Moon Cutters (13 page)

‘Why so pensive?’ he said.

‘I don’t think Sir James would like me going behind his back, and I don’t want to deceive him.’

‘Then tell him you’ve met me, if you must. Just remember that you’re allowed some privacy, even if you are his house guest. It’s not your fault we were in the same place at the same time. I’ll be here on Tuesday, anyway. In the meantime, I’ll consider an approach to my uncle in an effort to heal the breach between us.’

He mounted his horse and turned the handsome creature’s nose towards Poole. He turned in the saddle and waved, and suddenly it seemed a long time until Tuesday, when Miranda would see him again.

Fletcher was thinking much the same thing as he took one last look at Miranda Jarvis before he rounded the bend and she was out of sight. He’d never met any woman who’d affected him quite so profoundly. Usually, he judged a woman by her physical attributes and her willingness to contribute to his pleasure. This young lady was something different. There was something guileless and sweet about those deep blue eyes, and his emotional reaction to her was tender rather than base. He wanted her –
God, how he wanted her
– but he also wanted to protect her.

‘Miranda,’ he whispered, tasting her name on his tongue, and he smiled when his horse’s ears swivelled back towards him. Then he laughed out loud, shouting exuberantly, ‘Miranda!’

A thrush sounded an alarm and birds abandoned their young and flew like a panicked cloud out of the hedge, so to confuse a would-be predator. His horse sidestepped in alarm. He got the gelding under control. ‘Sorry, Rastus, but I think I’m falling in love.
I am in love!
With Miranda.’

He’d shouted her name so the whole world knew, and the hedges and fields became suddenly brighter. He noticed the satiny white ladies’ smocks, golden primroses, and violets entwined like lovers in the hedges. Beyond the hedge, lambs sprang into the air and bleated in alarm for their mothers. A couple of painted lady butterflies meandered by on brown and yellow wings.

He turned his horse round and went back at a gallop. She hadn’t got very far, and she turned to gaze at him, a half-smile on her face and her cornflower eyes filled with curiosity as well as laughter.

‘I forgot to tell you something,’ he said, leaping from the horse on to the ground. He blurted it out like a youth in the first throes of passion. ‘I’ve fallen in love with you.’

He hadn’t known that a woman’s eyes could open quite so wide and capture the sky in their depths. Worriedly, he asked her, ‘What do you think?’

From the woods came the clear fluting call of a bird. It was the first call from that particular bird he’d heard this year, and it couldn’t have been more apt for the occasion with its mocking
cuckoo … cuckoo … cuckoo!

For a moment she stared at him, startled, and then her lips twitched and she began to giggle.

He felt like the fool he was. ‘It’s not funny.’

‘Don’t you like being in love?’

‘I don’t know; it’s something new to me. I haven’t come to terms with it yet.’

‘You fell in love rather quickly and it seems to have stunned you. I won’t hold you to it, as you obviously have an impulsive nature. Think about it a little longer, if you would.’

He slanted his head and grinned at her. ‘I have no need to.’

‘Do so, anyway, Fletcher.’ The giggle she gave turned into laughter – not a titter behind her hand, or a stutter, but a full-blooded belly laugh that had her arms cradled over her middle and her hands clutching her elbows.

When Caesar lifted his snout and howled into the wind, she laughed even more.

Eventually, she stopped, though her eyes still brimmed with enough amusement to make him believe it wouldn’t take much for her to start laughing all over again.

‘I think I feel honoured by your admission, Fletcher Taunt, and will treasure this moment for the rest of my life,’ she managed to say between leftover giggles.

He’d wager she would, and if this affair went any further than her lighthearted rejoinder, this minx would never let him forget it, either.

‘Hah! There’s only one way to silence you.’

Drawing her into his arms, he kissed her with all the love and tenderness he could muster.

The defeated little sigh she gave afterwards and her lips seeking his to return the kiss wrenched his heart from his chest and put his manly parts on alert.

He could either drag her under a tree, kiss her senseless and have his way with her, or play the gentleman. He had a fierce need on him and an uncomfortable ride ahead if he did the latter.

‘Do you know what you’ve done to me, woman?’ he grumbled.

Her eyes gave the merest of flickers down to where his erection flaunted itself. At least her instincts were right.

