When he finally spoke, his voice was guttural with emotion. “Laura, I’m scared.”
A thorn seemed to pierce her heart. “Don’t be,” she reassured, though she was, too.
There were things he could not say, would not say, understood things that neither had ever admitted but that were suddenly implicit between them.
During their childhood and adolescence it had always been the three of them, forever comrades. But it had never been any secret that Laura had eyes only for Rye. When news of his death reached Nantucket, Dan had suffered with her, the two of them walking the windswept beaches, knowing that particular torment reserved for those who mourn without the benefit of a corpse. Helplessly, they’d wandered, needing the proof of death’s finality. But that final proof was denied them by the greedy ocean, which cared little for man’s need to lay a spirit to rest.
During those restless, roaming days, Dan’s despair was shorter-lived than Laura’s, for with Rye gone, he was free to court her as he’d always dreamed of doing. But he lived those days under a mantle of guilt, grateful that Rye’s death had cleared the way for him, yet sickened by that very gratitude.
He had won Laura mainly by becoming indispensable to her.
She had awakened one morning to the sound of the ax in her back yard and had found Dan there, chopping her winter wood. When the crisp weather warned of imminent winter, he had come again, unasked, with a load of kelp with which to ballast the foundations of the house against the intrusive drafts of the harsh climate. When she grew cumbersome with pregnancy, Dan came daily to carry water, to fill the wood-box, to bring her fresh oranges, to insist that she put her feet up and rest when backaches riddled. And to watch her eyes fill with sorrow as she brooded before the fire and wondered if the baby would look like Rye. When she went into labor, it was Dan who fetched the midwife and Laura’s mother, then paced the backyard feverishly, as Rye would have done had he been there. It was Dan who came to her bedside to peep at the infant and smooth Laura’s brow with a promise that he would always be there when she and Josh needed him.
Thus, she grew to depend on Dan for all the husbandly support he was more than willing to give, long before he ever asked her to be his wife. They drifted into marriage as naturally as the bleached planks of ancient vessels drift to Nantucket’s shores at high tide. And if intense passion was not a part of Laura’s second courtship, security and companionship were.
As in most marriages, there was one who loved more, and in this one it was Dan. Yet he was secure at last, for the rival who’d once claimed Laura was no longer there. She was Dan’s at last, and she loved him. He had never dissected that love, never admitted that much of it was prompted by gratitude, not only for his physical and financial support, but because he truly loved Josh as if the boy were his own and was as good a father as any natural father could be.
But when Dan had stepped into the house this noon and found Rye Dalton standing there, he’d felt the very foundation of his marriage threatened.
Lying beside Laura now, his throat ached with questions he did not want to ask for fear her answers would be those he dreaded hearing. Yet there was one he could not withhold, though his heart swelled with foreboding at the thought of putting it to her. His thumb ground against her hand. He swallowed and sent the question through the dark in a strange, tight voice.
“What were you and Rye doing when I walked in today?”
“Doing?” But the word sounded pinched and unnatural.
“Yes ... doing. Why did Josh say you jumped when he walked in?”
“I ... I don’t know. I was nervous, naturally—who wouldn’t be when a ... a dead man has just walked in your door?”
“Quit hedging, Laura. You know what I’m asking.”
“Well, don’t, because it doesn’t matter.”
“Meaning he kissed you, right?” When she made no reply, he went on. “It was written all over your faces when I interrupted.”
“Oh, Dan, I’m sorry, I really am. But he took me completely by surprise, and it didn’t mean anything except hello.” But she knew in her heart it did.
“And what about when you walked down the path with him—did he kiss you then, too?”
“Dan, please tr—”
“Twice! He kissed you twice!” He gave her hand a hurtful yank. “And what was the second time, another hello?”
She had never known jealousy from Dan before, for there’d never been cause. The vehemence of it quite frightened her as she frantically searched for a reply.
