An Officer but No Gentleman(72)

She saw him react to the mention of Morty’s name and wished she had just kept her mouth shut.

“Yes, let’s leave that out, too.”

He stood behind her looking at her in the mirror. It was hard to equate this beautiful woman to the little spitfire that had come aboard his ship. She looked so different. It was no wonder she felt insecure. Her whole world had turned on its ear. Everything was new to her. Jaxon wondered if she would feel the same way about him had they not been forced together by circumstance.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you look? But I think you’re missing something. Close your eyes.”

Charlie closed her eyes and felt him place something around her neck.

“Open your eyes.”

He had draped a string of pearls around her neck.

“A treasure from the sea for my treasure from the sea. Don’t cry.”

“If you don’t want me to cry, stop being so nice to me all the time.”

“If we get there and you look like you’ve been crying, everyone will think you’re not happy,” he teased handing her his handkerchief.

Charlie took a deep breath and slowly blew it out between her lips and forced back the tears. A wan smile touched her lips.

“Better?”

His expression said it all. Jaxon’s brow knitted and his mouth was set in a line.

“The captain’s son was not allowed to cry.”

Jaxon leaned over until his face was next to hers in the mirror. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry, baby. I was just teasing you. If you want to cry, cry.”

Charlie reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. “I don’t want to cry tonight. I want to be the fiancée you can be proud of.”

Jaxon’s tight-lipped expression turned further south. “I don’t understand what you mean by that. You’re not a possession I’m trying to show off. I don’t need you to pretend to be someone you’re not to impress anyone.”

“But I’m not like other women.”

“If you mean you don’t know how to cook or throw a party, who cares? I can hire people to do those things. But you are the woman I love. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you wanted to wear trousers or pick up your meat with your knife, I wouldn’t care.”

Jaxon would have like to have told her when she looked at him, he no longer felt scarred, but somehow saying something so personal was too revealing. He didn’t want her to have to bear his demons, especially when she was still adjusting to all the changes in her life.



Rather than have the party at her home, Betsy Bloodworthy decided to rent the hotel restaurant and ballroom. It had just been too much work to do in two weeks, but she knew no one would mind too much. When they arrived, Charlie sought out Jayne and asked her if she would be her maid of honor. The wide grin on her face said it all.

The evening may have started with a meal, but neither Jaxon nor Charlie could remember afterwards what they had dined on. Charlie only remembered that the food had just kept coming course after course. When the dessert course came, Jaxon stood up and extended his hand to Charlie.

“I want to thank everyone for coming tonight on such short notice. And I’m going to apologize now for not giving you more notice on the wedding in a fortnight.”

A few people whispered among themselves as Jaxon continued.

“Rather than repeat the story of how we met twenty times tonight, I thought I’d just tell everyone together. It’s a long story that starts more than a decade and a half ago when a little motherless girl goes to sea to live with her father, the captain of a merchant ship. He dresses her in breeches and brings her aboard the ship—as his son….”





25





After dinner, an octet of musicians began playing from the ballroom drawing the partygoers into the adjoining room. The ballroom wasn’t very large, but it seemed to accommodate the thirty or forty people there. Two grand crystal chandeliers were alight with a least twenty kerosene flames that reflected off the highly polished oak parquet floor and wall of windows. Gold velvet curtains flanked each window with white silk ropes holding the curtains open. The small orchestra was packed tightly into to one corner of the room leaving the guests as much room as possible.

“That’s the biggest fiddle I’ve ever seen,” Charlie whispered to Jaxon.

“Don’t let them hear you calling them fiddles. They’d be insulted.”

“I didn’t think there was a difference between a violin and a fiddle.”

“I don’t think there is. The difference is in the musicians.”

Charlie nodded. “Well, they sound beautiful together.”