The Captain's Lady Read online

  “Then do you have something I can do?”

  Landis shook his head. “We’re having some trouble with the main topgallant right now.” He pointed high overhead. “Harry’s trying to fix it. It’s caught in the—”

  “Yes,” Alexis interrupted. “I see what the problem is. I can take care of it.”

  Before Landis could utter a word in protest Alexis had kicked off her shoes, thrown the skirt of her dress over her arm, and was climbing the rigging. In a moment all work on board had ceased as the men watched her nimbly make her way to the top.

  “Alex! Your dress!” Landis called after her. “Come down and we’ll find you something else to wear!”

  Alexis shook her head and laughed. “I told the captain I would need a pair of trousers and he refused me! If the sight of my legs is so distasteful, then don’t look!”

  Landis joined the laughter of the others in response to her suggestion. There was certainly nothing wrong with her legs. They all tilted their heads back as they watched her climb higher.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Mike Garrison said admiringly when she joined Harry at the top. “She didn’t falter once. And wearing that dress too. Don’t think I could have done it in a dress.”

  “Maybe she’ll let you borrow one so you can find out,” Tom Daniels drawled. He cut off the laughter around him. “You’d better have your apology ready when she gets down. She’s got spirit, not bats in her belfry.”

  Mike nodded his agreement and continued to stare upward.

  Harry was as surprised as anyone when Alexis clambered beside him.

  “What possessed you to come up here?” he asked, astonished. The captain had said treat her like one of them but Cloud wasn’t going to like this at all.

  “I thought you might want some help. Don’t be so shocked. I know what I’m doing.”

  “God help us all if you don’t.” he answered, crossing himself.

  “If you could pull that rope over there and hand it to me, I will take the knot out.”

  “What do you think I have been trying to do?”

  “My fingers are smaller. I can work at it more easily than you. Now hand it to me.”

  Harry heard the order in her tone and he responded. He smiled when he saw her struggle with it, but the smile faded when she undid the knot.

  “I don’t know who is responsible for this mess,” she said, “but he needs a few lessons. Change places with me—what is your name?”

  “Harry Young, ma’am.” He smiled lopsidedly at her.

  “And I’m Alex. Now change places, Harry, and I’ll fix this.” Carefully they maneuvered their positions until she was closest to the mainmast. Alexis retied the rope and placed it where it belonged. Then she proceeded to work on the others. “Harry,” she said, tugging at the caught sail, “you do not have to stay here. I can finish this myself.”

  He hesitated. “Are you certain? I don’t want to leave you stuck up here. You won’t be afraid to come down?”

  “Nonsense. I am in more danger with you hanging over my shoulder than I would be if I were alone. Go on. I’ll be down shortly.”

  Harry scratched an imaginary itch at the back of his neck. Shrugging, he began his descent. When he got to the deck he sighed, looking at his mates. “The lady knows what she’s doing.” He said it as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

  The general murmur of approval ended suddenly when they became aware that Cloud had joined them on deck. They shifted their gaze from overhead to stare at one another. They felt like accomplices in some foolish scheme, yet none of them knew why he should feel that way. They were only following orders. Alex Danty was one of them now.

  Cloud approached the group. “What’s going on? Do I have to be on deck every minute to see that you men are working?”

  The men shook their heads sheepishly, but with a hint of a pleased smile on their faces, and went back to their stations. Harry and Landis remained with Cloud. He turned to Harry. “I thought you were going to fix the topgallant. I don’t see it down yet.” Before Harry could form a response Cloud addressed his first officer. “Have you seen Alex? She is finished in my cabin and I have other things for her to do.”

  Harry swallowed hard but Landis answered calmly. “I think she’s found more appropriate work.” He pointed upward.

  Cloud followed the path of his arm. He would not speak for a moment and when he did, he bellowed. “Dammit, Mr. Landis! Why did you allow her to go up there?”

  “She said she could do it.”

  “In a dress?”

  Landis laughed softly. “Offered her something different to wear but she said you refused to give her trousers. She told us if we did not like what we saw we weren’t supposed to look. Not a man turned away.”

  Cloud shot him a venomous green glance. “Harry, why did you leave her alone?”

  “She said she could do it; then she proved it. You told us to treat her like one of us, Captain.”

  “Dammit! You know what I meant. If anything happens to her, I will hold you both responsible.” He took a few steps backward so he could see her clearly. She was working diligently, oblivious to his presence below. He cupped his hands and called to her. “Alex Danty! On deck at once!”

  Because she was almost finished, Alexis pretended she had not heard. He called again and she ignored him, working faster.

  Cloud lost patience. He knew she heard him and had chosen to deliberately disregard his command. His cabin boy was about to learn something about following orders. He grabbed the rigging and began his ascent. Each foot he climbed made him more determined to see she did not try any more tricks like this one.

