Alanna

Book 2: When Hearts Dare

by Kathleen Bittner Roth

Genres: American Romance; Historical Fantasy; Gothic

Synopsis

A professional tracker finds unquenchable passion with a mysterious young woman across 19th century America in this historical romance.

A legendary tracker of missing persons, Wolf is known from San Francisco to Boston and beyond. His most relentless search of all is for the man who killed his mother when he was only a boy. His dark and feral gaze misses nothing. But now it has fallen on an enigmatic beauty unlike any he has seen before.

At first, Wolf tells himself that Alanna Malone is nothing more than a welcome distraction from his work. But soon, he comes to realize that their connection is much deeper than a simple affair. He begins to see her everywhere—across America, across the ocean, even in his dreams. Driven for so long by his passion for revenge, he now finds himself driven by his passion for her…

"Gripped me from the opening page. . . kept me reading long into the night." --Jodi Thomas

Release date: November 1, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

San Francisco—1854—Twenty-four years later

“Tell me something, Wolf. How long do you intend to track down everyone else’s problems before you decide to find whoever it was that murdered your mother?”

A ghost-cold finger ran up Wolf ’s spine at the serious edge to the feminine voice floating across the table, snapping him out of his torpor. He shifted in his seat, glanced about the elegant dining room of the hotel Dianah’s family owned, and realized silence hadn’t pervaded the space after all. In fact, the air around him buzzed with conversation, the hard edges softened by the mellow notes emanating from a piano set in a far corner.

After drinking steadily for two days, Wolf had turned to sipping water these past few hours. Nonetheless, his mouth went dry. Years of living on horseback while he tracked lost people had left him with a fatigue that could no longer be abated. He’d been on the trail for weeks with Trevor Andrews, searching for his fiancée, who’d been snatched by Indians, and then spent the winter bringing the woman safely to San Francisco. The thought of climbing on his horse in the morning and heading back home to Missouri left him about as excited as he would be to eat a plank of wood.

How many predators would he fight before he made a fatal mistake? How many more times would he turn his bounty over to someone who paid him well, only to find himself alone once he rode off? And how many more goddamn months or years before he simply dropped from the saddle and didn’t bother getting up?

“Well?” The prompt came from Cameron Andrews, Trevor’s cousin and co-owner of the lucrative Andrews Shipping Company Limited, who sat next to Dianah.

Cameron’s serious tone unsettled Wolf nearly as much as Dianah’s questions. They were the only two friends he had left now that Trevor and Celine had married and sailed off to China. And these two weren’t friends very long in the making. “Go ahead, Dianah. Speak your piece, because I have nothing to say.”

Cameron lifted a forkful of chocolate cake to his lips. “Ever the diplomat, aren’t you?”

Wolf shoved his plate aside and regarded both Cameron and Dianah. Cameron spoke with an odd mix of French Creole Southern drawl and British accent—the former from his roots in the French Quarter, the latter from a Cambridge education. As for Dianah, her Southern accent would likely remain thick as honey, no matter how long she lived in San Francisco.

She reached over the table and gently touched the garnet earring in Wolf ’s ear. “Does your search have anything to do with why you wear this?”

“Don’t recall.” Irritation hardened the edge of his already set jaw.

When he didn’t say anything else, Cameron spoke. “There are three kinds of memory, Wolf—good, bad, and convenient. Since we’re your friends, a convenient memory seems unnecessary.”

“You just got boring.” Wolf liked his life kept private. Very private. “But that’s what I get for making friends who meddle in my affairs.”

Cameron threw him a vexed look. “Meddle in your affairs? For God’s sake, we don’t even know your last name. We know so little of you and yet, after what you did for my cousin and his wife, we have given you our trust and loyalty. The least you can do is offer something in return. You intend to leave tomorrow, and we don’t know when or if we’ll see you again. I don’t call that sporting.”

Cameron’s words cut through Wolf’s chest like an arrow piercing a dove’s breast. “You know the earring belonged to my mother and that someone murdered her. What the hell else do you need to know?”

“As much as will lighten your heart.” Dianah lifted a silk fan to her face and blinked her green cat eyes at him. After an interminably long silence, she sighed and lowered the fan. “When you return to Missouri, either figure out who killed your mother, or remove that ear bob and bury it with her.”