“Dan, for heaven’s sake, you’re hurting my hand.” Though he eased his grip, he didn’t release it. “Rye had no idea, when he walked in here, that we were married.”
“Does he mean to take up his old place as your ... husband?”
“You’re my husband now,” she said softly, hoping to placate him.
“One of them,” he said bitterly. “The one you haven’t kissed yet today.”
“Because you haven’t asked,” she said even more softly.
He came up on one elbow, leaning over her. “Well, I’m not asking,” he whispered fiercely. “I’m taking what’s mine by rights.”
His lips came down violently, moving over hers as if to punish her for circumstances that were not of her doing. He kissed her with a fierce determination to force Rye Dalton from her thoughts, from her life, from her past, knowing all the while that it was impossible to do.
His tongue plundered deep, wounding her with a lack of sensitivity she’d never before known from him. Hurt, she pulled sharply aside, making him suddenly realize how rough he’d been.
At once penitent, he scooped her tightly into his arms and crushed her beneath him, speaking raggedly into her ear. “Oh, Laura, Laura, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I’m so afraid of losing you after all the years it took to finally have you. When I walked in here and saw him, I felt like I was back ten years ago, watching you trail after him like a love-sick puppy. Tell me you didn’t kiss him back ... tell me you won’t let him touch you again.”
He had never before admitted that he’d been jealous of Rye all those years ago. Pity moved her hands to the back of his neck to smooth his hair. She cradled him, closing her eyes, kissing his temple, suddenly understanding how tenuous his security was, now that Rye was back. Yet she was afraid to make promises she wasn’t at all sure she could keep.
But this much she could say, and say with all truthfulness: “I love you, Dan. You never have to doubt that.”
She felt a shudder run through him, then his hands started moving over her body. But at his touch came the wish that he would not make love to her tonight. Immediately, she was deluged with guilt for the thought. Never before had she even considered denying him. Dutifully, she caressed his neck, his back, telling herself this was the same Dan she’d made love with for three years and more; that Rye Dalton could not come walking up the lane and give her the right to turn this man away.
Yet she wanted to—God help her, she wanted to.
He ran his hand down her hip, pulled her nightgown up, and she understood his need to reestablish himself. She opened her body to him and moved when she knew it was expected, and held him fast when he groaned and climaxed, and hid the fact that she felt faithless to another for what last night would have been the most natural and welcome act in the world.
***
In the loft above the cooperage, Rye Dalton lay on his back, disquieted by the emptiness of the womanless house. At each familiar piece of furniture he had pictured his mother, sitting, working, resting, her presence felt as much now as it had been when she was there in the flesh.
His first meal at home was an improvement over ship’s fare, but fell far short of the tasty stews his mother or Laura would have prepared. His boyhood bunk, though larger than that on the Omega, was a sorry substitute for the large rosewood featherbed he’d thought to be sharing with Laura tonight. When he lay down, his body expected to ride the sway and swell it had known for five years; the stea
diness of the bed beneath him kept Rye awake. Outside, instead of the whistle of wind in the rigging, he heard hooves on new cobbles, occasional voices, the crack of a whip, the closing of a street lantern’s door.
Not disturbing sounds—just different.
He rose from his bunk and padded to the window facing south. Were it day-bright, he could have seen the tip of his house, for trees here on the island were stunted things, pruned by the wind so that few grew taller than the edifices built by man.
But it was dark, the hill obliterated by a near-moonless night.
Rye imagined Laura in the bed he’d once shared with her, but lying in it now with Dan Morgan. He felt as if a harpoon had been thrust into his heart.
In his bed nearby, Josiah moved restlessly, then his voice came through the dark. “Thinking of ’er will do y’ little good tonight, lad.”
“Aye, and don’t I know it. She’s up there in bed with Dan this very minute, while I stand here making wishes.”
“Tomorrow is time enough to tell her how y’ feel.”
“I needn’t tell her—she knows.”