  Alexis finished untangling the last rope at the same time that she noticed the captain coming after her, his face tight with anger. She looked around her for some means of escape. There was not any place to go but down. She thought if she could do it quickly she might be able to get by him. She wanted to thrash out this difference in private, not in front of the entire crew.

  Alexis started down, catching a rope, and slid past the captain. She regained her footing on the rigging below him and continued downward. The crew stopped their work again to see what their captain’s next move would be. The game of tag had interesting implications for many of them. They thought their commander may have met his match.

  Cloud was furious with her action until he found a way to stop her. He wrapped his foot around a free rope and let his hands loose from their hold overhead. He fell backward. His crew had seen his action so they only grinned at his ploy. Alexis, however, had seen nothing and she screamed when she saw his body suspended in midair. His back rested against the rigging and the rope around his foot was the only thing keeping him from falling to the deck.

  “Cloud!” she cried out as she scrambled up to help him. “Oh, my God! Are you all right?”

  He stilled his smug laughter and enjoyed the view of Alexis’s long, slim legs above him. “Take my arm,” he said when he thought he had terrified her long enough.

  Alexis reached down and pulled him up. When he was able to grasp the rigging once more she set about freeing his boot. As soon as she untangled it, she felt a strong arm go about her waist. “What the—” She could not say more as he lifted her in one arm and threw her over his shoulders. “Put me down! You are going to kill us both. Cloud!”

  She heard his laughter and it served to make her angrier. She pummeled his back and tried to kick at his legs, not caring anymore if they both plunged to the deck. She could see the smiling faces of the crew below her; they were enjoying the spectacle. He paused long enough when he reached firm footing to tell the men to go back to their stations; then, without missing a beat, he carried her to her cabin. He kicked the door open, crossed the room in a few strides, and tossed her on the bunk.

  “What do you think you are doing?” She glared at him when her body hit the mattress. She did not let him see that he had hurt her back with his carelessness.
She knew it had not been his intention. She sat up on her knees and tried to move off the bunk but he caught her by the shoulders and pushed her back.

  “I could ask you the same thing!” He released his grip when she stopped struggling. After he shut the door he returned to the bunk, sitting on the edge, and stared into her furious amber eyes. Her features were as hard and as tight-set as his own and he thought in some ways she was an accurate reflection of his own determination.

  “You cannot do that.” Her indignation was real. “You can’t toss me around as if I were a piece of baggage.”

  “And yet, I so obviously can. You forget that this ship is under my command and you are to follow my instructions.” He was pleased she did not back away from him. Still, she deserved this lesson in discipline. “That’s what you agreed to when you took the responsibility of being one of the crew. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way you wanted it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But you did not order me not to go up there. You only ordered me to come down.”

  “An order you disobeyed.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I was wrong. What are you going to do?”

  He ignored her question. His voice softened when he spoke, carrying only a hint of his displeasure. “What did you think you were doing anyway?”

  “I was fixing the sail.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that you could have been killed climbing up there?”

  “The only danger I was in was from this damn dress!” Her voice and her eyes dared him to say otherwise.

  He took the dare and placed the blame squarely on her. “Then you should have known better than to attempt the rigging dressed as you were.”

  “Perhaps. The risk seemed warranted so I took it.” She gathered the folds of her dress in her arm and moved off the bed, taking a small amount of pleasure in the way his eyes dropped to her bare legs as she brushed past him. She dropped the material and crossed the cabin. She sat on top of the table, bringing her feet to rest on the seat of a chair. “There was another alternative I considered briefly. Since you refused to give me the trousers I requested I thought perhaps you would rather that I make the climb with no clothes at all.”

  When Alexis moved from the bed Cloud lay back, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched over the length of the bunk while the other hung lazily over the edge, his foot resting on the deck.

  “Well, Cloud?” she asked impatiently when he did not rise to the bait.

  He sighed. “I would have rather you hadn’t attempted the climb at all, Alex. But you know I find the thought of you naked very appealing. That is what you really wanted to hear, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she admitted miserably, feeling defeated that he would understand and express it so simply, easily, as if his desire was the most natural aspect of his personality. Why could he respond so easily to her needs as a woman, needs that only he made her aware of, but refused to respond to the other facets that made her who she was? Why didn’t he see the things that made her want to be free, to go on with her life in the best way she could? She tried to read his face, wondering if he understood more than he was letting on, but she could see nothing in the immobile features. Nothing made sense to her. How could he want only part of her? How could he accept her body so easily and not the rest of her? Then she remembered he really had not accepted her body, even when she offered it. Did he want something more from her? Alexis did not know the answer and she avoided his gaze for the first time since he’d brought her into the cabin.

  Cloud did not notice Alexis’s lapse into silence. His mind was taking another turn entirely. “I was wondering, Alex. Wouldn’t you have been afraid of what the crew might have done if they had seen such a sight?”

  “Your men would not have dared to touch me.”

  Interested, Cloud raised his head slightly to see her better. “You sound certain of that. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Because they think I am your woman. And you confirmed that in a grand manner when you carried me from the rigging. It was a barbaric display of your strength and my weakness. You couldn’t have been more effective if you had carried a club and dragged me away by my hair!”

