A Scandal to Remember (28 page)

“One does one’s best, ma’am.”

“If this is your best, Captain, I should very much hate to see your worst.”

Her wit was the only thing dry within five hundred miles. Heaven help him, but the woman could make him smile. “Would you? I’d think an intelligent girl like you could handle my worst with your eyes closed.”

“I’d rather keep my eyes open.”

“Yes. I noticed you did.”

She colored, that lovely swath of jam spreading down her neck and across her chest.

But she recovered her aplomb far more quickly than he. “Careful, Lieutenant. I might take your little joke as a compliment.”

He liked her mistake in calling him lieutenant—it felt more familiar. That warm feeling in his gut was relief, not excitement. “Careful, Miss Burke, I might have meant it as one.”

She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes, as if she were still not quite sure of him, but he could see the mischievous light in her bright blue eyes, and see the smile warming those lovely lips. “You never.”

Devil take him, but it was such a pleasure to see if he could make her smile. “Who knows?”

“I shall record this in my diary—on this day, stony Captain Dance has favored me with a joke.”

He would favor her with much more than a mere joke if given half a chance. He could prove to her that he wasn’t in the least bit stony. At least only where it counted. Damn him, but if they weren’t battling the weather at the bottom of the world, he would favor her with kiss after kiss, and spread her out on green grass in the warm sunshine, and kiss her until all her sharp intellect had melted into passion.

But there was no warm sunshine—only endless, raw gray ocean for miles and miles. “I am sorry the weather has put an end to our dinners.”

“So am I. Manning is not nearly as cheerful a wardroom steward as Punch.”

His alarm was instant. “I hope Punch has not deserted you? He assured me that he would be able to assist you in the wardroom as well as see to the captain’s cabin.”

“Oh, yes. He has been quite steadfast, and kept us tolerably well in the circumstances.”

Another small spate of relief eased the coil in his gut. “Good. I’m glad to hear. Punch is a wonder.”

Miss Burke did not agree. “He can’t be that much of a wonder if he has let you get like this.”

Like this? Dance ran a hand over his jaw to remind himself that he had indeed shaved that day—no matter the weather Punch somehow contrived to get hot washing water, as now that he was captain, Punch had become as insistent as any valet that he look like a gentleman. He had let himself go a bit after his first attempt to shave himself in Miss Burke’s wide-eyed presence. “I am sorry my appearance offends you. If anyone or anything is to blame, it is the damn filthy weather and not Punch.”

“Your appearance does not offend, Captain. It worries. You can’t be eating, and I doubt you’ve been sleeping. Not that you were much before.”

Oh, but it was a pleasure warming his cold bones to think that despite their forced separation, she still noticed anything about him. “Been keeping an eye on me, have you, Miss Burke?”

She blushed a vivid shade of apricot that made him think of jam and sticky fingers. “No, I— That is, one could not help but notice—”

“That you have been keeping an eye on me.” It was a pleasure to disconcert and tease her so.

But she had spine as well as a sense of humor. “Well, someone ought to. As I said before, Lieut—Captain. As I said before, as you appear to be the only thing standing between us—this ship—and total ruin, it behooves us to see that you are taken care of. That is all. I meant nothing more.” She turned away to try and shore up her pride.

Oh, pride was something he knew about all too well. And he knew it was as useless and unprofitable as sailing into a headwind. “And what if I wanted it to be something more? What if I were glad that someone on this godforsaken ship gave a damn about me? What then, Miss Burke?”

His questions shocked him as much as they seemed to have shocked her. Her hand rose to cover her mouth, as if she were trying to hold back the words she didn’t want to say. “Mr. Dance,” she whispered. “Captain. I hardly know what to say. I—”

“Miss Burke, ma’am?” Punch poked his head above the companionway combing, dodging the spray. “You’ll pardon me, miss, Mr. Denman was asking after that tincture of calendula, and Mr. Phelps was hoping you’d read from the Bible for them.”

“Yes, of course.” She looked at him then, and he fancied he saw something of resignation—or was it regret?—in her eyes. “I’m sorry. But if you’ll excuse me, Captain, it seems I have others that I need to keep an eye on.”

