Chapter 6

Perhaps the single dreariest duty I tried diligently to avoid was assisting my Aunt Millicent in the social obligation to entertain at polite intervals the ladies of a certain station.

In the beginning of my stay upon Malta, I found these fine ladies to be very unladylike in their open disdain and dislike of me as a newcomer who had youth and an inheritance of some value. That they knew of the inheritance from my husband's estate did not surprise me. I am positive they learned of it from a most reputable source ... my aunt.

However, before my foot ever found its way to these shores, the ladies who formed the best of British society on this island were set against me.

It amused me to ponder whether it was my looks or my money they felt might be the greatest challenge to their rather nattering and constantly vigilant attempts to gain worthy husbands for their uninspiring daughters. Though perhaps, I thought as I gazed around the parlor and smiled blandly over my teacup, they wondered if their husbands' wandering eyes or hands were considering me a worthy target.

"My dear Mrs. Blanford, you seem in such grand spirits today. Is it that your mood has lifted after your last trip to Rabat or perhaps it is thinking of last night's opera that has amused you so?" Mrs. Pettijohn inquired.

My eyes turned to her and I could not hide my instant stab of anger at her. She read it instantly; she had not expected temper ... not from me, the blushing widow who did her aunt's bidding with a bright smile and pleasant doting manner and who had taken every snide remark in the past and smiled in response. However ... this would not do.

"I have so enjoyed many things lately. This island has many hidden charms. By the way, was that your Amelia I happened to notice on the quay the other day? I wondered who her beau was? He had the most unusual uniform. It was almost a silvery blue."

"Why that would be a Neapolitan hussar. Such handsome uniforms, are they not?" my aunt said sweetly. And then she blanched when she realized my point. Her mouth formed a round 'o' and she quickly moved away.

"I believe my aunt is correct. Well, they made a fine couple and Amelia certainly seemed quite taken with him. Is it love, my dear Mrs. Pettijohn? Is there an announcement of a betrothal in our happy future?"

She gave me a sharp eye and a tight mouth in response. But she did leave me alone the rest of the afternoon. I was left in relative solitude to contemplate the exchange between us. I wondered if I should have instantly leapt to the suspicion that she was warning me that she had knowledge of my affair with a certain Naval captain, who was married and not to me. The trip to Rabat was, of course, with Jack though under cloak of being with my friend Sabine. And last night's trip to the opera had been an occasion when Jack and I had both been there ... had some look between us been intercepted and suspected? Well, if so, I hoped nasty Mrs. Pettijohn would be much more involved in saving her sillyheaded daughter Amelia's reputation from besmirchment by the linkage with a common soldier of whom her parents, I could have sworn, knew nothing.

So deep within my reverie was I, in fact, that I nearly missed the topic of tittering conversation that next took hold amongst the ladies as they sipped tea and traded gossip.

"I tell you I did see it. Not once but thrice. And this last time was right near St. Publus."

"Well, he does have quite a reputation, does he not?"

"Indeed. Still. You would imagine a Naval Captain would have the wherewithal to keep his breeches on."

"We are simply fortunate his breeches can contain all they seem to put on display, are we not?"

Laughter. Tittering. These old women trying to act coy. They annoyed me no end. But the mention of a Naval Captain unable to keep his breeches on? I drew closer.

"Are they having an affair, then?"

"It seems so, my dear. That horrid dog of hers ... what is his name?"

"Ponto."

"Precisely ... that dreadful Mrs. Fielding insists on taking him everywhere. He is a beast!"

"A brute. Growls at every man who comes near his mistress. And she, little thing, can scarce control him ..."

"The dog? Or the man?"

More titters. I closed my eyes and felt my palms grow moist.

"In this case, the dog. Why, it was scandalous! He leapt full tilt into Captain Aubrey and the sot lost his balance. What a crash! I wager he paid a pretty penny to the shopkeeper for the damage to his wares."

"Captain Aubrey?" I asked and wondered if my voice shook. "And ... Mrs. Fielding? But she is married to a fellow officer who is a prisoner of war ... surely no Naval officer would be so ... cavalier?"

"Quite. Hadn't you heard, my dear? It's been going on for weeks apparently under cover of these silly musical parties she hosts and those ..." The women all looked meaningfully at each other. "... those Italian lessons she gives him ... alone ... in his hotel room."

I barely heard anymore. I tried to keep my blank smile plastered on my face even as my heart felt it could find scarce reason to beat. And all I could think of was ... oh, the absurdity of this ...  Mrs. Fielding's great hound who apparently hated all men but her absent husband ... a naval officer who was a French captive ... but the great beast of a dog apparently adored Jack as his mistress was now rumored to adore him.

How could this be, I wondered. This simply seemed to be not possible. Jack was incapable of such subterfuge ... wasn't he? Surely he was not whispering pretty words of love to me while all the time he was also carrying on with Laura Fielding? But ... then again ... a man who was capable of being with another woman when out of sight of his wife ... would he restrain himself in any way? Who was I to judge if I had fallen in love with another woman's husband and felt I could hold myself blameless only because she would not know?

It was with such a heavy heart that I stood with my aunt and waved the fine ladies adieu. Back in my cottage, I paced and paced before the unfinished painting I was just then allowing to take shape upon the canvas. I had been moved by love when it began. I was then moved with uncertainty and dread.

Hours later, Francesca found me sitting on the floor with a brush in my hand and paint smudges on my arms and cheeks. She pulled the brush from my stiff fingers and gentled me into the bed. She sat with me all night as I tossed and turned. I sent her away at daybreak. Sometime in that night, I had come to one incontrovertible conclusion: there was simply no way I would believe this about Jack.

I sent Francesca to Searle's to deliver a note to Jack asking him to meet me that day at our room at Carlotta's. I instructed her to wait there for a reply. When she came back to me, two hours had gone by. As she handed me the note in reply, she complained long and bitterly about Jack's surly steward and his grumbling berating of her for forcing him to disturb his Captain.

When she left, I opened the note and Jack's neat handwriting answered in his sweet words. Our time was set ... we would meet as soon as he planned to return from the docks.

"I am a happily married man ... a father ... a post captain! Do they think I am the sort of scoundrel that goes around bedding women in every port?"

