Chapter Two

Their Voyage Begins

The Captain drew a deep, reminiscent breath before expelling it slowly. "I well remember that morning as being very cold and dull. The sun refused to shine on the Pool of London, and it had rained heavily overnight. Everything was drenched and smelled of the filthy old Thames."

He shook his head, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped on the lapels of his jacket. "The city's smog hung heavily in the air and the stench from the dockside taverns took your breath away. It had often been said that you could almost eat the air, it was that thick and redolent with the myriad smells of cooking meat and boiling fish," he added, his tone sounding almost wistful.

He shook his head. "I guess you, as a twentieth-century woman, wouldn't understand. It was all we knew, back then. A man was a man and a woman… well…" He grimaced as he raised one hand to tug thoughtfully at his ear and then rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Well, I'm glad I wasn't there. It all sounds positively awful," Carolyn remarked drily. "I really do think we might need to lighten that part up a little. We need to leave something for the reader's imagination."

"As I said, you had to be there." The Captain shrugged. "I was far too busy with my pressing duties to take much notice of what we took for granted. I longed to sail downriver and out into the arms of the open ocean. A man could breathe there and understand his place in the world."

He lifted his eyes to stare up at the ceiling, warming to his theme as his intriguing story began to unfold. "But a damnably inconvenient interruption was about to disrupt everything…"

Sometime later, Carolyn finally stopped typing. Her fingers had been flying across the keyboard, as she'd been doing her best to keep up with the Captain's quickly evolving tale. Several times she'd been forced to raise one hand to stem his quickfire flow of words.

"Blast it, woman, you're ruining my concentration!" the Captain had finally exploded, after the tenth such incident when Carolyn was forced to call another halt.

"Well, you're going too fast!" she accused hotly. "And using some words which shouldn't ever be seen in a novel. Even one of these paperbacks."

She waved her hand at the romance novel Martha had given to her earlier. "We have to think of our potential readership. We can't blow them away before we've even started."

The Captain sat up. "So, are you ready to admit there is some potential in the idea?"

Carolyn stared at him as she sighed in frustration. "What I think is that this really is a bad idea, after all. Maybe we should just give up before we waste too much time on a lost cause."

She glanced at her bedside clock. "It's gone midnight, and I still have an article I must write before I lose its deadline. That's the way I know how to make enough money to keep us all afloat."

"Madam, I never took you for someone who could give up so easily," the ghost remarked softly. "I thought you had a great deal more steel in your spine."

"Yes, well… I'm simply being realistic," Carolyn countered defensively. "I know what my readers want to read. I've had a few years to find out."

The Captain sighed. "That is all well and good. You are comfortable and safe there. But does it still pay the bills? Would it hurt to try something new? An entirely new, and undiscovered country, is surely worth exploring."

Carolyn stared at him, torn between the two ideas. "Very well, I'll admit it's a good story. But I still have very deep reservations about this type of prose," she remarked with a grimace. "I mean, what was so wrong about the kind of story I used to write?"

The Captain regarded her with compassion. "Sadly, the world is slowly passing you by, my dear. As it once did to me. You must swim fast to keep up with this new wave or be left behind to drown in the eddies."

"Yes, I suppose I'm beginning to understand that…" Carolyn's shoulders slumped. "But it doesn't make it any easier to accept or understand. I knew where I was before. I made a good enough living."

"Very well…" Her writing partner ran an apologetic hand over his beard. "I am prepared to admit that perhaps my vocabulary did become a little salty. I got carried away in my storytelling. I'll make a bargain with you. I will help you with your magazine article tomorrow morning. I'm sure I can recall a suitable enough tale that will not shock the delicate senses of your readers in 'Feminine View.'"

"Thank you." Carolyn recomposed herself. "Perhaps I did speak a bit hastily..." She sighed as she reached to pick up the paperback, frowning at the cover. "I truly don't know what to think…"

"Then just go with the idea for now," her partner encouraged. "What can it hurt?"

He took the book gently from her hand and put it back on the desk. "What do you have but time?" His shoulders lifted, his expression becoming pensive. "It's all I have now too. Time and tales that wish to be told…"

Carolyn considered him for a moment, seeing an unspoken need in his blue eyes that set her heart racing. And she also saw the deep loneliness that had drawn them together on the very first night they met.

