Loving sarah, p.1
Loving Sarah, page 1
part #3 of The Caversham Chronicles Series
“Adventure runs in my blood.”
“My family was establishing trade with countries around the world for hundreds of years before I was born. Because I was born a female I am told I cannot share in those adventures. I cannot sail the oceans and climb the highest peaks. I am allowed an education, but no venue to practice it. That is not the world I want to live in.
“I did leave a note so my family would not worry. And though you may think me spoiled, dancing and parties is not all I do.” She was beginning to mellow now from the delicious wine. After taking another sip, she continued. “I’ll have you know that I devote a great deal of time to volunteering at the children’s hospital founded by my friend’s mother and her aunt. I also assisted in the formation of a lending library in our village, and I currently teach children to read at Haldenwood, our family seat.”
“Is this in between music and dancing lessons?”
“If you must know,” she replied indignantly. “My lessons were over four years ago. I’m going to be twenty-one years of age in just two months.”
“Hmmm…. So you’re nearly a spinster, aren’t you?”
Even with the thin veil of humor tinging his voice, she was offended by his comment. She knew that the clocked ticked louder for her to find a mate, having spent these past years more enjoying herself than finding a husband. She didn’t need her captain to remind her of this. So she tossed the slim volume of poetry, which had been under her leg, at him. In return, he grabbed her ankle with a firm grip and yanked her forward until her bottom rested against his thigh. With her legs over his lap, the heat of him radiated through the thin woolen material of her baggy trousers, and she became very aware of his hard-muscled leg against her buttocks. Bare under the trousers she wore, her breath caught in her chest as one of his big, calloused hands slid up a pant leg, burning a painfully slow trail up her bare calf to rest on her knee, as the other held her in place.
There was no turning back now. This was what she’d led him to, what she’d wanted. And more than likely what he wanted too, as he could turn down this unspoken invitation to a brief affair. The fact that he didn’t made her feel desirable and worthy of passion—yet aching inside with the fact that the love she desired probably wasn’t on this man’s agenda.
But at that moment she didn’t care.
“Stop me, Sarah.” The husky timber in his voice was pleading, almost begging.
His intent gaze held her mesmerized. She could hardly breathe, much less move away from him, but still she managed to shake her head as she mouthed, “No.”
His bare hand rested on her knee while his thumb gently stroked the sensitive skin on the inside of it. Her other leg fell open, and Sarah felt his hardened manhood beneath her thigh. Shocked, she sucked in a breath. Yes. This was what she wanted. With the sensations his touch caused and the desire pooling at her core, how could she stop? The man was insane. Pressure was already building within her to hurry him along.
She wanted his engorged member inside her, claiming her and bringing her to the ecstasy purported to occur after he joined with her. She was ready for this.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, my lady.” His voice was soft and raspy, yet filled with passion. “And with a man who has not had a woman in months.” His fingers caressed the inside of her knee and up a few inches higher. She saw the determined look in his eye, and the tight curve to his lips. “Be sure this is what you want. Once I start, I won’t stop until I’m satisfied.”
She met his carnal stare with one of her own and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I want….”
His large warm hand crept up her thigh slowly. Her breathing hitched. His look told her she had one last opportunity to stop him if she chose. But the aching void in the vicinity of her womb decided for her. “I want satisfaction…as well, Captain.” His hand squeezed the flesh of her inner thigh, just below her moist curls, and a moan escaped her. If she never married, or if she did, this was the moment she would always remember. When Ian asked and she replied.
“I want you, Ian.”
LOVING SARAH
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014, Sandy Raven
Kindle Version
ISBN-13: 978-1-939359-07-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Cover design by The Killion Group, Inc
www.thekilliongroupinc.com
Formatting by Author E.M.S.
www.authorems.com
Editing by Gail Shelton
gshelton54@comcast.net
Proofreading by Editorial Inspirations
www.editorialinspirations.com
Dear Reader,
Loving Sarah is the third book in my series, The Caversham Chronicles, and I hope you enjoy Sarah and Ian’s story too!
I fell in love with tall ships when I was growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast. I was fortunate enough to watch one being restored for several years while working in the building next to it. And almost from the time I could walk I remember loving hot tea (even in summer). As I grew into a voracious reader, I discovered this short period of time in the mid-1800s where they had tea races on tall ships from China to London, before the Suez Canal was built and steam engines made sailing obsolete. I fell in love with those stories and prints of famous paintings of tea clippers at full sail racing back to London with their hulls loaded with China’s finest offerings for that year. I always knew I was a writer, even when I was forced to pass algebra, and it was inevitable that I would write a tea clipper story.
Loving Sarah and Lucky’s Lady are the clipper stories I had to write.
Because the timing is off by ten to twelve years for it to be official tea races, my fictitious setup to those races is here, where Lucky and Ian race each other home. In the next book, there is mention of the number of boats participating in the race home from China increasing.
