“Very practical.” His long fingers gently massaged her nape, spreading warmth and relaxation through her knotted body. “There’s been enough blood today.”
She exhaled with exhaustion. “I’m sorry to have become such a watering pot. You used to say admiringly that I was like another boy, not a weepy girl.”
His laughter was soft and tender. “How times have changed. I’ve now noticed that you’re a girl and I don’t mind that at all. In fact, I quite like it. Breaking down after a horrible day is not the same as being a watering pot.”
“I suppose not, but there isn’t time to indulge myself for very long. Tomorrow Baltimore may be bombed to splinters, and I need to be ready for anything.”
“The Royal Navy won’t have it easy,” he assured her. “They’ll have to destroy the Star Fort and the artillery battery on Lazaretto Point on the opposite side of the channel. Then they’ll have to get past the boom at the mouth of the inner harbor. The forts might hold out under the bombardment so long that the British will get bored and just head home.”
“Let us hope so! This isn’t Washington. Baltimoreans are digging in and fighting for their homes.” She sighed. “Tomorrow I should be able to pretend I’m strong again, but tonight I don’t want to sleep alone. I’ve made up a pallet among the tobacco barrels. Will you join me there?”
His body stiffened under hers. “Define what you mean by joining you.”
“Sleeping. Holding each other. No more.” She slid from his lap and offered her hand. “You must be at least as tired as I am, Mr. Bold Adventurer. Come rest.”
He took her hand and rose from the chair. “Gladly, Catkin.” He gave her his intimate, entrancing smile. “You can purr me to sleep.”
Chapter 26
It had been a very long day. In fact, it was already the next day, Gordon suspected. Even with as stalwart a partner as Josh Adams, battling through storm waves in the harbor had been exhausting. Gordon was weary to the bone, which made Callie’s invitation to her pallet very welcome. Fatigue should make it possible to behave like a gentleman, though it would be a challenge. She inspired dangerously intense feelings of tenderness and lust.
The alcove between the barrels was cozy, with a faint scent of tobacco and a view out the windows, not that there was much to see in a heavy rain over a blacked out city.
Callie flipped back the top blanket and crawled onto the pallet, which was wide enough for two. He stretched out beside her, asking, “Is the floor less hard than previous nights, or am I just so tired I’m not noticing?”
“The pallet is somewhat thicker. Earlier today Molly and I found empty burlap sacks in the warehouse so we brought up enough to provide better padding,” she explained as she stretched out on the right side of the pallet. “It’s not a real bed, but better than the floor.”
True. But even the unpadded floor would have been fine with Callie beside him.
She rolled onto her side to face him and circled an arm over his waist as she exhaled softly against his neck. “Thank you for joining me.”
“The pleasure is mine,” he said, meaning it. “It’s been an appalling day. Yet we’re all here and alive and Trey isn’t badly hurt. There is much to be grateful for.” He stroked down her back and confirmed what he’d suspected when he held her in his lap. She wasn’t wearing anything under her worn, often-washed linen shift. This felt almost as good as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.
“Molly is mad for Peter and apparently he is for her,” Callie murmured. “Do you think anything will come of it?”
“I trust you mean marriage, not a by-blow.”
“Of course!” she said indignantly. “I want her to find a kind, devoted husband who will care for her and any family they might have. Like Sarah and Josh.”
“Peter seems like a thoroughly good fellow. Assuming he survives the British attack, yes, I think they might have a future. I suppose her inheritance will be decent?”
“With the slaves all freed it won’t be a great fortune, but should be enough to let her live independently or take a good dowry into a marriage.”
“Money always makes a potential mate more attractive,” Gordon said. “But they’re young. The attraction might be fleeting.”
“I told Molly that, and she wanted to know if at her age I’d been so entranced by a young man that I wanted him above everything.” She chuckled. “I had to admit that never happened to me.”
“No?”
“I thought about it and decided that being friends with you absorbed all my energy where boys were concerned.”
He considered. “The same was true for me. Maybe that made us slower to think about mating than others our age.”
“I’d rather think I was just slow than that there was something wrong with me,” she said wryly.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said reassuringly. “You just lacked opportunity since you went directly from being my best friend into marriage with a man old enough to be your father. I assume that when you reached Jamaica, you were too honorable to take up with a man nearer your own age?”
“I never met anyone who tempted me enough for adultery,” she replied. “What about you? Once you got out into the world, did you find yourself to have the normal amount of interest in the opposite sex?”
