The man looks back over his shoulder and says something, and presently the Captain himself looks over the side.
He looks down and smiles a raffish smile. "Well, I had thought we'd left the fleshy pleasures behind in Kingston, but perhaps I was wrong. I am Captain Henry Blackstone of HMS Mercury, and who, may I ask, are you?" He casts an eye over Clementine, who, because of the heat, is dressed in the light dress we first found her in, and then Chloe, who has on the shift we first found her in for reasons of both heat and disguise, and myself, wearing my loose cotton top, buckskin skirt, and scant else.
Thank God, a rascal and not a prude!
"I am but a poor girl who just wants to speak a few words to her own true love, Mr. James Fletcher, who is aboard your ship as a Royal Naval Officer."
"Well then, we certainly cannot stand in the way of young love, can we, Mr. Bennett? Where is Mr. Fletcher, our new Second Mate?"
"He just went below, to the gun room, Sir."
"Well, go get the young hound up here, then, if you would, Mr. Bennett," says Captain Blackstone, still appreciating what lies below him in the way of female form.
"I'm grateful, Sir," says I, and my eye spies a loose line hanging over the side—probably a line that held a supply boat to the side, but no matter what it was, it's a way up for me. I leap for it, and when I have my hands and legs wrapped around it, I say, "Jim! Take her off about twenty-five yards!" And he does it, the Nancy B. swinging swiftly away and maintaining her station.
I clamber up the line, get my hands on the rail, and pull myself over quickly, if not elegantly, onto the deck of the Mercury, just as James Emerson Fletcher appears before me.
"Jacky! What...?"
Oh, Jaimy, it is so good to see you!
"Jaimy," I gasp, pulling Richard Allen's letter out of my waistband and thrusting it at him. "Please read this. What you saw back on the Mississippi with me and him was not a true thing ... I have been good, mostly, and I am still your girl if you still want me."
He takes the letter and flings it to the side.
"I don't care what the letter says...," he says.
And my heart dies within my chest ... Oh, no!
"I still want you no matter what it says or what you've done, and that's the truth, Jacky."
"Oh, Jaimy!" I cry and rush at him and wrap my arms about him and press my tearful face against his chest. "How I have longed for you, and worried about you, and prayed for you, and—"
"Now, hush, hush, it's all right," he says, running his hand over the stubble of my hair. "I'm not even going to ask how this happened, not just yet, oh, no ... I love you, Jacky, no matter what."
"I love you, too, Jaimy, and I try to be good, but things always seem to work out different somehow, I just ... Oh, just kiss me, Jaimy, if you really love me!"
And he does, oh, yes, he does. I place my mouth on his, and all the troubles of the past few years just melt away. Ooooohhhhh...
I hear cheers behind me as we come apart, and I say, "So much to say, Jaimy, and so little time..."
"I know, I know..."
"Where are you bound, Jaimy?" I ask, my arms still tight about him.
"To China, to escort a fleet of merchantmen plying the silk-and-spice trade."
"You must go?"
"Aye. I am back in the Service again. I have given my word."
Ah well, I know what that means.
"When will you be back?"
"We should be back in London in a year, maybe less, depending on the winds."
"I'll be there, Jaimy, waiting for you."
"Will you not fear capture in England?"
"Nay, I know my way around the streets of Cheapside better than anyone. I could hide out there forever. Huh, look at the trouble I've had there in the wilderness of America, for God's sake—if I couldn't hide there, I can't hide anywhere. No, I'll meet you in London, Jaimy, count on it."
"I look forward to that, Jacky, with all my heart," he says, clutching me close to him again. "I'll be back within the year and we'll be married and have you settled, and all will be well," says Jaimy. He takes a deep breath. "If you could just go back to the Lawson Peabody and ... just ... be good for a while ... till we can meet again."
Be good?
Oh, no, sorry, but I can't let that go. I step back and give him a poke in the ribs and say, "Look over there." And I hook my thumb over to the Nancy B., which races alongside.
Jaimy looks over the side and sees Clementine standing by the after mast, her flaxen hair blowing in the wind.
"Oh. My. God," says Lieutenant James Emerson Fletcher, astounded.
"Missus Clementine Fletcher, as you will recall," says I.
Jaimy stiffens, comes to full Attention, and nods. "I will not deny her," he says.
I put my hand on his arm. "As well you shouldn't. She is a fine girl and I love her as a sister. I hope you will be glad to know that she is now married to Jim Tanner and is looking forward to a better life in Boston."
Putting my hands on his shoulders, I look into his eyes. "I want you to know that I have been as good as I could be, considering my nature, and I know that you have been the same," I say. "I will meet you in London. Now give me a last kiss, Jaimy, a kiss to last a year."
We come together again, and as we part, I hear, from high up in the rigging, "Hey! It's Puss! Puss-in-Boots, herself!"
Uh-oh...
Though Captain Blackstone has so far been most accommodating of young love, I know the prospect of a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound reward for my capture would sway almost any man, so...
"Good-bye, Jaimy," I say, planting one more kiss on his face, and then I hop up on the rail. "Gotta run."
I dive over the side and into the warm water of the Caribbean. I hit clean and open my eyes in the clear, azure underwater blue. I see the sleek hull of the Nancy B. up ahead and I kick my way toward her.
My long American journey is over.
Epilogue
"Three fathoms," says Solomon Freeman from the bow. He coils up the line and throws the lead again. "Mark twain," he says, measuring out the two-fathom distance on the line.
"Drop anchor," I say, and Jim Tanner lets it go. We back the sails and wait. The anchor holds and the Nancy B. Alsop is back in Massachusetts, the place where her keel was laid, the place of her birth. The anchor flag of Faber Shipping, Worldwide flies proudly from her masthead.
We are moored at the mouth of the Neponset River, off the town of Quincy, wherein lies Dovecote, the estate of the Family Trevelyne.
I felt it best to land here, where I would feel safe from capture. Jim Tanner will get the Morning Star in the water and so convey himself, his wife, and Chloe to Boston, and he will also see Ezra Pickering so as to find lodging for all and to dispose of our cargo.
I climb down into the Evening Star—yes, we were able to bring her aboard the Nancy B. as lifeboat—and then I am rowed to the shore. I then begin the walk up to the great house at Dovecote. I get halfway there, when I see a very familiar figure, her black dress swirling about, her arms outstretched, come running down to me.