She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “You simply cannot wander around in the middle of nowhere without purpose forever. You’re a prisoner of your own life choices, and it’s wearing on you.”

Wolf set his jaw again.

“And don’t try masking your feelings with anger,” she said. “I won’t have it.”

He’d never talked about his mother to anyone. Not once. He didn’t know if he could get the words out. He slumped back in his chair and fingered the rim of his glass. “The murder didn’t take place anywhere near Missouri.” He cleared his throat, embarrassed by the way his voice broke.

Dianah gasped, while Cameron’s brows knit together. “Then where?” he said.

To hell with just water. Wolf filled his glass with sherry. “Boston. It happened in Boston.”

Cameron and Dianah shot curious glances at one another. “Boston?” Dianah asked. “You . . . you’re not originally from Missouri?”

“Did I ever say I was?”

Cameron leaned over the table. “You never say much of anything, so how the devil were we to know you came from elsewhere? You’ve always referred to St. Joseph as your home. Not to mention, that’s where my cousin located you. I have a ship leaving for Boston in two days. You could be on it. It’s a clipper, the fastest-sailing vessel in the world. You’d be there in no time.”

Christ, not on the water. Never again on the water. Wolf hedged. “I can ride back on my roan until I get to St. Joe, where I can hook up with a train heading east.”

“Aha!” Cameron punctuated the air with his fork. “I’ve seen that look on a man’s face before. You, mon frère, detest sailing.” He dived back into his dessert with gusto. “But sail you must.”

Wolf downed the sherry in one gulp and reached for a refill. “You pompous ass.” He studied Cameron and Dianah for a long while. A realization that they were both right settled deep in his bones—it was time to resolve this once and for all. Past time. At the finality of his decision, a sudden shift in mood overcame him. He leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the floor. “You’ve got a boat sailing in two days, you say?”

Cameron’s eyebrow spiked. “Repeat after me. Ship. Never utter the word boat aboard one of my fine crafts or you’ll be tossed overboard by the captain himself.”

Dianah reached into a hidden pocket in her gown and stretched her closed fist over the table toward Wolf. “I was hoping you’d say yes. Hold out your hand.”

Wolf slipped his hand under hers. A small golden hoop and a gold chain fell into his cupped palm. “What’s this?”

“One of a pair of earrings I had as a child, and a chain on which to carry the one in your ear. Even though it’s been over twenty years, if whoever murdered your mother is still alive, he might recognize that earring you wear.” She reached out and touched the garnet at his lobe.

He gave a jerk of his head.

“I know this is sacred to you, but wearing it could place you in jeopardy. It would behoove you to keep it under your clothing.”

She shoved the golden hoop and chain his way. “This can stand as a symbol for your mother’s.”

Cameron reached over to inspect the earring. “Maybe you should forget a replacement altogether. Besides, this thing is too small for your elephant ear. Merde.”

“Oh, hush.” Dianah slapped at Cameron’s fingers with her fan. She reached to remove the garnet earring from Wolf ’s lobe.

A cold, hard pain shot through him. He grasped her hand and slowly lowered it to the table. “I’ll think on it.”

Dianah’s eyes widened a fraction. “All right.” She wriggled her fingers free. “They’re yours should you decide to take my advice.”

Cameron grinned. “That hoop’s so small, you’d look like an underpaid pirate.”

Dianah waved Cameron off with her fan. “Cameron’s going daft from drinking too much liquor.”

Cameron stopped eating, his gaze directed to the door. “Don’t all ogle at once, but would you look at the beauty who just walked in?”

Dianah inclined her head to the door. “That would be Mr. and Mrs. Malone and their daughter, Alanna. They are guests here at the hotel, so pray, be civil.”

With a slow turn of his head, Wolf caught sight of the family in question.

The maitre d’hôtel escorted the tall, portly man and his equally thick-waisted wife past them to a table, their noses in the air. In between the two floated their daughter.

“That lovely frock would be from Paris,” Dianah murmured.

Cameron snorted. “He’s not looking at the dress, Dianah. I doubt he could even name the color if his life depended on it.”

The young woman wore a white gown emblazoned with large, navy flowers outlined in shimmering beads. But the bold design wasn’t all that caused her to stand out in the room. The raven-haired beauty would have caused every head to turn no matter what her clothing. She was taller than her mother, and much more slender, and there was something strangely elusive about her that caused Wolf’s blood to heat.

