Hot Winds From Bombay (8 page)

His decision made not to make one at this time, he set about bathing in earnest. The scalding water turned his salt-cured skin red bronze. He scrubbed himself hard, feeling as if he were scraping away four years’ accumulation of the grime of the whole world. For longer than he cared to remember, his bathtub had been the briny ocean. Soap, even the caustic cake provided by the tavernkeeper, was a luxury. He lathered, scrubbed, rinsed, then lathered again. And by the time he finished his bath, he felt half-alive again.

For once in his life, he had not squandered his spending money on trinkets but had gone to a tailor in London a few months back for a proper suit of clothes—something he had never owned before. Now, carefully and with no small measure of delight, he folded back the layers of brown paper and tissue that had protected the fabric these past months. It was all there, and in the latest fashion. The tight fawn trousers were tapered the full length of his legs, with loops to fit snugly under the instep. The bottle-green coat was cut shorter and with a closer fit at the waist than the style of a few years ago. It sported tails. The burgundy brocade waistcoat was also cut low to show his beruffled shirt to its best advantage. And a crisp stock would grace his throat. Top that with the new gray beaver hat and a scarlet greatcoat with several capes to make his shoulders look even broader, and what woman could resist him?

He smiled and ran a finger over the fine linen of the shirt. It would feel good against his skin. Or against a woman’s soft cheek, he mused.

Still naked, his sleek body glowing from his vigorous scrubbing, Zack strode to the shaving stand in the corner and took up his straight-edge razor. He held the instrument poised for several moments while he stared at the wild tangle of beard and hair in the oval mirror. It was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. Perhaps he should shave it all away. But he’d worn the beard too long. His cheeks would be as tender and vulnerable as a baby’s bottom if exposed. He decided merely to tame the thatch.

With careful strokes, he brought forth more face than he had seen in many months, leaving a mustache and full side whiskers for protection against the snow glare and winter wind. After more than an hour spent at the task, he nodded his approval to the image before him.

The next time he got Persia—or Europa—alone, there would be more of him to kiss. He grinned.

Persia waited in her room, watching out the window for any sign of Zack. Her sister’s most persistent suitor, Seton Holloway, had strolled up the front walk nearly half an hour before, looking his usual self—preoccupied, rumpled, and a bit too eager. Europa was no doubt furious that he had come so early. That meant she had to entertain him until their other guest arrived. Any other day, she might have accomplished this by playing the piano and singing. But, of course, singing was strictly out of the question on a Sunday. Persia almost felt sorry for Europa… but not quite.

She glanced out again and then looked toward the door. The wait would be much easier if she were downstairs with the others. But she dared not put in an appearance below before Zack arrived for fear she would be sent immediately back up to change. She cast an uncertain look at the mirror and watched as color flooded her cheeks. The change in her was shocking, she had to admit. Would Zack even recognize her? She hardly knew herself!

The gauzy silk grenadine of Europa’s cast-off gown fit Persia as if it had never known the curves of any other woman’s body. Narrow stripes of palest blue traversed the cream-yellow background in perfect vertical lines. The demure poufed sleeves only served to accentuate the daring dip of the bodice. Had it not been for the straw embroidery on the sleeves and tight-fitting top—featherlike in design—Persia was sure the darker flesh of her nipples would have peeked through the thin material. The same decorative pattern—made by splitting ordinary wheat and applying it with an embroidery stitch—was repeated at the hemline.

The long narrow skirt fell from just beneath Persia’s high, full breasts. When she “walked, the barest hint of the rest of her lovely figure—slim waist and rounded hips—was given away to the eye of the beholder by the soft contours of the material.

Persia had changed her hairstyle, too. Her long hair was swept up and fixed in place at the back of her head with ivory combs. Only a few flame-colored wisps trailed down in back, while a curl on either side framed her perfect oval face. A blue ribbon, pinned with her cameo, circled her slender neck—simple, but exquisite.

