Page 22 of Miss Whittier Makes a List
“You could get yourself a cup, too,”he offered.“This really is excellent brew, Lady Amber.”
She made a face.“I do not care for it, sir. It makes me jittery and keeps me awake. And Mama claims I am not fit to live with when I am cross.”
“I would not doubt your mother for a moment,”he said after agoodswallow. He sniffed the air around her appreciatively.“I think I like the almond evenbetter.”
She grinned up at him.“Except that I smell like dessert.”
“Exactly so,”he replied.“Do you know what I like to do first when I come off a long cruise?”
She shook her head, secretly pleased at his sudden talkativeness.
“I drink about a quart of water that comes fresh from a well, and then I have my housekeeper make me an almond cake with gooey icing, which I eat all by myself.”
She clapped her hands in delight.“You do not share?”
“I might, with the right person,”he said, then drained the rest of the coffee and handed the mug back to her. He nodded, and pointed to the aft hatch.“And there your oakum awaits. Lively now, Miss Whittier.”
He turned back to stare at the ocean again,the interview over. A smile on her face, Hannah took the mug below deck and then returned to her task of picking oakum. She shivered in the early morning breeze and willed the sun to warm the deck soon. Sailors holystoned the deck around her, rubbing the already spotless planking with sandstone chunks the size of prayerbooks and then sluicing itdownwith seawater.
“Hannah, think what an oakum expert thee is becoming!”
She looked up in surprise at the sailor closest to her on the deck.“Adam!”she exclaimed.“Oh, sit andtalk!”
He shook his head, his eyes on the bosun’s mate.“I daren’t. Are they treating thee well?”he asked ashecontinued by the hatch on his knees, scraping the deck.
“Oh, yes. And I willbe sitting in the lookout soon, keeping watch for the French.”
He chuckled.“Who’d have thought it? Not I, surely. Well, I do not believe thee was ever partial to sewing samplers, was thee?”
“Oh, thy sisters have tattled,”she said and impulsively reached down to ruffle his hair.
“Belay that! Ship’s discipline!”called Mr. Futtrell in ringing tones from his watch on the lee side of the quarterdeck.
To her embarrassment, Captain Spark looked down at them and frowned.
“He’s my friend,”she protested.
“And he is my crew,”the captain reminded her, biting off his words.“Mind your manners, Miss Whittier! You may tousle his golden mane all you choose, once you’re back in theUnited States.”
The other sailors on their knees laughed and Adam blushed a rosy pink.“Oh, Hannah, thee is a rascal,”he muttered, and continued along the deck.
Hannah cast a speaking look at the captain, which was entirely wasted,because he had already turned his attention back to the sea again.“Golden mane, indeed,”she muttered to herself.“This is Adam Winslow, whom I grew up with.”She nourished her feelings of vast ill-usage until the sun rose higher and warned the hatch she sat on. Then she abandoned herself to the pleasure of another day’s sailing, wishing she could stretch like a cat and curl up for a nap.
At four bells, the midshipman in the lookout scampered back down to the deck and reported to Captain Spark on the quarterdeck. Hannah sat where she was, then tucked the rest of the oakum in the burlap bag at her feet as Spark took off his boat cloak at last and came down the gangway toward her.
“Well, Lady Amber, it is time for you to tempt the fates again. Mr. Futtrell? Will you fetch my straw hat from the great cabin, and my glass, and bring that copy ofShips of Nations?”
“Aye, sir,”the lieutenant replied and hurried below.
He stood beside her on the main deck,and she patted the hatch.
“You could sit down, sir,”she invited.
He looked at her in surprise, his eyebrows high arched.“Never,Miss Whittier. A captain does not sit on his deck,especially on a hatch.”
“Don’t you ever get tired?”she asked.
“I would never admit to it. Ah thank you, Mr.Futtrell. Sir, please take my place on the weather side until I regain the deck again.”
