Against the Wind Page 16

As it began to darken, Emily abandoned her forlorn watch on the wharf and made her way into the tangle of alleyways above the docks. The night was very cold, and now that the fog had rolled in, she was chilled to the bone. Margaret and Tim would still at her sister’s, on a nearby island, and she knew she couldn’t afford even the relative elegance and comfort of the simple hotel where she and Ethan had stayed. The way things stood, now, it promised to be a very long, cold night.

  Before she trudged up the street in search of shelter, she paid the night watchman her last half-dollar to deliver a message in the unlikely event someone came asking for her. At the top of the first cobbled street, she found a shabby rooming-house, and exchanged the small gold locket Gideon had given her on her eighteenth birthday for a room. The man at the counter eyed her suspiciously, alarmed by her curious attire and her tale of woe. He was familiar with the Liza, though, and knew that she had sailed that morning, and therefore willing to put up the ship’s somewhat peculiar cabin boy for one night. Women were almost unknown in this establishment, especially one trying to pass herself off as a homeless boy—and in possession of a piece of costly jewelry she had almost certainly stolen.

  Once upstairs, Emily found the sagging straw bed so alive with bugs and the stink of male sweat and tobacco that she chose to sleep on the filthy floor, huddled beneath her pea jacket and using her canvas duffel as a pillow. She also discovered that she was sharing her sordid quarters with a drunken harpooner and a snoring packet rat.

  The next morning, she forced down the breakfast she’d paid for, a single egg fried in rancid lard, a chunk of stale bread, and a mug of vile coffee, then hastened back to the wharf. There, huddled beneath a splintered fence, she waited and prayed, scanning the cold sea for approaching sails.

  Her predicament was both ridiculous and terrifying. Ethan had risen well before dawn to go to the ship, leaving her with careful instructions about when to come aboard later that morning. She had listened, groaned her understanding, and then fallen promptly back to sleep. When the maid knocked at the door, asking in French to make up the room, Emily awoke with a start, dressed hurriedly, and made for the harbor at a full run, dropping her things as she went and swearing loudly. As she dashed down the hill to the wharf, she could see the empty space where only the day before, the Liza had lain at anchor, awaiting her crew’s return.

  The day passed slowly, with only three new ships arriving—two of them steamers, and a square-rigged whaleman that had lost its mainmast to a squall and limped into port for repairs. Emily watched until her eyes were weary, and as night approached again, she took renewed stock of her miserable situation. She had one remaining piece of jewelry, a dainty pearl bracelet, but she dared not squander it on another night in an awful room. Eventually, she would have to telegraph home for help. Tonight, though, she would be sleeping under a pile of empty crates, right where she was.

  At two in the morning, the first rat arrived. He perched on a box by her head and looked at his sleeping companion with small beady eyes, and a certain degree of curiosity. Emily merely swatted the creature, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep. Rats were the least of her problems. She was sleeping quite peacefully and dreaming of home when someone shook her shoulder, and a familiar voice spoke her name.

  “Miss Fowler, is that you?” John Turner asked, poking her again.

  Emily bolted up and threw her arms around Turner’s neck. “Mr. Turner! You’ve come for me! Thank you! Thank you!”

  Turner shook his head. “I wouldn’t be too grateful, if I were you, Miss. I’m very much afraid that your problems are not over. Even at this distance, I can see the clouds of steam coming from Ethan’s ears. The captain is not a happy man, and it’s mostly my fault. I was to see that you were awakened at the hotel, but I became distracted by my other duties and quite forgot.”

  “Well, none of this was your fault,” Emily said wanly. “Nor mine. Not entirely, at any rate. And all you’ve done is try to help me.”

  “I’ll explain that to our captain while he’s handing me my head on a plate,” Turner said with a mirthless chuckle. “And perhaps you can get your point of view across before he takes a strap to your charming backside.”

  “Perhaps it will be the other way around, Mr. Turner,” she suggested brightly.

  “I doubt that,” John muttered. “Your backside’s far prettier, and besides, I’m a ship’s officer, and immune from corporal punishment, whereas you are….”