"Why, I think they might, Jack."

"Why, it is years since my callow youth when, I do admit, I was a little inclined to the pleasures of the flesh ... but a man may change ... mature ... become more serious minded ..."

It had come as a terrible and quite unwelcome shock to Jack to learn of the rumors that he was having an affair with Mrs. Fielding. I had told him that Ponto's antics whenever he saw Jack along the streets or in the squares had led everyone to believe this affair. His initial reaction told me the truth ... Jack Aubrey does not have the ability to lie that convincingly ... and even if he did, surely he would not choose as his defense that his reputation for womanizing was undeserved?

I felt such relief, such joy, such amusement to see his reaction and to realize I had been right to trust him. He stalked in front of me, not caring that he was naked as the day he was born, but unable to pen up his agitation ... so he had leapt from our warm bed and was pacing back and forth, his hands held tightly behind his back ... high emotion making his chest heave and his eyes flash.

"Mmm. I do tell you, Jack, I would have enjoyed knowing you as a callow youth ... but tell me, speaking of pleasures of the flesh and how you've turned away from that, this has not been pleasurable for you then, Captain?"

"... It is deuced unfair how a man's past is held against him and ..." he paused, blinked at me, finally focused on my words. "This? What has this got to do with anything?"

"I was simply inquiring about ... my flesh. It has not been a pleasure?"

He cleared his throat. "My dear - you know how much I care for you ... that is entirely a different matter."

"Truly, Jack? So you are saying that what we have been doing together is different somehow from you bedding another woman on this island?"

"Yes indeed," he said firmly, as he fell heavily into the bed next to me. He pulled me atop his chest as he trained his sharp eyes on me. "First of all ... this is not some sordid interlude where a lusty captain seeks relief ashore ... this is a romance ... and secondly ..." he suddenly grinned at me ... "... I have not been found out! Therein lies a world of difference, my dear girl."

He erupted in hearty laughter and I simply would never be able to resist him when he was like this. I giggled against him and enjoyed his amusement.

"Jack, you could convince me the sky was yellow if you desired it," I finally said as I sat up from him, suddenly overcome with the feeling of how temporary this time was with him.

He gathered me back in his hold and then whipped me down upon the bed, lying above me and his unbound hair fell in waves around my face.

"Now tell me what color is the sky?"

I sighed deeply at his romantic gesture. "I am blinded by the sun, dear Jack. All I can see is gold."

"As it should be," he said softly. His fingers swept over the contours of my face and he stared at me wistfully. "While I bathe in your radiance, my lady."

The next week brought a change in Jack's fortunes. Indeed, the news from the Admiralty was greeted with such vigorous appreciation by Jack and all his crew. They had suffered an interminable wait for the Admiralty Court to condemn the prizes they had taken in their last mission. These matters, Jack told me, were always tedious and often bitter disappointments. But in this case, he gloated, the prize money was theirs.

His portion was apparently substantial. I never asked. Jack and I never discussed such matters. However, the proof, as Jack might say, was in the bribing.

With the release of the prize money to him, Jack's ranting about the 'damned blackguards' who delayed the repairs on the two ships ... especially his beloved Surprise ... in at the docks took on a new tone. There was a hard, steely set to his eyes and jaw as he spoke of the bribes he was now able to make at the dockyard.

It was also the first time he slipped completely in reference to my great uncle.

Neither Jack nor I respected by Uncle Geoffrey's stewardship over the island. Sir Hildebrand, as Jack called him in my presence, had replaced a governor who was not only of the Royal Navy ... which Jack noted with some pride ... but he had been quite popular with the Maltese for his diplomatic touch, his understanding of their distaste for being governed with a tight fist, and his respect for them, which was amply demonstrated by such matters as being fluent in their language.

Uncle Geoffrey, on the other hand, cared not a whit for learning the language of the people he governed. He referred to the Maltese in the most disgusting terms and was determined to govern with an iron fist and show them who their master was.

I imagine it was because he was my uncle that I did not expect much more than this type of attitude as all in my family were well acquainted with his manner. Therefore, it might have made me uneasy, but it did not disturb me as it did Jack.

He was telling me of the bribes and how they were immediately setting about to work upon his ships even though the second ship, the Worcester, was a worn-out 74-gun ship of the line that might have been better abandoned. But he had no choice in the matter, Jack explained. As he was in command of both ships, it was required of him to make them both worthy to rejoin the Navy so that he could be of service once again. Not that he looked forward with any great joy to joining the blockade of Toulon.

"The dockyards are overcrowded and slow to the point of maddening," he told me as I poured him tea and bade him to launch in on the biscuits I'd brought with me. "Each of my ships has its own set of slow, devious, stupid, corrupt, incompetent officials, tradesmen and artificers with whom I am sentenced to work."

He munched with vigor and I sought to soothe him. "Surely they understand their duty, Jack? The ships are needed in the war."

His eyes narrowed at me. "If not for that ill-tempered, incompetent Governor, then perhaps these criminals would not presume to take advantage as they do of the Royal Navy. Why I tell you, Lottie ..."

"I can assure you most emphatically, Jack Aubrey, that while my uncle might be incompetent and ill-tempered, he does possess some sterling qualities or he would not be in the position of rank that he is. Simply the fact that he is an Army officer is not cause for you to castigate him in such a manner," I said.

"Now, Charlotte, you know very well ... Hold, girl, hold. You would defend your uncle? Why, you are the person who has shared with me your own dislike of his treatment of the Maltese and ..."

"That is one thing, Jack. This is another. I will not stand here and allow you to damn him to my face. He is my uncle after all and I do owe him affection and loyalty. I grant myself permission to disagree with his professional decisions but that is a far cry from allowing you to call him into question as you are."

"Charlotte." His voice was stern but his eyes were troubled. I paused in the midst of my temper and took him in. Dressed in his uniform, the gold upon his shoulders lending him a majesty. His hair neat and tidy. I thought of how proper he looked but that with me, in the comfort of this oasis for us, he would soon be anything but tidy. "My dear, we must not let such a disagreement set us one against the other."