"I understand…" she admitted slowly. "Okay, we can try again to make this work. But please, don't go so fast." She went back to her page in her typewriter. "Now where are we?"

She read the words quickly. "We got up to the scene where you were busy working on the deck with your cargo manifest. Then this young woman asked to come aboard your ship in London. She wanted to buy passage out to join her family in Boston and she'd been told you were the captain to see because you were making ready to sail on the morning tide..."

"Ah, yes…" The Captain smiled slowly as he rose from his chair to pace around the room. "The little minx came upon me, quite unawares. My first mate had directed her to my location aboard ship, thinking that I would have some compassion for her pitiful tale of woe. I was busily engaged with the final tallying of the cargo manifest when she accosted me."

He smoothed the line of his moustache with the side of his finger. "I'll admit my first sight of her was appealing. She was a very fetching little piece. But my motley, gallows bait crew well knew my rules. No woman was ever allowed aboard any ship I captained. It was safer for all concerned. I did not need some mutiny at sea where I would be forced to lock up my crew in the brig and sail on alone."

He tugged at his ear again as he smiled grimly. "As soon as I turned her request down flat, the young woman's rather colourful sentiments detailing both my manhood and captaincy were volubly expressed."

He took a turn and came back to the desk. "My crew were deeply impressed with the extent of her vocabulary. As was I. Even the ragged, young urchin who'd carried her luggage up the gangplank became red-faced."

Carolyn frowned at him. "Yes, you've made your rule on no women aboard very clear on more than one occasion. But this is supposed to be a romance and it's fictional," she reasoned. "You need to remember, it's not about you, but the fictional sea captain who has just been asked by a beautiful young woman for his help in getting her safely to Boston. For the novel to succeed, you should allow her to come aboard. Otherwise, we don't have a story and we're wasting our time with this kind of venture."

"Yes, I do understand the whole point of this exercise…" He nodded. "Very well. The young woman came to me for help in securing passage out to Boston and I obliged by allowing her the exclusive use of my cabin for the voyage." He glanced at her. "Will that be acceptable?"

"Perfectly," Carolyn nodded, sighing her relief. "Now where were we?"

The Captain gazed off into the middle distance, the soft smile returning to his lips. "She made a very pretty picture. All soft white skin and a pair of beautiful sea-green eyes a man could drown in…" He cleared his throat. "If a man was looking…"

"She was all alone in the world…" Carolyn went back to her typing, talking dreamily. "Her entire family had died in a fever epidemic, and she'd travelled a very long way to London to find passage to Boston, where her grandparents lived. She had barely enough money to pay for her passage, but she possessed a fine cameo that had belonged to her mother. She was prepared to barter with it if she needed to do so."

The Captain frowned. "Ah, I do believe the young lady told me she'd run away from a very bad marriage and was going out to Boston to secure service as a maid in a respectable household. She was in possession of more than sufficient funds to secure her passage having just sold her wedding ring along with a few other trinkets."

"Yes, but where's the romance in that?" Carolyn questioned. "My way is much better. Our heroine is all alone in the world and begging for a strong, young, handsome captain to help her out in her hour of need."

Her co-writer stared at her. "She was barely eighteen if she was a day, and this was in eighteen-sixty-four. I had just turned thirty-five."

"Again, you have to remember this is a romance," Carolyn replied patiently. "It's not about Captain Daniel Gregg, the stern master of the Mary Anne, but the fictional you. Captain Josiah Wentworth is a handsome young man of twenty-five and he's single."

"A mere whippersnapper!" the Captain exclaimed, as he paced the space between the desk and his telescope. "He'd still be wet behind the ears and just when did he earn his blasted ticket? While he was still in his blasted cradle?"

"But we're using a poetic licence with this tale, remember?" Carolyn waved a dismissive hand. "Josiah is what he needs to be. Now please, sit down. And stop shouting. You'll wake the children."

"They cannot hear me. Not unless I wish it so." He obliged her by returning to his chair and sat down heavily. "Very well, I can see you and I must come to an agreement about how we are to craft these stories to suit both of us. But we must maintain at least a nodding acquaintance with the truth. A young, headstrong man like that has no business captaining a ship in those times."

