He paused a moment, then continued, "And you, Miss Bedford, have you been back?"
"Not since we left, when I was ten. We went first to Bermuda, where father served for two years as governor and chief officer for the Sommers Island Company. Then we came down here. I don't really even think of England much anymore. I feel I'm a part of the Americas now too." She shaded her face against the sun with one hand and noticed a bead of sweat trickling down her back, along the laces of her bodice. "In truth, I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever see England again."
"I'd just as soon never see it again." He rose and strolled across the deck, toward the steering house. Then he settled his tankard on the binnacle and began to loosen the line securing the whipstaff, a long lever used for controlling the rudder. "Do you really want to stay aboard while I take her out?"
"You've done it every day this week, just around sunset. I've watched you from the hill, and wondered why." She casually adjusted her bodice, to better emphasize the plump fullness of her breasts, then suddenly felt a surge of dismay with herself, that she would consider resorting to tawdry female tricks. But desperate times brought out desperate measures. "Besides, you've got the only frigate in the bay now that's not Dutch, and I thought I'd like to see the island from offshore. I sometimes forget how beautiful it is."
"Then you'd best take a good, long look, Miss Bedford," he replied matter-of-factly. "It's never going to be the same again, not after sugar takes over."
"Katherine. You can call me Katherine." She tried to mask the tenseness—no, the humiliation—in her voice. "I'm sufficiently compromised just being down here; there's scarcely any point in ceremony."
"Then Katherine it is, Miss Bedford." Again scarcely a glimmer of notice as he busied himself coiling the line. But she saw John Mewes raise his heavy eyebrows as he mounted the quarterdeck companionway, his wide belly rolling with each labored step. Winston seemed to ignore the quartermaster as he continued, "Since you've been watching, then I suppose you know what to expect. We're going to tack her out of the harbor, over to the edge of those reefs just off Lookout Point. Then we'll come about and take her up the west side of the island, north all the way up to Speightstown. It's apt to be at least an hour. Don't say you weren't warned."
Perfect, she thought. Just the time I'll need.
"You seem to know these waters well." It was rhetorical, just to keep him talking. Hugh Winston had sailed up the coast every evening for a week, regardless of the wind or state of the sea. He obviously understood the shoreline of Barbados better than anyone on the island. That was one of the reasons she was here. "You sail out every day."
"Part of my final preparations, Miss Bedford . . . Katherine." He turned to the quartermaster. "John."