His hand reached for me and I went to him. "No, Jack, you are right. I do not wish bad feelings between us ever. Not ever."

"I am most heartily sorry for my harsh words on your uncle. You are to be commended for leaping to his defense. Loyalty to family and shipmates is of great importance. It shows great qualities in you, sweetheart."

It rankled the air between us. We tried desperately that day to make amends with each other. It seemed to me that it set us into a place where there was a bad tension between us that colored all we did. For the first time since I'd known Jack, I was actually relieved when we parted that evening.

Now, with that admission, one other: I found it quite difficult to let go of this new unease I felt over the one thing with which I had blithely thought all along that I would have given no quarter to. And I traced this unease to that single afternoon with those ladies, the fine society of Malta. If not for the fact that what I had with Jack must remain hidden to protect his reputation and his marriage, they would not have tittered in my presence over my lover's rumored dalliances with another woman. But as a consequence, I was treated over and over to every scurrilous bit of gossip. It did fair reach a point where I thought I would slap the next person who said anything to me about Lucky Jack and Laura Fielding.

I also began to suspect that for all the care that we took to avoid detection, there was something in the way Mrs. Pettijohn took such relish in reporting to my aunt and me about these trysts Jack was alleged to be having with Mrs. Fielding, that she knew something. At the very least, as I told Jack, it did appear that Mrs. Pettijohn had suspicions.

His only concern was my reputation while I would have died a thousand deaths to expose Jack in that manner. We agreed that we should avoid each other for some time and see if the evil Mrs. Pettijohn's suspicions could become a thing of the past.

Oh, these were terrible days! And worse nights!

I felt I might crawl out of my skin. To be so close to Jack, to know any day might be our last ... to hear updates from Sabine about the speed of repairs now being done to the Surprise ... it seemed a cruel, cruel world to me.

And every single time I heard of Mrs. Fielding hosting yet another musical evening ... my brown eyes lost their light. I must admit here and now to extreme jealousy that this woman was freely able to associate with Jack. And I wondered how he fared without a woman to hold him. I tried not to think of Jack finding other solace. I tried not to think of myself as only being local solace for a traveling Naval officer who found himself ashore and lonely for a woman's soft body.

Nearly two weeks later, my aunt made some humorous reference to lemonade and my uncle asked her what had brought that drink to mind. Why, it was Laura Fielding, of course ... hosting yet another of her musical parties and everyone in my aunt's circle of friends was so amused at her penchant for serving lemonade that had gained semi-legendary status among the men on the island. I know it was jealousy; Laura Fielding was a beautiful, cultured, demure woman. The rest of womankind on Malta found that a mortal offense.

Myself included, I am shamed to report.

That afternoon, I was walking along the Upper Baracca, filled with soldiers from several nations along with many civilians, pacing up and down among shops and cafes. Sabine and Maria induced me to stop in with them at Searle's. I was dressed as I normally was when with them ... in a walking dress so casual that it fit in with their standard day attire. My hair was down; a straw hat upon my head. When I was dressed so casually, my purpose was to avoid detection and to pass unnoticed upon the streets. It would never suit for any of the visiting officers to instantly realize I was the Governor's grand niece. Somehow, this small disguise of plain dressing, change of hairstyle and choice of companions always worked.

In the bowered courtyard of Searle's, I saw Jack at a table with six other Captains. They were drinking and talking so loudly ... their laughter and conversation dominated the area.

It was like a stab to my heart. Here I was pining away without Jack and he appeared none the worse for our time of enforced separation. I paused at the door as Sabine and Maria skittered over to greet the Captains they knew at Jack's table. His eyes widened to see them approach. My heart heaved in my chest to see his reaction and how he studied them with open desire.

And then his eyes suddenly caught mine. The look on his face! Shocked to see me and not a smile to be found anymore upon his rugged features. I turned on my heels and hurried out.

Before I had gone very far along the road, I felt a firm hand at my elbow and Jack's voice spoke clearly to me, though softly enough that others might not have heard the fervor of his tone. "Come now, sweetheart. Slow down and let me simply have this chance to exist near you once again. I have missed you so, Lottie."

"Have you, Captain? I would have thought a resourceful man such as yourself would have had no problem filling his bed."

"Charlotte!"

He pulled me to a stop and I saw a wildness in his eyes. "Sir, please do not cause a scene."

"I shall cause a scene ... I shall very well cause all the scene I wish if that is what it takes. How dare you suggest that I ... What have I done to cause this? Speak now, girl."

My hand trembled as I wiped a stray hair from my face. I looked off over the harbor. "Come, Jack, let us continue walking. Please. I will speak with you but ... Let us not ruin all our careful work to keep others from learning of our ...our ... whatever we may call it."

"Our love, Lottie?" He moved and I moved to catch up with him. We strode along together, avoiding each other's eyes, trying not to appear too familiar to those who would see us. "I love you, Charlotte. It is the most dastardly torture to not see you. Surely we can find a way ... surely there are no more rumors ... Lottie, it has been so long. A man can only hold back so long from the woman he loves ..."

"We mustn't, Jack. And there are still rumors. Though the only ones I hear of late concern your continued dalliances with Mrs. Fielding."

He gave this forced, hearty chuckle. "Stuff and nonsense."

"Except you feed the fire, Jack." Our eyes darted a look at each other. "Why must you still go to her musical evenings?"

His voice was hard and out of sorts. "Do not be this way, my dear. You know very well that Stephen wishes me to attend with him. He would not be invited else wise and it gives him such joy. Besides, I am at sixes and sevens. I must fill my time with some amusement. My days are filled with preparing my ships for duty. Only an unloving person would begrudge me such innocent evenings as these to fill my lonely hours!"

"Jack Aubrey!" I hissed under my breath. "Are you accusing me of not being loving toward you? If that is how you truly feel, then perhaps this should be our parting, sir."

"Do not say such things, Charlotte. Not when you know you very well do not mean them."

I stopped and he took two more steps before he realized I was not abreast of him. He turned to look at me. "This is far too cruel, Jack. Far too cruel. You know very well that I love you."

His eyes were swimming in confusion. He stuttered about and tried to say something. Then he cleared his throat, looked around where we were and I realized I had exposed us in just that moment. Without hesitation, I rushed from the Upper Baracca and hurried back to the Palace grounds.