"Then let's agree that Josiah is very mature for his age." Carolyn turned in her chair to face him. "Your stories will have the ring of truth about that time because you were there. We can use your knowledge to make them as authentic as possible."

She shrugged. "In return, you must allow me to craft a work of fiction that will be acceptable to the women who might read these novels. We cannot afford to shock them over their cups of tea by using too-ripe language and graphic descriptions. That truly would be the end of this venture before it's even begun."

She indicated the closed door of the bedroom. "Women like Martha and her circle of lady readers are our potential audience. They loved your tale about the Mary Anne. Martha told me tonight, that her ladies still read Maiden Voyage and enjoy it immensely. She said they read stories such as these paperbacks for escapism. That I know how to write about and have."

She raised her shoulders. "I will admit that was a revelation. I was rather shocked. That's when I realised that there could possibly be a new market for the kind of fiction you propose that we write. Novels that will bring us a good income and secure all our futures."

"Despite your reservations, you appear to have given this a deal of thought," the ghost replied slowly.

He sat back in his chair crossing his long legs at the ankle. "Very well, you are the professional writer. Therefore, I must bow to your experience." He inclined his head.

"Thank you. I think I know what sells." Carolyn nodded. "I will admit to being ignorant of the possible potential of books such as these…"

She picked up the paperback from the desk. "But Martha swears they are the coming thing. It certainly would seem so, given the monthly orders Lorrie Hammond down at the General Store is being asked to fulfil. As you said, it is a case of moving with the times or being left behind."

She began to thumb through the book, reading passages aloud as she considered the various scenes and character portrayals with keen attention. She skipped to the ending, reading that before returning to the beginning and closing the book.

She deliberated on the front cover once more. "It's rather a lurid tale."

"It's light fiction," her co-author said, watching her. "It is certainly not Shakespeare or Dickens."

He shrugged. "Or Elizabeth Browning's Portuguese sonnets. The singular drawback is the sad lack of sound naval knowledge in any of those stories. In that, we have a distinct advantage. I doubt any of these authors have even a nodding acquaintance with the sea and how to sail upon her. But such failings will serve us well, once we rightly catch the flavour of them."

"Then let's get back to where we were. The young woman – oh, we still have to name her – was standing on the deck, begging the handsome young sea captain to allow her to take passage to Boston aboard his ship. She had nowhere else to turn. He was her last hope…"

She reset her fingers to the typewriter keys. "Oh, and what was the ship's name, by the way? She also has a part in this story."

"The Rebecca…" the Captain replied with great fondness. "One of the finest schooners I ever had the pleasure to command as captain. She was so responsive to even the lightest of touches upon the wheel I could have sailed her with one finger…"

"Rebecca…" Carolyn typed it in. "She sounds wonderful."

"She was..." The Captain's gaze went dreamy again. "Everything about her was beautiful. Her lines, her shape, and her whole presence was graceful and lovely. She was very pleasing to the eye…"

"Are we talking now about a woman or a ship?" Carolyn queried, pausing in her typing.

"The ship, of course." He looked at her pityingly. "Women come and go, but an exceptional ship of her quality…"

He shook his head. "I had rarely seen her like…" He paused, his blue eyes considering her closely. "Until that first night when I saw you, Mrs Muir…"

"Now you're comparing me to a ship?" Carolyn questioned lightly, flushing a little even as she smiled at him.

"In my lost world, my dear, there could be no greater compliment," he said softly. "Something lovely, feminine and graceful. A comparison to you who is all those things and more. The moment I first saw you, my dusty, old heart began to sing once more…"

"Thank you, Captain…" Carolyn whispered as she dropped her eyes to her typewriter.

Silence filled the room as they both considered his words. Carolyn would have welcomed the security of his embrace then, well knowing at the same time it was impossible.

Over the years they had become close in every way but the one that truly mattered. There seemed to be no way out of their mutual dilemma, except in the magical dreams the Captain had sometimes crafted for them...

Carolyn closed her eyes as she remembered some of those dreams. Their first Christmas together had held one such incredible dream. A magical time where they'd finally kissed on the front porch to the soft sounds of a carol being sung by an unseen choir.

She treasured the illicit memory. There had been five more Christmases since that incredible night. But none of those dreams had been as wonderful and impossible to forget.

