The Last Killiney (28 page)

They’d once attacked a boat crew from one of Captain Cook’s ships, Mr. Dillon told Ravenna happily; two midshipmen and eight sailors had been eaten. Hearing this, she hardly slept until Paul and James came back safely. What if David’s book had been wrong? What if Paul were attacked by a Maori warrior rather than the predicted northwest coastal Indian? The fjordlike landscape of Dusky Bay was a forest set at a 45 degree angle, a thick tangle of trees that could hide a nation of such cannibals, and Ravenna was on tenterhooks imagining the possibilities until she saw James and Manby rowing toward the ship.

Weighed down with geese and ducks, Paul climbed up the side and dropped his catch upon the deck. He shook hands with Mr. Puget in greeting. He assured the lieutenant they’d had no problems to speak of, that they’d met no warriors.

While they discussed these things, Ravenna gazed at Paul with her heart near to bursting. His stocky frame seemed impossibly well made. As he spoke, his hands moved in eager, graceful bursts of illustration, enhancing the optimism in his voice. She didn’t care that his boots were caked in mud. His coat tails were all burs and bits of weed, he had the beginnings of a beard on his chin, but as he turned to assist James with his burden while he and Manby hauled themselves up, she thought Paul the most beautiful sight—her man, handsome and home from the wars.

Manby began to give his report to Puget, and when the descriptions of flora and fauna commenced, Paul walked away. Rubbing his hands together, he approached Ravenna quietly. As he reached her side, he didn’t lift a finger to touch her. Instead, adoringly and rather swiftly, he kissed her on the mouth. “How’s m’girl?”

Her lips buzzed with pleasure. Staring at his thoughtful eyes, blue and knowing and completely pacific, it seemed to Ravenna he both accepted and savored her inexperienced reaction.

Nevertheless, she felt foolish. He went right on rubbing at what she now saw was pitch on his hands, as if daring her to remark upon what he’d done.

So she gathered her wits and launched into telling him instead about Mr. Dillon’s frightening descriptions of the Maoris. She’d feared the worst, she said. She’d lain awake for the last two nights picturing Paul’s fingers as appetizers, his husky torso as the Maori main meal.

Paul’s lips pursed into a smile. He glanced down at his waistline. “Usually, I’d be a mouthful, but right now…”

“I’m serious,” she said. “You knew there were cannibals here, didn’t you? Paul, you could’ve been killed—”

But before she could scold him further, she felt his other arm come around her back and, strong and unyielding as a steel rail, draw her up tight to his chest. He gazed down at her lips. He nuzzled his face up close to hers, and then he did the very thing she’d dreamed about: He covered her mouth with a slow and deliberate kiss.

Instantly, she went quiet. A surge of adrenaline shot through her limbs as he pulled her closer, his fingers exploring the contours of her back, his hips rocking gently against her until, feeling the firmness of his body pressed to hers, she couldn’t help responding. Delirious, it was, breathing him in, swimming in the feel of him, and she could almost taste his tongue in her mouth when suddenly he froze against her.

Without taking his face far from hers, he withdrew gently, cast a glance toward Puget and Manby. Only then did it occur to her that neither the lieutenant nor the mate were talking.

Daring to look around the deck, she saw at least forty men, sailors and officers and red-coated marines, all of them stock still and watching the pair. When she caught his eye, James stifled a grin and looked away. Vancouver, now standing near the main hatch and obviously displeased, gave James a disapproving glance before calling Mr. Puget before him.

Paul was quick to step back from her. He must have expected disciplinary action by the way Vancouver spoke heatedly with his lieutenant. Yet when Puget returned, he said nothing to Paul; he only rejoined Mr. Manby and, like the rest of the men in Vancouver’s sight, carried on with the business at hand.

She glanced at Paul. Her heart thumped wildly with the thought of his desire. Did he mean to finally have her after all these months? Had he missed her that much?

If he had, he chose not to demonstrate his feelings. When they reached the privacy of her room below decks, he did nothing so much as talk. About his adventures in wild, unexplored New Zealand he chattered on happily for nearly an hour, and closeted with him in that tiny space, she quickly sank into despair.

That he’d kissed her, held her so close and intimate against his brawny chest, it meant more to her now than it ever had at St. Paul’s Cathedral, didn’t he understand that? She knew him now. After countless hours of his company, she’d become familiar with his every expression and endearing habit, the words he liked to use, the subjects that would make him argue or burst into laughter…and he talked to her about fjords?

