Almost a Scandal (14 page)

She did not ask him to think of her brothers, or her father. She did not remind him of his debts of gratitude and assistance. She knew her fate and that of her family rested solely in his hands.

“Damn your eyes. You ask too much, Kent.”

But she had heard the concession in his voice, because her face lit like a bonfire of hope, dancing brightly against the falling dark. “You won’t regret it,” she promised, quivering like an eager puppy in her earnestness. “I’ll see that you don’t.”

“Too late, Kent. I already do.”

*   *   *

Mr. Colyear did not speak to her again. It was an unspoken agreement between them. He did as she had so cogently advised herself to do when she had come aboard, and kept his stony distance. He endeavored not to speak to her unless absolutely necessary, and Sally answered in the same vein. But she was free to return to her duty in the foretop, with a glee that couldn’t be chastened. Not even by Mr. Colyear’s dark, adjuring frowns.

She climbed up the shrouds with outright pleasure. There was no one to stop her—no father or servant to scold and lecture. Indeed, it was quite the opposite. If she did not climb the rope ladder like a cat up a tree, she would soon feel the hot end of someone’s temper.

Her other enjoyment of the foretop came from her growing acquaintance with Willis, the keen-eyed captain of the foretop. And since Willis had his eyes constantly roving the horizon, Sally could take a few moments to study the deck far below. From the vantage point of the top, one saw entirely different things than one did below. She saw patterns and habits in a different way. Right then, she could see Ian Worth on the quarterdeck, being spoken to by Mr. Charlton, and see Worth start down and across the waist until he stopped abruptly and changed direction, skirting along the larboard rail on his errand.

A glance to starboard found the reason for his hasty reroute. Mr. Gamage was moving in the opposite direction through the starboard waist. Men shied out of his way, mostly the younger ones, or turned their back to purposely avoid his eye.

“Willis, what do you think of Mr. Gamage?”

Willis cut her a look as sharp as broken glass. “I got no opinion whatsoever about officers, Mr. Kent.”

“He’s not an officer. He’s only a ‘young gentleman,’ like the rest of us, despite his age. Do you know how long he has been with the ship?”

“Longer than I been wif her. An’ that’s nine years.”

“When did he fail the exam for lieutenant?”

Willis lowered his voice though they were quite alone at the masthead, but even at the top of the ship, sound traveled strangely at sea. Willis obviously didn’t believe in taking chances. “From what I could see, Mr. Kent, Cap’n never put him up for it. An’ it’s no wonder. He’s not exactly fit for it, is he?”

“No. From what I can see, he’s an overgrown, aged schoolboy bully. Has he always run the other midshipmen ragged?”

Willis made his answer carefully vague. Until he was sure of her, he would not commit to an opinion. “That’s one way o’ putting it.”

“Does he blame the men in his division unfairly if anything goes wrong?”

“He might do.” Willis was looking at her now with something less of suspicion and more of camaraderie.

“Does he meddle in other officers’ divisions?”

“Only the midshipmen, though that third lieutenant, young Mr. Lawrence, is pretty scared of him. Thought maybe once he passed his lieutenancy he’d be shed of Mr. Gamage, but he’s not been so lucky. Just made Gamage meaner to him, seeing Mr. Lawrence pass for lieutenant ahead of him.”

“That won’t do.” Though she still had not figured out what exactly to do about the problem of Mr. Gamage. Sally’s original plan to see
him
put off with her had faded with Mr. Colyear’s unexpected decision not to see
her
put off.

Willis’s face creased into a crooked smile. “Sound like your brother, you do, when you talk like that. Served under him in
Retribution
.”

“That must have been Owen. He’s Captain Kent now, in the cutter
Sprite
.”

“My ’gratulations to him. Godspeed and good fortune. But it won’t be long ere you join ’em in bein’ a captain. You Kents know your business.”

“Thank you, Willis. I appreciate your faith in me. But I’ll only have earned it if I can figure out what to do about the problem of Mr. Gamage.”

And she needed to think of something pretty damn soon because below, Gamage had somehow managed to find Ian Worth and was bedeviling him, shoving the boy into the shadow of the quarterdeck, aft below the rail, where Gamage thought no one could see.

Well, she could see, and she was going to do something about it. Devil take him, but Gamage’s casual malice made her as angry as a swarm of bees. “Devil take his rat-red eyes.”

