An Officer but No Gentleman(71)

“You aren’t going to cry, are you?” he asked.

“Of course not.”

“Liar.”

He handed her the baby. She stared at Clara for a few seconds then pulled the baby against her shoulder and cried.

Jaxon put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “You’re going to be a great mother,” he whispered in her ear. “Does she make you want one?”

She wore a serious expression when she looked at him. Charlie had seen his disappointment when she shyly informed him that they couldn’t make love because her monthly had started.

“Eventually.”

“Unless you’re suggesting what it almost sounds like you’re suggesting, we’re going to start our family sooner than later.”

Charlie frowned. She didn’t know how to tell him how she felt except to come out and say it.

“As long as you are privateering, I don’t want to have children. It isn’t safe to have a baby aboard when cannonballs and grapeshot are flying through the air. And I don’t want to be here raising children on my own when I still feel like I’m lost in a foreign country when I’m on land. I want to be with you, wherever you are.”

Jaxon looked poleaxed. “You are suggesting we abstain from marital relations?”

“Heavens no!”

“Thank heavens. You had me scared. What are you suggesting?”

Charlie stroke Clara’s downy hair.

“I’ve been reading about it in Dr. Kirk’s books and there seems to be a great deal of evidence that there are only a few days a month when a woman can, you know, conceive.” Charlie blushed. “We just have to avoid those days.”

Jaxon sat back staring sightlessly at a spot on the wall. “Huh.”

“Are you angry?”

He thought about it. “No. I don’t know what I’m feeling. It never occurred to me that we had any control over when we started our family.” He wondered if people would assume something was wrong with one of them if they didn’t start having children right away. “It certainly gives me more time to have you all to myself.”

“It’s not foolproof.” She smiled at him as she bounced the baby a few times. “In a few years, we can have as many children as you want.”





24





Charlie looked at herself in the mirror in bewilderment. She didn’t know the person staring back at her. She wore a beautiful azure blue silk dress. It was cut empire style with a low neckline that left her shoulders bare. A swag of white silk trimmed the décolletage extending around the top of her arms giving the illusion of a sleeve.

Jaxon had hired a lady’s maid to come in and help her prepare for the engagement party. The woman had tsk-tsked her when she saw the length of Charlie’s hair and offered to cut it á la Josephine, but Charlie refused. She had not been allowed to wear it long and now that she could, she wanted to let it grow.

Somehow, despite the woman’s complaining, she had managed to make her hair beautiful, pinning it up into an elegant coif.

And yet Charlie couldn’t manage a smile at her own reflection.

“What’s the matter, Charlie? Nervous?”

“Aye. What if they don’t like me?”

“Why wouldn’t they like you? Mother only invited relatives of ours. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins and Mabel so you’d have someone other than my siblings there that you know. They are here to celebrate our happiness and meet you.”

Charlie looked at him through the reflection in the mirror. He looked so handsome in his double-breasted navy blue dress uniform. The dark color set off the blue in his eyes. Just looking at him calmed her. As long as he was by her side, she could face anything.

“Everyone is going to want to know how we met. I don’t know what to tell them.”

“We’ll tell them the truth. Honestly, Charlie, it’s an amazing story. Do you realize how many events had to happen for us to meet in the middle of the ocean? If just one thing had been different, we might have never met.”

“But they are going to find out I used to live my life as a man. What if they react like Grayson?”

He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her bare shoulders. “You will be the envy of all the women. I think many of them wish they could see what it’s like to have the freedom of a man, if only for one day.” He kissed her neck. “You might want to leave out the parts about going wenching with your friends and smoking cigars.”

“And starting tavern fights.”

“You never told me you started tavern fights.”

She smiled shyly. “I used to start them all the time. Sometimes I just wanted to get my frustrations out. My father hated it. The last time, he confined me to my quarters for three days when I wasn’t on duty and threatened to flog me if I did it again. You saw the big bruise on my back. I’m not sure what he used to hit me, I was too focused on taking the knife away from another man to realize this man had picked up something. Luckily, Morty stepped in and ended the fight.”