Night Storm Read online

  Moses opened the door to her, opened his eyes wide, and tisk-tisked. He scolded her all the way to the foot of the stairs.

  “Moses, please, it’s just water, nothing more dire. I’ll go dry off immediately.”

  “The English gentleman is with your pa—”

  “Good afternoon, or good early evening, as you wish. Don’t you ever believe in taking a carriage?”

  It needed but this. Genny turned slowly at the sound of that incredibly wonderful male voice and stared at an impeccably dressed Baron Sherard. He was the epitome of fashion yet completely unfoppish in his pale brown coat of superfine and snug-fitting breeches of a darker brown. His cravat was tied simply and so very white that—She cut off her thinking. Who the devil cared how he looked? Goodness, he could have a tear under his armpit for all she cared.

  “My God, it is a female. At least I think it is. Perhaps she’s drowned, but no, she is walking. That is a skirt, most certainly. And a bonnet on the head? Amazing. Nothing like a dead brown plume to frame a sodden little face.”

  Still she remained silent. She shouldn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed. It was her house and he was early. She didn’t care a whit what he thought of her. Let him have his fun mocking her. She lifted her chin. “I am going to change now,” she said and marched up the stairs.

  He chuckled behind her. “You’re leaving a trail of water wide enough to float a canoe.”

  “At least you’ll not have to sail in it.” The instant the words were out of her mouth, her eyes very nearly crossed. He was laughing now, and she speeded up, grabbing her skirt higher, dashing to the head of the stairs.

  Alec watched until she rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. He shook his head, turning.

  “Suh.”

  Alec looked up to see the Paxton butler regarding him with something of a pained look in his eyes. “Was I too rough on her, Moses? She needs laughter and teasing, you know. She’s damnably serious.”

  “I know, suh. Miss Genny’s been that way since her father done dropped down sick last year.”

  “She was different before?”

  “Yes, suh. Miss Genny was bright and happy and always teasing me and Gracie and Lannie.”

  “Who is Gracie?”

  “She’s our handy maid, I calls her, a nice li’l gal who’s been ill herself with a chest complaint. She sees to Miss Genny and tells us all what to do. She’s nearly well now. You’ll meet her soon.” Moses didn’t seem to mind this, because he chuckled. He added quickly, “But now, suh, so much trouble, always trouble.” He shook his head and walked away toward the kitchen.

  Alec felt a stab of guilt. He didn’t like it. He had been teasing her, nothing more, nothing evil or malicious, certainly nothing to make Moses look as if he were going to attend a funeral. He returned to the drawing room.

  He liked the Paxton house, particularly the drawing room, or parlor, as the Baltimoreans called it. It was a large, square room with high molded ceilings painted cream, making the room airy and light. The walls were papered in light blue; the floor was bare oak with only two small round pale blue carpets. Classical furniture, most of it made in the Chippendale style in mahogany inlaid with satinwood, was arranged in small groupings around the perimeter of the room. The middle was bare, making one feel free and unencumbered. On either side of the fireplace were two highly indented spaces, each holding a tall vase of dried flowers. The effect was charming. Alec wondered how the drawing room at Carrick Grange would look with this kind of furnishings in its sixteenth-century confines.

  He imagined he’d be cursed by his long-ago ancestors if he essayed one modern piece of furniture.

  “That was Genny?” asked James Paxton.

  “Yes, sir, and soaked clear through. Doesn’t she ever take a carriage?”

  “No, the girl’s always been a walker. Strong as a horse she is. And, too, the Baltimore weather always leaves one guessing.” James Paxton paused a moment, running his fingers over the pale-blue-and-cream-striped satin on the settee. “I’m glad Genny told you that she wasn’t a lad but rather a lass.”

  “She didn’t precisely tell me, sir.”

  “Ah, so you pulled her hat off, did you?”

  Alec started. “How did you know?”