I fully expected to never see Jack again. Not only had I demonstrated in a very public setting that there was a local woman in Jack's life, but I had insulted Jack with my petty jealousy and ill temper.

The remainder of the day passed in solitude as I pondered how ignominious our parting had been. It was by far too harsh an outcome.

That night, I tried not to think of where he was. I worried that I did not understand myself ... how had this happened? My pacing gave way to painting. I was deep within the process of layering intricate details of color upon the canvas when I became aware of another presence in the room with me. I spun around to find Jack there.

His eyes gleamed in soft light. There was a bulge in his breeches.

"I have been watching you, Lottie."

"What are you doing here, Jack? I wasn't expecting you and ..."

He walked right up to me. His hand closed over the handle of the brush I was gripping. "You paint with pure lust, girl. Are you never ashamed to see it when you look later at what you have painted?"

My breath caught. He was aroused in a manner that seemed almost overwrought and certainly dangerous.

"It is lust for you, Jack."

"Is that why you paint in the nude tonight? Were you hoping I would come here?"

I looked down upon my form ... splattered with bits of paint sent flying in my madness of that night. And then my eyes rose to his with boldness and clarity. If he wished to look within me, then within me he would see. "I was driven to near madness at the notion I may never see you again. A fever ... Jack ... a fever with you as its cause."

"Touch yourself for me, Lottie," he whispered  hoarsely as his finger trailed along the rise of my bosom. "And then touch me."

A touch of madness in the air that night.

I took his hand in mine and touched myself using his fingers. And then I went on my knees before him ... sliding down his body ... releasing his hardness from its cloth prison. He tasted of fire. His arousal inflamed me.

It was a madness that swept us both up within its hold.

Long nights of denying ourselves the touch of the other ... mad emotions wrought by outside forces and our own cravings ... and something else as well.

After he had come into me not once but twice ... he was hardening yet again ... each time within short minutes of each release ... his mouth was tough at my breasts and I wondered when I would learn to walk again ...

"Jack! What has gotten into you tonight? Oh! ... My God ... Jack ..."

"Tell me what you lust for tonight, Lottie. It shall be my pleasure to give it to you."

I told him. He convinced me to reveal my basest desire. I was shaken by the intensity of this experience between us. I believed it shook Jack as well ... he left me before the morning's light. I never stirred when he left. It was only at breakfast with my aunt and uncle that I learned the awful news.

Admiral Sir Francis Ives, His Majesty's Navy Commander In Chief in the Mediterranean, had arrived in Valletta early that morning. Jack was being given temporary command of the Dromedary and had been given orders for a mission to the Suez of such importance and such urgency that he was to sail without delay.

All day, I waited in our rooms at Carlotta's Hotel in the vain hope that Jack would come ashore for long enough to bid me a farewell. When we received reports that the Dromedary had sailed late that afternoon, I was in agony.

In my mind as I trudged a weary path back to the Palace was only one thought: the night before might have been the last I would see of Jack. Not only was he being sent on a dangerous mission, but there was every possibility that the vagaries of duty might forever change the course of his future. It could be that from the Suez, he could be sent elsewhere or given permanent command of a different ship that would never be destined to visit these once-happy shores again.

But then in the early evening, Sabine paid an unexpected visit. She had with her a note that Jack had sent her for delivery to me. In it, he left me with sweet words of sorrow that his mission had required him to leave without going ashore again once the orders had come down from the Admiral ... and even sweeter promises to return to my arms as quickly as his present mission was complete. He never spoke of what the mission was or where he was ... it would have been a violation a man such as Jack would never have countenanced. And, indeed, the only matter of real importance to Jack in that note to me was that he would expect me to be ready for the resumption of our affaire du coeur when he returned. I was not to worry about being discovered, he counseled, and we would take greater pains to hide our love if it was what it took to return me to him in a loving relationship.

Indeed, before long, it seemed common knowledge throughout the island that the Dromedary's mission to the Suez would end in a few weeks and that she would return to Valletta then. I tried hard not to fret. Two weeks after he left, I received a long, devoted letter from Jack describing the ship's activity and his own daily habits ... and toward the end, he also described the shape of rounded clouds that reminded him of me. It was sweet, it was romantic, it was firm; it was like Jack was sitting in the room speaking to me.

It was only later, after Jack returned, that I learned that a most curious appetizer served by the unusual Mrs. Fielding in that last night I had seen him had combined with Jack's unusually high emotional state and normally prodigious appetite for the flesh. Jack told me many weeks later that Stephen had determined that a certain red paste she served on crackers had done more than wet the taste buds of her male guests ... it indeed contained the infamous Spanish fly, which Stephen noted to Jack arouses sexual desire.

When Jack told me, at first he was bashful and almost ashamed to admit the source of his incredible bout of tempestuous performances in that night. But when I teased him soundly, he finally admitted how difficult it had been for him to listen to Stephen's concern about the effect of such a stimulant on Jack's constitution. He had assured Stephen ... with a straight face, he claimed ... that he had had no earthly idea anything had been amiss and had felt no unusual effects of the appetizer. He even held his tongue, he said, when Stephen went on to muse about the sexual appetites of "elegant females."

He was gone for just over a month. I knew the winds were bringing him into the harbor several hours before the Dromedary docked at the quay. Nothing stays quiet in Malta long. It is a bed of thieves, as Jack has noted, but it is also a garden of gossips. If there were ever a spy network, it would find much to suit its needs in the intricate webs of informal news distribution upon this island.

It seemed somehow bad fortune that Jack arrived the morning he did. That evening, an elegant dinner was being given by the Admiral. I had not been looking forward to this occasion. It was not that I did not understand the duty I had to accompany my aunt and uncle to such events, but I was attending the dinner as the guest of a certain Army officer. During Jack's time away, my aunt had somehow the ill-formed idea that she needed to return to pushing me in the direction of suitable marriage material. And this was the sad result.

