An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition by Cartland Barbara

foolish as to let her keep him at arms length.
    Despite every possible manoeuvre and plea on his part, she had evaded being alone with him. Rodney cursed himself for a nitwit and a weakling. He should have forced himself upon her, even gone to her bedchamber if necessary – it would not have been the first time he had overpowered a woman’s protests and her reluctance.
    “Phillida! Phillida!” he whispered her name to the breeze, and then, uninvited, Lizbeth’s face was before him, her eyes alight with mischief, her lips red, mocking. . . .
    “Curse the wench!” Rodney forced himself to think again of Phillida, but the moment of her nearness was past and he forgot her a second later.
    The sky had been grey and overcast all day, but now the sun broke through, seeming to bring a message of hope and cheer. It glittered on the waves, dazzling Rodney’s eyes as he glanced aloft.
    “Set the topsails, Master Barlow,” he said.
    With the wind blowing fresher as they neared the open sea they headed into the Sound. The waves were under her bows and under the pressure of increased sail the Sea Hawk made her first big roll. The men were beginning to be seasick and Rodney congratulated himself that it was many years indeed since he had known the ignominy of staggering and lurching towards the rails. He had not, however, forgotten the misery of his first voyage when he had been so sick that he had prayed that death might take him. He had learned in the years that followed that many men, however experienced sailors they might be, were always sick in the first few hours of a voyage, before they got their sea-legs.
    He must remember to tell Barlow a little later on, he thought, not to push the sea-sick men too hard. The Petty Officers were being very free with the rope’s end he noticed, and he decided that he would speak to all those in authority and tell them that he would have no unnecessary cruelty on board.
    The loyalty and affection which Drake inspired was, Rodney knew, to a great extent due to his innate kindliness. The men did not expect it, and it never ceased to surprise them that someone so successful and so fearless as Drake could show them personal consideration and have, what was more, an individual knowledge of every man under his command.
    Rodney had sworn to model himself on the same lines, but now he felt almost a sense of helplessness as he watched the men hurrying about the deck and swarming up the rigging. To them he was a figurehead, the Captain of the ship and of their fate, someone who must be obeyed, hardly human, hardly of the same flesh and blood as themselves.
    He had got to get to know them; he had got to teach them to trust him. They knew he was untried, they knew, even better than he did, the perils and pitfalls of his first command. And yet no fear, no anxiety could dim the elation in Rodney’s heart. They were at sea, the sails were full-bellied.
    He had never known such a thrill, such a sense of wild excitement as filled him at this moment. The Sea Hawk was his desire as surely as if she were a woman who had surrendered herself to him. He felt his whole being tingle with the triumphant joy of a man who has fought and conquered – a man who has proved his manhood.
    He thought not of Phillida nor of any woman at that moment; he was infatuated by a mistress more exacting, more temperamental and more unpredictable than any he had ever known and her name was the Sea Hawk.
    For a long time he stood watching the sea ahead, feeling the wind on his face. Then at length he realised that the wind was still freshening and there was every chance of their running into bad weather before they reached the Bay of Biscay.
    “Get the foresail in, Master Baxter,” he said to the Lieutenant on watch, then, turning, he found his way to the aft cabin.
    It was small but comfortable, furnished with an oak table and carved oak chairs. Fortunately the furniture had been included in the purchase price of the ship or