“You are my affair, Miss, until the day that you are married.”
“I believe everyone’s points have been clearly made,” Edward said. “Cass, Miss Petersham, may I escort you ladies back to the Hall?”
Chapter 6
Eliott looked up from his late luncheon to see his sister tugging at an old muslin gown that had become an indeterminate gray from its many washings.
“Where are you off to, Cass?”
“I am going fishing, as if you didn’t know. I promised Cook
some fresh sea bass for dinner tonight.”
Eliott laid down his fork and sat back in his chair. “And just what does your fiancé think about your fishing jaunt the day before your wedding?”
“Edward is spending the day in Little Wimmering with his agent, and will not be here until this evening.”
“So the bride is having her last outing before the groom cracks the whip?”
Cassie frowned down her nose at him. “I’m sure there will be even more outings after Edward and I are married. Actually, it was Becky’s suggestion that I get out today. She thinks some fresh air will do me good.”
“Off with you then, Cass, and don’t forget your hat. Don’t want to have you sunburned on your wedding day.”
Cassie gave her brother a quick hug and stepped outside into the bright afternoon sunlight. She crammed her wide-brimmed straw hat firmly over the braided coronet atop her head and walked briskly across the east lawn to the line of landward-bowed beech trees that sheltered Hemphill Hall from the sea winds. A narrow path snaked through the trees, down the rocky cliff to a small protected cove below. A long wooden-planked dock stretched from the beach some thirty feet into the inlet. She firmly grasped her bucket of bait, small minnows which she had learned from long experience brought her as many sea bass as her baskets would hold, and walked gingerly over the floating boards to the end of the dock where her twenty-foot sloop lay anchored.
It heeled sharply as she stepped aboard, and she clasped the thick-stalked mast to steady herself. She stepped to the helm, stowed her bait safely on the shelf below-deck, and pulled out the folded canvas mainsail. She smoothed out the wrinkles and attached the slides sewn into the foot of the sail to the boom, smiling happily as her eyes followed along the luff to ensure that there were no twists in the sail.
From long habit, she gazed out beyond the mouth of the cove to the sea, and saw that the wind was whipping the waves into stiff whitecaps. She put a double reef into the mainsail and tied the sheets loosely. She cast off the hemp lines, drew out her long-handled paddle, and rowed with deep, sure strokes toward the mouth of the cove, the familiar sounds of squawking birds and the loose flapping of the mainsail in her ears. She sniffed the tangy salt smell and enjoyed the wind slapping lightly at her cheeks until she reached the open sea and eased out the sail to catch the wind. She examined the wildly fluttering wool telltale tied to the shroud to gauge the strength and direction of the wind. She smiled ruefully, knowing that with the tide outgoing and the stiff northeasterly wind, she would be spending more of her afternoon with her hands tightly on the tiller and working the sheets than lazing back with her fishing pole dangling comfortably over the side.
She let her sailboat continue on its starboard tack, and the mainsail bellied out as it caught the full wind. She laughed aloud when the bow of her boat sliced through the trough of a wave and sent a fine mist of salt spray into her face. She steered away from the wind to slow her speed, and relaxed her grip on the tiller, content for the moment to let her boat glide smoothly in a course parallel to shore. She baited her hook with a small minnow, flung the thin hemp rope over the side and rested the fishing pole between her knees.
She sat back contentedly on a cushioned plank and allowed her thoughts to drift with the lulling motion of her boat to the afternoon before and the incredible moments she had spent with Edward before Becky’s wretched interference. The image of Edward’s lean chest and arms as he had stood over her and the vivid memory of his hands and mouth on her body made her tremble even now. She wished she had seen him naked. She had felt the swollen, demanding hardness of him as he had pressed her belly against him, but she had been too shy to touch him as he had her.
Cassie gazed up into the cloudless blue sky and decided that making love with Edward in the middle of the day would be a delicious experience. Her sail suddenly luffed wildly, and she pushed quickly at the tiller, chiding herself for her inattention, before she promptly fell back into pleasant fantasy.
She was disturbed again by waves slapping sharply against the bow, and looked up to see a large sailing vessel in the distance. She drew in her empty line, dropped the fishing pole into the boat, and shaded her eyes, trying to make out the lines of the ship.
She gave a crow of delight when she realized that it was the yacht she and Edward had seen the afternoon before. It rode high in the water, its many square-rigged sails tautly full as it held its northeasterly course close into the wind. She saw the gun mounts on the starboard side and several sailors perched high up the mast, unfurling the royals and topgallants.
Cassie wanted to see the yacht more closely before it passed her by, and she jerked on the tiller, bringing her boat high into the wind. She eased in the sheets, and the mainsail bulged tautly as it took more wind.
As she drew closer, she could make out sailors standing on the quarterdeck. She fancied she could see the captain of the yacht shouting commands to the sailors swarming over the rigging, and to the helmsman as he steered the ship past the dangerous shallow inlets. She was suddenly able to see the name of the yacht, painted in bright yellow letters on the starboard bow. She stared with growing confusion at The Cassandra.
The yacht was overtaking her, and she was perplexed to see that its course had shifted more northerly. In a few minutes, if she was not careful, it would cut in front of her small boat. Grim visions of the huge vessel ramming her, blind to her presence, sent her speeding into action. She jerked the tiller sharply, and tacked to starboard and landward. In her haste, she backwinded her sail, and for a few frantic seconds, her sloop lay dead in the water, bobbing up and down in the crest of waves from the approaching yacht. She let the sheets fly free, and ducked as the boom swung with a grating thud to starboard. She pulled at the tiller to put the wind to her back, and her small sail took the wind with agonizing slowness. Cassie fought off her growing panic, secured the tiller between her thighs, grabbed her paddle, and rowed furiously toward shore.
She heard a man’s shout, and slewed her head about for a moment to see the yacht bearing down on her, its graceful, full bow slicing cleanly through the water.
The huge shadow of the yacht blotted out the sun, and Cassie moaned low in her throat as the specter of death rose before her.
A man’s voice commanded sharply, “Veer off! Hook the ropes and haul her in!”
Cassie gazed dumbfounded at several sailors hanging precariously from rope ladders over the side, each of them holding in his free hand a thick looped rope. By God, they are pirates, white slavers, she thought. She saw herself tied in irons, bound for servitude on the Barbary Coast, and pulled frantically with her paddle.
She heard a whirling sound over her head and was suddenly thrown backward against the teller as looped ropes encircled the mast and the outjutting bow. She shook off the pain in her back from the sharp-edged tiller and scrambled forward. She tugged at the thick hemp rope about the mast, but it was pulled taut.
She looked up when one sailor shouted upward to a man who stood at the railing. “All secure, captain!”
“Pull her close in! Steady now!”