Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Callista stepped out onto the deck to check on the training drills of the new recruits. Her eyes were drawn immediately to the Irishman as he led the team hauling on the halyard to raise the mainsail. He had his shirt off and the muscles in his back, shoulders and arms flexed with the strain of the work. Other men had their shirts off too, for it was hot in the sun despite the ocean breeze. But it was the Irishman that drew her attention and kept it.

There was no doubt he was a fine specimen, with his unfashionably long dark hair reaching to his shoulders, and a torso that tapered to a narrow waist and slim hips. His bum wasn’t half bad either, she decided, tight buns showing to advantage in his worn and too tight breeches. Then there were his forearms, delicious muscular definition, nicely furred with dark curly hair. She really couldn’t wait until he turned around, and she could see his chest, she would bet it was sporting a crop of curly dark hair too. She sighed in aesthetic appreciation of a work of art.

The man’s blatant display of prurient interest in her a few days ago, had given her some equally prurient dreams and her waking fantasies were getting positively filthy. She wondered how long she could hold out before surrendering to the inevitable. She’d make him work for it, he was too cocksure by half and needed taking down a peg or two. Besides, as the captain, she had a reputation to maintain. She couldn’t be tumbling into bed with the first blue-eyed silver tongue who made a play for her.

Circling the deck on her daily inspection, she kept him in her sights but didn’t approach. She met Mr Coats on the poop deck for a discussion of his plans for the next lot of gunnery drills. From here she was afforded a nice clear view of Mr Mor and his activities, including, as he turned around, that chest, which did not disappoint. Conscious of splitting her attention, she forcibly dragged her eyes away from the Irishman and his undeniable assets.

“What was that Mr Coats?”

She caught Coat’s hastily hidden smirk and kicked herself mentally, if it was anyone else but Coats the rumours would be all over the ship before supper time. But Coats, she felt, was not given to gossip, so perhaps her secret was safe with him.

“I recommend a minimum of four drills a week Captain, if the crew can manage it, six would be better, that would mean a daily drill except for Sunday’s which is the normal pattern on a Navy ship. Or at least a properly run one. Given the green nature of the crew, they will need all the drills they can get, to be ready for our encounter with Perez.

“Six it is Mr Coats, I’ll inform the bosun.” She adjusted her tricorn hat which twitched in imminent danger of coming off in a stray breeze, jamming it tighter to her head. “While I have you, Coat’s, what would you think of Mr Mor for quartermaster? I considered yourself, but you’ve got your hands full with the gunner drills and combat strategy.”

Coats pursed his lips and his eyes tracked Mor on the deck. “I think he would be a good choice. The men like him, if he has the skills and experience?”

“Some. He’ll learn the rest, he’s quick.”

Coats nodded. “What does Miss Li think?”

“She’s in favour.”

“Clever move Captain. When will you put it to a vote?”

“When Mor tells me he has the numbers. You’ll let me know if you hear anything against him?”

“I will.”

“Thank you, you’re a true gentleman.”

“I was raised one Miss Montmayne, I’ll admit this ship is putting some strain on my sensibilities.”

She smiled and nodded. “Aye we’re an odd bunch, but you seem to be fitting in well. Tell me, how do you find Mrs Harwood?”

It was Coat’s turn to blush. It was only a faint reddening of the cheeks and could be put down to the effects of the sun. “I confess I was non-plussed at first, a female gunner is unheard of, but she’s a sensible woman and knows her way around a gun. And her daughter Katie is a delight.”

“Do you have children Mr Coats?”

He lowered his eyes to the deck getting a distant look that showed a tinge of sadness. “No. I lost my wife in childbed and the babe with her. Drove me back to the sea after a few years on dry soil. The hard work of a navy ship made the loneliness easier to abide.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He straightened and shrugged. “It’s been twelve years now. I doubt I’ll marry again, so children are an unlikely part of my future.”