I tried to object. In the beginning, it was simple to feign not only disinterest but a certain indelicacy in her pushing me in this manner. But then Mrs. Pettijohn began dropping subtle hints in my aunt's ear. Aunt Millicent began to question my time away from the Palace with Sabine, Maria and Franny. She came near to accusing me of using them as a cover for trysts. I did my best to pretend total shock she would harbor such thoughts. And then one day, she came to the cottage and began nosing around my paintings as she told me the latest conversation with Mrs. Pettijohn.

It occurred to that august lady, Aunt Millicent reported, that perhaps my reticence had a name. "A certain Naval officer," she mused softly. I steered her from the paintings and led her into the sitting room. She looked at me sharply. "Have you taken a lover, my dear Charlotte?"

I felt a blush creep up me but I held her eyes with mine. "I am quite certain you have been misinformed."

"Hmm. Indeed." She looked pointedly at the paintings. "If you are harboring any feelings that an affair of this sort will lead to ..."

"Auntie, I beg you. Let us not have this discussion."

"Then let us discuss a different matter." When her eyes met mine, I realized she had me trapped. If I was to gain her cooperation in not officially determining if I was involved with a man I did not wish her to know about, then I would need to toss something into the bargain.

My part of the bargain ended up being the introduction of a Colonel William Drennan, newly arrived commander of a battalion under Uncle Geoffrey's command. During the time in which Jack was gone, I had already been induced to attend an opera with him and to take him on a nearly day-long tour of the coastline to the east of Valletta. He was also to be my escort to the Admiral's dinner that fell on the night of Jack's arrival back to Malta.

There was no way out of it for me. I did not relish the prospect of seeing Jack when I was upon the arm of another man. I worried that he would misinterpret, that he would believe the harsh emotions before he left had returned and that I was no longer the woman who loved him.

We sat nearly across the table from each other. Col. Drennan was on my left and Jack's friend, Captain Heneage Dundas was on my right. Jack sat rigid across from Captain Dundas and avoided my eyes as much as he could. But whenever they would meet mine, they were wounded.

When dinner was over, I retired with the other ladies. By the time music began, I was wondering how I would ever get a private word with Jack. Col. Drennan insisted on every dance. Jack stood with other Naval officers off to one side.

When it was close to the last dance, I feigned fatigue and begged Col. Drennan to please ask my aunt to dance as she had had no fun all evening. He was a gracious and courtly man, certainly a very fine person. He was eager to indulge my wish. As soon as he left, I caught Jack's eye and made certain he noted me leaving out into the dark courtyard. With one final, meaningful look at Jack, I slipped out.

Long minutes went by before I heard him call my name softly. He waited for me among the soft, lush ferns lining the outer edges of the jutting wing of the Admiral's house.

"Oh, Jack! How I have missed you."

"You could hardly miss me when you have so quickly replaced me. But I give you joy, Mrs. Blanford. It would not be fair for me to begrudge one so young and beautiful the happiness of her own love. Indeed."

His voice was soft and melancholy. I'd never really seen Jack so sad and downtrodden. I could not stand it. I let all decorum fly and I rushed into his arms, throwing myself into his body, clenching around his neck and finding his lips with mine.

At first, he held himself stiff and unyielding. But then, it was as if he unleashed his fire. His arms held me firm to his body and he mauled my lips. He kissed along my jaw into my neck. His hands turned me slightly so that he might latch on and knead my breasts. And all the while ... this low, sad animal keening growled from his throat. It made me ache for him in a new way. I could tell ... he was sad and unable to deal with this profound way he felt.

"Lottie ... my love ... I need to be with you in this night ... I need the comfort ... come to me, Lottie. I beg you."

Over and over, he whispered entreaties to my soul.

Two hours later, I passed unnoticed into the back entrance to his hotel. Searle's was relatively quiet ... most officers of note remained at the Admiral's dinner. Jack had pleaded ship business; I had developed the most inopportune womanly malady. We had taken separate routes to our rendezvous.

Only one set of eyes witnessed our clandestine meeting, save Jack and mine. I raced up the two flights and rushed down a short hallway to stand before Jack's room. He must have been listening for me. Before I could even rap, he flung the door open and we paused on the threshold. And then I saw Jack look beyond me.

I turned to see a wizened, ugly sailor. His expression was of a maiden aunt catching her protégé up in an act she knows is wrong but which she will not imperil. I looked back at Jack and his face was an iron mask as he pulled me inside his room. It had been his steward, that rascally Killick of whom I'd heard tales from Francesca. All Jack ever said to me was that we would not be disturbed.

We made love with a softness I did not expect. I had thought after all this time that Jack would, as he might put it, go straight at me. But such was not the case. He undressed me with an almost reverence to discover my skin. And when he came into me, he took such time and he whispered such words of devotion ... I felt transported far and away from where we were.

Somewhere dark in the night, he shifted and held me close; my back to his front; his arms locked in strength around my softened body. "I made a cock of it, Lottie."

This was how he shared with me that his mission to the Suez had not been a success. I listened as he talked around the subject ... he was, as usual, the soul of discretion on such official matters. But it was a bitter, bitter disappointment for him. I held my tongue as he talked; I knew from my own experience with military men that trying to get them to see that odds such as Jack was up against were sure to have doomed anyone in the same circumstances ... but such words of comfort were seldom welcome, as they did not do more than cause the man to rebel at the notion that he was, after all, only a man.

Instead, I turned in his arms and gathered him to me. Whispered of my devotion. Told bald tales of how glad I was to hold him again and how he made me glad to be a woman with nothing more than a glance.

There was long silence between us. I knew he was still awake. He shifted around in the bed for so long until he finally stilled. I slid into his hold. I waited. Finally ...

"I have had the most grievous news upon my return. The Surprise is to be laid up or sold out of service," he told me.

"Oh, Jack!" I sat up from him and my breath caught hard. How many times had Jack spoken long and fondly of his ship? This sweet-sailing frigate that had been his home for years of his youth and had come back to him to command for happy years as an adult. This happy ship he had filled with a crew he trusted, loved and admired. This fine vessel that he had lavished great amounts of his personal funds upon just to restore her after the last mauling had laid her up in Malta's dockyards. I now understood the reason for his deep melancholy. "But why?"