She paced the room, pretending that she was practicing walking in the narrow skirt and shaped-heel slippers. But eventually, her measured steps took her back to the window to search the distance for Zack. Still no sign of him. There was a man coming down Gay Street from the direction of Main, but she didn’t recognize him. He was certainly a fashion plate, though, in his gray beaver hat and caped scarlet greatcoat.

He turned in their walk, and her curiosity grew. Suddenly, he paused just below, glanced up at her window, and swept the hat from his golden-brown hair. He smiled up, then offered her a bow.

Persia’s heart seemed to stop for an instant before it raced to catch up with the blood coursing through her veins.

She gave a nervous laugh. “It can’t be!
Zack?”
If she had transformed herself, he had performed an even greater miracle.

Taking up her silk-fringed shawl and draping it becomingly about her shoulders, Persia went to her door and opened it just far enough to hear voices from the entranceway below.

“Well, Mr. Hazzard,” boomed her father, “you’ve made it.”

“I hope I’m not late, sir.” Zack’s voice made Persia’s pulse quicken once more.

“Oh, certainly not. At any rate, we wouldn’t have started without you. In fact, you aren’t the last to arrive. Persia is taking her own sweet time today.”

“Hello, Mr. Hazzard,” Persia heard her mother say. “Welcome to our home once again.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Whiddington. It is all my pleasure to be here.”

“Captain, perhaps you had better go and fetch our youngest.”

“I’m sure she’ll be down in a moment, my dear.”

“A young lady must have time to dress properly, Mother.” Europa, with her sugary voice, had joined the others. “Why, Zachariah, how handsome you look this afternoon! Seton, do take his coat; I believe Fletcher is occupied in the kitchen.”

“Of course, Miss Europa,” came a thin, male voice, and Persia could almost see Seton Holloway’s Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Zack, come along with me to the parlor,” said Europa. “I have something there that might interest you. There’s time before dinner, I’m sure.”

Zack’s voiced agreement propelled Persia from her room without further delay. She posed at the head of the stairs and, summoning her most seductive voice, said, “Hello, Zack. I’m so glad you could come.”

All eyes in the hallway below stared up. Her mother’s face paled, and her hand flew to her lace-covered throat. The captain’s lips twitched in surprise, then turned up in an appreciative smile. Seton Holloway, still holding Zack’s scarlet coat as if he had been frozen where he stood, gaped at her with his mouth wide open.

Europa already had possession of Zack’s arm but had not yet managed to smuggle him off to the parlor. Gowned in nutmeg and cinnamon bombazett with cream lace at her bosom, she made a striking picture. But, as Persia watched, her face contorted into a grimace of rage.

“My dress!”
Persia heard her say in a strangled tone.

Persia only smiled. Not at her sister, but at Zack. He had extracted himself from Europa’s grasp and was making his way up the stairs, one strong brown hand extended toward Persia.

His eyes devoured her as he came, caressing her face, her hair, and her thinly clad breasts until her nipples stiffened beneath the shiny straw stitching. His expression mingled desire with amazement. He gazed at her as if seeing some new wonder of the world for the first time.

Persia felt as if she were drowning in the flood of sensations washing over her. All the others at the foot of the stairs dissolved into a hazy half-light, a halo that was only the backdrop for the man coming toward her. He was everything she needed, wanted, and must have in the world. She could not live without his touch, and she would not.

“Persia.” Her name upon his lips was a loving demand that made her quiver in the same manner she would have if he had reached out and fondled her aching breasts.

“Hello, Zack,” she whispered.

One side of his mouth quirked up in a quasi smile, and he reached out toward her hand. “That’s all? Just
hello?”

She smiled back and answered, still in the barest of whispers so that the others wouldn’t hear, “Hello, and I still love you.”

“Even in broad daylight?” he challenged.

“Even under the blazing eye of noon.”

He gave a low, tantalizing laugh just before he brought her hand to his lips and brushed her tender flesh with the rough silk of his mustache.

“Dinner is served, Captain and Mrs. Whiddington.”