Her eyes widened as they flicked up again, and she blushed a fiery red.

‘Hussy,’ he said.

She giggled and covered the blush with her hands, but he saw the gleam of her eyes through her fingers when she said drily, and with more mischief than guile in her voice, ‘I’ll also treasure this moment.’

Fletcher’s heart dropped as he gazed at the battered, medium-sized clipper tied to the end of a jetty in a Southampton boat yard. The air reeked of mud for the tide was almost out.

‘That’s the
Agnes O’Dare
, Oswald? You’ve brought me all this way to look over a wreck? She has hardly any rigging left and the paint is flaking. Look at her draught; someone forgot to replace the ballast when the cargo was unloaded.’

He also noticed that her masts were raked back slightly for balance and her bowsprit had a mermaid with flowing hair.

Miranda with her hair flowing in the wind … The image entered a space in his mind, along with her teasing departure. He smiled.

Sir Oswald broke into his reverie. ‘If you say so, Fletcher. I have it on good authority that she’s generally sound. She needs refitting and cleaning up.’

‘If she’s sound, why has she been left to rot at the end of a jetty?’

‘The yard owner went bankrupt over a year ago and the ship was seized. Unfortunately, they didn’t secure her, and some of the sails and many of the fittings were stolen. The insurance company wants rid of it – at any price – after she failed to attract a single offer at auction.’

They gazed at each other and Fletcher grinned. ‘Any price?’

‘That’s what the man said.’

‘Then, by all means, let’s look her over.’ The ship gave a little bob and a loud creak when they went on board, as if she was complaining over her lot. She smelled of neglect and the deck needed to be caulked here and there. They went below. The hull was dry inside and he couldn’t see any rot or wormholes. Her three masts were secured solidly to their mortises. Both planks and masts rewarded him with solid thuds when he knocked them. His heart began to beat a little faster. ‘She seems free of worm, and her hull is still coppered.’

‘Her log is with the agent, as is the sale. You can inspect it if you’re interested.’

‘I am.’ He was more than interested. He already had a strong urge to own this shabby little princess and reveal her beauty to the world.

‘The dinghies are missing.’

‘Somebody had the foresight to place them in the boatshed.’

Fletcher grunted, trying not to sound too eager, though restoring the ship would be a worthwhile project. He found a concealed compartment under the bunk in the captain’s cabin. It was empty, but big enough to hold a couple of pounds of tea, some gold or cash. It was the captain’s prerogative to skim a little off the top for his retirement. He probably shipped his own cargo, too, especially to Melbourne, where domestic goods and ladies’ trinkets could be auctioned off for gold.

Oswald smiled, as if satisfied with Fletcher’s response. He took out a notebook and pad. ‘Let’s do a rough calculation of what she’ll cost to refit. We might as well go there with an estimate of cost, and well aware of what we’ll be up against. All the lanterns are missing to start with.’ He wrote down a sum on his pad.

‘At least the wheel has been left intact.’ Fletcher ran his palm over the wood.

It was oak, and although it had lost its shine, it was well patinated from past use and only in need of some varnish. ‘She needs new paintwork, and some of her bright work is missing. She’ll have to be dry-docked to paint her hull.’

The list grew – and so did the cost.

Finally, they gazed at each other, and Fletcher gave his companion a wry smile. ‘I’m beginning to think it would be cheaper to buy a new ship.’

‘By the time it was built, this one would have earned her cost many times over.’

‘Can I afford it? Have we factored in the crew’s wages?’

‘Yes and yes.’

Fletcher nodded. ‘I’ll offer the agent fifty pounds, but I won’t shell out more than five hundred for her.’

Oswald chuckled. ‘This I must see. Five pounds says you won’t get it for fifty.’

They spoke to the agent, and Fletcher presented him with a list of the ship’s defects and the cost to him. ‘It will be several months before she’s fit for work, and she’ll drain me of money in the meantime. I’m prepared to make an offer of … fifty pounds, say?’

The agent didn’t bother to try to get more out of him.

A little later, Oswald handed over a fiver, grumbling, ‘I’d forgotten how lucky you are.’