In front of the crew or not, he didn’t kiss her again.

* * *

Christmas came as they neared Tahiti.
Discovery
had been at sea for nearly nine months, and throughout the voyage Vancouver had frequently assembled the men for readings from “The Articles of War,” a document outlining the military code of conduct. In the light of what he’d seen between Paul and Ravenna, Vancouver must have anticipated trouble at the first sight of topless Tahitian women—the captain celebrated the holiday with a lecture.

Along with the standard “Articles,” he warned the men of the punishments they’d receive if any one of them were caught using ship’s property to earn the bare-breasted women’s affections—a common problem in Tahiti, as many a captain had found his ship stripped of all supplies, fittings, even the nails holding the ship together in order to pay these women for their services. “They’re not to be approached,” Vancouver growled. “There’ll be no sexual intrigue nor foolishness of any sort or heads will fall and hell will be paid!”

So when he’d ordered
Discovery
around the main island to a safe mooring, Ravenna approached the captain cautiously. He’d thus far forbidden her shore leave, he claimed in the interest of safety, and now she wanted to go ashore to do the very thing Vancouver forbade. How could she persuade him to let her join Paul? How could she keep from revealing her intentions?

She approached the captain carefully, sidling up to where he stood waiting for the boats to be lowered. His hand leaned obviously on the railing near his side.
He’s tired and hot
, Ravenna told herself.
He’ll dismiss my request out of hand
.

Still, she had to ask.

“Sir, I was just wondering if Sarah and I could join the party ashore,” she said in her most respectful tone. “We’d promise to behave ourselves and do exactly as we’re told.”

Vancouver shifted his attention from the native girls to Ravenna’s request. The captain’s brow knit into a grimace. His leathery face began to glisten under the heat of his hat and, as he glared at her standing beside him, drip with sweat.
Here it comes
, she thought.
I should never have asked, he’ll never in a million years allow me to go
.

But his voice wasn’t angry when he spoke. “Out of the question,” he said to her quietly. Swaying a little, he pointed to the beach with a flimsy wave. “Until matters are considered secure among the natives, no one will leave the ship without direct orders from myself or the senior officers. We will have no…no incidents here.”

“But I haven’t set foot on land in—”

“My lady,” and he caught his breath before he continued, “I fully appreciate that you’ve joined us from an era in which matters of this nature are undoubtedly different. However, you do not and will not enjoy the privileges of a man aboard my ship, let alone an officer. I won’t have you stoking mischief at my every turn.” He then raised his voice for the benefit of the entire complement. “There will be no off-duty crew on shore, do you hear? We’ve not come all this way to partake of women!” He turned back to Ravenna with a warning glance. “Now get below with you. I’ve had quite enough.”

“But I’ve been on this ship for—”

“I said get below.”

She hesitated. Across the deck, James must have seen this exchange because he strode across the deck, approached to defend her in the face of Vancouver’s obvious anger. With the fearless expression she saw on James’s face, she was certain she’d begun a war. Yet rather than challenge him, James halted beside Vancouver, stared at him with something like concern.

She noticed then how Vancouver’s eyes were strangely unfocused. He gripped the railing with talonlike fingers. In an almost imperceptible movement, he appeared to list forward, as if losing his balance.

“Captain?” James asked, taking a step toward him.

Swiftly and suddenly, his free hand shot out toward James, keeping him at bay. The glaze lifted from the captain’s eyes, and with a murderous shine that seemed to come from nowhere, he looked up slowly. “Yes, my lord?”

James paused, glanced at Ravenna. “With all respect, Captain, the women need to go ashore. It’s been
nine months
. You can’t keep them on board forever.”

“Can’t I, my lord.” It was a statement, not a question, and whether from lightheadedness or rage, Vancouver was shaking ever so slightly, Ravenna saw it in the skirts of his coat.

James saw it, too, but still he persisted with the captain stubbornly. “Do you want the women to get sick?” he asked. “Surely from the standpoint of keeping them well, you’d see they need exercise, just like everyone else on this—”

“You’d have me play governess to young ladies, Wolvesfield?”

