Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [90]
Detmer was isolated because he hadn’t played by the rules with Captain Phillip. There was short weight on the stores he’d brought in, which made the officers distrust him, and now he was driving a very hard bargain with the charter of his ship. Phillip desperately needed it to send some of his men back to England, and Detmer was being foxy. As a result, he was ostracized by the officers, and sharp little Mary, always quick to take advantage of an opportunity, took it.
At first it was a few smiles, a little conciliatory chat, an offer to do his laundry, and finally to share supper with her and Will at their hut. Will didn’t object to Detmer coming when he was there; he was good company, and he always brought a bottle of rum with him. But Will was aware that people were beginning to talk about Mary chatting to Detmer on the wharf and sometimes going out to his ship.
Only today someone had suggested she was ‘making up’ to the man. Will was jealous by nature and he didn’t like the idea of his wife alone in any man’s company. Yet he knew Mary was far more likely to get Detmer to agree to help them than he was, so he supposed he would have to turn a blind eye as to how she accomplished it.
Will got up from the floor and went out of the hut. Mary was just coming along, with Emmanuel in her arms and Charlotte skipping beside her.
Will thought they made a pretty picture, Mary with her black curls all around her face, Emmanuel chubby and fair-haired in her arms, and Charlotte, a tiny version of her mother, kicking up the sand with her bare feet. The Lady Juliana had brought cloth from England. Mary had managed to talk Tench into getting her a length and she’d made a dress for herself and things for the children. Will knew that by his mother’s standards back home, Mary’s blue striped dress was crudely made, but after seeing her and so many other women just in rags for the last two years, he thought she looked very fetching.
‘You were a long time,’ he said reprovingly.
‘We got talking,’ she said, and nodded pointedly in Charlotte’s direction, her way of saying that what she had to report mustn’t be in front of the child.
Mary heated up some water on the fire and made them a cup of sweet tea, then sat down to nurse Emmanuel. As soon as Charlotte had wandered off a little way, she beckoned Will to come nearer.
‘I’ve asked Detmer to help us,’ she whispered.
‘You told him our plan?’ Will was shocked that she’d done this without him being there.
‘The time was right,’ she said with a shrug. ‘He’d had a row with Phillip again, and I knew it was the moment.’
‘What did he say?’ Will got a chill down his spine when he thought what would happen to him if Detmer peached.
Mary didn’t answer for a moment. The truth was that Detmer’s first reaction had been to laugh at the plan. He also said he couldn’t see why Will wanted to risk his and his family’s lives when he had everything set up here. Mary had to plead with him, explain how she was afraid Will would abandon her when his time was up. She even implied that she was willing to do anything for Detmer in exchange for his help.
His expression was imprinted on her mind. Lips set in a cynical straight line, yet laughter in his eyes. He was seated on a coil of rope in the bows of his ship while she was standing at the rail, half turned away from him because she wasn’t quite brave enough to look him in the eye. He was wearing a clean white shirt and tan-coloured breeches that clung to his body like a second skin, his long fair hair blowing in the breeze.
He was similar to Will in looks, sharing the same colouring, height and size, though he was probably as much as ten years older. But Detmer had a polished look which Will could never hope to emulate. His skin was a golden-brown, his hair silky, and his teeth were still very good, white and even. His heavily accented English was attractive too – whatever he said he sounded