  He had to laugh at her description. There was truth in what she said. “But what would make them think you were mine in the first place?”

  “The same thing that makes you think I will come to you. Gratitude.” This last word left a bad taste in her mouth. “They think since you brought me aboard you saved my life. From there they think I will demonstrate my thanks in your bed.”

  Cloud considered what she said briefly. “That may be what my men think, but I doubt it. Once you know them better you will understand that. And Alex,” he continued gravely, more serious than she had ever known him, “I do not think it at all. I don’t want you in my bed out of gratitude. I don’t want you as part of a bribe, a trade, or as thanks. I don’t expect you to be thankful for what I’ve done to you. Not while you are my prisoner.”

  Alexis raised her eyebrows in surprise. She leaped from the table, knocking the chair over and ran to the bunk. She knelt on the deck by his side and placed her hands on his chest. “Then you do understand. You know what it’s been like for me since I found I was being taken away. Please, Cloud. Take me back. You must. Don’t you see, if you really understand that I’m a prisoner here, you must release me.”

  Cloud held her hands a moment, letting the energy in her trembling fingers pass from her into him. When her fingers were still he removed them from his chest and sat up, brushing a golden curl from her expectant face as he did so. His finger traced a line from the corner of her eye across her cheek and finally touched her lips lightly. Her eyes dropped away from his but he caught her chin and gently forced her to look up at him. When he held her eyes with his own he gave her his answer.

  “No,” he whispered softly, firmly. It was his final answer. He could not let her go.

  She nodded her head slowly as if accepting that he had no other choice. Cloud released her face and stood up. She was still kneeling at his feet when he became the captain once more. “Danty, you will have to see about my dinner soon and later you can polish my boots. See Mr. Landis about getting something more appropriate for you to wear. He should be able to find something suitable. I will inform the others you are permitted to climb the rigging as long as there is a good reason for it.”

  Alexis stood, tossing back the braid which had fallen over her shoulder. “I’ll see to everything,” she responded evenly putting the last few minutes out of her mind. They walked out of the cabin, he going first, and parted in the companionway.

  Alexis helped Forrest in the galley until almost everything had been prepared. With his promise that he would find her when the captain’s dinner was ready, she went off to look for Landis. She found him on the upper deck, supervising the cleaning of the guns.

  He stepped away from the cannons and motioned her over to the railing. “What is it? A problem with the captain?”

  Alexis frowned. What did this man know? “No. Nothing like that. Just the opposite in fact. Hasn’t Captain Cloud spoken to you?”

  He shook his head and leaned back on the railing.

  “He said I was to have some regular clothes like the rest of the crew wears. He said I should come to you and you would be able to get me what I need.”

  Landis eyed her figure critically, scratching his head behind his ear. “You’re kind of tiny,” he said finally. “But you’re taller than most women. I’ll see what I can find for you. You look to be about Frank Springer’s size. That’s the lanky young man over there.” He pointed to the forecastle.

  Alexis turned and saw the fair-haired man grin at her. She smiled back, assessing his lean, wiry frame. “I think something of his would fit,” she said to Landis. “Will he mind?”

  “I doubt it. I’ll put what he can give you in your cabin later.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Landis
.”

  “I thought it was John.”

  “But I’m one of the crew now.”

  He smiled. “That you are. Well, save John for private. Was the captain very rough on you this afternoon?”

  “He let me know I was wrong.”

  “And do you think you were wrong?” he asked, pulling at his silver beard.

  “For going up? No. But for not coming down when he told me to, yes, that was wrong.”

  Landis dropped his hands to his side. “Did he ask you how you came by that skill?”

  “No, he didn’t,” she said slowly, considering that fact for the first time. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  “No, and Forrest didn’t either if that’s what you’re thinking. That cantankerous old fool doesn’t have two words to say to anybody.”

  She had to laugh. The cook was no fool and he was the same age as Landis. Cantankerous she could agree to. “Why did you bring this up? Are you saying the captain thought I could do the work all along?”

  “Not exactly,” Landis explained. “This morning after he gave you the job he thought you would fail, but he wanted you to try anyway. He told me about the tour he gave you and that you asked intelligent questions. He said perhaps your father had taught you something after all. I think that’s when he began pulling for you.”

  “I did not get that impression from his actions this afternoon.”

  “That is because you couldn’t see his face down here. He was angry with you for going up there, but not because he didn’t think you could do it. He was angry because you could have hurt yourself by trying it in a dress. Then you compounded everything by refusing to come down.”

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Landis. What made the captain believe I knew what I was doing in the first place? I thought I had to prove it to him.”

  He laughed briefly. “You’re not giving yourself or him much credit. One does not have to know you very long to know that you do not say things you don’t mean, that you do not attempt things without giving consideration to the aftermath, and that you do not allow others to determine what is best for you.”