Tender Wings of Desire(6)

Carson arrived at half past six and turned out to be completely different from what Madeline had been expecting. She had pictured him as some grizzled old man, perhaps a former sailor with tattooed forearms and a perpetual grumpy expression on his face. While some of that was true (he did seem perpetually grumpy), he was actually much younger than she had anticipated. She wasn’t sure, but he might have been any age between her Winston and her father, with brown hair already touched with gray. He walked in, greeted some of the regulars, glanced at Madeline, and moved to the till to see how much they had made for that evening before stopping to send a confused look Madeline’s way.

“Caoimhe,” he said slowly. “You look different.”

“Do not try to be funny, Carson,” Caoimhe said, coming out from the back where she had been checking on things with the cook. “It does not become you.”

Carson scowled at her, but even Madeline could see that there wasn’t any malice in it.

“Then would you care to explain?” he asked her. Caoimhe wiped down the bar and pulled a tankard of ale for a customer who had just arrived.

“I need help around here, Carson. I’ve been telling you that for how long? And like some angel from heaven, this woman comes out of nowhere looking for employment. I did not dare say no to such a wretched creature.”

Carson turned to look at her, taking in her relatively well-made dress, simple though it was, and glancing at her hands, which, in spite of working all afternoon, still had the softness of someone who had never worked a day in her life. Madeline gave him her most winning smile, and he sighed.

“You have a place to live?” he asked her. For some reason this question took her off guard.

“Um.”

“That is a no. Listen, dearie. I do not know where you’ve come from or why. I do not know what you are really doing here, or even if there’s an answer for that, but you smell like money even if you do not know it, and I really hope you will not be bringing trouble to my door.”

“I do not plan to,” Madeline said, still a little dazed at how easily she had been figured out. Carson studied her face again and seemed to like what he found, because he nodded and turned to Caoimhe.

“I trust you on this one, but do you mind if she shares the rooms upstairs with you?”

Caoimhe nodded. “I figured you’d ask me to do that, so I did not have much of a choice.”

“Cheeky girl.”

And that was that. Carson went into the back to see how the cook was handling the stew he was making for that evening, and Caoimhe smiled in triumph.

“See? I knew he would not argue once I got you here, it is not his way. Welcome to The Admiral’s Arms, Madeline! I hope you have many happy days here.”

With that Caoimhe walked away to see to a customer, and Madeline was left to process the fact that she had successfully found a job and her immediate concerns had been solved. For the first time since she had left her parents’ manor in the dead of night, Madeline felt herself smiling in a way that was completely hopeful.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? Did Caoimhe finally convince Carson to hire a new worker?”

Madeline turned to answer the man, not quite caring for his tone, only to come face to face with the most handsome man she had ever seen.





CHAPTER SIX




He was tall, dressed like a sailor with a striped linen shirt and woolen peacoat crusted with sea salt. His hair was light and fair, framing his head in airy curls, and the eyes that stared back at her were almost the exact color of the sea, perhaps darker, but not by much, and they hid behind glasses with dark frames. Madeline had never seen a sailor wear glasses before; somehow it made him seem all the more handsome. He leaned on the bar, his eyes looking into hers and liking what he saw. This wasn’t like when Carson had appraised her; this was different. And for a moment she felt hot and cold at the same time.

“Um,” Madeline said. He smiled at her.

“The name’s Harland. What’s yours?” His accent was one she had never heard before, sounding like a soft version of an American accent.

“Madeline.”

“That is a beautiful name, Madeline,” he said. “You must be new here.”

Her mouth went dry as she tried desperately to figure out why this conversation was still happening. It was strange; it was not as though the other customers hadn’t questioned her about her arrival. This felt different though; this made her scramble for the proper words to say, something that would make her sound charming or clever, something that would make him want to speak to her more.

She did not realize that all of her thinking and obsessing had been happening in real time, so she was mostly staring at him as she panicked, watching his face grow more and more amused as she struggled to find words that were charming enough. Finally, she just gave up.