Though the Ann McKim did exist at the time, she obviously did not come from Ian’s father’s shipyard because it did not exist. I created Watkins Shipbuilding, and Harbor Village, in the area called Curtis Bay to serve my story.
Also, there have been many spellings for the Chinese port of Fuchow (Fuzhou and Foo Chow). I chose to use the version my editor selected, though I have seen all of the above spellings in ship logs and other documentations regarding the tea trade.
In the summer of 2014, be on the lookout for the fourth book in the series, Lucky’s Lady. It picks up right where Loving Sarah ends.
In his book, Lucky falls in love with an incredibly intelligent young woman who is a naval architect designing ships for her elderly husband who owns a shipyard that constructs the famous Baltimore clippers. Mary Michael Watkins is a young woman who desperately wants to conceive a child before her husband dies, and he wants her to have a child too because it’s the one thing he could never give her. The man even goes so far as to help her choose Lucky as the perfect candidate for siring said child and facilitating their time alone. Knowing she’s running out of time, and acknowledging there is more than just an ordinary attraction with the captain, Mary Michael accepts Lucky’s flirtatious overtures knowing that once his business with her shipyard is over, he’ll leave her and she’ll hopefully have a child to raise—a son or daughter to inherit the shipyard and her husband’s fortune.
What she doesn’t count on is falling in love with a man to whom family, loyalty, and love mean everything.
I would love to hear from you! So, if you have any questions or comments, I’m online at www.SandyRaven.com, www.Facebook.com/SandyRavenAuthor, and www.Google.com/+SandyRavenAuthor.
Sincerely,
Sandy Raven
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the Beta Crew: Rosetta Boydston, Mary Mallini, Melinda Hicks, Janet Firestone, Gabriella Ortiz, and Donna Padilla. You ladies are awesome and I adore you. You don’t gripe when I ask for a quick turnaround.
To my husband, mother-in-law, and both daughters: I love you more than you can ever know.
And a very special thank you to Michael.
CHAPTER ONE
Liverpool, June 1835
“What about her? She looks fast, doesn’t she?”
“Hmmm…Aurelia,” Ian Alexander Ross-Mackeever, grandson of the Earl Mackeever, mused as he strolled alongside his friend Lucky Gualtiero, brother of the Duchess of Caversham. “She may look fast, but she’s not built the way I like. Something about her shape…too curvy if you ask me. It looks like she might fall apart before the ordeal is over.”
“What about that one? Evangeline,” his dark, olive-skinned friend asked.
Ian turned his gaze to where Lucky motioned. “Too top-heavy, and her bottom’s too narrow to support her. She’ll tip over in a stiff wind.”
“What about that one?”
“Her bottom’s too broad. She’ll be too slow to tack.”
“Well, you can’t say the same about that one over there. She has a nice, well-proportioned hull. At least what I can see of it.”
Ian didn’t need to consider the vessel in question, for he knew her design well. He should, it was very similar to, if not exactly like, a design of his father’s. “Yes. Nice curves, sturdily built, and I think I know her owner.
“So, do you think we stand a chance?” Lucky stopped and turned toward him.
Ian looked over the competition once more, and nodded. “Oh, I’d say the odds are very good. Next to McKim’s lady out there, we’ve definitely got the best boats in this race. A little smaller, a little aged, but well broken in. More importantly, both of them are lovingly maintained and handled.” They walked away from the dock and the preparations for the next day’s ceremony. “I believe everything is ready for the morning. God willing, we’ll have good wind.”
“The weather will hold until we’re well out,” Lucky said as he scanned the sky and horizon around them. Ian didn’t question him. He knew better. Like an old sailor, Lucky had an instinct for forecasting weather just by looking at the clouds. “Remember, my sister’s throwing us a dinner party to see us off. Be at the house around seven.”
“I’ll be there. You know I wouldn’t miss an opportunity for real food. Anything is better than the grub Old Will throws into a kettle,” Ian said as they neared a waiting hackney.
“You need to find a better cook,” Lucky replied. “So you stop trying to take mine.”
The driver tipped his hat and opened the door for the gentlemen. “You go on without me. I’m just going to get cleaned up and make sure the watch is in place. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Fine.” Lucky gave a quick nod to the man holding the door, then asked Ian if he needed the address again. Ian shook his head and simply asked the hackney driver to return for him after dropping off Lucky. “Then I’ll see you soon.”
