A Different Sort of Perfect (5 page)

If improperly handled, Lady Clara could be a
disaster. And she wouldn't be easily handled. In age she appeared
below twenty, adding immaturity and lack of experience to her
strong will and his problems. Chasing her Frenchman implied she
couldn't wait for peace and his return, for whatever reason, and in
turn that implied a problem at home, one she'd run from rather than
work to solve. She'd shown herself willing to take a chance, but
not yet sufficiently mature to discern which chances were worth
taking. Perfect; just perfect.

He pushed off the rail and turned. Nineteen steps
for'ard, past the long six-pounder on its oaken truck, the grizzled
quartermaster blank-faced at the wheel, the mizzenmast and its
shrouds, the capstan, the skylight, the other starboard
six-pounder, the grating. One more step, into the mainmast shrouds.
Turn.

He couldn't put her ashore. His orders forbade
landfall until the Canaries, and then they specifically stated he
must avoid being seen while taking aboard fresh water. Abandoning
her on an empty shore, like those unlucky cats, was out of the
question.

He couldn't return
Topaze
to England and drop
her off. They'd see rain before morning, likely mist at dawn, and
then the wind would back into the southeast. He'd be windbound at
Plymouth, possibly for weeks, and
Armide
would escape.

He couldn't send her home in the launch. A woman in
an open boat, on a voyage that might take days if his
weather-reading proved false? Under-officered as they were, he
couldn't spare even little Staunton as escort. Besides, Lady
Clara's beseeching eyes and feeling words would persuade anyone
short of Abbot to set her ashore in France, and that would be
another disaster in the making.

He could only keep her aboard, take her to the Cape,
and unload her there. Somehow he had to convince the crew that
carrying a woman aboard wasn't unlucky, just this once. But the
dying breeze, leaving them sauntering along when everyone knew they
needed to race after
Armide,
two weeks ahead after her
escape from the Brest blockade, was not a good beginning to such a
strategy. Besides, it was possible and desirable that they'd meet
Armide
before the Cape — Fleming trailed his fingertips
along the closest six-pounder's wooden frame, just in case. What
could he do with a spoiled debutante during a battle?

If she truly thought he'd search for her lost
Frenchman, she had even less of a grasp on reality than he'd
discerned. Kept at home, confined, watched, guarded, spoiled, she
had no conception of what war entailed. He didn't wish to tutor her
in such a distasteful subject. But his options were few.

Sailors liked what they knew and knew what they
liked. If he could convince the crew that they liked Lady Clara,
that having her aboard was a good thing and perfectly normal, only
an actual disaster would change their minds and lead them to
consider her unlucky after all. And the disaster in question would
have to be something that could, in the convoluted twistings of the
crew's collective mind, be construed as her fault — say, if she
broke the looking glass in the sleeping cabin just before a heavy
blow dismasted the ship. If he could convince the crew to accept
her and then avoid such a calamitous series of events, perhaps
they'd be safe.

The wake barely rippled below now. The quarterdeck's
impressive slope had flattened as the frigate lost way. Not enough
heave survived to cause even the clumsiest landman to stumble. The
cruise's auspicious beginning had faded and he might as well go to
bed, if Hennessy had found a spare blasted hammock to sling in the
dining cabin.

At least she hadn't brought a cat aboard.

Clara awoke at once and in terror. Somewhere nearby a
furious animal growled, absolutely snarled, and overhead something
rumbled, as if the predator dragged its stiff, helpless prey across
the quarterdeck.

She leapt from the gently swinging hanging cot,
blanket tossed aside and twisting about her ankles. The cold cabin
floor assaulted her feet, stealing away the night's slumberous
warmth, and she shivered. The grey threads of first light peeping
through the open gunport removed the edge from the cabin's
darkness, but not even the most optimistic fool could have called
it dawn.