As the trio passed, so close Wolf caught the faint scent of cinnabar and roses, the girl turned her head and stared boldly at him, her cool demeanor at odds with the fire in her eyes. And then her lips parted, as if she needed more air. A punch of lust hit Wolf’s groin.

Cameron leaned over the table. “She certainly cast a rather brazen glance your way, old boy.”

Wolf checked an urge to shift about in the suddenly uncomfortable chair. He shrugged. “She has striking eyes.”

Dianah lifted a finely arched brow. “In case you haven’t looked in the mirror lately, you have the very same striking blue eyes.”

Cameron sniggered. “I do believe he’s fishing for a compliment, Dianah. What say you?”

Wolf moaned and leaned forward on his elbows, clutching the stem of his glass. “Since the human eye isn’t found in too damn many colors, that leaves you about as clever as a preacher in a whorehouse.” He drank his sherry in one guzzle, set his glass on the table with a thud, and leaned back in his chair. “Color’s not what makes eyes remarkable. It’s what’s behind them that does. Maybe that’s why yours have such a dull cast to them.”

Dianah laughed softly as she tipped the bottle of spirits into Wolf’s glass once again.

“No,” Cameron said. “Although my eyes are indeed a decidedly clear, intelligent amber, monsieur, yours are of a different ilk. And they match Miss Malone’s.”

Wolf snorted. “Amber? Your eyes have a definite shade of bullshit to them, mon sewer. Comes from being filled with it.” He shot Dianah a quick glance. “Sorry. This friend of yours drives me to the brink. Made me forget my good manners.”

“Good manners?” Cameron was at the ready, but Dianah splayed her fingers across his chest, stopping him. “Wolf, the blue of your eyes is edged in black that makes them stand out against the whites, just like Miss Malone’s. I know, I’ve seen her up close.” The increased flicking of Dianah’s fan gave away her cat-and-mouse game. “And by the way, she now studies you rather shamelessly.”

He fought an intense urge to glance over Cameron’s shoulder and across the room to the table holding the very intriguing Miss Malone.

Cameron eyed Wolf’s untouched plate. “Do you intend to eat that?” Not bothering to wait for a response, he slid the plate his way. “You can forget about getting within ten feet of her.” He raised a hand, stopping Wolf before he could make a snide retort. “Don’t bother. Did you see the way her parents marched in here like a couple of gendarmes with their daughter stuffed between them?”

“Who said I was interested?” Wolf shot back.

Cameron smirked. “Your thinly veiled admiration, old boy. Would you like a surgeon called in to have your eyeballs set back in place?”

Dianah’s velvet laughter bubbled over. “I’m willing to wager that because of her parents, you could not get close enough to Miss Malone to so much as speak her name.”

“Not interested.” Wolf quit fighting the urge—he glanced across the room. Alanna Malone’s sharp blue eyes struck the distance between them like summer lightning. But oddly, her exquisite face held no expression whatsoever. Caught squarely off guard again, Wolf raised the glass of sherry to his lips and watched her over the rim until she looked away.

“Care to wager?” Cameron was at it again.

“No.”

“Ah, a man of so many words. Well, you would have lost.” Cameron turned to Dianah. “I’ll bet that chain hanging from her father’s vest pocket doesn’t hold a timepiece at all. Said pocket hides a key to a chastity belt. And one guess who’s wearing the belt.”

“I don’t believe so, Cameron.” Dianah tapped him on the shoulder with her folded fan. “If anyone carries a key to a chastity belt, it would be the mother.”

Wolf shook his head and retreated from the conversation.

Mock seriousness knitted Cameron’s brows together. “How so?”

“The mother has taken note of her daughter’s reaction to Wolf.” Dianah leaned discreetly over the table, whispering wickedly. “A woman knows that certain look. Believe me, the mother is the one who would carry the key to the belt, not the father.”

Wolf rolled his eyes. “Jeezus. Together, you two form one demented brain. All of this in thirty seconds of someone’s passing by?”

“Oh, it hasn’t been just thirty seconds.” Dianah fanned her face again until only her cat eyes appeared above the starched folds. “They were here when you wandered in two days ago.”

Cameron set down his fork. “Miss Malone couldn’t possibly have recognized him as the same man. Look at him now. Good Lord, he looks completely different. Almost humanlike.”

