“Well, sir, you do not swim like a rock.”
“Thank you.”
“But not much better. Your dog paddle is not very stylish. Here, reach out your arms and pull the water back toward you like this.”
He watched as her slender arms, white where the suit rode up, pulled her through the water with surprising speed and strength. After a few tries, he got the timing down and found that he was swimming much faster than he thought possible, and with much less likelihood of drowning.
After a while they stood facing each other in the shallow end of the pool. The water came just a little over Patrick’s waist, and he was very conscious of the way Trina’s suit clung to her body. He began to hope he wouldn’t embarrass himself.
“Kiss me, Patrick.” She slid her arms around his neck and their lips found each other’s. “Do you love me, Patrick?”
Surprised, he managed only to gasp a yes. Then he asked his own question, and his voice was weak with what he could only describe as fear. “Do you love me?”
“Certainly,” she responded gently. “Why do you think I brought you here?” She smiled. “I don’t bring just anyone to meet Father and his latest mistress. Now pick me up.”
Facing her, he put his arms on her sides and lifted her easily, aided by the buoyancy of the water. Thus supported, she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist with a strength that astonished him. Then they stood there and kissed even more deeply. “Now touch me,” she said, her voice hoarse. He moaned and ran his hands down from her shoulders and over her breasts and from there around her back to her firm buttocks. They swayed in the water as his hands repeated the journey again and again, daring also to slide beneath the overblouse she wore and be as close to her bare skin as he could without removing her suit. He felt her nipples harden. Between kisses she stared at him in wonder, her upper teeth biting down on her lower lip.
She took her legs from around his waist. He easily slid the loose pants of her suit over her knees and began to caress her silken hair-covered thighs, moving his hands up to her waist. It was only when he touched her belly and below that she stopped him and then only with the utmost reluctance. She was awash with feelings she had never before experienced. The long and intimate conversations with Molly had been her only source of specific information on how to arouse a man and be aroused herself without losing total control. In a way, she had thought wryly at the time, it was a sad commentary on her life that an immigrant girl more than a decade younger than she would be her instructor. But lord, how right she was.
Finally, Trina took his hands and held them on her bosom. “Do you truly want me?”
Patrick no longer cared if she felt his penis against her. He wanted her to. She had slid lower on him and he was pressed against her abdomen. “Great God, yes.”
“Then you’ll have to marry me.”
“Marry?”
“Yes, dear Patrick, marry. As in living together for decades and having children. You said you loved me, didn’t you?”
“Of course I love you, and I want very much to marry you, but how can I compete with this castle, with everything else you have?”
She separated from him and moved a step away. “You don’t have to, you ninny. When we marry, this’ll be as much yours as it is mine. We can live in your precious Michigan and visit here whenever we wish. Now, are you going to propose to me or not?”
Patrick thought she had just done that for both of them, but obediently he complied and she accepted. “Well,” she said, “it may be very unladylike, but I think I want you as much as you want me. However, I am afraid you might get a case of misplaced honor or something equally foolish regarding my family’s wealth, and change your mind about marrying me if we make love before the wedding. I want it perfectly understood, mighty generaclass="underline" you are not marrying me for my money. I am marrying you because I love you and you are marrying me because you love me.
“So we are now going to call it an evening. We shall try to sleep soundly, if that is possible considering how I feel, but we will sleep separately.” With that she left the pool and began to towel herself off. He followed a moment later. “Patrick, they do have forests in Michigan, don’t they?” Many, he assured her, and close by, along with boats and trains to take them farther north-as far as Mackinac and beyond if she desired. Fully robed and fairly dry, they walked down the hallway from the pool. “Trina, just what problem did you share with your mother today? What question did she answer?”
“I told her what I planned to do to you tonight.”
“And?”
“She approved wholeheartedly.”
When Lt. Micah Walsh, U.S. Navy, told his family and friends that his first command was a converted yacht, they naturally assumed that his craft was a sleek and racy wooden vessel that looked like a clipper ship when all sails were rigged, or one of those marvelous vessels that raced for the America ’s Cup. What they didn’t realize was that theChesapeake, previouslyAnna’s Favor, had been built for a Pittsburgh steel magnate who preferred comfort with his speed, and had opted for steam as the basic means of propulsion. Sails were a secondary consideration, although very useful to conserve precious coal.
When configured for comfort, theChesapeake could make an impressive eighteen knots. Now, however, she would be lucky to make fifteen under steam and half that under sail. The difference was the result of the additional weight required for her to become a warship. First, there was the unturreted 3-inch gun located just in front of the bridge, and the additional deck supports needed to ensure that the gun didn’t fly off the deck when fired. Some further weight was added with the two 1-pound pom-pom guns located fore and aft and the two machine guns located amidships. What really slowed her, however, was the crew of fifty men, the ammunition for the guns, and the supplies for the crew.
It didn’t matter to Walsh that the yacht was such an irregular type of warship. For that matter, he was an irregular naval officer. After ten years of serving his country in quiet poverty, he had opted for civilian life and resigned his commission. For the past five years he had been a rising manager in a Boston-based import company while still retaining a reserve commission. He had responded to the query regarding his temporary return to service with delight and trepidation, and theChesapeake had been his reward for saying yes. His country and his navy needed officers, and he would help fill those needs.
Lieutenant Walsh was presently chasing and gaining on his prey, the heavily rusted freighterAstrid out of Hamburg. At the same time he was keeping an eye out for the telltale signs of other ships in the area. If spotted by a German cruiser, he would flee immediately, and he had already decided to throw everything overboard, including the guns and ammunition, in order to regain some of that lost speed. He would not even think of fighting a real warship. First flight, then surrender, if it came to that.
It wouldn’t be long now, he thought. They had gained rapidly on their target and were within hailing range of theAstrid. He guessed her at about two thousand tons. From the fact that her Plimsoll line was well out of the water, it was evident she was running home empty. Although some German transports were returning with plunder, such as bullion from the banks and artwork from the museums-these sailed in convoys and were protected by warships-the majority, such as theAstrid, were empty. The Germans had decided that theAstrid and others like her could travel alone in safety.
Bad idea.
In a burst of logic and cunning, Admiral Remey, who commanded the American navy’s efforts off the East Coast, had decided that a ship sunk on the way back to Germany would be unable to return again with another cargo. It wasn’t as effective or desirable as sinking one with a full load of supplies or ammunition, but it would work. And that was why theChesapeake and other small craft like her had started prowling the sea-lanes off New York looking for strays like theAstrid, whereas the larger warships tried to interdict the incoming convoys.