The cold vanquished the last of her dreams as well,
and imagination ceded to rationality. It was impossible for any
predator, no matter how large nor vicious, to make the hideous
racket penetrating the deck planks, and even more impossible that
it should do so while dragging its prey. Besides, salt-smelling
seawater dampened the wood beneath her freezing feet, and even if
an animal had bounded from the waves to the quarterdeck — another
physical impossibility — it couldn't have drawn so much brine
aboard. No, the rumbling that had awakened her could only be the
collapse of the ship's sides and the growling sound was the hungry
sea swirling in through the crack. The wonderful
Topaze
had
foundered in the night, perhaps on a rock, and they were sinking.
She snatched up the scattered blanket, tossed it about her
shoulders, stumbled from the dim cabin and up the aft hatchway
ladder.

Mist covered the quarterdeck, the perfectly sound and
ordinary quarterdeck, damp wispy clouds rising from the sloshing
boards. At no great distance, fog cocooned the ship within a dim,
timeless world of its own, and in a sudden hush the rippling of the
water along the ship's sides seemed loud. Two sailors stood at the
wheel, one steering and the other watching; behind them, a
blanching officer and a winsome child stared at her with wide eyes
and startled faces. Not a yard from her knelt a line of the
roughest sailors she'd ever seen, a line stretching from rail to
rail. Their hair was long, their faces scarred and scruffy, their
shirts threadbare, and their shabby trousers ended below their
knees, horrid bare calves and rough feet glowing red in the
otherwise colorless light. Each of them held a stone, prayer-book
sized and white, like a flattened brick, leaning forward as if to
press or rub it into the sand-covered deckboards ahead of their
line, and each of them stared out to sea, their expressions as
wooden as the ship.

It seemed to be some sort of maintenance, maybe a
housecleaning, and indeed the drips of tar staining the deck ahead
of the kneeling sailors were absent behind them, where gleaming
white boards rivaled the smartest ballroom. And doubtless rubbing
the deck with sand and stones would make an infernal din, passed
through the planking and echoing between the decks until it would
awaken the dead. Most importantly, they weren't sinking, and that
was good. But there was nothing beyond the ship's sides for the
sailors to stare at, nothing she could see in the fog and first
pale glimmers of morning, and in that second she realized they were
most determinedly looking at anything.

Anything except her. Standing there in her shift,
hair unbound and falling over one shoulder, only a draped blanket
between her and even worse immodesty. Her feet, cold and wet,
likely as red and horrid as theirs, just as bare. And visible.
Perfectly, obscenely visible.

"Oh!" Clara whirled. The cabin; she'd retire to the
cabin and dress. Although she'd rather die than be seen by anyone
ever again, no matter how long the trip to Africa required.

Captain Fleming stood at the ladder's foot, fully
dressed, and she froze in place. In the dim light trickling through
the skylight and hatchway, his expression seemed grave, even
solemn, although his gleaming eyes made her suspicious. His chin
didn't lower, his gaze didn't drop to her scandalous attire, and he
didn't laugh. The dratted man didn't laugh.

And for that small mercy she'd be forever grateful.
No matter how long she held last night's rudeness against him.

"Lady Clara." Amusement rippled beneath his formal
words. "I see you've forgotten something." He paused. "Make that
several somethings."

Gratitude be hanged. She raced down the ladder,
kicking the blanket aside and balancing on the ship's roll. "Heaven
forbid a man should abstain from commenting on a lady's
embarrassment."

He stood aside. "Perhaps if the opportunity weren't
quite so perfect."

She paused and glared. Those slanting lines between
his cheeks and mouth deepened, his lips twitched, and that required
a response for the honor of her sex. "Like your manners." Oh, if
only she'd produced that line with dignity, rather than seething,
blushing heat. Too late to try again. She brushed past and stomped
the two steps to the cabin.

"Ouch." He paused again, but before she could slam
the door, he said, "May I expect you for breakfast?"

Her stomach tightened. The sandwich the steward had
brought her could only have been a few hours ago, but it felt like
forever. She didn't want to like the dratted man, but he certainly
knew the proper inducements. "Breakfast?"

"In the great cabin. Shall we say an hour?" He bowed
and trotted up the ladder, vanishing with a bounce beyond the
skylight's glass panes.

He made the exit. She'd intended to, it would have
given her a moral superiority over him, and instead she'd allowed
him to distract her, not with pretty words or flattery, but with
the ordinary promise of food. And with the distraction, she'd given
him the victory. Clara slammed the door after all; hopefully he
heard it.