Dianah tilted her head and with a sly grin, appraised Wolf. “I think women find you deliciously appealing. By the way, Miss Malone is still focused entirely on you. I think she knows you’re the same man.”

“Mind like a steel trap, this tracker of lost people,” Cameron responded.

Wolf ignored Cameron. “You’re picking at me, Dianah. Why?”

“Sweetheart, other than seducing women on the run, you fight intimacy with everyone you encounter. Why, that horse of yours is the only living creature you have for company for months on end and have you bothered to give it a name? I swear if I hear that beast referred to as the roan one more time, I’ll shoot it.”

“So why are you picking at me?” Wolf studied her now with a calm intensity, his voice smooth but insistent.

“I suppose I’m trying to make you think about a few things before you leave us. I sense a shift taking place in your life, and I sincerely hope the change will include opening up to the idea of loving someone.”

“What makes you think something like that would be good for me?” Wolf managed his words without inflection.

“Because, dear one, we all need the balm of love. Love is what keeps us at peace. It heals our wounded souls, and Lord knows, yours is in need of a good healing.”

Wolf’s thoughts returned to the captivating young woman sitting across the room. As he glanced over her father’s shoulder, the raven-haired woman met Wolf’s gaze once again. His body wasted no time imagining nothing between the two of them but bare skin.

At the sight of him sitting very still in his chair, boldly staring at her, a buzz raced along Alanna’s skin, then slipped inside and warmed her. There was pure sin in his startling blue eyes. The moment hung suspended between them, and then expanded as his feral gaze held hers, until finally, she tucked a smile into one corner of her mouth and looked at her plate. That her mother was aware of the silent communion between her daughter and this stranger held little significance.

Stranger? Not to Alanna. He went by the name of Wolf, and he was a legend in these parts. No one knew much about him other than that he roamed the West as a relentless tracker of lost persons. She’d seen him enter the hotel two days before wearing dusty buckskins and a gun belt slung low on lean hips. His disheveled hair grazed his fringed shirt and a full beard obscured his face. There appeared to be not an ounce of fat on his broad-shouldered frame. Hard to recognize that man as being the same person who now sat across the room dressed in tailored clothing that rivaled any worn in London or Paris. Sun-streaked hair, clubbed at his nape with a black ribbon, shone tawny gold beneath the gas-lit chandeliers. Clean-shaven now, his chiseled face could pass for a work of art.

Two days ago hadn’t been the first time she’d seen him. A few months prior, he’d charged into the elegant Morgan Hotel after weeks on the trail, dragging a woman by the hand and cradling a rosy-cheeked babe in one arm. A fascinating man, he’d captivated Alanna on the spot. Or had she merely fallen for the romantic notion that he’d made a daring rescue of the woman by his side? She’d heard that the woman had been captured by Indians and ended up giving birth to a son while surrounded by wolves. That today the woman had married the boy’s father . . . the man being none other than the wealthy part-owner of the shipping company her own father used to transport his goods.

“Stop staring,” her mother spat. “Not only are you being utterly rude, but have you forgotten you are soon to be married?”

Oh, wouldn’t she like to forget that unfortunate fact. “I’d rather slit my wrists with a butter knife than marry Jonathan.”

Her mother’s jaw twitched and her lips thinned. “Don’t start that again, Alanna, or I’ll have your father correct your manners.”

Alanna settled her mouth into a faux smile. “My father who sits here and ignores us entirely?” She leaned over and patted her father’s plump hand. “Isn’t that right, Father?”

He glanced up from the folded newspaper beside his plate, fork in midair. “Huh? Oh. Yes. Yes. Correct. Correct.” He went back to reading and eating.

She pursed her lips against a real smile. “See, Mother? Not an inkling.”

She glanced up, just as Wolf stood, dropped his serviette on the table, and turned on his heel. He moved toward the exit with a fluid grace, his muscled hips rolling seductively, his long legs stretching out in a slow, purposeful glide. Something less than virtuous heated Alanna’s insides. Oh, why did a man like him have to live in this part of the world and not in hers?

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he paused at the doorway and made a swift turn of his shoulders. He settled a blue-fire gaze on her, scorching every nerve in her body.

Her mother gasped. “Ignore that awful man at once!”