  Emily sighed. “I know. A lowly cabin boy, than which nothing is lower.”

  A few yards away, Ethan had leapt from a longboat and was now making his way up the hill to them. When Turner stood up, Emily grabbed his arm and struggled to her feet, an explanation on her lips. The scowl on Ethan’s face as he bent to help her up was not encouraging.

  “My God, what is that smell?” Turner cried, staring at her.

  Ethan sniffed. “I suspect that the former occupants of this improvised hovel were codfish. You can go back to the ship, now, John, and get some sleep. I’ll see that Miss Fowler gets some rest and a bath—up the street at the Hudson, again, I think. We’ll sail again on the afternoon tide. Have everything ready.”

  While Turner rounded up the remainder of the crew’s search party, Ethan and Emily made their way back to the Hudson Hotel for a few hours rest, a deliciously warm bath—and a spanking Emily would still remember in excruciating detail when she was a very old woman.

  “It wasn’t really my fault, Ethan, I swear it!” Emily objected frantically. She had just stepped from her bath, warm, pink and rosy, to find McAllister calmly rolling up his sleeves and removing his belt. She pulled the large towel closer about her. “I ran as fast as I could. How on earth was I to know that–”

  “Well, at least you smell better, now,” he interrupted, and then motioned to the tub. “Now, lean over the bathtub. No, wait, I’ve changed my mind. You’ve acted like a child, so it’s only right that you be punished like one.” He sat down on the edge of the tub. “Come here, and bend over—across my knee.”

  “I’ll do no such thing!” she said stubbornly. “I’m not a child, and it’s very ungentlemanly of you to treat me this way when I’ve had such a miserable night. If you could have seen the dreadful place I–”

  “In the event you don’t yet understand how much your childish misadventure has cost us, Emily,” he said grimly. “I’ll be happy to show you the log when we return to the ship. Three full days good sailing lost, and a fair chunk of my profit for this trip, an amount I am preparing to take out of your disobedient hide. And if I don’t find you properly repentant afterward, I am quite prepared to hand you over to Mr. Johnson when we return to the ship, for what I can promise you will be a truly spectacular strapping. The crew is every bit as angry as I am. Now, get your ass over here!” He pulled his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. “For the next five, full minutes, you are going to be spanked as you never have been before. And if you fight, or bite, or call me even one obscene name, I’m going to make it ten minutes. Do you understand?”

  Emily glared at him, but did as he asked, and lay down across his knee, swearing beneath her breath.

  “And watch your damned tongue,” he ordered. “My God, what a mouth you’ve got on you!” He swatted her behind once over the towel, and then pushed it up to her waist. Emily swore again.

  “Go to hell!” she yelled. “If you wish to abuse me, you can damned well listen to…”

  McAllister’s opening blow arrived suddenly and with tremendous force across the tender undercurve of Emily’s still-wet bottom She yelped and fought desperately to get up, but he had already locked her flailing legs under his own. Now, he calmly pushed her head down further and positioned her squirming backside at a sharper angle over his knee. With his victim properly immobilized, the captain took his time and a good deal of pleasure in loosing a breathtaking volley of well-aimed smacks to the fullest, most sensitive areas of Emily’s rear end, alternating his blows between cheeks while he delivered
a stern lecture on responsibility. Emily clenched her teeth, hung onto his lower leg for dear life, and growled at each swat, thereby missing much of the lecture, but not a single second of the agony.

  “I suggest that you muffle your screams, Emily,” he advised, pausing for a moment to rest his hand. “Unless you wish all of the city to share this experience.”