Fletcher, dressed in knee britches and jacket of the same Prussian blue as the tattooing on his cheeks, captured everyone’s immediate attention. His voice boomed like cannon fire in the shocked stillness of the entrance hall. All eyes turned from Persia and Zack to the tall servant.

Europa fumed silently. She had been on the verge of maneuvering Zachariah away from the others so that they would be automatically paired as dinner partners when Persia had made her entrance and spoiled it all. Now he was on the steps with her, even at this moment tucking her hand into his elbow to escort her to the table.

The dark-haired beauty’s eyes flashed a warning, and the smallest of smiles touched her rose-petal lips. The day wasn’t over yet, and neither was this battle of wills with her sister. Persia had yet to win out against her. Europa certainly didn’t mean for this to be the first time.

Persia, oblivious to her sister’s hard gaze, had eyes only for the man beside her. She had thought Zack was wonderful—witty, devastatingly masculine, and decidedly passionate—last night. But how much more of all of these he was by daylight, decked out in his fashionable clothes and best company manners. And he seemed just as taken with her. She never even considered the thought that he might have intended to escort Europa into the dining room. After all, Zack was
hers\

Europa, deciding to make the best of a nearly hopeless situation, moved toward her own beau, the ever-present, ever-reticent Mr. Holloway. She would concentrate on using Seton to make Zack jealous. But she had wasted too much time indulging her anger.

“My dear.” The captain offered him arm to his wife.

“Oh, please, sir,” Europa’s lawyer beau broke in. “Allow me. Mrs. Whiddington, may I escort you?”

“That’s dear of you, Seton. Thank you.”

So, Europa was ushered in on her father’s arm, her cheeks flaming with indignation and her mind calculating revenge.

The three couples moved through the wide doorway into the dining room. Suddenly Persia was aware that the room, her mother’s decorating pifece de resistance, had captured Zack’s full attention. He paused in midstep and gave a quiet gasp.

“I never saw anything like it.”

“And probably you never will again,” Persia told him. “Mother hired an itinerate artist to paint the walls.”

It was, indeed, a striking room. Victoria Whiddington had given the traveling artist specific instructions, and he had carried them out to the letter, even adding a few imaginative flourishes of his own. The walls depicted the shipbuilding yards at Quoddy Cove, with tall ships riding at anchor beyond in the water. Another section featured the exotic ports Captain Whiddington had visited in his travels—the West Indies with Carib indians in their canoes, fishing the palm-sheltered waters of a turquoise lagoon; the Cape of Good Hope with a storm tossing a square-rigged ship; Madagascar, Bombay, Tahiti, Shanghai. And finally, there was Gay Street, showing in every vivid detail the white, Federal-style house with its porticoed front and widow’s walk high above. A woman and two girls stood in the yard, welcoming a sea captain home, while a black-and-white-spotted dog—Persia’s own contribution to the mural—yapped and cavorted beside the girl with burnt-sienna hair.

The long table gleamed with white lace, brilliant blue Chinese export dinnerware of the finest grade, crystal from Ireland, and the company best pearl-handled silver flatware. Mrs. Whiddington was not one to let anything go lacking when it came time to entertain, especially if her guests were possible husbands for her daughters.

As they all took their places, she glanced at the two young men before her. Seton Holloway was everything she wanted in a son-in-law. He was learned, mannerly, attentive at all times to Europa, and best of all, he possessed no longing to go to sea. The absence of such a desire was a unique quality in down-east men, and one to be much sought after in Victoria’s opinion.

She loved her husband dearly. She had from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him over twenty years before. But that love, warring for the upper hand over his love of the sea, had cost her much through the years.

He had been thousands of miles away when Europa, their first, was born. He never saw her until she was three years old. Again, when Victoria’s next labor pains started, Asa was half a world away. He had planned to be home for this birth, but their second daughter came early and lived only a few hours. He was there to attend the baby’s funeral, however, since she was born and died in the dead of winter. By the spring thaw, when earth could be turned and the tiny white coffin lowered to its final rest, the captain had sailed his ship home. But as they had stood together in the greening burial ground, holding hands and weeping quietly, she had known that she could never again bear a child alone. There was an ache in one dark part of her heart, put there on that lonely blizzard-wild night when she had given birth and cradled her tiny daughter in her arms as she died, that would never go away again.

