Chapter Seven
The Arrival of the Harridans
Carolyn spent the rest of the day working hard on their latest manuscript. The Captain popped in and out to check on her progress, but he seemed disinclined to stay long. He appeared to have something thorny on his mind, but he didn't want to elaborate when Carolyn asked him what was wrong.
"Very well…" Carolyn's lips compressed as she stared at the empty chair beside hers. "I guess he'll tell me when he's good and ready."
It irked her that he still didn't want to trust her with his innermost thoughts and feelings. She thought they had moved beyond that barrier by now.
"I guess not…" She went back to her work.
Apart from the intermittent visits from the ghost, she was alone in the house. Candy and Jonathan had gone out together for the weekend to visit friends in Beacon Cove and Martha was staying over again at Ed Peevey's for the night.
"Don't wait up for me…" the housekeeper winked as she opened the front door. "I think Ed's finally angling to ask me to go steady with him. He's got the dinner all planned. I'm predicting candlelight and champagne."
"Go steady?" Carolyn tried not to smile, even as she envied her good friend for the easy simplicity of her love affair. "I thought that's what you two have been doing all these years. I know he was on the point of asking you to marry him that time you were going to leave us to go and look after your mother down in Florida."
"Yes, well that was then and this is now. We haven't been officially going steady," Martha replied. "Ed likes to take his time. He likes to be certain we both want this."
"Yes, I'll agree there…" Carolyn kissed her friend's cheek with affection. "Ed Peevey works with all the speed of a slow-moving glacier."
"And I'll let him because there have been some pretty neat benefits along the way," Martha replied with a knowing smile, as she left the house and closed the door behind her.
Carolyn stood with her hand on the doorknob. She sighed. "Yes, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves very nicely with friends and lovers."
She sighed again as she tried not to sound disgruntled. She glanced up at the ceiling and then toward the Captain's portrait in the living room. It didn't help their situation that the man she loved with all her heart and soul was a ghost and couldn't touch her on this plane.
It was no one's fault that they had been born in different centuries. That singular barrier would never be breached.
No matter how much they both wanted it, he couldn't be there for her in every way a man should be. "We have such an impossible love…"
But she knew she would change nothing. Not a single thing. If she had it all to do again, she would not hesitate. "Of course, if there was a way we could be together…"
She shook her head as she turned for the stairs and began to climb. "I'm afraid all we can have are our dreams…"
She entered her bedroom and sat down in the desk chair. She closed her eyes and remembered some of those dreams. A gift from a ghost had been especially treasured. She tried to recall as much of that night as she could.
Their first Christmas together had held one incredible moment out of time. They'd finally embraced and kissed on the front porch to the soft sounds of a carol being sung by an unseen choir. Carolyn had not wanted that moment to end. But, of course, it did, and daylight came once more…
She had long treasured the illicit memory and had wanted to ask for another. But she had never quite found the courage. The five intervening Christmases had passed without holding the same wonderful and impossible imaginings.
"Wishing will get me nowhere but tired," she admitted as she sat up in her chair and prepared to type.
The moon had risen high in the sky before she finally gave up for the night. She'd eaten little, but she wasn't all that hungry.
She stretched her arms above her head and arched her aching back before she rose from her chair to collect her night things. She padded down the hallway to the bathroom to change before brushing her teeth and washing her face.
Returning to her bedroom, she sank onto the side of her bed to remove her slippers. She was glad the issue with Elvira Grover had finally been resolved. She hadn't been looking forward to dealing with such a fraught situation. She knew the woman would not have taken no for an answer.
"And I already have enough to do…" She stretched again and got into bed. As soon as her cheek came to rest on the pillows, she dropped almost instantly asleep.
Time ticked by on the bedside clock as the moonlight painted white lines across the bedroom floor. Then the Captain slowly materialised. "Good evening, my dear…" he said softly, so he did not awaken her.
