Free Like None Other by Caroline Linden Page A

it to Jane, who does not.”
    “He will be sure to tell her about the hurricane we encountered in the Caribbean Sea.”
    “Perhaps he had better not speak to her, then,” Emma replied at once. “She will be certain it is a hurricane approaching, and wish to board up the windows.”
    The Captain laughed. Emma felt the rich, deep sound right through her body. Captain Quentin had a very nice laugh. It went well with his voice. It was a lovely coincidence her neighbour liked spending as much time in his garden as she did in hers. He had done so many things she had never dreamed of: sailed around the Horn of Africa, been to India, seen the fantastical creatures who lived far out at sea, weathered storms and pirates and all manner of adventure. When he asked – very politely – about her own life, Emma had to laugh, a little embarrassed. She’d had no adventures. She had married sensibly, not very happily, and never travelled more than fifty miles from Sussex. They often talked over the wall that divided their properties. The Captain would tell her about his adventures, and she would sit and listen, letting herself drift out of her quiet little life and imagine seeing what he had seen.
    And if the sound of his voice sometimes seemed to weave a spell over her, and made her think he was taking her with him to these fantastic places . . . She didn’t let herself think too much about that. He was being polite and friendly, sharing his tales, and she was being an idiot, wondering what it would be like to swim in the tropical ocean. To feel the warm water – as warm as any bath, he said, and as clear and blue as the sky – sluicing over her skin. To lie on the sand and stare at the stars on a moonless night. To feel the wind on her face as they sailed into the unknown.
    But that’s what she thought of, and what made her smile, safely hidden on her side of the brick wall. The Captain would never know.
    “When did you encounter a hurricane?” she asked, as much to hear him talk as to know the story. “Are they really as terrible as the stories say?”
    “They are worse, and yet magnificent. The ocean itself seems to turn on you, as if it would swallow you up, tear you to pieces and fling you to the corners of the world. A man discovers his true feelings about life and death when faced by a hurricane, since he is balanced perfectly between the two, and only the storm can decide which will be his lot . . .”
    Emma settled back into her chair and closed her eyes.
     

 

     
     

    Two
     
    Number 14, George Street was a grim little house, with narrow stairs and low ceilings and all sorts of things meant to be conveniences, which were never very convenient. After a neat, efficient ship’s interior, Phineas Quentin could hardly believe the carelessness that obviously had gone into building this row of terraced houses in the growing city of London, for all that it was almost new. He had bought it upon his retirement from the Navy five months ago, thinking he would soon get used to being settled ashore, and instead found himself missing the ocean more than ever. He missed the wide-open sky above him, and the rolling expanse of ocean below him. He missed the camaraderie of officers aboard ship, and the regimented routine of life on a frigate. Now he found himself living mostly alone, in a dark little house, crowded right up close to its neighbours, penned in from the sun and wind like an invalid.
    In fact, one thing alone had kept him from selling the house. Number 14 was directly beside Number 12, and Number 12 happened to house the loveliest woman Phineas had ever laid eyes on. Two days after he’d moved in, when crates and boxes still filled the house and he couldn’t even find the strop for his razor, she’d knocked on the door, bearing a large jar of gooseberry preserves and smiling in welcome. Phineas had opened the door in his shirtsleeves, unshaven and impatient, and been rendered speechless by the sight of her. From