She could no more stand the thought of one of her daughters going through that than she could have allowed her husband to sail off when she found she was in her third pregnancy. She had insisted that Asa stay ashore from that time until Persia was two years old. This was the reason, she felt sure, that their youngest daughter had always been the captain’s favorite.

And now that favorite, that child the father had taught to love the sea and all its glamour and adventure, was gazing up at another seafaring man—one who could bring her nothing but pain, in Victoria’s estimation.

Yes, it was good that Europa must marry first, Victoria told herself silently. For she could see in Persia’s eyes a deep emotion and desire that mirrored her own twenty-odd years ago when she’d looked at Asa Whiddington. Victoria ached for her daughter, knowing that pain was ahead for her. If she wanted him—and it was plain that she did—but could not have him, she would be distraught. On the other hand, if by some outside chance they should marry someday, Persia would know a far deeper and more lasting pain. There was nothing so terrible as seeing your man sail away, not knowing when or
if
he would return.

Before grace was said and the first course served, Persia’s mother had made up her mind.
Never
would she allow her youngest to marry a man of the sea!

Persia meanwhile was thinking thoughts quite to the contrary.

For a time after Fletcher served the meal, the silence grew as thick as Mrs. Whiddington’s pot roast gravy. Even Persia, lost in her romantic reflections of following her husband to sea, paid close attention to the richly browned beef, potatoes, carrots, and boiled cabbage. She, like other down-east women, possessed a stout appetite that guarded the body and soul against Maine’s freezing winter breath. She had heard that women in the warmer, southern climes ate like birds and were thought unladylike if they ever finished an entire meal. But such delicate belles would never survive outside their hothouse climates.
Fuel your body against the cold,
her mother had always told her. And Persia was at all times obedient.

But once the plates were cleared and coffee and a steaming plum pudding served, the diners relaxed and took up polite conversation.

“Seton, what do you think is the answer to this present financial panic sweeping the country?” the captain asked.

The lawyer looked slightly embarrassed at being singled out for such a difficult question. He had no answer. No one did.

“It’s come as a hard blow to the whole country, sir. I hear in Boston the harbor is crowded with ships unable to sail because markets have dried up for lack of funds to purchase cargoes and supplies. I see no end in sight.”

“Aye,” the captain replied, frowning. “It will get worse before it gets better, I’m afraid. I’ve been thinking of investing as part owner of a ship out of Boston. But with times what they are, I’m not sure I want to risk it.”

Persia’s eyes lit up. “You’re going to buy your own ship, Father? Why haven’t you told us?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Calm yourself, little sailor. The deal’s not set, and as I said, I’m not sure it ever will be with times what they are.”

“But Father, you’re a wealthy man. Surely—”

“Persia,” her mother said in a warning tone. “We don’t discuss finances at the table.”

“But a
ship,
Mother! Did you know?”

Victoria did not, but she wasn’t about to admit it in company. In answer, she only smiled and looked at her husband, letting him know that she would speak to him later.

“Sir, if I might make a comment?…”

“Please, Mr. Hazzard. I’d welcome your opinion.”

“This panic, as I see it, is a passing thing. The United States is too strong economically to stay long in its grip. I would be willing to wager all I own in the world”—Zack paused and cleared his throat, remembering suddenly that he had done exactly that on the previous evening—“little as that is, that in a few months we’ll be coming out of this financial slump. If a man owned a ship and was willing to send it out to trade among the foreign ports at this time, in two or three years when the ship returned, he would make a fortune. Money will be plentiful by then, but foreign goods scarce because of the cutback in shipping activity at the present time.”

Captain Whiddington was nodding his agreement. “You’ve a good head for business on those broad shoulders of yours, Hazzard. Have you ever thought of seeking an assignment as supercargo on one of our merchantmen?”