Alanna paid her mother no heed.

“Mr. Malone,” her mother hissed. “Would you please rid yourself of that dratted newspaper and have a word with your daughter about indecently gawking at a perfect stranger?”

Her father glanced up. Wolf had disappeared. “What does it matter? We’re gone in two days.” He turned to Alanna. “And I have heard every word, Alanna Mary Malone.” The soft Irish lilt infusing his words thickened, revealing his repressed anger. “There will be a wedding and that’s all there is to it. You so much as breathe in a way that ruins our chances of entering the upper ranks of society and you will lose everything you hold dear.”

She straightened her spine against his ire. “Well, since I don’t give a fig about finances and material things, that wouldn’t be much of a loss, now, would it, Father?”

“Watch your tongue. You know quite well what I mean, so do not pretend otherwise.”

Alanna wiped all expression from her face, but beneath the table, her hands twisted her serviette as if it were her fiancé’s neck. “I have yet to walk down the aisle with the man you sold my soul to, so do beware.”

Wolf widened his stance against the roll of the ship and leaned his weight on hands spread flat against either side of the cabin’s porthole. He stared out at San Francisco’s coastline, little more than a gray brushstroke dividing sunny skies from the calm blue sea. As he struggled to keep his mind off whatever lurked in the watery depths below, nausea bit at his gut.

“Drowning must be one helluva way to die.”

Thompson, the ship’s captain, grunted. “No one shanghaied you aboard, my friend. You could’ve ridden that horse of yours all the way to Boston if you’d a mind to.” He took a slurp of steaming tea. “Of course, its legs would’ve been worn to nubbins by then.”

Wolf’s stomach lurched again. Had he turned green yet?

Thompson took another noisy swig of the oolong. “You might want to keep your eye on the horizon. It tends to fend off seasickness.” He emptied his wide-bottomed cup with a long swallow, set it on the table with a clink, and stroked his graying beard. “And force yourself to think of something pleasurable. It’ll keep your mind off your stomach.”

Wolf snorted. “Something that gives me pleasure? Hell, dry land would do the deed.”

Thompson chuckled.

Wolf let go a ragged breath. Find something—anything—to focus on. The memory of the woman who’d strolled past him in the dining room two nights earlier hit him so hard, he could just about smell the faint scent of cinnabar and roses that had trailed behind her. A shot of desire went through him. Alanna Malone. Even her name hung about him like sultry air on a hot day.

A gentle roll of the ship and a quick twist of his stomach ended Wolf’s brief distraction. He heaved a sigh. “May as well get started. Don’t want to end up hanging over the rail the whole damn trip.”

Thompson glanced up from the tea leaves he pondered at the bottom of his cup. “Get started?”

Wolf turned and took measured steps to the steamer trunk that stood next to the bunk and flipped it open. His old buckskins lay on top. What was he thinking, packing the blasted things? He emptied the trunk onto the bed and stuffed the worn leather pants and fringed shirt back into the flat bottom. Whatever the future held, he hoped it wouldn’t mean going back to riding the West, and searching for people as lost as he felt.

He repacked his new, fashionably tailored clothing into the steamer atop the buckskins. Thompson studied every move he made. Even though the captain had been good enough to share his quarters on the merchant ship, Wolf could think of nothing better than being alone. Eyeing the small carpetbag he’d left out of the trunk, he emptied the contents onto the bed, counted out ginger tea sewn in little silk packets, a number of small gray pebbles, and several narrow strips of cloth.

Thompson made his way over to the bunk, lifted one of the bags, sniffed, and grunted. “What’s all this for?”

“It’s supposed to hold seasickness at bay.” Wolf rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and strapped the small hematite stones to the insides of his wrists with a couple of bands of cloth. “If this works, like that little Chinaman back in San Francisco said, I won’t have to spend this god-awful trip heaving my guts out in a bucket.”

Thompson chuckled and headed out the door. “Sounds like someone sold you a load of crap, my friend. You’d better hope for some decent weather until we hit Cape Horn.”

Two mornings out, the winds changed. By afternoon, the seas turned black and began to buck. Shortly thereafter, a squall hit with so much fury, Wolf’s blood ran cold.

While a mate stood spread-legged and bellowed orders for all hands to take their places, shrieking winds swept the ship’s bow and turned small whitecaps into violent waves that crashed down on the clipper. Two foremast hands, with only their heels on the footropes and their bellies to the yardarm, hung in space, grappling for a topsail.