“Sir?” Willis’s voice was full of caution, but she was already sliding hand over gripping hand down a backstay and then striding her way across the deck. She couldn’t hear whatever Gamage was saying over the hard beating of her heart and the overloud flap of her big footfalls upon the decking as she neared. She could only feel her throat tighten with the blistering scald of injustice at his treatment of her friend.

“Leave off, Mr. Gamage.” She put every ounce of the hostility boiling in her blood into turning her words into a command. “Mr. Worth is needed on the quarterdeck by Mr. Colyear.”

Gamage shied a quick glance around as if to assure himself Mr. Colyear’s arrival wasn’t imminent. “Is he? Sent his pretty little flunky to do his dirty work for him, did
Mister
Colyear? Aren’t you supposed to be up in the top, Kent?”

Sally held her ground and reminded herself of her pledge to Mr. Colyear to keep her unpredictable temper in check. She tried to sound like Mr. Colyear, and to invest her voice with the patient ferocity so particular to the first lieutenant. “Aren’t you supposed to act like an officer, Gamage? Leave the boy alone.”

It worked. Gamage turned his attention away from Worth—to whom she signaled by a flick of her wrist to make himself scarce—and focused all of his sulky ire on Sally, his voice low and smooth with menace. “Still licking Mr. Colyear’s boots, are you, Kent? Are you an ass-licker as well?”

With that shot, he turned around his snide smile.

Sally raised her voice to carry. “At least I’m not a piss-pot bully,
Mister
Gamage.”

At her riposte, Gamage swung back on her with his ratlike malicious quickness, and laid a vise-hard hold on her arm. “What did you say?”

Sally wanted to snatch her arm away from his filthy grasp. But she couldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her squirm. Though her heart was shuddering away in her ears like a loose tiller, she stood perfectly still and met his eyes with an unflinching stare. Devil take him, she was a Kent. She’d eaten colder stares for breakfast.

So she let him tighten his grip on her arm, and waited with only an upraised eyebrow for him to come to his point. Another moment, maybe longer, while he tried to exert even more pressure. Sally looked down at her elbow and then back up at his face. Then she smiled. And batted her eyes. And said in a clear voice, “If you mean to ask me to dance, Mr. Gamage, I’m afraid my card is full.”

Gamage dropped her arm as if she were made of fire.

Sally used her freedom to climb calmly up the gangway ladder and into the main chains, safely out of Gamage’s reach. “You heard me the first time, Mr. Gamage. I’ll wager everyone did. But I’ll repeat myself for your benefit. I said you’re a piss-pot bully.”

Around her she could hear the snickers of the men. An audience was always a good thing. But Gamage had heard the laughter, too, and he’d take out his anger on those below him, who couldn’t even defend themselves with their words.

Gamage’s face grew gray and brittle with suppressed fury as he quickly looked around, trying to intimidate the men near him with his volatility. But he could find no mark, for they weren’t even looking at him. They were looking at her.

Good. After this, she was sure Gamage would focus his malice on her instead of on the other boys.

Gamage finally managed to draw himself together in a pale imitation of an officer’s authority. “You’ll regret that, Kent. I’ll see that you do.” His voice was going dry and cracked with humiliation.

“Oh, yes.” She began to climb the shrouds, as if she were dismissing him. But she kept her voice carrying. “I’m quite sure you’ll take your first opportunity to shove my head into a deck beam or push me down from behind. Isn’t that your way?”

“You insult me, Kent,” he fumed in impotent fury beneath her, all but stamping on the gangway in a jig of rage. “I
demand
an apology!”

“All right.” She was almost directly above him and he had to tip his face up to the sun and shade his eyes to even look at her. “I’m sorry that you’re so pathetic a bully you have to pick on boys a third of your age. How’s that?”

“You little shite—”

It was at that moment that the full force of Mr. Colyear’s displeasure hit her chest like a bomb.

“Silence!”

Chapter Nine

The word was as close to shouting as Col had ever come, and he had no doubt from the reactions of the crew that every man jack of them felt their cods shiver up inside their bodies for shelter.

“I’ll have the name of the next man that talks.” Col leaned his weight down on the quarterdeck rail and raked the ship with the double-shotted menace in his eyes, just for emphasis. It was a wonder the sharp inhaling of breath didn’t suck the wind out of the sails.