And with that, what little warmth there was in the day was gone.

But on he went, driving himself and the ship, day after day with little food, less sleep, and the absence of Miss Burke until Dance thought he would go mad. Until one afternoon for no reason, the wind abated, and after a few hours of relative calm and quiet, he let himself believe that they were finally through the worst of it.

Tenacious
held, and they had finally made enough progress to westward, he was able to confidently alter course to the northwest and get some speed out of her.

And for a few daylight hours, he could almost breathe easier, and begin to think of other things. And other people. Of Jane. Almost.

Because with sunset, and the thought of a hot supper, came a shift in the wind.

“Barometer’s dropping something sharp, sir.” Mr. Whitely shook his white head and looked out at the sea. “Something’s brewing, but I can’t tell where. Don’t like these southern typhoons. Not like Atlantic hurricanes that always come roaring out of the southeastern ocean. Never can tell where they’ll come from here, nor where they’re likely to blow.”

Dance strove for stoic calm. “I doubt we’ll get a typhoon, Mr. Whitely. This quadrant of the Pacific is notable for their absence.”

Whitely was not convinced. “That may be so, sir, but that doesn’t explain the drop in the glass.”

A sharp check at the barometric glass showed Dance that the pressure was as low as he had ever seen it, but he was the captain, and it would not do to be seen faltering. “Let us not borrow trouble, Mr. Whitely. Alter the course north toward west, and shake out these sails while the wind remains steady.”

Pipes shrilled and topmen scrambled out on the horses to loose the reef points on the course, and set the topsails to let
Tenacious
run before the wind rising out of the south.

“Don’t like it, sir.” Flanaghan joined Mr. Whitely in frowning at the gray line of the sky. “Shouldn’t blow out of the south this time of year.”

Dance didn’t like it either, but kept his peace instead of worrying aloud like an old soothsayer. But worry he did, especially when it began to blow harder and harder, stronger and stronger, with the winds shifting to come at them out of the southeast like an Atlantic hurricane, pushing the ship westward off course. And with that stormy wind came the following seas that forced him to alter course farther to the west so they could once again run before the wind, or risk working open the ship’s bows.

But time and tide, and whatever luck had kept them afloat thus far, were slowly running out. The storm turned into a gale that did not abate upon the storm-washed upper decks, nor in the intrigue-ridden lines on the berth deck. Because below decks, Ransome renewed his campaign of discontent.

“It’s as if the sea itself knows that Captain Muckross don’t belong,” Dance heard as he made his silent way to the bows to check on the state of the hull.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if him that calls himself captain did him in. Nobody saw what went on in that room, now, did they?”

“Mr. Denman did,” someone protested.

“He’s one of them,” a different voice scoffed.

And while he was prepared to take whatever insults that were flung his or Jack Denman’s way, Dance was entirely unprepared to hear them resume their persecution of Jane.

“This is what comes from having a woman aboard.” One low grating voice rose above the others—the unmistakable growl of Ransome.

Dance paused on the orlop deck’s fore platform, and motioned the newly promoted bosun, Morris, to silence.

Another voice joined in. “She’s the one that done it. Last one to see the captain alive, she was.” Ransome’s former mate, the disrated Larson.

“But she’s pretty, and nice,” another man objected. “She made a poultice that cured me of my itch.”

“You just got fleas. Should have put her off at Rio, or left her at the cape. Marooned her there to take her chances, like in the olden days.”

“In the olden days they would have taken her for a witch, and drowned her in a sack like a black cat.”

The icy fury that poured through his veins was rage, pure and barely controlled. He all but leaped up the ladder. “I’ll have the next man that speaks lashed up to a grate myself.” He tried to make his voice cutting and controlled, but even he could hear the echo of his roar bounce off the close, curved walls. “If you have no work, then I’ll find work for you. Morris, put these men to the pump. Ransome, get your sorry arse topside, where I’m sure I can find plenty of work for you chipping ice off the running tackle.”

Ransome refused to be intimidated. He looked Dance dead in the eye and said, “You’ll come to regret this, sir. Damned if you won’t.”

