The Stowaway

XL

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." Lao Tzu

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XL.

The next few months passed very quickly, and there did not seem to be a day that went by that was not absolutely filled with things to do.

Eliza and Tom's engagement had been announced the Sunday following Tom's proposal, and of course, the next few weeks were absolutely filled with calls from neighbours absolutely desperate to meet the man who had finally turned Eliza Banes' head.

Poor Tom was entirely out of his depth, and so it was up to Eliza to rescue him for a change. She had not realised how skilled she was at navigating through society then when she was expertly guiding Tom.

It was not her circle, though, and it would not be their life, as she kept assuring him. Tom never seemed concerned when it was only them alone.

When they were not entertaining neighbours, Tom was deep in conversation with Mr Banes, and Harry, too. He had arrived to congratulate the happy couple, and to ask his wife when she would finally be along home.

Katy had extended her stay as soon as the engagement had been announced and intended to help Eliza with wedding preparations. Both Eliza and Harry had to work together to put their collective foot down, insisting that Katy finally rest having only given birth a few months earlier.

Prior to their departure, Harry would give whatever advice he could on the upcoming purchase of Tom's own ship. Eliza knew Tom did not need any help on this subject. He was a terribly clever man, who knew more about sea travel and business than Mr Banes and Harry combined twice over, but he was courteous and respectful to Eliza's family and their efforts to help, and that only made her love him more.

Eliza's time was heavily occupied in the planning of their upcoming nuptials. This even included a trip to London to visit Kensington High Street to shop in the most luxurious dressmakers in the country. Eliza came prepared with Katy's measurements, and her own fabric, and she could not be convinced by Mrs Banes, or any of the seamstresses who turned their noses up at her choice, to choose a more suitable pattern.

Eliza could not have cared less what others thought of what she would be wearing. Tom knew exactly why she would be wearing her dress, and she knew that he would appreciate it.

Eliza did have half a mind to sew the fabric into breeches to really stir her mother, but she did understand Mrs Banes was only terribly excited.

Eliza and Mrs Banes chose a gown together for Katy, and then sorted through bolts of fabric to select one that would suit her colouring best. Eliza then chose a pattern for herself, and that task in itself was enough to set the butterflies off in her stomach. There was a time, for a long while really, where she honestly thought she would never have gotten married.

But the life she had always thought married women would have would not be the life that she would have with Tom. Their life was going to be an adventure, and she could not wait for it.

The seamstresses sewed a mock up gown out of calico for her to approve, and then Eliza entrusted them with her beloved fabric. She was promised that it would be cared for, and that the finished gown would be sent to Devonshire immediately afterward.

Tom had offered his men a half wage to remain in England while he procured a ship of his own. This was in hope of loyalty from the men whom he had sailed with for years and years.

Of course, they men had the option of returning to Jamaica with the Atlantis for their normal wage, but all had elected to remain behind. Having the men forced to pay for lodgings made Tom all the more eager to find the perfect ship.