Since that long-ago night, the Captain seemed to be deliberately holding back from repeating their first time. She was aware he was doing it out of some olde-worlde ideal about women and not giving her any expectations he could never meet.

Carolyn pursed her lips with dissatisfaction. She was determined not to beg. For five years she'd held her tongue and accepted what he could give her. She clung to the memory and kept it close.

She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. "Um, please tell me. What was the young woman's name?"

Also seemingly lost in reflection, her writing partner blinked and frowned. "Who? Oh, she never told me her name. As soon as I refused her passage, she flounced off down the gangplank and along the dock in high dudgeon followed by the urchin boy with her luggage. As she departed, she used a few choice words that made those of my crew within earshot blink in shock."

"Well, I say she had cause. That was very uncharitable of you to send her away like that," Carolyn observed. A frown creased her forehead. "Then we shall have to invent a name."

She thought for a moment. "What about Annabelle Winters? I think it's safe enough. I've used the name before, in one of my earlier articles and no one objected."

"It makes not a jot of difference to me." The Captain shrugged regarding her with a level stare. "It is your story to craft as you wish. I am simply providing the bones of it. The flesh and dreams are up to you."

His seemingly casual mention of dreams drove warmth into Carolyn's cheeks. She tried to appear unconcerned. "I still can't believe you refused the young woman passage aboard your ship in her hour of need."

"I thought we'd settled that fact and that this is to be a work of fiction?" he observed wryly. "I made the hard and fast ruling for the safety of my ship and her crew. No women aboard, no matter the circumstances. The crew were all rough and ready scoundrels, eager for any mischief they could devise. They would have ravished her the very moment my back was turned."

He steepled his fingers. "I needed them to focus on their duties for the voyage ahead. It was dangerous enough under normal circumstances in the season of sudden squalls and rogue waves without the added distraction of having a pretty female on board."

"Then, I'm just glad Captain Josiah Wentworth has a totally different opinion of the fairer sex." Carolyn read what she'd just written and nodded. "Very well, the fair Annabelle threw herself on the mercy of the handsome captain of the Rebecca. He consented to save her from destitution and ruin, because if he didn't give her safe passage, then she would be forced to find employment in one of the quayside taverns."

"What?" The Captain stared at her in frowning disbelief. "I can assure you, Madam, that the young woman was most determined." He laughed softly. "I heard later that she'd walked the quay until she found another captain willing to give her passage in return for her taking over the galley. At least, she could cook. That was the last I ever heard of her."

"Ah, but you see, the Rebecca was the last ship of the season sailing home to Boston…" Carolyn's fingers flew across the keys. "There wouldn't be another before the spring. Until that morning, Annabelle had been unable to secure her passage. She was becoming desperate…"

She warmed to her theme. "What else could she do if she was abandoned on the dockside?"

"Yours is quite the fertile imagination," the ghost marvelled. "Very well, Madam, continue. What happens next in this fanciful tale of yours?"

"Well, as you rightly said before. What was the good captain of the Rebecca to do, but offer the young lady safe passage to Boston and the sole use of his cabin for the length of the voyage?"

"Forcing him to spend the entire voyage standing guard at her door, with weapons to hand, because of the nature of his gallows-bait crew." The Captain shook his head. "Meanwhile, who would be captaining the ship? My ship?"

"But, what else would a gentleman do?" Carolyn smiled as her fingers continued to type. "We shall come back to that later. Of course, one night, the good ship Rebecca was caught by a violent storm and Captain Wentworth's attention became divided between the safety of the young lady in his cabin and keeping his ship from sinking."

"Ah, now you have the right of it," the ghost approved. "That night on the Mary Anne, when I forced the entire crew below decks and locked them in the brig! All because of that confounded female stowaway!"

He stood up, stalking around the room as if he was once more, walking the heaving deck of a storm-ravaged ship. "For forty-seven hours I piloted that ship single-handed! It was the stuff of legend!"

"Yes, but in our story, it was Captain Wentworth who commanded and saved the ship that night…" Carolyn continued to type furiously. "But all the while he was wrestling with the storm that threatened to take his ship, his mind was also on the young woman locked in his cabin, waiting for him to go below and save her from danger. A young woman to whom he'd sworn an oath to protect with his very life and limb."