“Ransome, I regret almost everything about this cruise, most especially not putting a bullet in you when I had the chance. Don’t tempt me any further. If you want to live, you’ll work to keep this ship afloat.”

Because the bloody breastworks were quite literally working themselves apart. With every wave that torqued the ship over and up and down all at once, and the force from the wind in the sails—necessary to keep them running before the wind—were pulling the seams of the ship apart.

The ship was dying—committing suicide just as assuredly as the captain had.

Dance sprinted back and forth, from the bows topside. “Take another reef in the main course. And roust anyone not currently employed to pump,” he ordered Morris. “Mr. Whitely, what is your opinion?”

“Bad, Captain. The barometer can’t get any lower. The storm shows no signs of abating. And I’m afraid we’re losing the helm.”

Indeed the storm seemed to be strengthening. Dance took the helm from the stoic quartermaster to get a feel for the sea and the ship. The vessel was sluggish and unresponsive.

“Dragging, sir,” the helmsman gave his opinion. “As if we were trailing all our anchors at the bow.”

Fuck all. The ship was nearly wallowing in the troughs of the rolling swells throwing them up and down, up and over and down. They needed more canvas to pull the hull up and over them, but the more canvas they spread, the greater the force upon the bows, the more the ship would work itself apart.

“Call all hands.” He knew the men were exhausted, but there was nothing else to be done. The pumps had to be manned and the sails adjusted. They could not slacken their efforts at all until the danger had passed, and he had done absolutely everything he could. “We haven’t used up all our tricks. We’re going to fother it. Mr. Whitely, I want an oakum-packed studding sail fothered up, and placed over the exterior of the hull where the bows are working loose, to slow the flooding.”

“Ransome.” He called to the man he had kept on deck, within his sights at all times. “Get a working party at the bows to pump in rotation. All the lubbers and wasters, starboard and larboard alike, watch on watch. No one is to be spared.”

“Not even your Miss Burke?”

“She is not my Miss Burke. She is the Royal Society’s Miss Burke, and she has been helping both Mr. Denman, who has also volunteered his services to take care of this crew, and the stewards to see to the men.”

But he also took Ransome’s words for the warning they were. And set off to find her.

*   *   *

Jane could not sit idle. When the word came that even the party of naturalists were needed to take their turn at manning the pumps, Jane went down to the orlop deck pump room to be counted among them.

But Dance would not hear of it. He came charging down the orlop ladder and carried her bodily up the two flights to the gun deck and the captain’s cabin, where he deposited her like a sack of grain on a quay. “Stay here,” he growled at her, just as impatiently as he had that very first day she had come aboard, as if he did not know her at all. As if they had not become friends.

She was not a dog to be ordered to sit or stay. She had given up that kind of mindless obedience that had kept her chained to her home and her family for so many years. And she would not take it up now. “Captain, I’ve been down on the orlop in the sick bay nearly every day.”

“No.” He rebuffed every argument with a single word. “This is different.”

“How? Why may I not be useful?” They had not spoken in days, and now all she got from him was this angry order, as if she had somehow offended him. “I was only trying to help.”

“I know. But you’ll help me a lot more by staying here. Do some of my work if you need something to do. Only stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble?” This was too like the old Dance, the stony lieutenant who had wanted her inconvenient presence off his deck. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know I am—”

He cut off her words—and her very air—with his mouth, picking her up and all but driving her into the wall. His kiss was hard and demanding, with a sort of ferocious, mindless hunger that smothered all rational thought. He surrounded her with his hands and his body and his mouth. And she wanted him. Wanted this sign of his care.

Jane’s hand stole up his neck. His skin was damp with the chill of the rain, and he tasted cool and fresh. He leaned his weight into her, pressing her back into the wall, pinning her there with the sharp force of his possession.

Jane felt something hot and needy slide beneath her skin. She heard her own breath come faster, felt the harsh warmth of his exhalation against her neck.

He put his thumbs along the edge of her jaw and exerted enough pressure to open her mouth. His tongue swept in and took hers, tangling and knotting her up inside and out. She had to catch at his coat for balance. His big hands cradled her skull, while his tongue ravaged her mouth, giving her solace and incentive all at once.