Almost a Scandal (24 page)

Sally sent up a small prayer that the deck would not suddenly call all hands, or discover a second enemy ship and beat to quarters, and blew out the light. And then, in the low yellow light that leached under the door, for the first time since she came on board, without hiding and gyrating under her linen and blankets, she stripped herself completely of all her clothes and set about giving herself a proper scrubbing off with the flannel square and strong soap she had provided for Richard.

She went after her grime methodically and with vigor, scrubbing until her skin tingled, the way it had when Col had touched her so strangely. And there it was again, the delightful shiver from the slight chill that swept over her damp skin as she soaped and rinsed herself, mingling with the remembrance of Col. Of Col’s touch.

Devil tempt her. What she might give for a proper bath, with a copper tub full of hot water and a bar of lemon soap like Mrs. Jenkins made from the fruit grown in the potted trees at home. What might Col think of her if she were really clean, and dressed in something other than a worn-out blue coat? In something fine and pretty?

It was a useless thought. She’d never once in her life looked fine and pretty. She wasn’t that kind of girl. Never had been. If Col admired her, at least she was sure he admired her for what she truly was. For understanding oranges and speaking Spanish for the captain, not for useless accomplishments that meant nothing at all in the real world.

She paused for a moment to inhale the strong bracing scent of the marbled castile soap she had purchased for Richard and to shake off the last dregs of dreamy lethargy. It felt so good to inhale fully, to expand her lungs out to the limits of her rib cage, to stretch and move without layers and layers of constricting bands. She felt free in an entirely different manner than she did when she was in the rigging. But free nonetheless.

Once she had changed into fresh linen and clean knee breeches, Sally relit the lantern and carefully examined the small burn on her calf. The ember had expended its energy more on burning her stocking than in the flesh of her calf, but she had an angry red blister the size of a ha’penny to show for the Spaniard’s trouble. She dressed it carefully with salve and covered it with a clean bandage. Her father had always been meticulously strict about such things. He used to say that more men were lost to disease and disregard than were ever lost in battle.

But Sally didn’t want to think about her father. She wanted to think about Col.

She looked again at her image in the mirror, trying to see what others saw—what Col saw. All she could see was the purplish bruise along the ridge of bone circling her eye, and darker freckles, but other than that, she looked like herself. Without the dirty coating of spent powder and the camouflage of the blue coat, she looked as she always had. Ordinary Sarah Alice Kent who always had plenty of friends and never sat out a rollicking country dance, but never got looked at twice.

But Col had looked twice. More than twice. And touched besides.

And it had felt wonderful. She felt wonderful—warm and awake and drowsy, all at the same time.

Sally blew out the lantern and tipped herself into the swinging cot, a veritable luxury of space and bedlike comfort after the hammock. She stretched out her feet and her back, and turned on her side. Facing the wall separating Mr. Colyear’s cabin from hers. Toward him. Toward Col.

She hovered there for a long time, at the edge of sleep, too exhausted and exhilarated to slip the bounds of consciousness, until a shadow crossed the light coming in under her door. In another moment she could hear the quiet sounds of Mr. Colyear letting himself into his cuddy, next door.

The exhaustion dropped away, to be replaced by an avid, almost reckless curiosity. She listened intently, trying to imagine the significance of each small sound as he prepared himself for sleep, until finally she thought she could perceive the creak of ropes that told her he was settling into his hanging cot, and making himself more comfortable. And then she did hear the deep cadence of his breathing, even and controlled, from the other side of the screen wall. She could imagine him, in her mind’s eye, lying on his back, with his hands linked behind his head, looking up at the deckbeams above. Thinking. He was always thinking, Col was. Maybe even thinking about her.

Sally inched herself over to the edge of the cot, closer to the wall. There was a little tear in the painted canvas of the wall. “Mr. Colyear?” she whispered at the tear.

His equally hushed answer came back instantly. “Kent. Keep your voice down.” His voice was low and soft in that sandy way of his, but she could hear him clearly. He was nearer than she thought.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to lower her voice to a hush. “I just wanted to apologize for making things more difficult, when you’ve been nothing but kind to me, Mr. Colyear. Thank you, for everything you’ve done.”