He walked forward to sit on the end of the bed and rest back against the footboard. He watched his love sleeping like a child with one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
"You said all we can have are our dreams…" he repeated slowly. "You have given wings to my innermost thoughts. If all we do have are our dreams, then we must make them count. Today, you asked me what I was thinking, and I could not tell you. But now, it is finally time to show you…"
He shook his head slowly as he raised one hand and moved it through the air like a conductor controlling an invisible orchestra. "I promise to keep you safe from all harm. But there is only one way in which we can truly be together. All you have to do is open your mind and allow your heart to take flight…"
Carolyn murmured her sleep and moved slightly beneath the covers. Then behind her closed lids, the safe and secure world she'd always known, shifted and began to change…
Suddenly she was walking carefully along the sloping deck toward the bow of a fully rigged sailing ship cutting its way cleanly through the ocean waves. The early morning sun shone warmly on her shoulders. Gulls circled overhead, crying their mournful farewells as the last sight of land fell quickly away behind them and the sea became limitless against the sky.
"How is this possible?" Carolyn questioned, as the freshening wind tugged at the full skirts of her elegant green silk gown.
She held out her arms and looked down at herself. The crisp ocean air played through the long length of her blond curls, making them dance where they hung down over her left shoulder, tied with a long red velvet ribbon. Despite her confusion, she revelled in the wonderful sense of freedom that rose within her.
Around her, the ship's motley crew were scrambling to their duties of halyards, sheets and sails, following the bellowed orders from the ship's poop deck as the wind freshened. Despite their industry, the men took the time to step back deferentially as she passed their stations. They all tugged at their forelocks, muttering their greetings.
"God bless an' keep ya, ma'am…"
"Pleased to see you aboard, Missus…"
"Mind ya step there, milady…"
"Have a care wiv 'em ropes, ma'am..."
A cheeky-faced young man grinned at her. "Good morrow, Mrs Gregg. 'Tis good to see you up and around so early…" He winked one eye as his grin widened.
"Good morning," Carolyn responded sweetly, smiling at them all as she moved slowly along the deck.
Then their greetings suddenly arrested her progress. Especially the young man's.
'Mrs Gregg'…the name mystified her for a moment longer, and then memories came flooding back.
She and Daniel had been married in Schooner Bay the night before they'd set sail for London. This voyage was to be the beginning of their honeymoon!
Her heart leapt for joy at the memory of the beautiful ceremony that had been held at the small church overlooking the ocean. It had been a perfect ending to a wonderful day. Everyone who mattered to Carolyn had attended.
A smiling Jonathan had proudly given his mother away. Candy had stood as bridesmaid, hugging her mother close when she'd reached the altar, while Martha had played the wedding march on the church organ with gusto.
"I have missed you…" Carolyn turned to the man who was about to become her husband, resplendent, as always, in his full naval uniform.
"I was under strict orders from your children that I was not to see you before the wedding," Daniel confided, his simmering gaze taking in the impossibly beautiful picture she made in her wedding gown on antique lace and white silk. "Now I know why. I would not have been able to keep my hands off you. I don't think I have ever seen you looking more beautiful…"
"And you look good enough to eat…" Carolyn breathed, as she dropped her eyes, concentrating on her floral bouquet before her need to kiss this man senseless before the ceremony had even begun, overwhelmed her.
"Don't worry about us," Candy reassured her mother at the reception. "We'll be fine, and we'll let Martha go on thinking she's in charge like we always have. Makes life easier that way."
"And we both have our studies to keep us occupied. We'll be here, looking after Gull Cottage and waiting for you, when you get back," her son confided in her blithely, grinning from ear to ear. "Take all the time you need to get well acquainted with your new husband."
"When did my children become so wise?" Carolyn wondered, hugging them both close with tears in her eyes. "I will miss you…"
The newlywed couple spent their wedding night alone in Gull Cottage before boarding the ship the previous evening. Sadly, time and tide truly did not wait for any man while he had other plans in mind. Like making sweet, passionate love with his new wife.