  “That’s what I should have done. That ridiculous hat she was wearing belongs to me. But I hadn’t worn it for some ten years now. My fingers itched to remove it when she appeared with it last evening.” He sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have allowed her to do it. But she was so serious about it, so anxious that you treat her with respect for her business acumen. Well, what would you have done were you her father?”

  He was Hallie’s father, and he found himself wondering what he would do if Hallie took it into her head to dress like a man in, say, fifteen years or so. He had no idea. Would he laugh? Threaten her? Thrash her?

  No, none of those things, truth be told. “I probably would give her her head.”

  “Exactly so. Now, before Genny joins us, I’ll ask you, my boy. Are you still interested in becoming a part of the Paxton shipyard, knowing of course that Genny runs it, what with my damned body playing tricks on me the way it has?”

  Alec said nothing for several moments. He was staring fixedly at the empty gilt birdcage on a card table. Conduct business—ongoing business—with a woman?

  “I’ve been thinking,” James went on. “My health continues to plague me. No, don’t interrupt me, just listen. I don’t know how much longer I have. My doctor, that querulous old lady, just shakes his bald head and strokes his chin and tells me to take it easy. Does he think I’ll take to climbing the rigging of the ships? I do think that I shall murder him before I go to my Maker. But back to business. Genny is my heir. Her brother, Vincent, died some ten years ago, more’s the pity, not that I don’t appreciate Genny, because she’s a trump and a hard worker and bright as the sun. But if I totter into the grave tomorrow, she’ll be all alone, no more family. You know as well as I do that no self-respecting gentleman will do business with her.”

  “Surely all the men who have done business with you over the years would—”

  “No, they wouldn’t. Men are strange. There’s home and hearth and there’s business. Two very separate spheres. If you take a woman out of the one—where she is perceived to belong—and toss her into the other, men will be threatened and they’ll act against her. Hell, I probably would.” He paused a moment, watching Alec look at that absurd birdcage that had belonged to his wife.

  “I have a proposition for you, Alec.”

  At those ominous words, Alec looked at James Paxton straightly. He saw concern, hope, and something else—pleading. He didn’t like it. He didn’t know what James Paxton was going to offer, but he knew that he wouldn’t like it. There was no way to keep him quiet, so Alec merely inclined his head and waited.

  The ax fell quickly. “The Paxton shipyard will be yours—all yours. All you must do is marry Genny.”

  Alec straightened, stiff as a rod.

  “She’s a pretty girl—nay, she’s a woman now. It’s true she doesn’t know much about being female. She doesn’t pay any attention to feminine furbelows and the like, but she’s kindhearted, smart, and good-humored.”

  Baron Sherard remained obdurately silent.

  James plowed doggedly onward. “You’re a baron, my lord. You must have an heir. Genny could provide you with as many children as you wanted.”

  “What makes you think I don’t have an heir?”

  James started. “I’m sorry, but I just assumed that you didn’t.”

  Alec sighed. “I don’t have an heir, it’s true. And I suppose at some point in the future I should beget a male child to carry on the title. But attend me, sir. I have no thought to remarry anytime soon. I loved my first wife, but—” He shook his head. “No, I don’t wish to be saddled with a wife. Listen, sir, I don’t know your daughter. I’m sure that she is all those pleasant things you think she is. Nor does she know me. I daresay that she doesn’t
even like me.”

  “That, sir, is quite true.”

  It was Alec’s turn to twist about and see Genny standing in the doorway, stiff as a vicar at an orgy.

  Alec rose from his chair. “Genny,” he said.

  She ignored Alec and nearly shouted at her father, “How dare you. You want to buy this man for me? He gets the shipyard and I get him? I can’t believe you would do that. My own father. You don’t even know him. I want the shipyard, Father. It is mine by right, not his. He is a dissolute, conceited fop. Just look at him. Would an American man look like he does?”

  “He is the handsomest man I’ve seen in many a long day,” said James Paxton frankly, wondering at this very un-Genny-like outburst. “He can’t help being English, Genny.”

  It was odd, Alec thought: he was standing between the two of them, and yet it was as if he weren’t there.

