Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [58]
Rules had been made since that first night ashore. Male convicts were banned from the women’s area, and guards were on duty to make sure no one slipped in. There was also a dusk curfew when everyone was supposed to be back in their own quarters. It didn’t actually work, men did get in with the women, but at least it was covert, and the women willing.
‘Plenty of fresh air,’ Will said, and laughed. ‘I can stand upright too. Beats that stinking ship anyways, or a tent with the men. Now, come here and give your husband a kiss.’
Mary needed no urging; since Will had announced their wedding plans she’d found she had status, and for that she was extremely grateful. Even Poll and her two cronies, three of the most foul-minded women Mary had ever met, were awed that she was wanted by the most desirable convict in the colony.
There were good things here. It was hot, the sand on the beach soft and white, the sea so blue and clean, and there were hundreds of beautiful birds. Even the trees had a lovely smell that cleared your nose. It beat a prison back in England any day.
Now Mary had a home, well away from everyone else, and even if it hadn’t got a roof yet, nor a stick of furniture, and the first storm would knock it down, it was theirs. Will had managed to get her a cooking pot, a bucket for carrying water, and a few other essential pieces of household equipment from the stores to start married life.
He’d already kissed her several times today, and he did so tenderly. She hadn’t expected to want him, but she found she did; in fact for the first time in over a year she was really happy to be where she was.
‘You’re such a little thing,’ he said gruffly as he helped her out of her dress. He cupped his big hands round her breasts and squeezed them, then sliding his hands down to her buttocks squeezed them too. ‘A bit skinny, but I never was one for fat women.’
He lifted her up in his arms then and laid her down on the blankets. Mary expected nothing more than for him to pull off his clothes, a quick coupling, then for him to fall asleep. But to her surprise Will made no attempt to undress himself, only to caress her. She had once heard him bragging to a sailor on the Charlotte that once he’d bedded a woman they always came back begging him for more. She believed it now, for she was afraid that any moment he might stop. His touch was so sure and slow, his fingers found exquisitely sensitive places to touch that until now she hadn’t even known existed.
The hard ground beneath the rough blanket, the crudeness of their unfinished house, even the hardship she’d been through were forgotten as Mary gave herself up to the bliss of his love-making. When she opened her eyes and saw the stars above, she could have been lying on a feather bed in a royal bedchamber, the stars just a decoration on the ceiling. Will made her forget she wasn’t pretty, or that there were lice in her hair; for once she was beautiful, desirable and loved.
She never could have believed she could behave like a wanton, begging for more, asking him to show her what pleased him, and doing it all too eagerly. At the peak of it all the thought crossed her mind that it was worth crossing the world in a prison ship to feel like this. She didn’t care about the future, she just wanted this night to last forever.
‘Are you glad you married me?’ Will whispered later, after he’d covered them with the blanket to keep off the insects.
‘The happiest woman alive,’ she whispered back, her cheeks wet with tears of joy.
‘We’ll make something of our life here,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll plant ourselves a little garden and grow some vegetables. We’ll never go hungry while I can fish, and we’ll have other children for Charlotte to play with.’
‘Will we go back to England when our time is up?’ she asked.
‘Sure, if you want to,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Or we might stay as free men and take some land for