Col had observed the near fracas from the vantage of the quarterdeck with amazement at both Kent’s daring and her idiocy. The stupid girl was going to wake up with a knife stuck squarely between her ribs, or worse, if she didn’t watch out. What had she been thinking to provoke such a man of such proud volatility as Gamage? It was sheer lunacy. Suicidal lunacy.

He was going to go mad trying to figure Kent out. And go mad trying to save her from herself.

If he ever got his hands on her, he would thrash her. And Gamage as well. Never mind that the man was well past the age to be bent over a cannon to kiss the gunner’s daughter for punishment. Col would see it done.

As for Kent, if he ever laid hands on her, he would—

He wouldn’t. He would make damn sure he never touched her.

But she’d left him one hell of a poxy mess to clean up. Damn her fine gray eyes.

“Back to your work. Move along there, you idlers. Find work or I’ll find it for you.” The people fell to whatever work was to hand with silent, watchful diligence.

In the starboard chains, Willis dropped down the shrouds as silently as a spider. “Here now, Mr. Kent,” he urged quietly. “Best to move back aloft, sir.”

Col had other plans. “Mr. Kent. You will join me on the quarterdeck.”

The satisfied smirk that cleaved Gamage’s poxy excuse for a face told him what was coming, yet Col was a patient man, and let it unfold like a three-penny opera.

As Kent and Willis lowered themselves from the chains onto the gangway, Gamage, unable to resist the temptation of an easy target for his stymied fit of anger, threw a vicious elbow at Kent’s passing head. But instead of hitting Kent, Gamage landed the blow on Willis as he stepped between the two officers.

The wiry man withstood it like a gunner, solid and sure in the face of Gamage’s misspent rage, but blood spouted instantly from the corner of his mouth, soiling Gamage’s sleeve.

Gamage, still spewing ineffective venom, spat, “Mind your betters,” at Willis, and Kent, characteristically not knowing when in hell to leave well enough alone, was about to spring herself to her man’s defense.

Before she could indict herself any further, Col cracked his voice at them like a whip. “I’ll have that man’s name!”

The bo’sun, Mr. Robinson, materialized at his elbow. “Mr. Gamage, sir? Or Mr. Kent?”

Col hoped the full weight of his displeasure was settling onto Gamage. “Mr. Gamage. I’ll see you as well as Mr. Kent.”

He put all the bite he was feeling into the laconic tone, and then turned his back on the whole lot of them, just to show his disdain, and his control. He was surprised to find Captain McAlden had been standing quietly at his back.

“Well. That has put the cat amongst the pigeons. But who is the cat and who is the pigeon, we shall have to see. I’ll speak to Kent and Gamage after you’re done with them, if you would be so good as to send them to me. Carry on, Mr. Colyear.” And with a cordial nod, he wandered away to the lee of the quarter to consult with Mr. Charlton on some point of sailing.

Mr. Charlton looked grave and said whatever was necessary, but he, too, fell silent—as silent as the rest of the ship—when the miscreants gained the quarterdeck.

But Col had no intention of letting the incident become any more of a spectacle than it already was, even for the captain’s entertainment. He ignored the midshipmen and left them to stand, stewing in their own bilge.

“Prepare to come about,” he ordered before calling to the quartermaster. “Helm about.”

There was a general bustle as the men fell to turning the ship into the wind and readjusting all the sails to suit his exacting eye. “Sheet home. Clew down, there. Haul away hard on that jib.
Haul,
I say.”

So the rest of the ship was thoroughly engaged with their work when he finally turned to Kent and Gamage.

“I will detain you two”—he stabbed his eyes first at Gamage—“
young
”—and then at Kent—“
gentlemen
for only a moment, before I turn you over to your captain. To whom I will recommend dealing with you as harshly as possible.”

Although Col didn’t like to envision Kent tied spread-eagled along the weather shrouds in the typical punishment reserved for recalcitrant midshipmen. In such an attitude, too much of her person would be on display to curious eyes, and it might be seen that Mr. Kent was not all he was pretending to be.

But it was out of his hands. The public nature of their set-to had put paid to any discretion Col might have been able to exercise.

His roving eyes found a job for the last few of the men still trying to provide him with an audience. “Slacken that mizzencourse tack. Mr. Kent, did I see you argue with and insult a fellow officer?”