Zack matched his host’s smile, answering, “Oh, I’d like that, sir. But I want more. I’ve been all but guaranteed a promotion to second mate the next time I ship out. I figure in another few years I should be ready to take command myself. Then I’ll act as my own supercargo.”

Zack pressed the knee next to his under the table and offered Persia a sidelong glance. She smiled, unaware that he was rubbing her sister’s ankle with the toe of his boot at the same time. She welcomed his attention but longed for it to come somewhere besides at the dining room table with her whole family in attendance.

“I congratulate you, Mr. Hazzard,” said the captain. “It’s not every young man these days who knows what he wants and has the ambition to go after it. You’ll do well, I’m sure.”

Zack chuckled softly and found Persia’s hand beneath the table. He pressed it to his thigh. “Well, I’d like to think that I’ll realize my goals, Captain, but at times I wonder. Right now, I need to get back to sea as quickly as possible. Would you know of a crew needing a second mate, by any chance?”

Persia turned to stare at the man who was holding her hand, caressing the soft flesh of her palm with his thumb and making her quiver inside and out. He couldn’t mean what he was saying! They had only just found each other. How could he possibly leave her so soon?

Europa voiced Persia’s own disappointment. “Zack, you can’t go yet! Why, I simply forbid it!”

Persia seethed and her eyes flashed blue sparks at her sister.
Forbid it indeed!
Who did Europa think she was to approve or forbid anything that had to do with Zachariah Hazzard? In her anger, she dug her nails into Zack’s hand, making him wince.

“Mr. Hazzard is quite right, my dear,” the captain said to Europa. “A man must be about his work if he ever hopes to realize his goals. And I might be able to say a word or two to friends in Boston to speed you on your way, Zack.”

“Bless you, Captain,” Victoria said under her breath. She hadn’t missed the byplay between her younger daughter and the rugged seafarer all through dinner. Although she had no idea what was going on beneath the pristine lace of the tablecloth, from what she could see, the situation was apparently more serious than she had imagined.

“I would be most obliged, Captain Whiddington. I’m afraid thrift is not one of my virtues. I seem to be in rather straightened circumstances at the moment.”

The captain’s eyebrow cocked at this. Good Lord, the man had only made port the day before! He must have been paid a small fortune at that time. What could have become of his wages? Had he spent them in advance by borrowing from his shipmates? Or possibly he had been gambling… and losing… while at sea. However he had spent all his money, it was a foolish thing to do in such uncertain times. Suddenly, the captain wondered if Seaman Hazzard was officer material after all. But Zack had continued explaining while the captain’s mind whirled with uncertainties.

“I should have been planning for this all my adult life, but somehow I never imagined that it would happen to me. Now I realize that I want a home ashore, some anchor to the land. I’d like to give up rented rooms and tavern cooking for all time. But plans like mine take cash. I want to buy some land, build a house, and then perhaps…” Zack let his words trail off but looked meaningfully at Persia and then Europa, flattering each with the intimacy of his unspoken words.

“Ayah! I know the feeling well,” the captain said. “I remember exactly when it struck me. The first time I set eyes on the lovely Victoria Forsyth. I had to fight my way through a pack of suitors, any one of them a more likely catch than I was at the time. But, mark my words, both of you young men, persistence will win out in the end. And hard work will pay off. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

He nodded toward his blushing wife.

“And I’ll tell you another thing, Mr. Hazzard, you have the right idea. Put your money into land. Make a home before you make a family. You’ll be happy for it later on.”

This remark from the captain, although addressed to Zack, seemed directed at Seton Holloway. The man knew it and squirmed in his seat. For some time now, Europa had been putting Seton off by telling him that she could only consider marrying a man who was well established in his career and financially stable. Holloway, as the junior partner in a small law practice, was neither of these. And because of Europa’s protests, he had not felt secure enough to approach her father and ask for her hand, even though he knew that Mrs. Whiddington was all in favor of the match.