"The Admiralty has so ordered," he said morosely. "I tell you, Lottie, I am brought to the lee by this news. I wish I had the money to buy her out of hand. This war will not last much longer. It is an ignoble end to a fine, noble frigate. She has never failed me in any emergency and I will never know another ship more sea-friendly. The idea of her spending her final years rotting away in some foul creek or being cut down into some creeping merchantman ... but it is more than that, Lottie. It is also that I am unlikely to ever command such a crew of hand-picked seamen again. I know them all and I like each one as a man. This news has wounded me greatly. And there is no one other than you, my dear, in whom I have confided. I cannot allow the crew to know nor even Stephen, do ya see?"

In my head, I thought of my own inheritance. I wondered ... did I have the resources to buy Jack's beloved ship and give her to him? Oh, such foolish thoughts a woman may have to find some way to bring joy back into the life of her lover! In that night, I would have given every farthing to my name to ransom a bit of future happiness for this man. But I knew that if I asked Jack, if I began the conversation, he would hear none of it. He would never allow it. I wondered ... as Jack told me another tale of his youth aboard the Surprise ... could Uncle Geoffrey make inquiries for me? Oh, but to even ask would be to admit the complication of my affair with the Surprise's Captain.

Chapter 7

Despite my best efforts, the melancholy Jack slipped into continued. Facing the imminent demise of his beloved Surprise, I believe Jack found the time he shared with me to be a solace and a comfort of which he was sore in need. In the short few weeks we had together before he had to leave Malta on another mission, we lived a lifetime of love that forever after changed me.

In that time, we saw each other daily. Even if it was a tryst so short as to be not much more than whispered endearments or a bit of rough, quick love ... we packed as much as we could into days I believe we both knew were counted in meager quantities for us.

The most difficult complication was Col. Drennan. He continued to be admirably ardent in his pursuit; he was also most unfortunately rather dense about my subterfuge to shield him from feelings of rejection.

But in the heady days of spending time with Jack, the poor Colonel was quite an afterthought for me. I wish that I had heeded this fine man's feelings more than I did. It is unlike me to be so cavalier with another human. What a horrid thing it can be to be so blind to anything but one's own selfish desires.

I regret not one moment I spent with Jack. Each was a precious gem I collected within my memory. Each was worth more than all the riches of the world to me.

During this time, I came near to living at the rooms I'd taken in Sabine's hotel. There were many nights when we met in Jack's rooms at Searle's Hotel, but that was always more of a risk. There was a sense in Jack that he was determined to live within the moment; that he was almost rabid to "live hearty while I can," as Jack told me.

Jack had devoted his personal fortune he'd realized from his most recent prizes to restoring the Surprise to her former glory. The bribes to those running the dockyard and the local craftsmen to prepare his ship saw the work proceed apace. However, Jack was never expecting more than that they would stick strictly to the letter of their agreements. Indeed, as he told me, it might have been torture to watch it unfold, but the dockyards did a fine job with the inwards of the Surprise. However, it took far more than this to satisfy Jack Aubrey's expectations for his ship.

"Do y'see, Lottie?" he said, his fingers flying as he drew diagrams for me of what newest endeavor he had his own crew working upon. "It is more than simply the structural repairs. Indeed, the shipwrights have left her in a very horrid state. It will never do to have her leave in disgrace, will it?"

"Is this only the ... what is it you called it, Jack?"

"Fine work. True enough, Lottie. It may be gilding the sow's ear, but I care not for her trim nor the rake of her masts. The sad look of her rigging ... I have put my able crew to work and Mowett knows very well what she needs."

"This is so important to you, is it not, my love? It inspires me to see the care and diligence you take even on a ship you know that you must give up soon." I looked off away from him and thought how like this he was. And I could not help but liken it to how he took care to devote himself to me even knowing that our days were sore numbered.

His hand stroked along my thigh as he pulled me over to straddle his bare lap. Just before I settled into place, he pushed his chair back from the table. His eyes studied me as he laid my robe open before him. "If my ship is to die to the Navy, then she should do so in style ... in great style. She deserves nothing less for all she has meant to me. Besides, there is always the real possibility that I shall have the opportunity to take her into action once more before the end."

I let my head fall back as he leaned me over so that his mouth could kiss into my breasts. My fingers played with his loose hair. "I am sure she appreciates these tender mercies," I whispered to him.

"I shall never forget her," he muttered. "I shall never forget you, my lady."

"Tell me of your love for me, Jack. I wish to be gilded with your words."

"Did I tell you, Lottie dear, that I have commissioned the finest painter in Valletta to attend to the Surprise's figurehead?"

"Have you?" I murmured ... my mind only half on his words as his hands and mouth were quickly overwhelming my body's resistance.

"I described the woman I wanted her to resemble," he said softly, his hand behind my head drawing me up to where he could watch my eyes. "She will have red-brown hair  that shall flow wild and free as if her lover had just laid her down upon a pillow in their bed. Her honey brown eyes will be wide and intelligent ... and they will glisten with the light she gets in her eyes just after she comes in her lover's arms. Her red lips will be sweetly swollen from ardent kisses that her lover has given her."

"Oh, my love," I sighed as I understood what he meant ... that this romantic gesture he made was to have his ship's figurehead done in his lover's likeness. It made me near weep at its tenderness of emotion that lay behind Jack's action to have my form with him as he sailed.

His fingers drew lazy circles around each of my nipples as his eyes lingered upon mine, giving me more in that one look than all words could ever convey. "And she shall be a lady through and through ... but she shall be unabashed in her appreciation of her lover's touch. And her splendid bosom will be the maker of dreams for wayward, lonely sailors such as I."

"Such declaration of love ... it is far more than I deserve," I told him with as much of a smile as a woman could ever muster when a man such as Jack Aubrey was already setting about the boarding of her body.

"I had hoped you would treasure such a statement, Lottie. Life has given me few other manners in which to convey what you mean to me. Just think on this ... you are the woman I choose to take with me as I sail. I will feel your spirit and your love with me as I make this final journey with the Surprise ... it shall be you who guides me to do my duty fine and well by her."