"The Captain's Forbidden Love…" the Captain mused, coming back to settle in his chair beside her. "I can see there is a lot of you in your Annabelle, Madam…" he mused softly. "For you, I would have willingly broken my golden rule about no women aboard…"

"I… I like to identify with the characters I write about," Carolyn allowed softly.

The Captain smiled wryly. "Would you have stayed meekly in the cabin, waiting for your hero captain to return to you?"

Carolyn considered him thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have risked both his life and mine, let alone the safety of the ship, by doing something foolish…"

"Somehow, I doubt that…" He shook his head in disbelief at her statement. "But then the storm finally blew out and the ocean turned to glass…" he continued. "Finally, the gallant Captain Wentworth could release his iron grip on the ship's wheel and go below…"

Carolyn nodded. "Before the storm struck, he'd given Annabelle the key to the cabin, ordering her to lock herself in and to answer it to no other knock, but his..."

Her companion shrugged. "A fine point. The captain was exhausted, all he wanted to do was fall onto his bunk and sleep the clock around…"

"Annabelle was so grateful to see him still alive…" Carolyn voiced her thoughts as she typed. "They'd both been saved from a watery fate by the captain's bravery."

The Captain leaned closer, his shoulder almost touching hers. "How could she reward his heroism?"

"By helping him take off his boots?" Carolyn quipped lightly, her fingers stilling on the keys.

"Ah, you remembered that line from Maiden Voyage…" Her companion studied her quickly averted face and her heightened colour. "I thought you might."

"I think we should call a halt here, now. Writing stories such as this is new to me," Carolyn admitted. "I was caught up in the telling of it. I will have to go back and flesh out the scenes."

She leaned over to pick up the paperback. "In the meantime, I have some research to do." She opened the book to the inside front page. "The first thing is to familiarise ourselves with the submission guidelines. The address for the Hanover publisher is here, so tomorrow morning I will write a letter, asking for them."

"With your writing talent and my store of adventures, we'll make a better team than all the romantic bards combined. We will take the publishing world by storm!"

"I wish I had your faith in my abilities, Captain."

"And I say that you should not quibble, Madam. You need to take full advantage of a genuine ghost writer."

"I guess you could call a woman and a ghost, one person." Carolyn smiled. "This is still a writing style I need to get used to. It is a great deal outside my usual way of working."

"Then we will help each other," the Captain conceded softly. "But for now, you need to go to bed. The Middle Watch is already well upon us." He pointed with his chin toward the bed on the other side of the room. "Go on now, and don't argue."

"Aye, aye, Captain…" Carolyn saluted him before she rose from her chair, stretching out the aches in her spine and shoulders. "All this talk of sails, spars, halyards and ropes is making me tired. Your sailors must have put up with a lot."

"My dear, Mrs Muir…" The ghost sighed, frowning at her. "Sailors are seamen and the only rope on board any ship is attached to the ship's bell. They are called sheets and lanyards. Please remember that, if nothing else. I do not have time to correct everything in the story."

"Very well, I will remember…" She leaned down to pick up the paperback. "Good night…"

"Good night, Mrs Muir…" The ghost nodded, as he gathered the closely typed pages of their novel into order. "I will read these and make my notations while you sleep."

"Thank you…" Carolyn walked away to put the book down on the bedside table.

Then she went to the closet to retrieve her nightwear. By unspoken accord the Captain remained at the desk, reading, as she left the room to go down the hall to the bathroom to change.

She washed her face and brushed her teeth before she returned to the bedroom. She found he'd turned out the lights and lighted a branch of candles on the desktop. The room glowed with a soft atmosphere that whispered of romance. The softly fragrant scent of the beeswax was lovely.

"Candlelight is different to your confounded electric. It helps me to remember…" the Captain replied to her questioning look. "Go to bed…"

"All right…" Carolyn didn't need telling again.

She was tired from the newness of their collaboration and the unusualness of their venture. She still harboured doubts they could successfully pull it off. She hoped she could do justice to the story they were trying to craft.

She picked up the book from the bedside table, settling between the sheets and began to read. But her eyes kept straying to the man seated at the desk, bathed in the soft glow of the candlelight. She longed to rise from the bed and go to him. Have him put his arms around her, as he did that long-ago night, and kiss her until her knees went weak again with wanton desire.

