A Different Sort of Perfect (19 page)

When everyone was settled, Mr. Abbot corked the
decanter and handed it over his shoulder to one of his footmen. "I
think we're ready for coffee now. And you know, Mr. Chandler's
comment does remind me of several French captains I've met, during
the peace and after battles. I must say, taken as a group they're a
remarkably handsome, well-mannered group of men, and not anyone I'd
be ashamed to know."

"Indeed yes," Captain Fleming said, plying his spoon.
"Gallant and courageous, too, often to a fault. Both the ones I met
during the peace—" he swallowed a bite. "—and the ones I've
defeated."

The officers guffawed and Lieutenant Pym flashed her
a gleaming smile. But Lieutenant Rosslyn still did not lift his
gaze. Staunton's flush hadn't cleared, and he hacked at his pudding
with short, hard strokes. The moment had passed, but it hadn't
cleared the air.

Where oh where had Chandler heard that little detail?
She'd mentioned it to Captain Fleming when she'd first come aboard,
but only Hennessy had been present during that
tête-à-tête
and she couldn't imagine that good-natured man passing on such a
compromising detail. More importantly, with common sailors acting
as footmen, what could stop it from spreading all over the
ship?

* * * *

At the door to her cabin, Clara turned and smiled.
"Good night, Captain Fleming. Thank you for your part in such a
delightful evening."

His eyes gleamed, perhaps with affection or
gratitude, and he bowed. "It was most enjoyable, wasn't it? Good
night, Lady Clara."

To his credit, he said the words without a trace of
satire in his voice or mien. Instead, the gleam in his eyes turned
knowing, amused…

…conspiratorial. As if they shared a secret from the
rest of the ship and crew, something they'd never tell another
living soul.

Which was perfectly ridiculous. But still it was
difficult, breaking their mutual stare and retiring to her
cabin.

She closed the cabin door behind her and leaned
against it. The lantern had been lit, and the little flame's light
swayed halfway up the starboard bulkhead as she waited, holding her
breath and listening with her ear to the door. The light's climb
slowed near the rafters, paused, reversed, and as it swept with the
ship's roll back over her feet, outside the door light footsteps
trotted up the aft ladder. Captain Fleming had gone on deck, not to
his cabin.

She grabbed her old grey silk wrap and swept it on,
then slid the lantern from its hook and tugged open the cabin door.
In front of the captain's cabin, Morrow jerked upright from where
he'd been leaning against the bulkhead, eyes fixed in a guilty
stare. A quick touch of her finger to her lips, then Clara ran past
the aft ladder, twisted between the capstan and the pump's railing,
and doubled down the midships ladder.

The curtain still hung across the wardroom entrance.
Light leaked beneath it, onto the deckboards at her feet, and
silhouetted two forms leaning toward each other over the table.
Glass clinked, then Mr. Abbot's voice laughed and Lieutenant Pym's
began muttering. Difficult to be certain, but neither seemed aware
of her presence.

On the berth deck before the mast, the crowded
hammocks swayed with the ship like fat synchronized worms strung
from the rafters, ropes creaking with the timbers. Nobody raised a
head; no one peered about. Heart pounding as if guilty, Clara
shielded the lantern with her body, slipped past the curtain, and
doubled down another level.

Stygian blackness swallowed her and the lantern's
light before she'd reached the little rounded landing. As
Topaze
rolled, the landing's padlocked doors loomed and
faded away: they led to storerooms, the steward's room, the slops
room. Another ladder, set at right angles to the one where she
stood, led down into the hold proper, the industrial bowels of the
ship. Something rustled in those depths, skittered, then fell
silent as her heart pounded. She really should return to her cabin.
But then a voice rose in a singsong snarl.

"She's
not
a
member
of the
crew
."

Chandler. One guess who received that belittling
tone. As she'd suspected, they'd taken the fight both seemed to
want to the part of the ship where they'd least likely suffer
interruption. And she had to stop them. Clara grabbed her skirts
and raised them safely away as she ran down the final ladder.