We moved against each other slowly, carefully, deliberately. Inside me, he filled every craving softness with his hardness. Around him, I kept him safe, warm and tightly held in a loving embrace. I braced my hands on the back of his chair; he gripped in at my hips. I kissed him deep and hard and thoroughly. And as I came, my mouth flittered away from his and it seemed a moment of rapture. He gripped harder into my flesh, muttering to me of his needs ... his soft, easy rhythm became lost in the quest for his own completion. He thrust harder and harder until the chair creaked and moaned with each cycle. As he came into me, so desperate a sound from him ... I wrapped my arms around his neck and comforted him as he gave into his coming.

In the days that followed, the work on the Surprise sped toward its inevitable conclusion. Her midshipmen toiled to exhaustion but they learned invaluable lessons about the construction and set of a man-of-war, Jack reported with satisfaction. Each day brought reports from him about the latest work accomplished by his crew: the gold-leaf of the gingerbread on her stern, the shifting of her massive cables end for end, the restowing of the hold, decks scraped, painting inside and out completed, the guns cosseted, her favorite trim accomplished.

Even with Jack spending his hours split between his ship's business and my arms, the rumors of his scandalous affair with Mrs. Fielding continued.

"It is a deuced thing," he pouted to me one night as he paced in our room. "Laura and Stephen are lovers yet so discreet that no one knows it. And that vile dog Ponto, who only this evening galloped over to greet me in a vast and noisy demonstration of love in the Strada Reale ... And to see them, Laura and Stephen, at her parties, well, no one would ever suppose that he spends the rest of the night there, would they?"

"They appear not to, my love. But come here ... let us forget them ... let us forget the rumors. Do you not see that these rumors are a blessing for us?"

He stopped pacing and regarded me even as I tugged on his hand to bring him down with me upon the bed. "A blessing, my little dear?"

"Why, yes, Jack. It diverts attention from the real affair you are having. And even Mrs. Pettijohn seems to have lost interest in trying to guess if you are the lover to me that she suspects you are."

"That may very well be good, Lottie, but my reputation ..."

"As a lover, Jack? You think your reputed prowess with ladies ashore has suffered? Are you very much held to ridicule by your crew? I think you rather like being considered a man who may command a woman's adoration wherever you may come ashore."

His eyes glared at me until he realized I was trying to tease him. But then they glistened and glazed over as I went to my knees before him so that I could love him. "This woman ashore adores you ... she adores your body and your spirit," I told him just before I took him into my mouth.

To witness him give himself over so completely to me ... it made me feel powerful. It made me feel feminine. I never held back from Jack; not anymore.

The dreaded day came when Jack needed to again set sail on another urgent mission. At least this time we had warning enough that we could say our good-byes. We tried to say the things that were important. I tried not to cry.

But it was impossible to face without tears and deep emotion.

He was leaving to escort a convoy of merchants into the Adriatic Sea. Before he left, I knew where he was heading only because he spoke of a prior mission to the area ... I guess, it turned out I was right, that this other mission was on his mind in anticipation of this new mission.

There is a part of every woman who loves a man of the sea who must come to grips with the mistress that the ocean can be to her man. She is a siren who calls to him no matter how happy he may be ashore. She will not be denied. And within Jack, there were so many other reasons why his spirits would be quickened the closer to sailing he came. It was his duty but it was also his pleasure. It was something he was not just good at, but he might have been born and bred to. It appealed to his mind and intellect, but it also appealed to his valor and need for the companionship of a crew he knew and loved. It made the time he was ashore all the sweeter.

Our last night together ... we both knew it could be the last forever. He had spent the long, hard day overseeing the final preparations. They sailed on the first tide. He came to me as if he could never live another moment if we did not share this time.

"Charlotte ... I love you, Lottie," he whispered as he was buried deep within me. I could not answer. I could only cry. Later, he searched for the words to give me as he rocked gently against my body and I languished in the aftershocks that rolled through my body. "That I would find you now ... and here ... but perhaps it is only now that I could be with you as you find me. You free me, Lottie. You set me to right."

"You have given me a gift of life that no other man could ever have offered, my love," I whispered in reply. "I will love you for all time."

Pretty words. Words that lovers give each other as gifts. Words that can sustain a soul forever and a day.

Chapter 8

"You paint with pure lust."

Those words of Jack stayed with me the entire time he was gone. It was as if he simply understood me before I understood myself.

It was lust.

But it was more than that.

It was a soul that had discovered a willingness to soar wild and free.

In the six months since I had met Captain Jack Aubrey, I had undergone an inner transformation. Where I had been deep in mourning, so deep that it was hidden and buried within every cell of my body, I had become more the woman I believe I was meant to be.

I looked upon the world around me with clear eyes and clean spirit. I rediscovered the joy of living even if I now had a heart that had learned both sharp edges of love's sword. In my husband, I had been blessed with a man who cared for me in tender ways that saw me spring forth with the first buds of sexuality. In Jack, I was granted a man who loved me with an ardor and frankness that ignited the sensual maturity that had been waiting beneath winter's snows.

He was gone a few days shy of a month. In that time, I painted and drew scenes that came from deep within and reflected the new way in which I looked out into the scenery around me. Sabine, Franny and Maria were captured in the kind of glory only another woman would seek to see ... for if one did not care to look inside a woman, one would miss the beauty of her pleasure.

When he returned, I was standing at the quay ... watching. Sabine stood with me, her hand in mine. There was an intensity within me that would not be denied. When we saw his familiar stride upon Thompson's Jetty, where the Surprise was tied up, we simply watched in dedicated silence. We walked along the Upper Baracca, filling our time of waiting.

Finally, we saw Jack's mean-faced steward, Killick, entering Searle's. Without any words between us, Sabine left to give Killick a note for Jack. It read only, "I wait for you, my love. Come to me when you can."

Hours later, after leaving his briefing from the Admiral, Jack was in my arms. We loved with desperation.

We both knew by then what I had first heard three days earlier ... the Port-Captain's daughter had told the women at Aunt Millicent's recent gathering that the Surprise would be leaving as soon as she arrived. She was being dispatched on an urgent mission to Gibraltar. They would stay only long enough to refit and restock.

"Tomorrow morning on the first tide," was all he said to me.

I could not speak. I simply nodded and drank down my tears.

