Moonwitch

No, definitely he wasn’t fool enough to repeat this torture day after day.

“I suggest,” Kyle said tersely as he at last succeeded in strapping her into the feminine garment, “that from now on you leave off wearing a corset until we leave the ship. I don’t have time to play lady’s maid.”

“Corset, awk! Horatio loves a corset!”

“Oh, dear,” Selena breathed. Biting her lip, she glanced up at Kyle.

The look she gave him wasn’t so much accusing as humorous—whether due to his woeful attempts at acting as maid or the parrot’s ability to latch on to improper words, Kyle was in no mood to find out. At the end of his patience and restraint, he strode to the door and flung it open.

“I also suggest,” he warned with quiet vehemence, “that you find a way to teach that bird to button his lip. I’ve heard tell that parrots make excellent fish bait!”

Kyle had thought he had solved the problem of his lovely wife by refusing to go near her, but his plight somehow only became more unbearable as the northeast trade winds carried them swiftly toward their destination. A four-hundred-ton schooner was only so big, and since Selena, with his permission, chose to spend the greater part of each day on deck, Kyle couldn’t help but see her frequently.

He watched her from a distance without meaning to, his gaze frequently settling on the awning that his impassioned and adoring crew had rigged to protect her delicate complexion from the Caribbean sun. The sight often set Kyle’s teeth on edge. His officers were leaping over each other to be of service to the lady—fetching her parasol or a cool drink, or whiling the time away by entertaining her with amusing stories of the sea. Tiny, the ship’s massive boatswain, trailed at Selena’s skirts like an overgrown puppy.

His own jealousy an unrecognized emotion, Kyle dealt with the enforced confinement by driving himself relentlessly, as if he could burn some of the anger out of his system. And at night he lay awake in his oversize bunk, restless and dissatisfied as he listened to his first mate’s slow breathing issuing from the hammock that had been strung across the cabin. He was acutely aware that only a bulwark separated him from the beautiful young woman to whom he had been forced to give his name.

Despite Kyle’s assessment, Selena was timid at first about making friends with his crew, but their consideration and eagerness to please, aided by her own wistful longing for companionship, overcame her natural reserve. It was an uncommonly lonely feeling not to be needed or wanted. At home there had always been some person or problem requiring her attention, and her relationships with many of the islanders were characterized by mutual affection. But on board the Tagus she felt useless and unnecessary and bored by her idleness. Often her gaze would stray to wherever Kyle happened to be working.

She had hoped their relationship would change for the better as they got closer to New Orleans, but he had only become more untalkative and morose, snapping at his men and making them wonder what had become of their jovial, high-spirited captain.

Except for a few terse comments in passing—required by politeness—Kyle hadn’t spoken to her again. She was afraid to approach him herself or to inquire what he intended to do with her when they reached New Orleans, whether she would be on her own or if she would accompany him to Natchez while he initiated proceedings to annul their marriage.

So she only observed him from a distance, her attention captured by the solid play of muscle in his powerful, sun-gilded torso. In the heat of the afternoon, he often went shirtless and sometimes barefoot, wearing only the cutoff canvas breeches that hugged his lean hips in a scandalous fashion.

How he contrived to look so unkempt and rough and attractive at the same time was a mystery to Selena. She was becoming used to seeing him in his half-savage state, though, and used to seeing him perform feats with his ship that amazed and alarmed her for their danger and daring.

The first time he had gone up into the rigging, she had caught her breath. Kyle had given the order to trim the sails to a steady five knots and then proceeded to swing himself nimbly up into the shrouds. As he climbed hand over hand toward what Hardwick told her was the main royal and lost himself in the forest of billowing white canvas, Selena raised trembling fingers to her mouth. It seemed impossible that he could hold on, for though the bow of the ship carved purposefully through each successive wave, the vessel still dipped rhythmically, making the upper masts a precarious, swaying perch.

Hardwick, who had followed her uneasy gaze, merely grinned. “Don’t concern yourself, Mrs. Ramsey. The captain was born at sea, for all that he claims to have spent his first twelve years on land.”

It seemed to be true, Selena reflected four afternoons later as she watched Kyle. A storm was swiftly approaching, and already the sky was thick and gray. The wind whipping through the rigging made the topsails flap so hard that hearing was difficult, yet Kyle looked as if he were enjoying every minute. He stood at the helm, his long legs braced against the roll and sway of the ship, his face turned to the wind.

Selena saw him shout at Hardwick over the snapping canvas and creaking tackle. And at the mate’s reply, Kyle threw back his dark head and laughed.

This was how she would remember him after they parted, Selena thought: laughing in the teeth of the wind, loving the sea in all its capricious moods, embracing life with joy. Here, he was in his element. Indeed, he was like the rugged elements: Free and untamed, raw, powerful.

This was where he belonged—not tied to the land. He was not a farmer. No matter how large or luxurious or comfortable a plantation, he would never be so at home as he was at sea.

And when, caught up in the exuberance of the moment, Kyle met her gaze and grinned at her, Selena was sure of it. She understood the excitement he found in the sea then, and for a heartbeat or two, she even shared the feeling. But only for a moment. During the past few days, she had come close to overcoming her dread of ships, but now the swelling waves flecked with whitecaps made her recall how she had lost two of her dearest loved ones to a hostile sea, and the increasingly choppy motion of the schooner renewed her fears.

She didn’t want to return to her cabin, where she would be trapped if the Tagus were to sink, but as the thunderheads grew more ominous, Kyle ordered her below. Selena went reluctantly, for it was cold and dark down there; no braziers could be lighted during a storm, or even lanterns, Hardwick had explained to her, for fear of fire.

“Awk! Come to tea!” Horatio said in greeting, fluttering his wings.

Selena didn’t have the heart to reply. There would be no tea, since the galley stoves would be cold.

As the afternoon wore on and the rain began, the conditions became worse. Bright veins of lightning briefly illuminated the cabin and the foamy, rolling seas beyond the porthole, making the intervals of darkness seem even blacker. Even the parrot provided little solace, since he grew silent except for an occasional squawk.

Shivering as she crouched in her bunk, Selena could imagine what the men were going through on the decks of the pitching ship. The pelting rain had become a downpour, and several times she was almost thrown from the bunk as a tempest

uous swell lifted the schooner only to drop her with a sickening lurch. Minutes later, as the ship rode the crest of a wave, a gust of wind caught her sails and hurled her forward into the trough. When they sank so far down that Selena thought they would never come up again, she knew she couldn’t stay below any longer, not in the dark bowels of a ship that seemed like a coffin.

Her stomach knotted with fear, she staggered and groped her way along the companionway and up the stairs, gasping as she pried off the hatch cover. The rain was cold and slashing, and it drenched her before she could pull herself up on deck, making a shambles of her bonnet and plastering her pelisse against her body.

Yet she breathed easier in the open. Laboring to replace the cover, she struggled to her feet.

The clap of thunder, which sounded like a cannon’s roar, startled Selena less than the fierce fingers that suddenly gripped her arm. She looked up to see Kyle glaring down at her in the dim light, water streaming down his face in rivulets.