Past the shot lockers, the well, and the mainmast's
railing. Beyond their uneven wall, another lantern burned, adding
its feeble bit of light to hers. Within that wavering circle,
Chandler and Staunton stood toe to toe.

"It's never going to be your place to say," Staunton
said, thrusting himself up into Chandler's face. "You'll never be a
ship's captain, you don't have what it takes—"

Chandler's face twisted. He wrapped a fist in
Staunton's dress shirt and lifted.

She'd arrived in the nick of time.

Clara opened the lantern, throwing a wash of light
across them. "Gentlemen."

They broke apart. Chandler raised his arm, shielding
his eyes. The shadow fell like a solid bar across his grimace.

"Thank you for your concern and able defense, Mr.
Staunton." She set the lantern atop the for'ard shot locker and
stepped between the boys. "But I am perfectly capable of defending
myself."

And with all her strength, she shoved Chandler in the
chest.

He stumbled back, into a row of barrels, and sprawled
atop them, arms flailing. A lock of hair fell across his
disbelieving eyes. Without standing, he brushed it aside and stared
at her.

If he had stood, she'd have shoved him over again.
Astonishing, how good that felt.

"How dare you, Mr. Chandler?" She leaned over him,
fists clenched. Of course she'd experienced anger before, spats
with Harmony and Diana, helpless misery aimed at Uncle David; but
never before had she felt such a towering flame of rage. "How dare
you? My personal affairs are not your concern and should never have
been discussed at an open table. Now they'll be discussed by
gossips from stem to stern, and it's your fault."

His mouth twisted and he pushed up onto his elbow.
"You're disloyal. You deserve to be shamed—"

She stepped closer and he froze.

"That's not the point and you know it. If you truly
want to be an officer, one formed in the stamp of Mr. Abbot,
Lieutenant Rosslyn, Captain Fleming, then you need to become a
gentleman, as well."

His chin tucked back into his chest. On either side,
his neck rippled as he swallowed.

"And a real gentleman would never discuss a lady's
personal affairs in public."

The lantern light flickered a reflection in his eyes,
gleaming red as if the yearning within him blazed more brightly.
Oh, these were wretched tactics, a blackmailing tug at desires he'd
tried to conceal. But what else could she say that might penetrate
his brittle defenses? And the shot hit home; of that she was
certain. In his eyes, one could measure the depth of Chandler's
yearning to be the best, to follow in the footsteps of real
officers, men everyone respected and admired — anything but the
role Fate had assigned him.

Roiling, all-too-obvious emotions played across his
face — his initial fury and frustration sinking slowly beneath
ambition, calculation, dismay. She waited until he reached
regret.

"Mr. Chandler, I ask you, as a lady to a gentleman,
to help quell the rumors that must surely follow this contretemps.
We cannot stuff the genie back into his bottle. But with your help,
perhaps we can hold a complete disaster at bay."

For a moment, it seemed as if his suspicion would
defeat her yet. But then he swallowed. Chandler pushed himself
upright and rubbed at his elbow.

"I suppose. I mean, for a lady, it's the least I can
do." Reluctance edged his gruff voice, and he hadn't apologized nor
admitted he was in the wrong.

Yet she'd count it a success. She'd at least
established a relationship with Chandler, something they could work
on and develop in the future, despite the ugliness of their mutual
situation. Of course, she could have requested assistance from the
captain at any time. Captain Fleming's natural air of command would
have cleared the tempest with a few words. But as she'd implied
earlier to Staunton, she didn't want Captain Fleming embroiled in
the disagreement.

She didn't wish to tattle to authority. That was it.
And especially not that authority. The role of simpering, helpless
female wouldn't earn anyone's respect, much less Captain Fleming's,
and wouldn't sustain the relationship she wanted with him: that of
a capable, contributing member of his crew. Of course that was what
she wanted.

That she wanted a lasting, continuing relationship
with him, and why, was not a subject she was prepared to consider.
Not in the hold while standing between two aggressive midshipmen,
at least.

Clara strode past Staunton, who seemed frozen in
place. The light reflected in the whites of his wide eyes like twin
candles, and his eyebrows arched halfway up his forehead. She'd
gotten his attention as well. Good; she valued his friendship,
their laughter and fun, but she'd need his help to contain the
rumors, as well. She closed the lantern, swept it off the shot
locker, and retreated back up the three ladders.