Carolyn smiled as she looked down at the ring finger of her left hand, touching the end of her thumb gently to the band of fine gold nestled there. The potent symbol of their union.
"Daniel…" She looked up. But where was her new husband now?
She turned to look back at the poop deck. Daniel stood there, leaning on the rail, watching her progress along the deck with close attention that spoke of many things. He smiled when their gazes met and as always, Carolyn's breath caught at the sight of him.
Dressed in an open-collared white linen shirt and navy trousers, he looked devastatingly handsome and totally delicious. His naval cap sat at a jaunty angle on his dark hair. He looked every inch like a man in charge of his life, his ship and his destiny. He was every one of her nautical heroes wrapped up in a sun-browned skin.
"You shouldn't be out there alone. Come back," he called, his commanding voice clear above the rushing sound of the wind. He extended one hand toward her with his fingers crooked imperiously.
"As my captain commands…" Carolyn whispered, smiling at the summons.
She worked her way back along the deck, climbing the steps to the bridge level. Daniel came to meet her, and they stood for a long moment, simply looking at each other, a single breath apart, but not touching. Carolyn knew enough not to be tempted into displaying her love for this quixotic man before his watching crew.
Many of the seamen stared at them enviously. They could well remember Captain Gregg's old rule about not allowing women aboard any ship he commanded. It simply didn't happen. And yet here the blasted seadog was, hand-fast and church married, and seemingly very content with his new role in life.
His crew had shaken their heads at the sudden change, wondering how long the union would last. They'd seen their captain before, seemingly infatuated with other beautiful women, only to leave them far behind while he sailed away to new adventures.
But the wiser men among them had said they'd never seen such a welcome change come over any man. But then many of them had never seen such a lovely woman as Mrs Gregg. They envied their captain his good fortune.
"Am I dreaming, Daniel?" Carolyn asked softly, looking deep into his smiling blue eyes.
"If you are, then I am dreaming the very same dream, Carolyn…" He smiled, savouring the sound of her name on his lips. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"Yes… wonderful. I don't know how I got here, but I don't want it to end…"
"Then you must continue dreaming…" Daniel half-raised one hand to brush her wind-tossed curls back from her cheek but stopped just before he touched her. "I have planned many such wonderful adventures, just for us, in the nights to come…"
"I really missed you last night…" Carolyn tilted her head closer to his, so her words were heard only by him and the wind.
"A captain must also stand his turn at the night watch while we sail the coast," Daniel muttered softly. "But never have I known such a long night as that…" He sighed. "Would that I could have come to you…"
"I know…" Carolyn could feel the eyes of her husband's officers watching their intimate exchange closely.
The men might pretend otherwise, but their interest in their captain's unexpected nuptials was keen indeed. She was aware Daniel felt it too by the sudden stiffening of his shoulders.
"Blast their confounded curiosity," he muttered without heat. "Shall we continue this conversation below, my love? Where we can have some privacy…"
He turned to his first mate. "Mr Jarvis, you have the helm."
"Aye, aye, Captain!" The other man saluted smartly.
Daniel took Carolyn's hand in his, not allowing her the time to answer as he led her below. He closed the door of their spacious cabin behind them, shutting out the world and all its curiosity. He turned the key in the lock to be sure before reaching to draw his wife into the warmth of his embrace.
"Finally, I have carried you off to sea, and I promised to show you how beautiful the world can be. How beautiful you are. I knew the moment I saw you that I'd met my match in you, my love. Lord knows, I waited long enough for you, hunted for you throughout eternity."
"Well, I'm here, now…" Carolyn murmured, sliding her arms around his waist. "What are you going to do about it?" She glanced up at him provocatively through her lowered lashes.
"Only this…" Daniel whispered against her lips before taking them in a long kiss that left them both shaken and breathless. His fingers went deftly to the laces at the back of her silk gown, undoing them quickly.
