I reacted in anger, to be sure, but inside my heart was breaking. I had been at sea many years by then and seen my share of…of women who sell themselves to men. I hated to think of you as one of them.”
“I wasn’t, Sam.” No, she had never been a common whore. She’d been much more exclusive.
“I know you weren’t. But at the time, it was an image I could not get out of my mind. Whenever we were in port, whores showed up in droves. The dock whores love a sailor on shore leave. They know as well as anyone that a sailor with a bit of prize money in his pocket will spend the lot of it on drink and women before the night is through. So whenever we dropped anchor in port, they massed on the docks, ready to take their share.”
He frowned and looked over her shoulder into the distance as he spoke, as if he could still see those wretched women. “Sometimes they didn’t even wait on shore, but took boats out to the ships-large boats filled to bursting with a cargo of doxies. Mind you, some of the men had been at sea as long as eighteen months and seen almost no females. The sight of those boats caused a general furor as seamen scampered down the ropes and brought the women up to ply their wares on shipboard. It was never a pretty sight. Poor, ignorant, desperate women who’d long ago discarded shame or modesty.”
He returned his gaze to her, those golden-brown eyes filled with sorrow. “When I heard you’d taken up the trade, all I could think of was those horrid, coarse, pathetic women who’d tup the oldest tar to the youngest third-class boy and everyone in between within the span of a few hours.”
“It was never like that for me, Sam.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I promise you, it was never like that.”
“I know. But it was the first thing that entered my foolish head, so you can imagine how upset I was, to imagine you in a similar situation. I hated to think that you had become that desperate.”
“I never was.”
“I know. Forgive me, my girl. It was a long time ago and I was a foolish, heartsick youth.” Sam looked down at her troubled face and wondered if she would ever tell him the truth of how she started her career as a demirep. It was none of his business, but he’d always wanted to know.
He retook possession of her hand and tucked it back in the crook of his arm. “Come. There were a couple of old stone benches on the village green. Let’s go park ourselves on one and enjoy the rest of the day’s sunshine.”
Walking together in companionable silence through the churchyard and down the high street toward the green brought back sharp memories of long-ago walks along the Porthruan shore and the cliffs above the cove, when a smile or the squeeze of a hand was all that was needed to feel utterly content. All at once a vision came to mind of him and Willie-not the sixteen-year-old girl, but this Willie, the mature, beautiful, sensual woman at his side-walking over the grounds of his estate in Sussex. The idea taunted him like the hint of a sail in the distance blinking in and out of the mist, beyond his reach, and with it came a pang of longing that he quickly checked. Even if there could be a future for them-as unlikely a notion as ever entered his head-Willie was a creature of Town, one who’d known dukes and princes and prime ministers. She would never be content in an isolated country house with a mere post captain. He must remember that and stop spi
Besides, despite his wish for it to be otherwise, this Willie-Wilhelmina-was not someone he knew. Though there were still occasional haunting flashes of the young Willie, this woman was virtually a stranger-self-possessed, shrewd, knowing. And damned desirable.
When they’d reached the green, Sam removed his greatcoat and spread it over a stone bench, still damp from the rain. After they were seated, Willie was the first to break their long silence. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, placing a hand over his, “but I still feel badly about that heartsick young man. I’m sorry I hurt you. I want you to know that.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I know, my girl. It was just that I’d thought of you as mine. I’d been very possessive of that memory of your father’s hayloft.”
When he had sought her out at the theater that first time, back in ’94, that sense of possession had driven him to believe she could not be what the rumors claimed. But everything changed the instant he saw her surrounded by her court of admirers.
He’d been surprised at her looks. She’d been only twenty-one, but looked older. Not in a haggard way. No, she had still been beautiful, take-your-breath-away beautiful. But all hint of graceless youth, of girlish roundness, was gone, replaced by a willowy slenderness that brought out the strength of her features: the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the elegant curve of jaw set upon the slim white column of her neck. And more than the physical change, the inevitable casting off of youth, was the expression in her face. Worldly. Sophisticated. Smart. It suited her, and certainly suited her chosen profession. The girl he’d left behind had become a woman. Almost too much of a woman. She was not his Willie anymore. She’d even somehow managed to lose every hint of Cornwall in her voice. She was a lady of London now. The notorious Wilhelmina. And no longer his.
“I could see all those memories of Cornwall, and a hayloft, beneath the anger in your eyes,” she said. “The same memories flooded through me at that moment, I assure you. But I sent you away with my show of disdain and hoped never to endure that pain of regret again, hoped that you would stay away.” She laughed softly. “And then five years later, you showed up on my doorstep. The proud lieutenant.”