At least Captain Fleming seemed a good-natured,
gentlemanly officer beneath his teasing. Surely she could convince
him to assist her.

Without giving him any further victories.

* * * *

His back hurt, of course. He'd sworn never to sleep
on a hammock again, he'd purchased a perfectly functional hanging
cot in fulfillment of that oath, and he'd given it up to the first
spoiled debutante who'd invaded his ship. Now his back hurt and it
served him right.

Lady Clara's little morning fiasco wasn't funny, of
course, no matter how his sense of humor tugged at him. If his crew
decided the silly chit was a silly chit, his now carefully crafted
strategy would be worse than useless; it would backfire, the hands
misreading his acceptance of her as something fishy. Once they
scented dishonesty in any of their officers, especially the
captain, their loyalty would evaporate. Not only would they be
unhappy with a woman aboard, they'd be even more unhappy with their
chain of command. It would be a disaster waiting to strike at the
first emergency.

Even if she was a silly chit. And no matter how
deliciously enticing he found her bare feet and ankles. Best he
simply not consider them.

The fog had drawn in and
Topaze
coasted under
fore and main royals, the rustle of water along her side drowned by
the holystones' rasping. In such conditions, normally the officer
of the watch would have a drummer rattling away, or a ten-minute
gun banging, or lit lanterns hanging from the t'gallant masts, to
warn nearby ships. But they were well off the main sealanes and
he'd left orders against such actions. Any other ship around would
be giving notice; they'd avoid traffic and whisper past unseen.

Below, Abbot huddled with the purser over a line of
barrels on the fo'c'sle's larboard gangway. The main hatch beside
them yawned open; the barrels had been raised from the ship's
bowels with a whip on the yardarm. Abbot removed his hat. "Slops
time, sir."

Fleming nodded. "Mr. Bruce," he said to the purser,
"when you cut the blue linen for the bargemen's jackets and the
white duck for their trousers, please cut an additional length of
each that's three times as long as the others. Mr. Abbot, we'll
muster the men after breakfast. The wind will remain uncooperative
for some hours and we might as well take advantage of the calm. But
before we do, let's start going over the muster roll, shall we?"
Best if he didn't discuss his plan with his first lieutenant at
this point; Abbot was rather young for apoplexy, but certain
chances shouldn't be taken.

Clara threw on every stitch she possessed, threw
herself facedown on the hanging cot, and buried her head beneath
the satin pillow. Some events a lady's reputation simply could not
live down. This promised to be one such. While they'd talked last
night, the steward Hennessy had said the trip to the Cape could
take as long as two months. But once there, surely everyone would
tell the tale, delighting their friends in the nautical drinking
establishments — plus all sorts of perfect strangers. She bolted
upright and hurled the innocent pillow across the sleeping cabin.
Wonderful; even if she boarded another ship for the return trip at
once, the gossip would likely reach Plymouth before her. And if she
was delayed or unlucky, everyone in England would know before she
returned.

Good thing she was marrying a Frenchman. No one would
be cruel enough to tell him, would they?

Overhead, the cleaning crew's racket finally died
away and the ocean's ripple could again be heard, at first as a
murmur and slowly mounting to a conversational whisper, until the
Topaze
and the sea sounded like fishwife gossips catching up
on the news. The morning light slipping through the open gunport
brightened to a misty glow and cool air softened the heat from her
face. Clara sat on the hanging cot, rocking with the little swell
and listening. The fog seemed to draw into the cabin itself,
enveloping her in a cocoon distant from the rest of the ship, alone
and content.

In the near silence the ship's bell rang, muffled and
hesitant, and suddenly the cabin filled with the quiet thunder of
hurrying unshod feet. She quit counting the chimes and scrambled
up, the cot rolling her onto the deck and then bumping against the
backs of her knees as she hesitated. That sounded like a Mongol
horde, the entire crew running in panic, a true emergency. But
she'd been embarrassed once and couldn't bear it if they laughed at
her again. True, no one had actually laughed the first time, but if
she was fooled a second time they surely would.