In the candlelight, she remembered the Captain had promised that, if he were still alive, he would have given her diamonds and sapphires and palaces… She sighed with unfulfilled need.

An impossible vision crossed her mind's eye then. A scene of two ardent lovers entwined upon a wide bed in the soft moonlight. She blinked and shook her head. The scene was being played out upon the very bed she was lying in, and the moonlight was streaming in through the windows.

"Nothing but wishful foolishness…" she muttered as she went back to her reading.

※※※※※

The Captain sat in the chair beside Carolyn's desk, reading and making notations on the neatly typed manuscript by the flickering light of the candles that were steadily burning low. Behind him, the dawn was slowly breaking, streaks of orange and blue riding high in the sky. No longer plagued by the need for sleep, the Captain continued to edit the pages of his tale they'd written together.

"Not bad… Not bad at all…" he mused. "I'd almost forgotten how it happened that night…"

He had to admit that Carolyn's typing was much faster than his and far neater. But he frowned over her use of words and phrases that had not been in what he'd dictated. He could see there would be conflict ahead before they came to some agreement on how the novel should turn out.

He looked up from his reading to study his co-author, sleeping in the bed across the room. The paperback had fallen from her fingers and now lay open on the covers. Her breathing had been slow and even for some hours now. It was not often he stayed in the room while she slept.

Keeping to the promise he made on the very first night they met, he usually pretended he was keeping watch on the bridge above the room. Or on the widow's walk which was above that again. He would pace back and forth, waiting for the dawn and the family to awaken once more.

'His family…' he reminded himself. For that was how he saw them now. They lived beneath his roof and his protection. It was a loving warmth and a settled kind of existence that had crept in over the last five years.

"We certainly argue like an old married couple…" He sighed as he put the pages down and got up from his chair.

Crossing the room to Carolyn's bedside he picked up the paperback that had started them down this collaborative path. He stood gazing down at her, sleeping so peacefully.

The temptation to be near to her while she slept had been too hard to resist. He'd soon abandoned the wheelhouse and the widow's walk for far more pleasurable pursuits. It had become a secret addiction through the years that he would often materialise in the room, simply to be with her. So close, but never touching.

He remembered the urge he'd experienced on the very first night Carolyn had slept in his bed. In a fleeting moment of weakness, he'd wished he could join her, holding her close in the darkness, and keeping her safe for all eternity. He would have made her his own, even as he'd tried to fathom the strength of the strange appeal she held for him.

In the dream he'd gifted to the family, in celebration of their first Christmas together under his roof, he'd followed Carolyn out onto the front porch. He had given in to the rich temptation of her sweet nearness to kiss her and hold her close against his heart as he'd always desired to do.

And then, after they'd drawn apart, Carolyn had asked him to kiss her again and he'd willingly complied. How could he resist? It had been an intimately beguiling time and fraught with so many questions to which he had no answers.

He dared not repeat the same dream the following Christmas, nor for all the festive seasons that followed. If he ever allowed himself to get that near to her again, he feared he may never let her go. Then they would truly be lost in a dream that could never become the reality they both craved.

"If only you had been born in my time, or I, in yours…" He sighed as he turned away, returning to the desk, carrying the novel. "Such is the stuff of dreams and fantasies..."

He sat down to study the front cover picture of the half-dressed young woman, swooning back into the brawny arms of a bare-chested man dressed in the garb of a nineteenth-century sea pirate. He frowned at the background of a fully rigged sailing ship, heeling over before a raging storm.

"'Taming Her Pirate's Heart…'" he repeated the title of the book even as he shook his head. "The fools haven't even set the sails correctly for such a storm. They would've been torn to shreds in the next blast, and all hands lost at sea. All while the blasted fool dallies with a temptress hiding behind the thin disguise of a female stowaway. And no dastardly pirate I ever had the misfortune to cross paths with, ever possessed such a fine-looking ship…"

His lips curved with wry humour as he lowered the book. "Unless he pirated it in the first place, from its legitimate master…"

Reassembling the pages of the manuscript, he placed them beside the typewriter before standing up. He went to stare out the windows at the brightening sky before opening the window quietly and stepping out to put his hands on the ship's wheel on the balcony beyond.

He closed his eyes and gripped the wheel as he remembered that eventful, long-ago morning when he was anchored in the Pool of London as he waited for the tide to turn…

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