The hackney door closed on Lucky. After the driver cued the horse to move on, Ian turned back to the dinghy tied below and rowed out to the Revenge, his best hope for victory in this race. Their supplies had been loaded earlier in the day, so he’d moved his boat away from the hustle and bustle of the dock. And any potential sabotage. Not that he suspected his fellow competitors of such underhanded behavior, but one could never be too careful when the stakes were this high. Tying off the dinghy, he climbed onto the deck and double-checked to make sure all was in readiness for the start of the race. Normally, he wouldn’t have considered wasting their time entering a race, but the twenty-five-thousand-pound purse was far too large to ignore. More importantly, if he and Lucky were serious about succeeding in their joint venture, the newly chartered Empire Tea Importers, they needed more ships. Two retrofit Baltimore schooners, though a respectable beginning, wouldn’t turn the kind of profits necessary to expand their business in the manner they wanted. The tea run they’d made last year left him with barely enough to live on after paying the note and their crew’s salaries. Lucky might not need the money as much as Ian did, but he’d be damned if he’d let his partner pay their way until they could turn a profit. Lucky had done enough already by paying the shipyard bill for the retrofit of the two boats over the past winter.
His dream, and Lucky’s too, was to have a fleet of at least a dozen clippers, preferably designed and built to their specifications. After carefully studying Colonel Beaufoy’s publication, Nautical and Hydraulic Experiments, where Beaufoy tested and found Newton’s hydraulics theory unlikely, Ian had begun drawing his own hull designs. To maximize hull space for valuable cargo, Ian’s idea was first to streamline the design of the hull; next to make her longer and deeper in the keel; then, to eliminate the complete dependence on ballast and use lead plate on the keel in conjunction with minimal internal ballast for stabilization. He was excited and anxious to test his theory. If it worked, he knew it would forever change the way hulls were designed and built. And his father, wherever his soul rested, would be proud.
Having grown up with a university-educated naval architect for a father, a man who designed and built clipper hulls, Ian knew that shipyards in New York and Baltimore were willing to build experimental designs; whereas in Aberdeen and Halifax, they were more likely to insist the time-tested and proven designs they had been successfully building for the last twenty years were better. Ian knew his design held promise and so did his partner. So he would amuse Lucky and have the Aberdeen yards look at the designs, but Ian knew they would likely have to go back to America to have them built the way they wanted.
Ian made his way down to his small cabin, stopping to take a bucket of fresh water from the barrel near the companionway. He ladled some into the metal basin, set the bucket down near the washstand, then stripped. He dunked his head into the bowl and began washing. One day, he’d like to have a house with a proper bathing chamber. There would be no more tossing water out of portholes or over the railing and refilling wash basins. No more bathing with cold water, except when at sea. Worst of all were the times he had to bathe with salt water, because it always left him feeling sticky and itchy. For that reason, he understood why some of the crew went without baths during those times.
Life at sea wasn’t the romantic, adventurous dream he’d imagined. But this had been his reality for the past five years since leaving university. He supposed he could have lived on credit and taken rooms somewhere, as did others in his financial situation. But Ian was too American for that, as Lucky reminded him on those rare occasions when Ian complained out loud. He might be the grandson of the Earl Mackeever, former commander in the King’s Navy and a hero who was severely injured in the Siege of Charleston saving the lives of his sailors as his ship sank. But, he was still the American-born son of a Baltimore naval architect who’d designed ships for the Americans in their second war for independence—one of the two reasons his grandfather hated him and the old sod reminded him of it each time Ian had seen him. Of course, since the incident, Ian hadn’t seen him at all.
Yes, the man with whom he shared blood despised him because of it. He never failed to remind Ian that his mother was a servant in his home and his father was a traitor to Great Britain and responsible for the deaths of many fine British sailors, perhaps even his uncle.
But there was another reason the old man hated him. One so dark and so foul that Ian had never told a soul, not even his best friend. The secret existed only between him and his grandfather, and when the old bastard died, Ian would be free to live a normal life. Or, as normal as an American-born heir of a Scottish earl could live.
Coming to Britain as a child hadn’t been easy. Some people, he’d learned over the years, had long memories, especially when they’d lost loved ones. And when your father was instrumental in expediting their dispatch to the next life, it was even more difficult to find a friendly face at school, and later university. Ian often felt he was the only unwelcome foreigner at school. It wasn’t until Oxford, where he met Luchino Antonio Francesco Gualtiero, the Conte di Loretto, Lucky to all who knew him, that he’d found a kindred spirit. His new friend was just as much an outsider because of his swarthy, Mediterranean appearance as Ian was for his American blood. It was in that atmosphere, that he and Lucky had become fast friends and immediately after university, business partners.
Now, at age twenty-five, Ian had the entire world before him. And no place to call home except this ship. He wasn’t British because he was born in America, but no longer American because nothing remained there for him, hadn’t since his father died twelve years earlier, when Ian was thirteen. The last time Ian saw his father, Ian had been twelve years old and forced to board a ship to England to live with the grandfather and two aunts who would see to his proper education and preparation for him to take his place in society as his grandfather’s heir. It had been something he’d fought against with all of his little boy might, to no avail.