She nodded and cleared her throat which had become clogged, his loss reminding her of her own. She swallowed hard and turned to gaze out across the deck. The men had finished their lesson in furling and un-furling sails and moved onto ropes and knots. Njinga was keeping them busy.

Connor knewthe moment she stepped onto the deck because his neck prickled, and goosebumps broke out across his skin when he felt the heat of her gaze on him. It was distracting and irritating to be that conscious of a woman, particularly one so far out of reach.

She was driving him mad. Lying in his hammock, surrounded by men burping, farting and stroking their cocks, it would be difficult enough to sleep, but being plagued by an unremitting desire for a particular woman made it almost impossible. There was absolutely no privacy in the crew’s cabin and the men unabashedly took themselves in hand whenever they felt the urge, which was frequently.

He suspected the pervasive male frustration was made worse by the presence of so many women and the fact they were out of bounds. So far, the men seemed cowed by the captain’s threat to emasculate them if they tried anything, a position reinforced by Jenni Wade’s ferocious attack on the hapless Billy.

She’d spent three days in the Brig for that and Billy was still recovering in sick bay poor lad. It would be another week or more before he could lie on his back again.

Billy’s lesson notwithstanding, it wouldn’t be long, he felt, before some lad crossed the line. It was a factor that played right into Furness’s hands too, for he took every chance he had to foment discontent among the men. Fortunately, Connor’s own network of friendships among the men was growing and his informants kept him apprised of what Furness was up to.

Between his own frustration, playing politics against Fury and the generally insalubrious accommodations, he didn’t get a lot of sleep. And even when he did sleep, she had a habit of getting into his dreams and forcing him awake with a cockstand that demanded attention, or more embarrassingly, coming in his sleep like a youth.

Ten daysafter she offered him the quartermaster role, he received another summons to her cabin. He hadn’t spoken to her in all that time, though she had never been far from his thoughts, and he had glimpsed her on the deck, or more often, felt her presence. The strict protocols of the ship kept him, a lowly crew member, from approaching her, and she didn’t approach him.

He was with the cook, Mr Adebayo, loading wood into the fire pit for the stove. Adebayo was chopping potatoes. “Which part of Africa are ye from?” asked Connor poking wood into the stove.

“A village called Gbaffo in the Dassas Mountains part of the Kingdom of Dahomey, West Africa. My people are the Mahi.”

Connor nodded, having only the haziest idea where that was. “How did you come to be captured?”

“The King of Dahomey sent his female warriors into my people’s land to capture slaves. They do it regularly. Raid our villages, burn them to the ground and capture our people.” He sliced a potato with precise viciousness. “We are a tributary sub-kingdom of the Fon people of Dahomey, our King who lives in Savalou, has a treaty with the King of the Fon. He is happy to give them slaves from our villages in return for personal wealth and political power.” He bared his teeth in a vividly white grin, that made Connor shiver. It was in no way a smile.

“What happened?”

“We were sleeping when the raiders came. We tried to run but my little girls could not run fast enough, and my wife and I would not abandon them. They caught all four of us and took us to Whydah on the coast to be sold in the markets there.” he paused, swallowing. “Perez bought us, and we were herded onto his ship. I never saw my wife and my little girls again. They died during the middle passage to the Caribbean.” Tear ran down his cheeks, but he didn’t wipe them away. They splashed onto the wooden table at which he stood, turning the wood dark with round drops of moisture.

“I’m so sorry,” murmured Connor, unable to comprehend the kind of pain this man had suffered. He recalled Callista had mentioned what happened, but hearing the tale from the man himself brought it home in vivid and painful detail.

Adebayo chopped viciously at the potatoes for a moment with his cleaver, and finally he said, “I am grateful to Azaka, the mother goddess, every day that my eldest daughter, Afia, and her husband, Omari, escaped. Knowing she survived helps a little, only a little.”

Connor nodded, wondering what to say. Just then Dev poked his head through the door. “There you are, been looking all over! Mr Mor, the Captain wants to speak to you.”

Adebayo grinned at him knowingly, and he felt himself flush. Fuck, get a hold of yerself lad, she’s just a woman under those breeches and jacket.