Carolyn shivered as the gown slid from her shoulders to pool at her feet, leaving her clad only in her thin cotton chemise and silk underskirt. Her green eyes met her husband's look of concern.
"Are you cold, my love?" Daniel asked solicitously, pulling back to look down at her.
"Not when I'm with you…" she responded. "Never with you…" She shook her head slowly. "My heart made its choice long ago, and it chose you…"
Daniel smiled. "Then come with me and let me show you how truly beautiful our own sweet world can be…"
"Always…" Carolyn sighed happily as she rose onto tiptoe, meeting his kiss halfway, and for a very long time, there was silence in the sun-filled cabin of the good ship, Carolyn…
Sunlight teased at Carolyn's closed eyelids. She groaned softly and rolled onto her side, throwing her arm across her eyes. She didn't dare look at the bedside clock.
"It can't be morning… Not yet…" she whispered. "I want to go back there…"
"The dawn will always be our enemy," Daniel commented. "This life will always intrude on what we both want most…"
Carolyn raised her arm to look at him. He was seated on the end of the bed, watching her with a great deal of regret in his blue eyes.
"Yes…" She sighed long and low. "But it was… a lovely evening…" Heat flowed up into her cheeks. "I don't think I have ever been so thoroughly and completely loved as last night."
"I'm glad…" Daniel nodded. "I had forgotten how it felt to hold a woman in my arms and love her so utterly."
"Well, from now on…" Carolyn dropped her arm and pushed herself up in the bed. "I am going to be the only woman in your arms and your dreams."
"Always…" Her love smiled at her with such desire in his eyes that her blush deepened.
"I must get up," Carolyn replied.
"Yes, you must," Daniel agreed, with a shake of his head.
"Thank you…" Carolyn said, stretching out her left hand toward him. "For our dream and for everything."
"You are very welcome, my love…" he whispered, staring down at her hand.
Carolyn inhaled and expelled her breath slowly. "We were married in our dream. It was a beautiful ceremony. In private, I can be Mrs Captain Gregg. If you don't mind."
"Why would I mind?" he asked as he stood up. "It is all I have ever wanted in this life and the next. To be with you, in every way it is possible for a man to be . I love you more than life itself."
"And I love you so very much, Daniel…"
They smiled together, knowing that the night ahead would bring more adventures. The only limit now was the scope of their imaginations.
※※※※※
"I hate to be the bearer of some rather bad news…" Martha sighed as they were all sitting down to dinner that night. "Well, bad news and some good."
"Bad news always seems to travel faster," Daniel commented drily, folding aside the latest copy of the Schooner Bay Beacon to give her his full attention.
"I think we'd better have the bad news first," Carolyn replied, as she stirred her cup of tea. "Then we can soften the blow with the good."
She glanced at Daniel. The memory of their intoxicating dream was still very fresh in her mind. She could feel her face warming again even as she sighed.
"Very well…" Martha nodded, after taking a sip of her coffee. "We managed to divert the attention of both the Beacon Cove ladies and the dreadful Miss Grover from discovering the truth about your literary adventures. But now we have received a request from the Bangor Ladies Reading Circle who wish to visit next week and attend the formal monthly meeting of the Schooner Bay Ladies group."
"That doesn't sound like too much bad news to me," Jonathan commented with a shrug. "The only drawback is a whole, new bunch of mature ladies going through the town looking for clues about Carol Gregg. The last lot was pushy enough. Even I was asked if I knew anything. I said what would I know, I'm just a kid." He shrugged before going back to his meal.
"Sadly, that bilge won't hold water for too much longer," Daniel replied, observing him closely. "You're almost as tall as me. You make me feel older than I really am!"
"Yeah…" Jonathan grinned at him cheekily. "Ain't it neat?"
"If it was only that easy." Martha shook her head at the pair of them. "I'll have you know the Bangor ladies are far more formidable than those who came from Beacon Cove last month. They actually have a couple of published authors among them and they're coming with the party. They seem very determined to uncover the true identity of Carol Gregg and I don't see how we are going to stop them without causing a fuss."
