Camilla woke to an odd sensation she spent several moments identifying as warmth. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel as though someone had stuffed her into a larder like a crock of butter needing to be kept cold. Sunlight poured through the porthole in a flood of celestial fire. For several luxurious minutes, she lay motionless, savoring the sun’s heat, rocking gently as the river current tugged at the boat’s hull, and remembering those moments in the cabin earlier that morning, when she had held Captain Nathaniel Black’s hand, while he told her she had pretty eyes.
“You are a fool, missy,” she heard her old governess say, as she had when, at seventeen, Camilla decided to toss her cap over the windmill for the curate. “He has no future.”
And neither did Nathaniel Black. Without some kind of divine intervention, he would lose his boat, all he had worked for, and like that young curate, be nothing more than another man’s tool.
Yet she would have been better off with the curate. He now was doing well for himself, drawing in parishioners to hear God’s Word. And she was stranded on a riverboat somewhere between New York City and Albany, her future slipping away into emptiness like the water flowing beneath the hull. No man had so much as pretended to pay court to her for nearly five years.
Nathaniel Black thought she had pretty hair.
She curled her fingers as though still holding his hand, scarred and calloused and beautiful in its capable strength. If her hands were half as useful as his, she could build a future for herself as he had, as he would again even if his partnership disintegrated around him. But she only knew how to plan and organize and direct servants, and carry on intelligent conversation, skills Joanna needed, even if her letter hadn’t quite said so.
Nathaniel Black was repairing his boat with calm resignation. Each word tugged on her to rise and follow that voice to its source, watch him perilously hanging over the end of the deck, his fingers deft, his hair lifting in the breeze as though ruffled by an affectionate gesture . . .
She was a fool. She knew nothing of him except he flirted with her despite her disheveled appearance. She was such an old spinster to have her head turned that easily. If he knew the debt that literally followed her, he would put her ashore there in Cold Spring and leave her far behind.
She rolled off the side of the bunk and divested herself of her blanket and quilt. Beneath, her muslin gown was hopelessly crumpled. What she would give for an iron, or a washtub, her newly acquired skills since she could no longer employ a maid. Her cloak, left hanging over a chair to dry, looked worse than her gown.
After brushing and braiding her hair, she left the cloak flung over the chair and pulled a shawl out of her valise. An elderly woman on the voyage across the Atlantic had taught Camilla how to knit. The stitches were uneven, but she had improved as she went along, acquiring another skill and a warm garment that was crimson rather than black.
She wrapped it around her shoulders, pinned it into place with a bow-shaped brooch in plain cut steel, and left her cabin. About to step onto the deck, she stopped and clapped a hand to her head. Going about the boat at night without a hat didn’t feel odd. She had attended evening parties without hats. But this was daylight. Her hair and skin were never fully exposed to the light.
Nathaniel Black thought she had pretty hair.
That thought stuck in her head, a smile pasted onto her lips, she sauntered onto the deck, where the captain lay prone on the boards, hanging so far down he looked about to plunge headfirst into the river. He didn’t notice Camilla. If the other men did, they said nothing to her. No one offered to fetch her coffee or a chair or an explanation as to how the repairs got on. She may as well have been invisible.
She may as well get used to it. Companion or housekeeper or whatever Joanna intended to call her, she would be invisible to others.
And if she had married the curate, she would have been too much on display once she was a vicar’s wife.
She didn’t want either. She wanted . . . something in the middle. A comfortable life perhaps. Children. A husband who loved her as Father had loved Mama.
Unlikely in the northern wilderness.
Deciding to go find her own coffee, or at the least something for breakfast, Camilla traversed the cabin deck to the pilothouse steps. Her box of viands from the night before, barely touched, still waited upon the bench. She ate another roll with butter and drank some cider, then wandered over to the wheel. She wanted to look at it now that she stood there alone. Its size astounded her, at least as tall as her five feet three inches, and disappearing into the floor. She grasped a pin on the side. What strength must be needed to twist such a massive wheel. What skill to turn a boat the length of a Navy frigate. She half closed her eyes to block out the sight of the town to her left and pretended she guided the boat up the river. She smelled the woodsmoke of the boilers being stoked, heard the rumble of the engine. Amazing power to drive a vessel against the current. Who needed to gamble when one could go on adventures like—
Camilla jumped away from the wheel, tripped on a brake pedal, and careened backward into Captain Black’s chest.
He caught her beneath the elbows and steadied her. “You looked like you were.”
“Yes, I was rather.” The sun warmed her cheeks. “I hope I did nothing wrong.”
“No, nothing.” He released her and she faced him.
“I was thinking this would be a pleasure to pilot.”
“I love the river. It’s always changing.” He heaved a sigh and looked over her head. “But I won’t be piloting today.”
“What?” Her gaze flew up to his. “What’s wrong?”
“I usually carry extra paddles in the event of damage.” His hands fisted against his thighs. “But they have mysteriously disappeared.”
Camilla’s hand flew to her lips. She began to shake. “How? I mean who—?”
“Since one of my crew disappeared in the night, I suspect he did it.” His eyes were chips of green ice.
Camilla shivered. “Why?”
“Money, I expect. But we don’t need to know who. Somehow Lancaster got to him.”
“When—?” She stopped, the breath leaving her lungs in a rush as though she’d been punched. She clasped her hands against her middle, nearly choking on her next words. “I saw them. I mean, I didn’t see them talking, but I saw a gentleman walking back to Lancaster’s boat at the same time one of your crew came back aboard. I should have told you. I didn’t see them talk, and you came back right after, so I thought nothing of it, but—” She flung out a hand, intending to grasp the wheel for support.
Black caught her hand instead, held it tight, steadying her. “It’s all right. You couldn’t have known. I should have guessed Lancaster would do something like this.”
“What will we do?” She spoke in a whisper.
“Wait until another boat comes along with paddles we can buy.”
“They have none here?”
“They should, but this has been an unusually busy season with the canal opening.”
“Tomorrow.” Her lower lip quivered against her will, and the sunshine and blue sky blurred before her eyes. “We won’t be there, will we?”
“I . . . don’t know. We can put you on another boat maybe.”
“That is what you wished for all along.” The clawing fear in her belly lent her tone more asperity than she intended. “I am sorry.” She blinked hard to hold back tears.
“I’m sorry too.” He brushed a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “Sometimes I’m wrong.” He released her hand. “Would you like to go ashore? There are some shops. You could buy a new hat.”
She couldn’t, not if she wouldn’t have work after all. She wouldn’t have a home or food or—
“I need to go to my cabin.”
She was going to be sick or scream or both.
The captain still gripped her hand, bringing her up short. “Miss Renfrew, wait.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I—” A sob broke into her words. Tears gushed out of her eyes.
Black muttered something that sounded like, “Lancaster will pay for this,” and drew her against him.