He got to his feet, dusted himself off and retied the ribbon holding his hair on the nape of his neck, it was getting too long to leave loose.

“Good luck Irish,” said Adebayo resuming his chopping.

“Thanks,” he said leaving the kitchen and heading up the ladder to the deck above where the captain’s cabin was situated.

Callista paced her cabin,waiting for the Irishman to appear, unaccountably agitated. She had kept him at bay for long enough, time to get their plan moving forward if they were to contain Fury and the rising discontent amongst the men.

A brief knock, followed by the door opening, had her turning away from the window to face him. Like most of the men on the ship, his beard was growing in, only Mick and Coats shaved, sharing the one razor on board. It gave him an even more rakish air, being dark as the hair on his head, but with a glint of red in the sunlight. The contrast made his eyes appear an even darker blue, deep as the ocean.

“Come in Irish,” she waved him to a chair but remained standing herself.

“You wanted to see me Captain,” he said taking a seat casually, and crossing one booted ankle over his knee.

“Have you got the numbers yet?” she asked abruptly, getting straight to the point.

“Getting there, but no I wouldn’t say I have a majority yet.”

“We’re running out of time; Fury is getting ready to make a move.”

“I’m aware,” he said frowning.

“We need to do something to sway the majority of the men over to you.”

“Agreed,” he said mildly. “Any suggestions?”

“Yes,” she said crisply. “You can fight, yes?”

He nodded.

“We will stage a competition, run by Chen. This sort of thing is very popular with the crew and provides a safe outlet for latent aggression. It will also give you a chance to beat Fury. Can you do it?

“Yes,” he said with a smile.

“You seem pretty sure about that?”

“I am, I was raised on the streets of St Giles. Ye don’t survive there if ye can’t fight for your life.”

She nodded. “Good. If you take him down physically in a sanctioned contest, you do it without breaking shipboard protocols, and you show the men you’re the one to follow. He won’t like it, and you’ll have a target on your back afterwards. Can you handle it?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent!” She smiled. “We’ll have you installed as quartermaster within the week.”

“Good I’ll be glad to get out of the crew’s cabin, I can’t sleep for the noise and the stench.”

“Not pleasant, is it?”

“No. Got to give Coats points for volunteering to sleep with the men over his own cabin. I don’t think I’d do it.”

“Not even for a woman you were partial to?” Her heart skipped as she asked that question.

“Has a soft spot for her, does he? Hm, wonder if he would do it even if he didn’t?”

“I think he would, Mr Coats is a gentleman.” She liked Coats, he was reliable, a rare commodity in her world.

The Irishman grinned. “I’m not. I’m a backstreet savage. If ye scratch the surface, the veneer is paper thin darlin’.”

Her heart skudded, her skin prickling with excitement and warning. That tell-tale heat and moisture gathering at the apex of her thighs with a delicious pulse. So seductive. The man was dangerous, and she liked it. No, I love it!

His eyes caught hers with a knowing stare, and she found she couldn’t look away. For a long moment the air between them crackled with unspoken desire. Fucking hell! It would be so easy to let him...

She couldn’t give into it though. She turned away, “that will be all Mr Mor.”

She listened for his departure and instead felt his hands on her upper arms. She stiffened preparing to shrug him off, turn and knee him in the balls for presuming to touch her uninvited.

His breath caressed her ear as he leaned in and said softly “I know ye want me to fuck ye. And I will, but not yet.”

His hands lifted. She turned to see him leaving the cabin, closing the door quietly behind him and leaving her heaving for breath and her knees weak.

She staggered to the desk and collapsed into the chair with a groan of frustration. She leaned her head back against the chair back staring at the ceiling and drummed her feet on the carpet with excitement, a laugh welling under the ribs. It burst out of her, and she laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.

“God Irish! You got me!” she said wiping her face and reaching for the glass decanter. He would and she couldn’t wait. Except they had to. Shipboard politics were a pain in the arse.