When Chris approachedCaptain Arnaud Bellingham outside the steep stairway to the Mixed Commission Prize Court, another squadron captain was already engaged in conversation with him.
Both men turned at Chris’s approach. “Captain Corbett — welcome. When did you anchor in the harbor? I didn’t know you’d arrived yet.”
“We ran into a nasty lack of wind for days on the return trip up here from Lagos.” He gave a deep sigh. “I thought we’d be out there till I was retired, or dead.”
He turned then to Chris and leaned close. “I hear you’ve had a taste of that beautiful mulatto creature at the mission school.”
Chris’s mind emptied. Nothing remained but a red, seething mass of anger. He did not take time to consider that striking an officer in the King’s Navy could be punishable by death.
When he returned to sanity moments later, Arnaud was holding him back, and Lieutenant Bourne was helping Corbett pick himself up from the dirt road in front of the court building. Blood poured from the stricken officer’s nose, and Bourne had produced a handkerchief to press against the flow of blood.
When Chris tried to form a retort, Bellingham squeezed his chest until he couldn’t breathe.
“What Captain Halloren is trying to say, is he apologizes from the depth of his being for having struck a fellow officer.” Bellingham had released him but still formed a physical block between the two men.
“And I apologize for what I said about the lady. I did not know she means so much to you.” The other captain acted as though he’d suddenly realized where he was and the consequences of what had happened.
Chris shook at the thought of what he’d done as well. Like the collision of two ships, the Admiralty would investigate the actions of both officers involved in a physical altercation, if word were to leak out. And also, they were about to enter the Prize Court where any infraction of any rule could deprive one or all of them of a prize ship they’d worked months to seize.
Chris faced the man squarely. “Miss Berry is my fiancee. We’re to be married next year after we return to England.”
“I beg your pardon. I had no idea that was the situation.” He bowed low, but the condescending expression on his face made Chris want to hit him again.
When they all turned to climb the steps to the court session, Chris looked down at his left hand. His knuckles were bleeding and his hand was beginning to swell. He’d have to soak it in sea water later.
Bellingham leaned close and murmured in a low tone, “For a one-armed bastard, you pack a hell of a clout. But if you ever pull anything as insane as that again, I’ll take you down myself.”
Once inside the courtroom, Chris shuttered his gaze into one of indifferent concentration on the proceedings; however, his mind was reeling. In one, unthinking moment, he’d gone from being cock-sure of his ability to protect Rachel and provide a way for her to fulfill her dreams back in England to being a man who’d suddenly realized what a huge responsibility he’d taken on. That responsibility had turned into a conundrum like an iceberg - seemingly simple on top, but with depths of complexity he hadn’t considered.
His fellow captain, Bellingham, leaned close and whispered, “Quit thinking so hard. This is simpler than you realize.”
Chris leaned his forehead onto his hand. “What have I done? Have I exposed her to danger and ridicule by declaring myself to her father? I never thought…”
His friend interrupted him with a sharp sideways jab with his elbow. “Do you love her?”
“God, help me. Yes — I have no right to fall in love, but I think I have.”
“Good. Now that we’ve ascertained that vital bit of information, all that’s left is to get you through the next year without one or both of us landing in the brig.”
15
Rachel jabbed a needle into one of the many shirts in her endless pile of mending in the sewing basket in the parlor. This one needed a patch on the elbow where her father had ripped it trying to help one of his Bible students build a house.
For an aging vicar, Jameson Berry was involved in more strenuous adventures than anyone could imagine, or that were good for him. For one short, passing moment she tried to imagine how challenging it would be to keep up with the mending for someone like Christopher.
And then a sudden sadness came over her. They were from two different worlds. In his world, wives didn’t mend their husbands’ clothes. They had servants to deal with mundane chores. She had no idea what Chris’s mother and sisters did with their time. She’d be as lost as one of her chickens racing around a strange neighborhood.
At the thought of her chickens, she was afraid she’d start crying again. What would happen to her chickens when she left for England? Who would know their names and spoil them like she did? Tenneh would take good care of them, but they were just chickens to her, the means to putting food into empty bellies.
Speaking of Tenneh, she should have been back to the vicarage by now. Rachel had made her take Mingo and Eli along for protection, and to carry the goods she’d sent her to purchase. According to her locket watch, it was at least an hour past the time they should have returned.
She stood and stretched, folding her father’s shirt and placing it back into the sewing basket. When her father’ Bible class for boys and men was over, she’d see of one of them could go to the market to find out what was keeping Tenneh.
Lt. Bourne hatedshore duty involving bartering with sellers in the Freetown market. Their idea of negotiation was to agree to something and then add on two or three other things you didn’t need to the mix and demand additional compensation. He’d come along with the ship’s cook for protection, but had ended up wading into the fray at the fruit stand when the cook had thrown up his hands in disgust.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked away from the stall selling lemons and limes. The little man who had been changing his bargaining tactics for the last half hour dropped the lemons he’d been showing and ran after him. “You find bad lemons everywhere else. You be sorry.”
Bourne raised his right arm in a sign of defeat and farewell and kept walking when a man he’d never seen before in Freetown slammed into him while running beneath the market portico. He dragged a struggling young woman behind him with an iron grip on her wrist while she screamed like a wild animal. The stranger had kicked over baskets, scattering yams, gourds, and light green cabbages in his path.