  “I’m not going to scream,” she hissed. “And I’m not going to cry! So there!” To make her point and stiffen her resolve, Emily stuffed the edge of the towel between her teeth and bit down hard, which was a very good thing, for Ethan had just decided to take up her challenge, and began by delivering a blistering round to the backs of her thighs. With one hand resting on the floor for balance and the other hand clinging to the tub’s cold edge, Emily’s struggles were limited to desperate squirming and to arching her back each time his broad hand found some new and unspanked place—of which there were very few left at this point. Working his way up one cheek and down the other, he maintained a steady, deliberate pace, taking care to give the victim ample time to fully appreciate each scalding whack. And when she made a futile attempt to deflect the next smack by tensing the muscles of her buttocks, he rewarded her efforts with a fresh flurry of swats to the intensely sensitive and already sore creases between her cheeks and thighs. Defeated, Emily finally opened her mouth and emitted one long, agonized howl. At the next swat, she howled even louder, forgetting her modesty, her fear of being heard, and her stubborn vow not to give Ethan the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Totally disinterested now in the fact that her screams could be heard throughout the small hotel, Emily squirmed like a caught fish, and wailed at the top of her healthy young lungs. “Please, Ethan! Stop! For god’s sake! Ow!”

  But it seemed Ethan was just getting started. Tightening his arm around Emily’s waist, he rubbed his sore palm against his pant leg and reached for his belt. When she realized what he was reaching for, Emily groaned and pounded her fist on the tile floor in frustration. And when the first blow of the strap cracked across her already scorched and apple-red bottom, the ensuing screech could be heard on the street below. Twisting sideways, she managed to get one leg free, but soon regretted it when he spread her legs and slapped the insides of her thighs with his bare hand.

  Finally, with Emily still tucked under his arm, he stood up and dumped her across the edge of the tub to administer a lightning fast round of four smart belt blows to each flaming buttock.

  When he stopped, Emily threw both hands back to attend to the fire in her swollen rear. With just her fingertips, she rubbed at one of the raised welts, yelped in pain, and then wisely discontinued the effort. She settled for hopping about the room, fanning her backside and trying not to swear, since something in Ethan’s expression persuaded her that he was quite capable of starting all over again if sufficiently provoked. Meanwhile, Ethan had calmly put his belt back on, rolled his sleeves down, and slipped on his coat. If he felt even the slightest degree of sympathy for Emily’s condition, he was not revealing it.

  “When you’ve dressed,” he said curtly, “we’ll return to the ship, where you are going to humbly beg the pardon of every man and boy aboard for having wasted their time and lost them their hard-earned wages. And if I’m satisfied that you’ve made a proper apology, I’ll forego my earlier plan to repeat a portion of this thrashing for the crew’s benefit. If not, I intend to call all hands on deck, put you over a damned barrel, and wallop your spoiled ass, again— considerably harder than I just have. Do we understand one another?”

  “Yes, Ethan,” she groaned, trying once again to massage her burning buttocks. “My God!” she cried, “I’m on fire!’

  McAllister leaned down to inspect the area in question. “Yes, you certainly are that,” he agreed cheerfully. “Now, get your clothes on, and I would suggest you make it quick.” He looked again at her bottom. “On second thought, I think you might wish to leave off those drawers for a couple of days.”

  Under her breath, Emily swore, and wished him drowned.

  When they returned to the ship, Emily went directly below, avoiding the angry glares of her fellow crewmembers and taking up her duties quickly, lest Mr. Johnson see fit to apply his own penalty. The boys were kind enough to her, and became even more sympathetic when her slight waddle in walking made obvious what had happened.

  “I’m terrible sorry about your impairment, Miss,” said Hinton, flashing her only a slight leer as he placed a dirty cushion on the crude bench they used at meals. “This might ease your…your ailing parts some.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hinton,” she said, flushing. “But, I’m quite comfortable as I am.”

  Eakins, his injured arm in a canvas sling, tossed Hinton’s pillow to the floor.

  “That thing’s dirty, Jack! Take it away! She can have my own.” He produced his own, somewhat cleaner pillow. “Please, Miss. It was a horrible and unfair thing, what the captain did. Any one of us might have made a mistake like that, and been left ashore.”

  Emily smiled wanly at the mutinous remark. She knew that her own, sweet knight in shining armor had paid dearly for his devotion to her, with a badly broken arm and a lost year at sea.

  Embarrassed as she was by the frank discussion of her recently spanked backside, though, Emily realized with some relief that this was apparently the first time the entire crew knew for certain of her odd relationship with their revered captain.

  “It wasn’t right,” Harry stormed on. “You’re a lady, Miss! An innocent victim of bad fortune!”

