He had to laugh as he opened the door for her. “We’ve been called a nation of shopkeepers before, but I don’t think that was intended as a compliment.”
He unpacked some of the crates, showing her the creations of his craftsmen, and in the end, insisted that she take an alabaster toiletry set she particularly admired. By then, he had heard the sounds of an engine followed by those of his men mooring a small boat up to his dock, and knew his surprise was ready.
“I hope you’ve an appetite,” he said, as he took up the parcel he’d wrapped for her, and conducted her toward the door. “And I hope you don’t suffer from seasickness.”
“Why, no,” she laughed. “But why—”
Then she saw the boat moored up to the dock, a handy little craft crewed by what was clearly a family: four rugged men with faces sculpted by storm and sea, one middle-aged, three of twenty, eighteen, and sixteen years.
“Hello, Captain!” shouted Andrew, as the other three men waved at him. “Ready for your jaunt?”
He waved back, escorted the delighted Maya to the dock, and helped her step across the plank into the little fishing boat crewed by Andrew and his three grown sons. Andrew had been another of his officers on his last ship, but had longed to go back to the life of fishing he’d known before he lost his boat in a storm. Peter had put him in the way of a few little money-making schemes, and when Peter had retired, Andrew had done the same, for he’d stuck on once he had enough for a new fishing boat only as long as Peter was his captain.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was stout, and as Andrew and his sons put her out onto the Thames, heading for Thames mouth and the ocean, Peter saw that she was trim and steady, and answered neatly to the helm. She had sails, but also a motor for working in and out of the harbor, which chugged along with no hint of cough or hesitation. Once they were in a position where they had a good bit of breeze, Andrew, like the thrifty fellow he was, cut off the motor and went under full sail.
Maya’s eyes were as wide as a child’s and she looked around her avidly, drinking in everything with untrammeled delight. Peter, for whom all this was no novelty, caught fire from her enthusiasm, and when the engine was shut down, pointed out all the sights with as much pleasure in telling her about them as she took in hearing about them.
“I promised you that this would be cooler,” he reminded her, as they passed Thames mouth and the breeze quickened to a wind that made the boat leap forward into the open ocean.
“You did, and it’s wonderful!” she caroled. “It’s like flying! Are we going to fish for our dinner?”
“Only if you want to eat it raw,” he laughed. “This is no pleasure craft, and no cod fisher either. We’ve no way to cook on board. This little lady is an inshore fisher; she goes out before dawn and back by midday, and her catch is in the fishmarkets by teatime. Here.” He reached under a tarp and brought out a stout basket. “Let’s see what Andrew’s good wife has put up for us.”
Andrew’s wife was a good plain cook, and though the victory feast was all victuals meant to be eaten cold, they were nonetheless appetizing for all that. Knowing her boys and her man, she’d packed enough food for a dozen in Peter’s estimation. Maya paused halfway through her second sausage roll to exclaim over the youngest who had come back for his sixth.
They tacked along the shoreline, close enough to wave at the children who came down to the sea and the fishermen who were putting up their nets to dry overnight. Peter used the smallest bit of his magic to make sure that the sea stayed pleasantly calm—and then just a little more.
As Maya leaned out over the bow to see the bow wave pushing up, she suddenly exclaimed with surprise as a dolphin leaped out of the water just in front of her nose. The dolphin was swiftly joined by another, and another, until there was a school of twenty or more playing in the bow wave, leaping and gamboling in the water alongside. This, of course, was what Andrew and his boys saw, which to their minds would be enough to make a landlubber girl laugh and point. What Maya and Peter saw, however, was another matter.
Along with the dolphins had come the merfolk of the open ocean, the neriads, the tritons, the hippocampuses, all of whom (whatever they had been in the past) were now creatures of pure spirit to be seen only by those who had the special sight to do so. They were as clear and seemingly solid to Peter as the dolphins; they were probably less so to Maya, since they weren’t of her Element, but she saw them well enough as they played among the very physical dolphins. She was enchanted, and the look on her face, her wide and shining eyes, the smile on her generous lips made his heart sing. The neriads winked and tossed their hair at him flirtatiously, but he only smiled at them briefly and returned his gaze to Maya—who laughed with delight at the swimming coquettes.
They finally came back into the harbor as sunset turned the sky to a blaze of crimson, and all of London was silhouetted against the fiery clouds, with the great dome of St Paul’s looming over all. It was a sight perfect enough to make even Peter, seasoned sailor that he was, catch his breath. And Maya, completely enraptured, clasped her hands at her breast and drank it all in.
We’ll do this again, he vowed to himself. Often. And I’ll take her out alone one day, perhaps up near Scotland, and introduce her to the Selkie—
Too soon they nipped in to the dock; too soon Andrew threw the mooring rope to one of the hands on the wharf, and put out the plank. Maya said good-bye to all of them, shaking their hands and thanking each of them individually, and with such charm and warmth that even old Andrew blushed and allowed that it had been a pleasure.
Then they were safely on the dock again, and the boat moved out into the river, heading for its home dock nearer Thames mouth than this.
“Well?” he asked her. “I hope you weren’t too disappointed.”
“Disappointed!” She made a face at him. “If you think that, you must be the stupidest man who ever lived! It was wonderful!”
“Even when your hat blew off and we had to fish it out with a gaff?” he teased.
“Bother the old hat!” Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed with pleasure. “This was worth a hundred hats! How can I ever thank you enough?”
He shrugged, and her eyes narrowed; she suddenly looked so impish that he wondered what she was thinking of.
Then, with no warning at all, she went on tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth. And no little peck either—
“There!” she laughed. “Does that convince you?”
It took him a moment to catch his breath and his wits. “Ah—yes—” he managed.
“Good.” She took his arm firmly, and linked hers into it. “Now, Captain Peter, will you be so kind as to escort your lady home?”
My lady? My lady? If the kiss had blown his wits to the four winds, her words blew them back. “I would consider it the highest honor in the world, lady mine,” he replied to her manifest delight, and together they set off in search of a cab as the blue dusk enclosed them in their own little world.
Chapter Seventeen
MAYA drifted in through her front door in a kind of rosy fog, trailing her fingers along the wainscoting and humming to herself. The kiss with which she had thanked Peter—
Be honest, Miss Witherspoon. You ambushed him.
—all right, ambushing Peter had produced the result she had hoped for. He had held her arm all the way to the ‘bus, held her hand on the ‘bus (disregarding the arctic glares of two old ladies and the giggles of three nursemaids), and had kissed her right on her own doorstep! Not a little peck—and not, thank heavens, the kind of nasty, slobbering thing that Parkening had forced on her—