The Guardship

“Please…Elizabeth…I beg of you,” Marlowe stammered, thrown off balance by her unwillingness to accept his present or his silly compliments. “A token of my affection. It shall be our little secret.”

She smiled and gave him a conspiratorial raise of the eyebrows, then put the chain around her neck. “Our secret,” she said.

“Marlowe, Marlowe, do come along,” the governor said as he came huffing up. “Mrs. Tinling,” he added with a nod. “Forgive me, but I must take the hero away from you, for the time being, in any event.” With that he took Marlowe’s arm and guided him away, leaving him to call his farewell over his shoulder. He caught one last glimpse of the tiny cross lying against her pale skin before he had to return his attention to Nicholson.

“Now, I’ve no doubt that you want to get right back at it, Marlowe,” the governor said as they stepped up into his carriage, “but I have to insist that the guardship get some attention. Heaving down, new mast and rigging, the like. I’ve no doubt the burgesses will approve that. Hell, we’ll pay for it with the loot you captured.”

“Well, Governor, if you insist.”

“And I’m afraid we’ll need you at the trial. We have to get these villains tried quick and hanged, by way of example. And I fear you must testify. It’s all a bit of a bore, really. Did you have any experience with trials back home?”

“Back home? Oh, yes indeed. I have witnessed quite a few trials back home.”

“Good, good,” Nicholson said. “Bickerstaff, pray take that seat. I should think we’ll get this trial nonsense over in a fortnight, and then back at it, eh, Marlowe? Get the Plymouth Prize all tight and yare, eh, just in time for the sailing of the tobacco fleet, I should think.”

Elizabeth Tinling fingered the tiny cross around her neck, feeling the irregular surface of the diamond as she watched Marlowe step into the governor’s carriage. In three days he had become the most celebrated man in the colony, Virginia’s greatest hero.

She reckoned she had indeed chosen well.

There had been no word from George Wilkenson, no solicitors demanding payment of the note of hand. Perhaps he had believed her belated note warning him that Marlowe would not be there. Perhaps he was too afraid that she would tell tales of what he had intended to do. Most likely both. But in any event he seemed to be out of her life, and Marlowe seemed to be in, and as far as she could tell that was a good thing.

It was a few hours before noon the following day when she sat at the window in her bedchamber and watched Marlowe’s slow progress down Duke of Gloucester Street toward her house. Judging by the direction from which he was coming, she guessed that he had just left the governor’s house, where, it was rumored, he had spent the night.

She had been watching for the better part of an hour, hoping that he would come calling. Now he was a mere two blocks away. She wondered if he would be able to cover that distance by nightfall.

Crowd after crowd of admirers thronged around him as he tried to push down the street. When the circle of people grew too thick to proceed, he would stop and regale them with some story, no doubt a retelling of his exploits on Smith Island. At last the crowd would be satisfied, and with much hand shaking and pounding of his back they would allow him to pass.

He would generally make it about twenty feet before it all started again. At one point he was practically dragged into the Palmer House Tavern and emerged again a full half an hour later. In this way he came at last to her front door, and Lucy quickly ushered him in.

Elizabeth was so anxious to see him that she did not make him wait above fifteen minutes before going down to the sitting room.

“Mr. Marlowe, you seem to have made quite a stir among the people. Should I have mercy on you, or should I make you give me the entire story of your exploits?”

“I beg you, no. I have told the story so many times now, I scarce believe it myself.”

“Indeed? Well, from what I hear it is so heroic that it is scarce to be believed.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

He was dressed in his fine clothes again, not the rough and weathered apparel he had been wearing when he left the Plymouth Prize. He was trim-though one would not call him thin-and his coat and waistcoat hugged his body in a way that did him credit. He had the physique of a man who is not sedentary, and that was notably different from most of the wealthy men of the tidewater. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword with a certain confidence, as if that weapon were an appendage and not a decoration.

He was, Elizabeth admitted, enormously attractive, even without considering his current status. Not a month before, she had looked on him in purely utilitarian terms, a potential bulwark against the Wilkensons. But now her feelings were different. She thought of him in a way that she had not thought of a man in many years. Found herself irresistibly attracted to him.

“Pray, sir, sit.” She indicated a chair, and as Marlowe sat she called out, “Lucy, please fetch some chocolate for Mr. Marlowe.”

A moment later Lucy appeared with the service, and as she poured Elizabeth said, “Now, tell me, sir, how do you enjoy your celebrity?”

“It wears a bit, I find. This morning has been a trying one. Bickerstaff tells me that the conquering heroes of Rome, as

they drove through the streets, would have a slave standing be

hind them whispering in their ear that fame was fleeting.”

“Well, Mr. Marlowe-”

“Please…Thomas.”

“Very well, I shall call you Thomas if you will address me as Elizabeth. I was going to say that if you had not freed your slaves, you would be able to do the same.”

“I don’t need a slave for that, Elizabeth. I have Bickerstaff, who acts wonderfully as my conscience. Though I reckon much more of this and I’ll think fame ain’t fleeting enough.”

She smiled at him and sipped her chocolate. His false modesty did not fool her. She could see from the moment he stepped off the Plymouth Prize how much he enjoyed the adulation. But that aspect of his personality did not bother her. Quite the opposite. She found that it made him more attractive still. It was the way of all great men, or all men destined for greatness.

“I fear you will have to suffer this hero worship a while longer. The people of this colony live in constant dread of the pirates, and you are practically the first man in living memory to do anything against them.”

“You are too kind by half, Elizabeth. But in fact I shall be free of this for a while, at least while we careen the Plymouth Prize down by Point Comfort.”

“Careen? I fear I do not follow your nautical jargon.”

“‘Careening’ is how we clean and repair the ship’s bottom. It is an onerous task. First we strip the vessel of all of her top hamper-her masts and yards and such-and her great guns as well, and all of the provisions in her hold. Then we run her up on a beach, and as the tide goes out we heave her down-that is to say, we cause her to roll on her side and thus expose the bottom.”

“Yes, I’ve heard how that is done, now that you explain it. But are you to be absent from Williamsburg for a time?” Her voice conveyed far more disappointment than she had intended. She could see that her tone had registered with Mar

lowe. Giving too much away. It was her intention to be more coy than that.

“I shall be away for a short time. But indeed, I had wished to ask you-and I beg you will not think my proposal in the least bit indecent, for I mean nothing of the kind-but might you be interested in accompanying me? I shall be sailing aboard my own sloop, the Northumberland. You are welcome to bring Lucy, if you wish. King James shall be captaining the sloop, and I am certain he would wish to see her, despite his pretensions of indifference. It could be something of a yachting holiday.”

“Indeed, sir…” The various implications swirled through Elizabeth’s mind. Such a trip might be cause for much whispering among the society people. On the other hand, one could do no better at present than to be seen in company with Captain Thomas Marlowe.

“…to sail off with you, I don’t know…”

She wanted very much to go, but she was afraid. Not of Marlowe, not at all, though that smoldering, dangerous quality that she had first seen in him had not dissipated in the past two years. She was afraid of what the others might think.