THE GUN KETCH

roaches big as…'

'As if in North Carolina I'd never seen a palmetto bug,' she scoffed. 'That was a polite way of saying a 'cockroach' big as your thumb!'

'There's fever, Caroline. Yellow Jack and malaria. Cholera now and again. Poxes that no one even knows what to call by name!' he objected. 'No, dear, dear as I desire you with me, I cannot. I love you too much to subject you to such risk!'

'I've been inoculated against smallpox. We had physicians good as London,' she pressed, though in a soft, almost wheedling tone as she stirred her body against his. 'I've seen Yellow Jack before. I might have had it when I was little. I can't remember.'

'You don't know what you ask, Caroline,' he groused, sitting up in bed, now arguably awake, though the hour was late and he had to rise at first light. 'Caroline, believe me when I tell you that I love you to distraction. Frightened as I was of marriage, more than most bachelors, believe that, too… life with you is a joy beyond all imagining. And it will be in future. But if we're to have that future, you must be here for me to come home to. If I lost you out there, I'd… were I selfish enough to take you with me and something happened to you, I'd wish to die, too!'

And damme if I don't mean every word of it, he realized; she's become as dear to me as… Christ, who'd have thought!

'I stand just as much chance losing you in the islands, Alan,' she fretted, squeezing him tight. 'What life do you think I'd care to live, with you gone in a shipwreck, or carried off by some fever! And I'd never have been a real wife to you but this single fortnight! Oh, Alan, take me with you, do! At least, when Alacrity puts into Nassau, we could have a week or two here and there together, in a snug little home of our own! Is Nassau such a terrible place, then?'

'Pirates, footpads, cut-purses,' he described to her. 'There're drunken sailors and their whores, reprobates and discourteous rabble; carousing and caterwauling 'til all hours…'

'Like Portsmouth, is it?' she asked, and even in the dark, Alan could almost espy her puckish grin. 'Yet you entrust me to this town, half the world away from you. What would be worse about Nassau?'

'Caroline, it's so…' he sighed, his desire for her, and the lust for unknown adventures crossing swords with each other, just as they had before he'd become so quickly engaged.

'I know, I'm being so foolish and missish, Alan,' she weakened. 'Do but consider it, though, darling? Please, love?'

Her kisses stopped any further objections he could muster.

'Let's sleep on it,' she urged sweetly, fluffing up his pillows and guiding him to recline again, so they could snuggle even closer to each other. 'I do love you more than life itself, Alan. Goodnight, my dearest love. Goodnight, my darling.'

Chapter 3

'We're making good progress, even so, sir,' Lt. Arthur Ballard told him a few days later as they sat in Alan's now-furnished cabins, sharing their morning tea.

'Still four hands short, even with the West Indians, the debtor landsmen, and the volunteers,' Alan sighed over the rim of his mug. 'I s'pose it can't be helped. And damme if I'll make the Impress Service any richer than I already have. How are the Marine Society lads?'

'Quite pleasing, considering, sir,' Ballard smiled. 'They taught them knots, boat-handling, mast drills… they'll work out, sir,' he said. 'They're eager to please. More than one may say about the men from the debtors' prisons.'

Lewrie was pleased with Ballard as well. Arthur Ballard was an inch shorter than he, just a few months younger, but had joined as a cabin servant at nine. He'd served as an Ordinary Seaman and a topman since his fourteenth year, had made midshipman at sixteen, so he was thoroughly seasoned. He'd been third officer in a frigate, rising to second officer before she paid off in late 1785.

He was a neat little fellow, though of a more serious bent than Alan was used to in officers so close to his own age. Ballard was regular and square; squarish head and regular features. His hair was wiry and wavy, set close to his head. His brows were a trifle heavy, thick and dark, shading intelligent brown eyes which regarded the world so soberly and adjudging. His nose was short, straight, and a bit broad. His face ended in a square chin, with a pronounced cleft.

But even at his young age, his mouth bore frown lines to either corner. Betraying his sobriety, though, evincing a passionate nature he wished to contain, were lips full and sensual in a broad mouth, the lower lip quite plump and slightly protruding.

Ballard dressed neatly, but in slightly worn uniforms, like an officer who actually lived on his pay and little else, pulling it off with his sobriety and great care for his person. Those uniforms draped a body neither very broad nor very slim, which gave him stolid solidity without true bulk. Yet within that body was a powerful set of lungs, a deep baritone voice which could carry forward without the use of a speaking trumpet, and a surprise to the unsuspecting person who might meet him and at first dismiss him.

Caged, Alan thought of his first lieutenant. He's like a beast in a cage. Not the pacing kind. He's the sort who sits and waits for his keeper to drop his caution someday before he flees.

'Sail drill in the forenoon,' Alan announced at last. 'Working parties after the midday meal. Livestock for the manger. And household goods for the Townsleys to be stowed.'

'Their goods first, then, sir. No shite on their furniture.'

'Aha, very good, Mister Ballard,' Alan laughed. 'Once loaded, one more day in port for last-minute items and then…' He sobered.

'Off for the Bahamas, sir,' Ballard said with a trace of glee.

'All for now, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie said, rising carefully so he did not smash his skull on the low overhead, which allowed him only three inches more than his full height, and only between the deck beams. 'Oh, there's goods of mine as well to be stowed. Make them first in, last out. And I'll see the ship's carpenter, Mister Stock.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Ballard said, mystified.

Alan put his hands in the small of his back and paced aft, ducking each threatening rosy-painted beam, to the sash windows for a view of the harbor as he pondered his most recent decision.

He had put this one off quite late; how to make room for both himself, the Townsleys and their servants, in his great-cabins, which would not make a decent set of rooms at the George.

Great, hah! He mused. Only to a mate in a dogbox below!

And make room for Caroline.

She hadn't nagged or harped upon it; yet she had kept the idea of going with him ever in his mind. Daily, she'd worn a little more of his resolve down. First with affection and passion, then with her clear-eyed discussions of Bahamian weather, living conditions, which winds blew all feverish miasmas to leeward to the real Fever Isles…

She'd marshaled support from other senior naval officers and wives staying at the George or other establishments nearby, never at all giving them the slightest hint that she was more than curious as to what her dear husband might face in that particular clime. Slowly, she'd changed his mind. As she had excited his tenderest affections for her that were only half-formed and ill conceived weeks before back in Anglesgreen. Had made herself dearer to him than he had ever hoped to imagine, until he could not picture himself without her for three whole years.

There were, too, his rising fears.

Being loved at all was, to put it mildly, just a tad outside his past experiences. And to be loved and adored so openly, so deeply and enthusiastically was such a blossoming wonder that he found himself waking in the middle of the nights to marvel at the stunning creature who shared his bed, and slept so trustingly and vulnerably in his arms. To watch her dress, brush her hair, enter the public rooms when he sat waiting for her, was a heart-lurching joy. And their converse over a weighty matter or a jest was an absolute delight.