“So she put y’ off, did she? ”
Rye leaned his elbow against the windowframe, frustrated anew. “Aye, that she did. But the lad was there, thinking Dan is his father, lovin’ him as if he is, the way she tells it. That’ll be somethin’ t’ reckon with.”
“So she told y’ about the boy?”
“Aye.”
The incessant sound of the ocean seemed to murmur through the rough walls of the building while Rye remained as before, studying the dark square outside the window. When he spoke again it was quietly, but with inchoate pride nearly making his voice crack. “He’s a bonny lad.”
“Aye, with the look of his grandmother about his mouth.” Rye faced the spot where his father’s bed was, though he could not clearly make him out. “Y’ve lost your grandchild just as I’ve lost my wife. Did she never bring him around for the two of y’t’get acquainted? ”
“Aw, she has little business in the cooperage, and I doubt the lad lacks for grandparents’ love, with Dan’s folks playin’ the part. I’ve heard they love him like their own.”
The entanglements of the situation were ever increasing. Remembering days when he felt as free to run uninvited into the Morgans’ house as he did into his own, Rye asked, “They’re still well, then?”
“Aye, sound as dollars, both of ’em.”
Silence followed again for a moment before Rye asked, “And Dan ... what does he do t’ keep her in such fancy furniture up there?”
“Works at the countinghouse for old man Starbuck.”
“Starbuck!” Rye exclaimed. “You mean Joseph Starbuck?”
“One and the same.”
The fact stung Rye, for Starbuck owned the fleet of whaleships that included the Omega. How ironic to think he himself had gone in search of riches only to lose Laura to one who stayed behind to count them.
“You see those three new houses up along Main Street?” Josiah continued. “Starbuck’s buildin’ them for his sons. Hired an architect clear from Europe to design ’em. The Three Bricks, he’s callin’ ’em. Starbuck’s had good times. The Hero and the President came home chocked off, too, and he expects the same of the Three Brothers.”
But Rye was barely listening. He was ruing the day he’d set out after riches—and riches he’d have, for his lay at one-sixtieth a share, would be close to a thousand dollars, no small amount of money by any man’s standards. But the money could not buy Laura back. It was obvious she had a good life with Dan; he provided well for both her and the boy. Rye swallowed, peering through the dark to where the tip of his house must be, remembering his and Laura’s bed in the new private linter room.
Damn! He takes her in my very own bed while I sleep in my boyhood bunk and eat bachelor’s rations.
But not for long, Rye Dalton vowed. Not for long!
Chapter 3
THE FOLLOWING DAY, FOG had again settled over Nantucket. Its dank tendrils sniffed at Rye Dalton’s boot tops like a keen-nosed hound, then silently retreated to let him pass untouched. As he strode toward Joseph Starbuck’s countinghouse, the thick mist shifted and curled about his head while beneath his boots it turned the dull gray cobbles jet black and left them sheeny with moisture. On the iron bowl of the horse-watering fountain beads gathered, then ran in rivulets before dropping with irregular blips, each magnified into a queer resounding musical note by the enshrouding fog. Almost as an afterbeat came the click of Ship’s toenails as she followed her master.
But in spite of the damp, gray day, Rye Dalton reveled in the unaccustomed luxury of being dry and clean after five years of being splattered by ceaseless waves and wearing oily, salt-caked “slops.”
He was dressed in a bulky sweater Laura had knit for him years ago, its thick turtleneck hugging high against his jaw, nearly touching the side-whiskers that swept down to meet it. Those whiskers closely matched the color and texture of the tweedy wool, while down his sleeves twisted a cable knit that seemed to delineate the powerful curvature of the corded muscles it followed. His black wool bell-bottom trousers were waistless, rigged out with twin lacings just inside each hip, creating a stomach flap inside which his hands were pressed for warmth as he crossed the cobbles with long, masculine strides that parted the fog and sent it roiling behind him.