  Emily laughed. “Dear Harry, I thank you for your blessed gallantry, but I’m neither a lady, nor innocent. I’ve caused this ship and its fine crew a great amount of woe, and Ethan–the captain was well within his rights to exact payment for my offense. I owe you, each and every one, an apology, and you especially, Harry.”

  Harry blushed.

  “Have you ever read Mr. Dumas’ stories of the Musketeers, boys?” Emily asked, laughing. “Until the end of this voyage, we are all in this together, are we not?”

  “All for one, and one for all!” Harry cried, smiling shyly.

  Emily “Yes, Harry. We are all equal.”

  Hinton scowled skeptically. “Equal, eh? You’ll tell that to Mr. Johnson, will you? A lady like you, and the Cap’n’s….?”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “I suppose you may as well know this, Jack, since it seems I have no secrets left. I have already made one extremely unpleasant visit to Mr. Johnson’s quarters. Not as a lady, nor as friend of the captain, but just as you did…as a disobedient and lowly cabin boy.”

  “Than which nothing on Earth is lower!” they all repeated in unison, laughing.

  It was evening of the next day before Emily could make herself face Ethan again. During those troubled hours, she had gone over many things in her mind, things she’d never given much thought to before, such as how her irresponsible behavior affected others, and what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

  That night, McAllister found her standing at the stern, watching the slow roll of the waves under the full moon.

  “And what do you think of my ocean, now, after these weeks at sea?” he asked softly.

  Emily smiled. “Your ocean? Is it truly yours, then?”

  “Indeed, it is, when I’m on it. I would imagine that countless others feel the same, so I can’t claim it as mine, exclusively, of course. But now, at this time of night, it’s mine as surely as if God himself had given it to me.”

  “It’s very beautiful,” she agreed, sighing. “I hadn’t expected to be so enraptured by all of this actually…to have fallen so in love with it the way I have. I could be here forever, and never tire of it.”

  McAllister smiled. “Please don’t take offense, but that is the sentiment of a land-lubber. I mean no reproach, but men at sea usually wish for nothing more sincerely than to be at home, again, on dry soil. And they long for nothing as eagerly as they do for the first sight of land.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It
was presumptuous of me to speak of something of which I knew so little. I was arrogant, as always.”

  Ethan shook his head and took her hand. “Not at all. An ocean is a beautiful thing, and I know your emotions are truly felt, but a woman can ill-afford to fall in love with the sea. The life is harsh and perilous, and unspeakably lonely at times. The species would die out very quickly if women chose to go to sea in the numbers that men do…and to die here in as great a number as men have always done.

  “I’m not making a derogatory judgment on a woman’s abilities,” he added quickly, “and I’ve always believed that women are in most ways as capable as men, even more so in some instances. But a ship is not a fit place to bear or raise children. I’m afraid that women are doomed by their biology, unless they would choose a childless life, and a homeless one. Even marriage to a seaman is no easy matter. I could introduce you to a number of widows who would make the same point, and make it a good deal less kindly. Your own island of Nantucket has far more widows than most other places on this earth. Fishing and whaling have probably generated more deaths than they have holds laden with oil.”

  Emily nodded. “There are nine such unfortunate women on my street alone, and the pews of the island’s churches are filled with them each Sunday. It’s a question that’s troubled me my entire life. How they can sustain their faith in a God who had treated them so cruelly?”

  “Well, there you are,” he said, smiling. “A sailor can’t afford philosophy, or important questions, but only simple faith.”

  “And you, Ethan? Have you a philosophy, or merely ‘simple faith’, as you call it?”

  He chuckled. “I’m afraid I’m something of a lost cause in the eyes of God, Em. I prefer to take each day as it comes, do as well by my fellow man as I’m able, and hope that my dear Mother’s prayers are sufficient to sustain me in His tender mercies. Thus far, He’s suffered my failures and trespasses with enormous patience, for which I’m am grateful even if I don’t say it, often. We’ve not discussed this, of course, but am correct in thinking that as the daughter of a clergyman, you’re quite firm in your religious persuasion?”