  “I wouldn’t care if he were Russian. I don’t want him. I don’t ever want a husband. Ever.”

  With that Parthian shot, Genny picked up her skirts and dashed out of the room. Her exit was nearly rendered ignominious. Well used to trousers, she tripped on her hem and tottered, arms flailing, toward a wall table. She caught herself at the last second and managed to topple only a vase. It went crashing to the floor. The noise was obscenely loud. Genny just stood there, staring down at the vase, at the flowers strewn over the floor, at the puddle of water spreading toward the base of the stairs.

  Alec dashed to the doorway. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, certainly.” Genny dropped to her knees and began picking up the carnations and roses. Without looking up at him, she said, “Will you be staying for dinner?”

  “Am I still invited?”

  “It is my father’s house. Obviously he does what pleases him. I don’t care what either of you do.” She stood abruptly, dropped the flowers she’d gathered back to the floor, and headed for the front door.

  “Where the devil are you going? It’s still raining.”

  She stopped cold. That was true enough. Where could one go after enduring sufficient humiliation and embarrassment to last for a good month?

  She turned and smiled at him. “I’m going to the kitchen to see to your meal, my lord. Perhaps I shall simper over the stew. What else should a good hostess do?”

  “Shall I tell you? Do you need more education?”

  There was fire in her eyes. “Go to the devil.”

  Alec watched her struggle not to hit him with something, turn on her heel, and push through the door to the kitchen. He decided, watching the door slam, that she looked quite nice in a gown, even though it was old and rather short.

  Six

  “Papa?”

  Alec turned at the adjoining door and returned to his daughter’s bunk. “You’re awake, pumpkin? I thought I heard loud snores just a moment ago.”

  Hallie giggled, rubbed her eyes with her fists, and scooted up on her bunk.

  Alec was swaying comfortably with the Night Dancer. Even securely docked and in the inner basin, she was dipping back and forth in the storm. He sat down beside Hallie and took her hand. So small and yet so perfect and quite competent for a five-year-old, he thought, staring down at the straight fingers. There were calluses on her thumbs.

  “Hallie, should you like to live in a house for a while? A real house, one that doesn’t move beneath your feet?”

  His daughter looked at him. “Why?”

  “Why indeed. I wonder why little girls must always question their fathers. All right. I think we’ll be staying in Baltimore for a while. It’s silly to keep living aboard ship. Tomorrow you and I can find ourselves a nice house.”

  “You’ll let me pick it?”

  “I’m not that far into my dotage, pumpkin. I’ll try to find us a house close to the water. Now that I think about it, a house might take a bit of time. At least we’ll move to dry land tomorrow.”

  “All right. It’s true that Mrs. Swindel wants terra firma.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Latin, Papa. Mrs. Swindel is always talking about it to Dr. Pruitt.”

  “Ah, thank you.”

  “Were you with a lady tonight?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. Actually, the lady was quite furious with me and didn’t talk to me much. Her father, however, was very congenial.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Genny. She directs the work at her father’s shipyard.”

  “Why was she mad at you?”

  Alec grinned at that. “I provoked her, I suppose. Pushed her over the edge.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Pretty,” Alec repeated, frowning toward Hallie’s small trousers that were folded over a chairback. He should see to buying the child proper female clothes if they were going to remain for any length of time in Baltimore. He turned his attention back to his present thoughts. “I should say she’s pretty, although she doesn’t seem to think of herself like that. She dresses like a man, you see—”

  “Like me?”

  “It’s a bit different, Hallie. She doesn’t care for men. She doesn’t ever want to marry.”

  “She doesn’t like you?” This clearly was a notion that made no sense at all to Alec’s greatest fan, and he grinned.

  “That’s stupid, Papa. All ladies like you.” Alec said nothing for the moment to this artless disclosure. From the mouths of five-year-olds, he thought, wondering what would emerge next.

  “I don’t think I’ll like her.”