The salmon-colored bricks of the countinghouse appeared specterlike, a hazy backdrop for the dazzling white paint of its door, window casings, and signpost that stood out even under the leaden skies. When Rye’s hand touched the latch, Ship dropped to her haunches, taking up her post with tongue lolling and eyes riveted on the door.
Inside, the fires had been lit to ward off the spring chill, and the place swarmed with activity, as it always did after a whaleship came in. Rye exchanged greetings with countless acquaintances while he was directed to the office of Joseph Starbuck, a jovial mutton-chopped man who hurried forward with hand extended the moment Rye appeared at his doorway.
Starbuck’s grip was as firm as that of the cooper. “Dalton!” he exclaimed. “You’ve done me proud this voyage. Chocked off and bringing a dollar fifteen a gallon! I couldn’t be happier!”
“Aye, greasy luck for sure,” Rye replied, in the idiom of the day.
Starbuck quirked an eyebrow. “And are they makin’ a landlubber of y’ or will y’ sail on the next voyage with the Omega?”
Rye raised his palms. “Nay, no more whaling for this fool. One voyage was enough for me. I’ll be content t’ make barrels with the old man for the rest of m’ life, but right here on shore.”
“Can’t say I blame y’, Dalton, though your lay is a healthy one. Are y’ sure I can’t tempt y’ to try ’er one more time—say for a one-fifteenth share?” Starbuck kept a shrewd eye on Rye’s face while he moved again to the enormous roll-top desk that dominated the room.
“Nay, not even for a one-fifteenth. This voyage has cost me enough.”
A frown settled over Starbuck’s features, and he hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets as he studied the younger man. “Aye, and I’m sorry for that, Dalton. Hell of a mix-up for a man to come home to—hell of a mix-up.” He scowled at the floor thoughtfully before looking up. “And be assured both Mrs. Starbuck and I extend our deepest sympathies at the loss of your mother, too.”
“Thank y’, sir.”
“And how is your father?”
“Spry as ever, and cutting barrel staves over there faster than that punk apprentice of his can keep up with.”
Starbuck laughed robustly. “Since I cannot convince you to cooper my ship on the ocean, perhaps I can convince you and your father to put up my order for barrels this time around.” “Aye, we’d be happy t’ do that.”
“Good! I’ll be sending my agent over to agree on a price with you before the day is out.”
“Good enough.”
“I expect you’ve come to collect your lay.”
“Aye, that I have.”
“
You’ll have to see your ... ah, friend ... Morgan.” Starbuck looked slightly uncomfortable. “He’s my chief accountant now, you know. His office is on the second floor.”
“Aye, so I’ve heard.”
Starbuck studied Dalton’s face at the mention of Dan Morgan, but his expression remained unchanged, only a polite nod of the head acknowledging Starbuck’s statement. Starbuck extracted a ten-cent cigar from a humidor, offered one to Rye, who refused, snipped the end, and soon blew fragrant smoke into the room.
“You know, Dalton, there are aspects of this business which I cannot say I relish. A man leaves his home with the best of intentions, tryin’ to be a proper provider for his wife and family, but his rewards are often grim in the final outcome. Now it’s not his fault, though neither is it mine. Yet I feel responsible, damnit!” Starbuck thumped a fist on the elbow-worn arm of his captain’s chair. “Though it’s small consolation, Mrs. Starbuck and I wish to show our appreciation by inviting the officers under my employ to a dinner party at our house Saturday night, to celebrate the return of the Omega. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Aye, and happily.” Rye grinned. “Especially if Mrs. Starbuck plans t’ serve anything my old man hasn’t cooked.”
Though Dalton smiled and bantered, Starbuck realized what a hell of a shock the man had suffered, landing to the news that his wife had been usurped by his best friend. It was damn sure Dalton missed more than just his wife’s cooking. There was little Starbuck could do about the situation, but being a fair man, the thought rankled, and he promised himself to see that Dalton received a generous contract on barrels.