Vancouver’s gaze shifted furiously toward the marines, toward Sergeant Flynn a few yards away. James took his meaning all too well. “They’re my responsibility, yes,” James admitted. “I’ll own that, but—”

“Then keep your promise, Sir. Women have no place in naval affairs, and I’ll not have them encroaching upon the business of this ship.”

* * *

If James’s argument had changed his mind, Ravenna didn’t know, but Vancouver did let her go ashore the next day. His rules for Sarah and her were strict: They were to be well chaperoned and never out of sight from the detachment of armed marines sent with every crew. With this arrangement, Ravenna couldn’t single out Paul for a moment alone, which had been precisely the captain’s intention to begin with. There’d be no sexual encounters to interfere with Paul’s work if Vancouver could help it.

As for James and Sarah, the captain didn’t even know about them.

In full view of everyone they were maid and master, just as they’d been for most of their lives. They didn’t flirt, didn’t kiss. They said nothing about their attachment to anyone, not even when the four of them were alone in James’s cabin, squished around the cannon for a glass of wine.

But Ravenna knew they made love. Sarah had condoms in her sea-chest, and nearly every week she’d slip out after bedtime with one in her pocket. Where she met James, how they kept from being caught, these things were a mystery to Ravenna.
The walls have ears
, Sarah would say, and she refused to discuss her sexual adventures, even in a whisper behind locked doors.

That first night in Tahiti was no different. There was a loud game of faro going on in the midshipmen’s berth when Sarah finally returned from her outing. Ravenna saw the girl’s face flushed in the candlelight, her eyes aglow with what she and James had just done beneath the cover of the gambling racket, and Ravenna wondered,
What had they just done?

With the idea of shore leave in the morning and the possibility that Paul and she might steal away from Vancouver’s sight, Ravenna couldn’t help asking Sarah one final time: What exactly did she do with James? And if Ravenna were to do the same to Paul, would he finally make love to her?

From where she sat by the gunport window, Sarah rolled her eyes. “
You’re
gonna seduce him, m’lady? The maiden o’ seven-an’-twenty years? An’ where will we get the nerve, pray tell?”

“I will,” she insisted, but with the way the maid scoffed at her, Ravenna couldn’t help but laugh.

“You see?” Sarah said. “Even you can’t deny it. Chaste as an anchoress, that’s what James says. You could no more seduce a gentleman than I could be queen of—”

“Don’t make fun of me, just tell me how!”

“Why, I’ve no idea what you mean.”

“How do you…arouse him? I mean, when it’s you coming on to him, what do you do? Take off your clothes? Or take off his?”

“M’lady they can
hear
you, you know, every last one of ’em—”

“Oh they’re all playing cards,” she said as she climbed out of her hammock. “Just tell me what happens between you and James. Do you ever start it? What does he like?”

“Would you really seduce m’lord?” Sarah asked.

“
Yes!
Just tell me what I should—”

But Sarah had gotten up from her seat, was bent over the sea-chest now and hunting through the extra clothes. Ravenna watched in confusion, not knowing what the girl had in mind, and the mystery was no more solved when Sarah pulled out a pair of Ravenna’s trousers. “Here,” she said, tossing them in her lap.

“What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Don’t you know? M’Lord Killiney has a penchant for ’em, as does everyone else aboard this ship if James is to be believed.”

Looking down at the trousers in her hands, Ravenna was astounded. They were the master’s mate’s breeches Vancouver had long ago sent her for the voyage. She only occasionally put them on, and for one very good reason: They made her look as if she’d stood waist-deep in a barrel of buff-colored paint.

“Wear those to begin with, m’lady,” Sarah said. “Then we’ll work up to more serious fare.”

* * *

Since Sarah spent her free hours with her lover and Ravenna didn’t, she decided she’d better take her maid’s advice and start small. She wore the trousers. Only she did the girl’s suggestion one better: Cutting off the legs, she converted them into sexy little shorts.

Now when the four of them went ashore, Vancouver had already visited the Tahitian king earlier in the morning. The captain was fuming, for despite all his precautions, the Tahitians had stolen several items from the ship, including James’s sword. If James was upset about losing his treasured seventeenth-century rapier, Vancouver was doubly so. To the captain, this was more than the loss of a family heirloom. It was a serious threat to the safety of the ship, and he and his lieutenants remained locked away in the great cabin for the rest of the afternoon, discussing how to best handle this thievery.