  “Well, you’ll probably never meet her, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why were you making her mad at you? I didn’t think you enjoyed mad ladies.”

  Good question, Alec thought. “I’m not certain,” he said. “Perhaps I do it because I’m interested to see what she’ll do. She’s never boring, that’s certain, and she occasionally gives as good as she gets. Now go back to sleep, pumpkin.”

  “All right, Papa.” Hallie tugged at Alec’s coat lapels. He leaned down and kissed her nose and her forehead and pulled the covers to her chin.

  “Sleep well, love. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “We’ll go buy a house?”

  “Perhaps. I have a lot of thinking to do first.” He remembered his vow to himself to get himself a mistress, one who would be at his beck and call, one who hadn’t been in the trade too long. He doused the candle and left Hallie’s small cabin through the adjoining door into his captain’s cabin.

  The Night Dancer was silent. Alec, bored with himself and the small area of his cabin, went on deck. The rain had stopped but the air was still thick with moisture. The deck still rolled gently beneath his feet. There were no stars, not even a hint of a moon to show through the black clouds. They were docked at O’Donnell’s Wharf, the Night Dancer’s prow sticking out over busy Pratt Street. A frigate was docked to starboard, a clipper brig off to port. The entire inner basin—all the average Baltimorean ever saw of his port—was filled with all kinds of merchant craft: barkentines, schooners, frigates, snows, their tall naked masts listing lazily in the heavy waves of the incoming tide. There were also other strange-looking craft Alec found fascinating, craft built exclusively for Chesapeake Bay. These were clustered all along Smith’s Wharf.

  Baltimore was truly an inland harbor, Alec thought, staring out toward Fells Point, that hook of land that jutted toward Federal Hill, opposite, forming the entrance to the inner basin. If Alec remembered his reading aright, Baltimore hadn’t annexed Fells Point until 1773, a definite advantage because Fells Point was nearer to the mouth of the Patapsco River. In addition it provided deep water and boasted half a dozen shipbuilding yards, the Paxton yard one of them. After the war that made the Americans their own nation, Baltimore had surged ahead of Annapolis in trade and had stayed there.

  There was one hundred and ninety-five miles of bay between the Virginia Capes and the mouth of the Susquehanna River, northeast of Baltimore. Despite its length, Chesapeake Bay curved slightly—only two points on the compass w
as all. And there were so many rivers flowing into the bay, least of which was the Potomac, upon which the American capital was built. The beautiful Patapsco was Baltimore’s river, and Alec wanted to explore it before he left. A man could make his fortune here—in cotton, tobacco, flour—what with all the waterways available to transport his goods and all the water power available to mill his goods.

  Alec brought his meandering thoughts back to the present, to his own male needs. First a mistress, he decided. He needed relief and he didn’t want to put it off any longer.

  What to do about the Paxtons?

  A house. He would see his solicitor—no, lawyer, he quickly amended to himself, translating into American—on the morrow. Mr. Daniel Raymond of Chatham Street would assist him and also advise him about the financial soundness of the Paxtons. He leaned his elbows on the smooth railing.

  What to do about Genny?

  Marriage? He snorted. What a damned fool idea. As if he would ever desire anything—even a small nation—enough to marry again. She was as horrified as you are. That provoked a strange reaction, a perverse reaction. He wasn’t a toad with missing teeth, for God’s sake. He was comely—he knew it, had always known it, and ignored it, for the most part. Women, even when he’d been quite young, had wanted him, and he usually took what they offered, returning as much pleasure as he knew. He remembered suddenly meeting Nesta more than ten years before. She’d been in London, a debutante in her first Season. For some reason, inexplicable to him, he’d wanted her instantly. He’d wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any girl or woman. It was disconcerting, but it was true. It wasn’t that she was the most beautiful girl of that Season, because she wasn’t. There was simply something about her that made him so randy he could scarcely walk, much less think rationally.

  And he couldn’t take her because she was a lady of quality. A gentleman didn’t seduce a virgin, a virgin who was also a lady.