“Do you think I care about that? They were closed to me once before,” she says quietly.
“Perhaps not. I expect your recent experiences have hardened you to this possibility. And there would still be money for a while, but without any more coming in, you’d eventually find yourself poor again.” He pauses. “Which is another circumstance you have grown somewhat used to these past weeks. It’s not what I would wish, but I know if it were to happen, it wouldn’t break you. So you see why I believe you’re the perfect match for me.”
“But Jack—”
“Shh. Let me finish, if you please. There’s one more thing. If I were to be arrested, I’d stand a good chance of being acquitted. Most juries are on our side. But if I were killed in action or that bastard Sowerby got hold of me, you’d lose a husband a second time. And if in time youwould grow to care for me as you did for George or even love me as you did him, if I could hope for that, the loss would be all the harder. I understand it’s a lot to ask that you would expose yourself to the danger of such heartache once more. I want you to know I’m not asking lightly.”
“But I already do,” she says. “Care for you like that, I mean.”And love you,she thinks, but she cannot say this, not yet. It’s too soon, too raw. “It’s only…I need time. I need to think.”
“Of course. And you shall have it, but if you won’t give me your answer now, then what do you want to do for the time being?”
Quietly she says, “I’d like to carry on as before.”
“Would that be before I took you to bed or after?”
“After,” she says, reddening. “If you don’t object to the arrangement.”
She feels his laughter in her chest, like a flock of birds. He says, “I knew you held singular ideas, but I didn’t expect they’d be quite this unorthodox. Of course I don’t object to the arrangement. What man would? But you will consider my proposal, won’t you?”
“Naturally. I will, Jack. And thank you, for—”
“Attempting to rescue you from poverty?”
Now she laughs, too. “For being kind to me.”
“Kind is not the word I’d use. Impassioned, rather. Tell me this. May I hope for a favorable response, in time?”
Yes!All of her screams it, but she hears herself say, “I believe so. I just have to think for a while.”
“Take as long as you need. In the meantime, we’ll carry on as before.” His hand slips down as he kisses her again. “Like this. And like this.”
She sighs into him. Against her lips, he says, “Are you in need of sleep?”
His fingers make the stars come out in her skin. In kisses, in sighs, she says, “Not yet.”
—
On the morning of the last day of the voyage, over another breakfast of beans and bread from France, which has by now grown hard as rock, Jack says, “We’ll have sight of land soon.”
“Yes,” she says, wishing it wasn’t so. She can’t stop smiling—at him, at the ship, at Tom, who brought the breakfast from the galley and who chuckled so knowingly her face grew as hot as the beans on her plate.
“We’ll have to stand out until nightfall. Once we’re anchored, I’ll have one of the crew accompany you home.”
“Couldn’t I help with the unloading?”
“It’ll take most of the night.”
“I’ll stay,” she says.
He laughs, saying, “You mad thing,” with such affection it makes her heart billow. “This has been our most successful run yet. Thank you, Tom,” as the steward refills their glasses. Turning back to Isabel, Jack says, “I’ll pay you as one of the crew. God knows you look it, dressed as you are, and you’ve pulled your weight in terms of the work. Come to think of it, as we’re to avoid Coverack and Lizard after what Sowerby told you, we may have need of your shed. In that case we’ll all see you home. We’ll have to see what the situation is like tonight.”
“You may use the shed anytime.” Her eyes water as she burns her tongue on the coffee.
“That’d be another two percent on top of your fee as a member of the crew,” he says. “You’ll make a pretty penny.”
“It was never about that.”
“I know. But you’re not going to be stubborn and refuse payment, are you? You could use the money.”