Desperate to somehow show each other in this one night that the love we had shared would be a love that would never be denied ... it would remain even in the face of his devoted marriage and my impending return to London. We might see each other again in London, but it would not be like this. It would not be simple.

But it was a hope to hold on to in these hours.

And we needed that hope, as slim as it might be.

From the time he entered the room until the moment he entered me, all he had said to me was that one simple statement that they would be sailing in the morning. I had been nude when he entered the room. Together we had stripped him as soon as the door closed behind him. Our hands and mouths were eager for the other; we indulged our cravings. And then he had pushed me against the door, his hands traveling over my body, refusing to let me drop to my knees for longer than the briefest moment ... it seemed that as soon as his prick sprang into my hands and then my mouth, that he was groaning to me and pulling me to my feet. He shoved me up, lifting me against the door's timeworn wood ... entering me with a sigh of such fulfilled longing ... And then pausing forever ... hanging on the edge of time ... before uttering his first words and making me see within them the depth of his despair and the height of his love.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and held onto him, my arms around his neck. My lips were on his neck ... kissing and licking in these disturbed moments of abject craving for a coming to release me into his care.

He pumped and pumped ... a rhythm ingrained in him ... a stamina built up over time without me.

Indeed, we made love. Not once in that night, but never enough to last for a life apart. But what was more important in that night was the words we gave each other. We looked frankly at parting. We did not shirk from its sharp tang of bitter reality. Instead, he extracted a promise from me. And I pleadedged to us both that it was a promise I would find the way to fulfill.

We said our goodbye within deeply felt words of fond wishes for a future that would never deny us the chance for some small bits of happy times.

I worried over Jack. He was sad to his bones. How could he not be? He was setting sail aboard his beloved Surprise only to take her to an ignoble death ... and he was leaving me, the woman he had grown to love under Malta's hazy sun and dreamy moon. And he worried that without a ship, he would be set ashore to be a Captain without further hope of advancement.

"Stay, my love. Let us say our farewells here," Jack said in this hoarse voice. He was looking out the window at a night that had turned as morose as we were.

I put my arms around his waist and rested my chin upon his arm as I looked out into the night's storm. Rain sheeted down in drifts of bleak misery.

My heart was unable to contain the width of my longing that Jack would know the depth of my devotion to him. Words would not convey it.

"I am coming with you tonight, Jack. In this moment of our parting, can we deny each other the solace of a lover's farewell upon the dock? Be damned with what wagging tongues may do with the news. I am proud to have been loved by a man such as you."

His hand gripped mine as they hugged him in against me. "You speak as if our love is past only because I leave, Lottie. But this love we feel, it shall last as long as the waves break upon distant shores. And it shall never die, sweetheart."

I buried my face in his back and did not even so much as try to stop the tears. He rocked his body side to side and somehow, this tender movement comforted me. Finally, I pulled from his hold and wrapped my cloak tight securely around me. He made not one single more protest ... they were false protests, in any event. He wanted me with him every bit as much as I needed to be with him on this final walk.

He swept the outer door of the hotel open and stepped into the street, glancing up and back before putting his hand out to usher me into the storm. With his arm secure around my body and his warmth giving me shelter, we made our slow way through streets running with water.

We reached the beginning of Thompson's Jetty and Jack pulled us both to a halt. I watched his face between sharp reports of lightning. A grim, determined look had replaced the sweet and sensual set to Jack's countenance that I most reminisced about when he was gone from me. His eyes were searching into the darkness and I turned to see where he looked.

His ship. The Surprise. Its masts proudly jutting up past the lights that glittered and swayed upon her decks. Men rushing hither and yon as they brought supplies aboard.

"She is so beautiful, Jack. You have done her proud," I told him.

"Tis a bitter thing. There is no one to whom I can speak of it, save you, Lottie. Not even Stephen can I tell that this is the last voyage of this fine craft." He stopped and closed his eyes for long moments. When he opened them, he turned to look out toward the harbor's entrance. "And it may very well be Lucky Jack's last voyage as well. Peace may be at hand and though it makes me a prickly bear, I am caught by the lee at such a prospect. I may very well be beached once I complete this mission."

I sniffed and he turned to look at me.

"You have given me your solemn promise, Lottie. Say now if you wish to take it back."

"Never, Jack. I will never take it back."

"Then you will come to London? And it will be soon? You will write to me at the Grapes and tell me how I may contact you? I cannot bear this parting without knowing that though all else may be taken from me, that I have the great happiness of knowing someday we will be reunited."

"I will be there, Jack. Just as soon as I can safely arrange it, then I shall sail for London. I will never let you down."

His arms suddenly gripped me to his chest and his mouth was at my temple, lingering there in this loving caress of his lips. "Then I shall face this bitter future, sweetheart, knowing soon you will be there to lighten it."

One last kiss. It lasted too long and was too brief. It was filled with everything we felt and nothing was held back.

But as soon as the kiss ended, he left my arms without a look back. I stood watching him as he strode away from me, making his resolute way down the quay until he drew near the men still working on the plankings. Even across the growl of the storm, I could hear word go out ... their Captain approached. A shrill sound of the pipe greeted the Captain as he stepped aboard.

I stood there for so long. I know not for what I waited. I only know this ... it was a night that had to be as it was.

And with the morning's light, he was gone.

And in that morning's light, I knew a profound peace deep within my soul.

Somewhere out there, upon oceans heavy with swells and under skies as wide as his heart, he sails with the wind.

This lover of mine.

His eyes even now look toward a homecoming with all he holds dearest. 

Somewhere in his future beyond that point, he knows he will find me again.

I would wait forever for him to sail back to me. Life hangs by the simplest of such notions.

Under a tree that once sheltered this lover as he posed unabashed and glorious for me, I loosen my hair as he would have done. My eyes look down through wind-blown strands that whirl around in the uneven gusts from the sea. My sketch book is open and upon its facing page, I study his form as I would have done were he here with me. It brings both the stab of loss and the serenity of remembrance. I stretch out upon a blanket and look up into branches clustered with thick, rounded leaves.  In one hand, I hold the first of his letters.

My other hand rests atop my Lover's Eye.

Within my hands, I hold him to me.