“Yes,” she replied. “I am new here.”

“Well, you are certainly a breath of fresh air!”

Hewas the most handsome person she had ever seen; even his beard made him look more manly than unkempt.

“I’ve never seen a sailor who wore glasses before,” she said suddenly. He grinned.

“Neither have I. Then again, I don’t often look in the mirror,” he replied.

She felt her cheeks blush a flame red, and she retreated to the kitchen to stop them from blushing further.

In the kitchen she saw the cook, a scrawny boy who barely looked old enough to shave let alone run a kitchen. He looked up from the pot of stew he was stirring. Upon seeing Madeline, he immediately started blushing.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said uselessly. Madeline opened her mouth, closed it again, and turned to leave the kitchen.

“Everything alright?” Caoimhe asked as Madeline grabbed a towel and began to focus intently on wiping up a small spill of ale.

“Nothing,” Madeline replied absently, not even realizing that she hadn’t answered the question properly. Her mind was still full of his smile, those eyes. What was wrong with her? She barely knew who he was and there she stood, acting like a silly schoolgirl. She managed a glance at him, only to realize that he had been looking at her as well. She gave a little sigh.

Caoimhe followed her line of sight and chuckled.

“I see you’ve met Harland.”

Harland. Yes. That is what his name had been.

“Yes,” Madeline said, all timid and horrible. She barely sounded like herself at this point. What was wrong with her?

“Harland’s a regular, goes out on the boats with the other sailors, but I think he’s the only one who’s really doing it for fun.”

This caught Madeline’s attention.

“What do you mean?”

Caoimhe gave a little shrug. “There’s always been something about him that implied that he was having more fun than just making ends meet. Since he’s here, I thought it was just his personality. That is a gift, isn’t it? To be able to treat everything like a holiday no matter what you are doing. I wish I had that.”

Madeline nodded, hoping that he was no longer looking at her. She snuck a little glance; he definitely still was. She looked away again. Caoimhe found all of this immensely entertaining.

“Isn’t he a dish?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Madeline replied, not even bothering to pretend she wasn’t lying. That only made Caoimhe laugh again and turn in his direction.

“Hey, Harland!” she called over to him. Madeline was utterly mortified.

“Don’t!” she hissed at the woman she thought was going to be her bosom friend.

Harland looked over, his eyes still alluring, his smile still twinkling, and Madeline tried to keep her composure and not strangle Caoimhe where she stood. She decided that it would not be a good idea to strangle the woman who had given her a job. Madeline may not have been wise in the ways of the world, but she did know that.

“Come over here!” Caoimhe said to Harland, causing Madeline’s heart to sink to the bottom of her ribcage in mortification. Perhaps, if she were lucky, she could just melt into the floor and stop existing.

Even worse, Harland stood up and walked down the bar to sit in front of them. Although Caoimhe had called him over, he only seemed to have eyes for Madeline. This made her nervous, and to combat it she smoothed her hair down, as if that movement would chase away the fluttering she felt in her stomach.

“What would you like from me, Caoimhe?” he asked with his eyes sparkling.

“I am just asking you to be nice to our new worker,” she said with a wink. “She’s come a long way, dare I say. This may be her first job.”

Madeline wondered if it were possible to sink into the floor and disappear. Harland leaned on the bar and looked at her with interest.

“Is it? How old are you, lass?”

His accent definitely sounded too cultured for an American farmer, and being a sailor meant that he wasn’t a member of the gentry. Did they have gentry in America? Did it matter as much as it did here? Madeline was finally beginning to regain a little of the composure she had lost since she first laid eyes on the man. Finally, she felt some measure of who she was returning, and it gave her enough strength to look into his eyes.

“Old enough,” she replied daringly. He laughed.

“A grown woman who has never worked a day in her life? You must have had quite the upbringing.”