But her feet dragged along the decks. For the first
time since she'd come aboard,
Topaze
did not feel like her
village.

Her home.

The wind diminished, diminished further as
Topaze
arrowed south. A few degrees north of the Line it
vanished entirely. The sails lost their purchase, the frigate
rolled her guts out, and sailors Fleming had never suspected of
having weak stomachs began turning green about the gills.

Rosslyn, of course, collapsed in the infirmary, but
that was to be expected. Chandler looked awful, depressed and
morose — even more so than usual — and Fleming himself couldn't
entirely ignore the uncontrolled, swooping motion. Only a few of
the hands didn't look glum as the west-bound current carried them
along the equator toward North America, helpless as a squirrel in a
hound's jaws.

Of those few, Lady Clara stood out by her disgusting
chipperness.

Infuriating. Did nothing disturb the woman? Granted,
he'd upset her emotions upon occasion, but her stomach had to be
cast iron, like the new water tanks some of the more flash modern
ships carried. Nobody had that right, when practically everyone
else wallowed in misery.

But whatever materials comprised her anatomy, she
never complained.

Day after day she sat beneath a rigged awning on the
poop, claiming she preferred to be with the crew rather than huddle
in the overheated shade below deck. Reading Staunton's journal,
writing when a task was assigned to her, doing that odd needlework
she pretended to enjoy — Fleming had to hand her his respect and
grudging admiration. Sweat moistened her face, slicked her hair,
stuck her sailor dress immodestly to her skin until he was forced
to look away on multiple occasions each day. Even in the
afternoons, when the sun gained another impossible degree of
intensity, when the horizon wavered and the pitch melted and
Topaze
spewed her oakum from every seam, Lady Clara merely
leaned back in her chair, throwing her head back and lolling in the
heat as if soaking it in.

About a week into the doldrums, Chandler swayed on
the foremast yard and had to be carried down the ratlines, slung
like a sack of meal over David Mayne's shoulder. That day, Fleming
issued the order for the officers to forego their woolen broadcloth
in favor of tropical-weight cotton slops, as the more sensible crew
had done weeks ago. During earlier cruises, of course, he'd seen
Chandler, Staunton, the Marine Lieutenant Pym — all of them,
dressed like common sailors in blue-and-white checked shirts and
duck trousers. But he never got used to it, and their straighter
stance, squared shoulders, alert and competent air, made them stand
out among the crew no matter how they dressed.

As usual Abbot, while not precisely refusing to obey,
managed to circumvent the order. He did leave off that ridiculous
woolen coat — or he'd have drawn his captain's attention and ire —
and the first time he appeared on the quarterdeck, wearing a
cambric frilled shirt that spilled open to his ribcage, fitted buff
breeches, and Hessian boots — well, Lady Clara's popped eyes and
open stare had been a sight. And her ears hadn't been the only ones
turning pink. Fleming had done his best to study the slate,
displaying their nonexistent course and speed, but surely Abbot had
noticed the poorly hidden grin before he'd stomped off for'ard.

One of those priceless moments Fleming vowed to
treasure forever. As he stood there in his own frilled shirt,
breeches, and Hessians. He'd never claimed his first lieutenant
wasn't predictable.

"Captain Fleming?"

"Yes, my lady?"

She slipped the ribbon into Staunton's journal,
closed it, and set it aside. "If I'm reading this correctly, during
a previous voyage last year,
Topaze
was becalmed ten degrees
north of the equator." She glanced up, her dark eyes languid and
heavy-lidded, and something very like fire scorched through his
veins.

He cleared his throat. "I sense an unvoiced question
in there."

That opened her eyes a bit. With annoyance.

"When I fair-copied your notes into the log, you said
the doldrums began at three degrees north."

Ah. "And like any intelligent first-voyager, you're
wondering why the blasted things didn't stay where we left them.
The doldrums are part of the weather, Lady Clara, and that tends to
change when no one's watching."