‘It’s not luck on this occasion; it’s the ability to read a situation. The agent was prepared for failure after the auction brought no result. The list of what needed doing and the estimated cost of the repairs reinforced what was already in his mind – that the ship was defective. He was so eager to get it off his books that he didn’t stop to consider. Remind me never to use that agent to represent me for anything.’

Oswald left Fletcher to sort out the finer points and headed off to pay a visit a female relative.

‘I didn’t know you had a relative living here.’

Oswald had chuckled.

Fletcher spent a night at the boarding house and the next couple of days making arrangements.

He tracked down the former captain, a man called Joshua Harris, who was aged about forty.

‘We’d been at sea for several weeks and the authorities seized her as soon as we tied up. They confiscated her cargo of wool, and there wasn’t enough money left to pay the crew.’

‘Was that all she carried?’

‘Apart from some mail, yes. Her cargo was seized and sold off to recoup costs.’

Fletcher paid him his back wages and rehired him. ‘When she’s refitted, she’ll be sailing on the Hong Kong, New York and London route, and you’ll take turn and turn-about with our other ship on the Australian run.’

‘Aye,’ Harris said comfortably. ‘I might be able to rehire some of her former crew. My first mate is still looking for a berth, and some of the crew. Those with families are having a hard time of it.’

‘Tell them I’ll pay them a year’s back-pay if they sign on. I’ll ask my agent to pay the womenfolk after they sail. The other half they’ll get in their wages when they get back. It might stop them deserting. And I should be able to find a couple more strong young men from my estate with a yearning to enjoy the adventure of going to sea first-hand.’

‘Experienced?’

‘They’ve worked on a lugger from time to time and lived to tell the tale.’

Harris grinned. ‘I get your drift.’

‘Make no mistake. I’m an honest man and expect honest dealings in return, though I will overlook the occasional captain’s commission. She’s your ship, Captain Harris, so I’ll leave you in charge. She has to leave her mooring by the end of the month. The yards are still intact, so get the rigging done first, and find enough sail, crew and ballast to help move her round to Buckley’s Hard for repairs and a refit. You’ve heard of it?’

Laughter snorted from the man. ‘Who hasn’t? Nelson’s Navy wouldn’t have got very far without it.’

‘I’ll drop in there on the way home and tell them to expect you, and I’ll inform my shipping agent, Whitchurch and Sons. They will act in my stead with regard to payment of accounts, though I’ll turn up now and again, I daresay.’

‘I’ve had dealings with them before.’

‘By the way, if any of the original fittings happen to turn up on the ship in the meantime, there will be no questions asked and a small reward … say, five per cent of their value to replace.’

Captain Harris remained impassive, though there was more than a gleam of interest in his eyes. ‘That would save you a lot of money, I daresay.’

‘You daresay right. Perhaps ten per cent would get me a better result.’

‘Aye, I’ll remember that and keep an eye out for them.’

‘I’m going to rename her, and she’ll be registered to the Fletcher Taunt Shipping Company as
Lady Miranda
.’

‘As is the
Midnight Star
; she’s George Mainwaring’s ship, isn’t she?’

Fletcher was surprised by the captain’s knowledge. ‘You know a lot about shipping.’

‘It’s my business to know, Mr Taunt. Shipping is my profession. Besides, I used to sail the same routes.’

‘Is there anything you feel you should know about me?’

‘I attended naval college with George Mainwaring. He has told me that you’re fair-minded, and what you see is what you get. I also know of your differences with your partner, Lord Fenmore, and sincerely hope they will be resolved. There’s nothing more unsettling for a crew than a partnership with the directors at loggerheads. A man cannot serve two masters.’

‘So I’ve heard. My uncle owns a half-share in the
Midnight Star
. Far from being at loggerheads, he leaves the business side to me and the shipping company provides a great deal of my income. The
Lady Miranda
now belongs to the same shipping company, but I’d be obliged if you kept that to yourself for now, until she’s ready to sail. When she’s ready, bring her to Poole, flying her colours, which I’ll get to you. There she can be provisioned. I’ll try to have a cargo of domestic goods ready. I’ll visit the shipyard in six months’ time to see how much progress has been made. Expect her to undergo rigorous customs inspection in the Poole port. The customs service seems to be overly attentive there.’

Captain Harris grinned. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you’ve purchased a well-mannered ship, despite her current appearance. She’s a sprightly lass and a pleasure to handle.’