"Why do these infernal harridans care so much about who she is?" Daniel demanded to know. "They should be grateful she cares to publish her novels at all."
"Which brings me to my second point." Martha sighed. "Lorrie Hammond down at the General Store told me last week that he cannot keep up with the sales. He's been run off his feet and has had to increase his orders every month."
She shrugged. "He, for one, doesn't care who she is, except that he's aware his paperback sales would more than quadruple overnight if Carol's identity was uncovered. So, for him, such a discovery would be a two-edged sword."
"Surely that would only improve your own sales and make more money…" Candy asked as she looked around the table at the others. "That would be a good thing?"
"If it were only that simple..." Her mother sighed. "Remember when you were little, and you couldn't tell anyone that you lived in a real haunted house? You couldn't say a word about Captain Gregg appearing to you the first day we arrived."
"Yeah, I remember…" Jonathan conceded slowly.
"That was because, if his presence here was ever uncovered, we would attract a whole crowd of busybodies and intrusive sightseers like the regrettable Paul Wilkie all those years ago. His sort would love to make an exhibition of the captain and turn our lives at Gull Cottage into a complete circus. They could even succeed in driving us from the house and perhaps even out of Schooner Bay."
"Oh, when you put it like that…" Jonathan glanced sympathetically at Gull Cottage's resident ghost. "Geez, what a pickle. I don't want to leave. I love living here."
"And we can't see any way out of the pickle, right now." Carolyn sipped her tea. "My reputation with 'Feminine View' is no longer important. They have a new, dynamic management and they take my articles very rarely. Besides, I have so little time to spare for them."
She smiled. "Carol Gregg's stories would be right up their alley now. How times certainly have changed."
"While the threat of moving out of Gull Cottage and into Claymore's office and haunting him has its own kind of visceral attraction," Daniel commented ruefully. "I would not wish to do it for real. The blasted dolt would end up being as dead as myself inside a week!"
"Poor Claymore…" Carolyn chuckled, grateful for a lift in their conversation. "I guess some things never change."
"He'll be a penny-pinching miser to the end of his days." Martha smiled, shaking her head. "And even then he'll probably try and get a discount on his accommodation in the afterlife." She stood up to begin gathering the dishes.
"You see, it's your mother's use of my naval knowledge that would sink us," Daniel admitted. "They would want to know how she came by such intimate details of another time. She's been lauded by the critics as bringing a brilliant ring of authenticity to her books. That pleases me very much, knowing the true source of the tales we're publishing. Your mother has come to understand my lost world in a way few ever could."
"Surely there must be some way to explain that?" Jonathan shook his head. "I mean, if that's all that's getting in the way of telling everyone it's you, after all…"
"We started the novel writing as a way to pay the bills," Carolyn took up the explanation. "It was only meant to be in a small way, something to allow us to live here in more comfort and pay for Candy's college fees. Especially since my magazine writing was drying up and I had to find a fresh source of income. It was a lovely idea that has somehow gotten away from us and we're powerless now to stop it unless I give up writing completely."
"And that I will not allow for all our sakes. But we have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations and the price of fame is steep, it seems." Daniel nodded. "We've been hoisted into the rigging by our own petards, well and truly. We can only hope the whole thing doesn't blow up in our faces because of intrusive blabbermouths."
"Damned if you do and damned if you don't," Martha agreed sympathetically as she cleared the table. "And you can't stop now. I doubt very much of it would dampen down the speculation. The Bangor ladies would want to know why you'd given up. Their published authors want to bring Carol Gregg into the fold of their sisterly love. They're not about to let Schooner Bay have all the glory."
"Yes, I can't see any way out of it, beyond continuing as we are and deny, deny, deny…" Carolyn made a face as she placed her elbow on the edge of the table to rest her chin in the cup of her upraised palm.