All hands on deck worked with ropes tied around their waists, tethered to the ship for safety. Thompson ordered Wolf lashed to his bunk lest a wave beat the door down and wash him out to sea. Goddamn, he hated sailing.

The sweeping gale howled through three terrifying nights.

There’d been barely a quiver to his stomach though, and he remained clearheaded. After awhile, he wondered if he’d simply outgrown seasickness, or if the items from the depths of his carpetbag were doing the trick. Either way, he was far from comfortable.

At least he wasn’t hanging his head in a bucket.

An odd mix of anguish and bewilderment struck him—along with a bleak remembrance of something he’d experienced when he was eight years old. Back then, the couple who’d acted as his guardians after his mother’s death had ordered him into a similar craft. Without explanation, they had unceremoniously turned him over to a stranger in the dead of night. Wordlessly, the man had rowed Wolf toward an ominous-looking ship floating in the gray waters of New York Harbor.

When Wolf had turned around to try to catch sight of his guardians, they had vanished. Forlorn, and overwhelmed with a sense that he would never see them again, he stared dry-eyed at the ship looming in the harbor, anger settling deeper in his bones.

“Liverpool,” was all the man had mumbled when he’d lashed Wolf to a berth. A terrible nausea that never abated had plagued him the entire trip, causing him to wonder if he might perish. There were times he’d been certain the only thing keeping him alive was a vision of his father waiting at the docks.

But when Wolf had arrived in Liverpool, gaunt and filthy, his father had been nowhere around. Instead, he’d been met by yet another stranger, one who’d offered no explanations, only silence and a set of fresh clothing to replace the vomit-soaked garments he’d worn throughout the trip before they set off to . . . to where? He couldn’t remember.

“Christ Almighty!” Wolf sat up, shoved a hand through his hair, and eyed the liquor cabinet.

The door crashed open, and the captain rushed in. He grabbed a towel and swiped at his bearded face and hair. “I got some pretty sick people aboard, and if you think anything in your bag might help them, I’d like you to offer it up and tell me what to do.”

“I’ll do it.”

Thompson shook his head. “I’ll handle this. Can’t risk having you washed overboard.”

Nonetheless, Wolf untied the rope lashing him to the bunk and went about freeing the carpetbag. “How many are down?”

“Four.”

Setting his feet apart for balance, Wolf dug through the bag’s contents and produced eight smooth, gray stones. He showed Thompson how they should be tied against wrists. Next, he wrapped several packets of ginger tea in another piece of gauze and shoved it inside the captain’s slicker. “Get that tea wet and it’ll be useless.”

Thompson turned on his heel and started through the narrow door. Mischief coursed through Wolf’s blood. He plopped on the bed, and crossed his arms behind his head. “And you can kiss my royal butt for the rest of this godforsaken trip if that so-called worthless crap gets your crew up and running.”

By the fourth day, the storm receded. Boredom settled in on Wolf. No longer was he concerned with what might prowl beneath the ship or whether or not he’d survive seasickness. He decided to take a little tour of the deck. He was unleashing himself from the bunk when the captain returned for more ginger tea. “The stuff doesn’t reproduce itself, you know. Have you got a plan for when we round Cape Horn if you use everything now?”

Thompson ignored him. “Give me five bags. The others are in decent shape now, but one of the women is still sick.”

“Huh?” Wolf paused at the captain’s words, the rope held in midair. “Women? What the hell are you doing with females in your crew?”

Thompson shot him a curious glance. “Crew? Where did you get that fool idea?”

“Correct me if I am wrong, oh captain of mine, but isn’t this a commercial ship? I thought I was the only passenger aboard—and that’s only because of my friendship with the Andrews cousins who own the damn thing. If I’d known there was any spare room aboard, do you think I’d bunk in your quarters?” Wolf dug into his bag again. “How many passengers are there?”

“Four.” Thompson’s voice grated with fatigue. “The ship’s cargo belongs to them. Expensive goods. The old man sails with it most times, but this time around it’s a family of three and a lady’s maid. I’ve had the daughter aboard with him before. She’s a good sailor, but the old man usually sickens for a day or two at the start.” Thompson shook his head. “Never li. . .