"We'll get through this…" Daniel regarded her with sympathy. "We have before. We'll just have to think of another way to repel all boarders…"
Carolyn frowned at him. "Yes, but what can we do to stop them from potentially ruining everything we've worked so hard for?"
※※※※※
"Good evening, my dear…" Daniel materialised before the desk in Carolyn's room, holding one hand behind his back.
"Good evening, Captain…" Carolyn looked up absently.
She had been sitting, staring at the blank page in the typewriter for the last hour, and finding no answers in the expanse of white nothingness. The hour was late, and she knew she should retire to bed. She was certainly tired enough. But the nagging thought of what to do about the unwelcome coming of the ladies from Bangor was keeping her awake and fretful.
"You look tired. You are allowing that blastedly thorny issue of the Bangor intrusion to keep you from your rest and our ability to dream in peace," Daniel observed sympathetically. "We will come through this battle, Mrs Muir. We always have, in the past."
"I cannot see why people just can't leave us alone!" Carolyn flared, sitting back in her chair, looking dejected. "Why do they need to know all about us?"
"Because it is the nature of man to be curious about any mystery and make every attempt to unravel it," Daniel replied evenly. "And, in my experience, the female of the species has an even more insatiable curiosity about the doings of their fellows. These women seek glory, nothing more."
"For once we are in total agreement. But understanding how we got here still doesn't solve our problem."
"If you will allow me, Madam, I have an idea that just might…" Daniel brought his hand out from behind his back.
He held out a scroll of thick, linen paper. "I have been making one or two notations from my library in the Wheelhouse, and I think I have come up with a possible solution."
"You have?" Carolyn sat up to take the scroll with eager fingers.
"Do you truly think I would wish for any of you to leave this house… and me?" Daniel asked softly. "I could never allow it. You have become my family, and I would mightily resist anyone who tried to harm or upset you."
"Nor would any of us wish to leave…" Carolyn's face began to warm again as she looked up at him. She drew a steadying breath. "Captain, I…"
"Please read the scroll, my dear…" Daniel directed her softly.
"All right…" Carolyn sighed as she unrolled the crackling linen.
It was a list of names, neatly written in black ink by the captain's excellent hand. "I don't understand…" She ran her eyes over it, not seeing the point.
Daniel moved around to her side of the desk, leaning over her shoulder to frown at the list. "In the past, many female authors have chosen to publish their works under male nom-de-plumes for a variety of reasons. Mostly because Victorian women were expected to attend to hearth and home and were not supposed write novels."
"A very nineteenth-century viewpoint." Carolyn shook her head.
"The idea was not always without merit." Daniel shrugged as he began to run his fingertip down the list of names. "The Bronte sisters, Louisa May Alcott, Violet Paget and one of my personal favourites, Mary Ann Evans who wrote under the pseudonym of George Elliot."
"I still don't see how any of these women can help us with our issue." Carolyn ran a weary hand over her eyes. "I must be more tired than I thought..."
"My proposal is what if we reverse the process? What if we allow a rumour to circulate that Carol Gregg is not a woman at all, but a man? That would set the Bangor lot firmly back on their heels."
"I…" Carolyn leaned around to stare up at him.
She opened her mouth again but nothing more came out. The sheer, unadulterated audaciousness of the whole idea took her breath away. But her green eyes glittered with cautious approval.
"Excellent. Then, leave it all to me and Martha." Daniel nodded with satisfaction. "The less you know the more you can deny, deny, deny."
He reached to take the scroll from her, pointing to the bed with his free hand. "Now, get yourself to bed, woman. I will not have you being pulled all about by a bunch of prying old battle axes. I have faced down worse than those Bangor harpies and won."
"Since you put it that way…" Carolyn rose from her chair. "Thank you, Captain."
"Do not fret, my dear. Your slumber will not be disturbed tonight. I shall keep watch on the bridge until sunrise." Daniel smiled as he dematerialised.
"I guess that means there's no dream for me tonight…" Carolyn looked after him with regretful eyes.
※※※※※