He took a long, deep breath before he answered. “And everything I haven’t done?”

“Yes. That, too.”

“You’re welcome.”

He was quiet for a long time, while something larger and more irrational than butterflies filled her stomach—moths batting around, stupidly flinging themselves at the light that was Mr. Colyear.

“You did well today, Kent. It was one hell of a day.”

Relief did make her chatty. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it. It was incredible today seeing the oranges, and knowing it meant one of the dons was near. I had gooseflesh all up and down my arms out of sheer excitement. And then finding the ship, and then it being a xebec—so fantastical looking. I’d heard about them and seen drawings but I’d never seen one before, with those exotic, precarious-looking lateen sails.”

She drew in a long breath. She was blathering like a looby, but she couldn’t seem to help it. And Col didn’t seem to mind. He was making encouraging sounds of agreement. “And then chasing the xebec and watching the way you saw everything, and then tacking like that across the don’s stern and engaging so entirely at point-blank range. It was brilliant, just brilliant. I don’t think there is another captain in the world, or another crew, who could have done it like that today, my father included. You were magnificent.”

“Thank you, Kent. That is high praise indeed. It was quite a day.” He sounded as if he were smiling. His voice was ashy, but warm, the last smoldering remains of the fire of battle. It was low, and just soft enough to insinuate its way deep inside her. It made her curl up into a tight ball to hug the sound of him close.

“It was the best day ever. And I was so very glad to be a part of it. It was a privilege. Especially as chances are I may not have another like it.”

“Won’t you?
Audacious
may take more prizes yet. Captain McAlden is an ambitious man. He has plans we none of us know of yet.”

“Does he? And am I going to be part of those plans?”

“Who knows,” was his noncommittal response.

Sally took another deep breath. “Does that mean you’re really not going to tell him? Ever?”

Long silence pressed her into the cot while she waited for Col to speak.

“Ever is a very long time, Kent. And I think we both know it can’t be forever.”

“No. It can’t be forever. But perhaps, just perhaps, it could just be for now?”

She waited in the dark, silent and suspended by her hope. Waiting.

“Yes,” he finally answered. “For now.”

She didn’t need to hear the rest—the
ifs
. She understood him well enough to comprehend it meant
if
she was useful, and
if
she stayed out of trouble, and
if
she could help Gamage with his studies.

“Thank you, Col. Thank you.” There was nothing more, nothing substantial enough to say to acknowledge the risk he was taking for her. She would be put ashore, if she were found out, but he could be called before a court-martial, if Captain McAlden or the Admiralty felt that he had put the ship or the crew in jeopardy in order to keep her secret. He could lose everything. Even his good name.

She would have taken his hand to shake, to show him she understood and would honor the chance he was taking on her.

But it was late and they were both abed, and she had to get up in four hours. Yet it felt important, this burgeoning feeling of enormous gratitude within her, and so very carefully, she laid her palm flat against the canvas of the wall. A silent little tribute.

Then, she felt the press of his hand against hers, palm to palm, through the fabric of the canvas. His hand was bigger—the span of his palm was wider, the length of his fingers longer—and heat rose out of his palm in waves. She couldn’t draw back. She pressed harder, leaning into the strength and surety of him.

She was not alone. He would help her keep her secret. And she wouldn’t let him down. She would protect him and his good name from all harm as well.

Whatever it was, this friendship, this affinity between them, she was not alone. He felt it, too. It only remained to see what they were going to do about it.

Chapter Fifteen

The noon hour saw
Audacious
standing ten miles northwest off the island of Ushant, itself off the west coast of the Department of Finistère, with the city of Brest lying along the Atlantic Coast a further fifteen miles or so to the southeast. And Kent was nowhere to be found.

Only a moment ago, she had been at the rail with all of the other midshipmen—
all
in this case including Mr. Gamage, who, for the first time in recent memory, had appeared with his sextant to take the noon reading. But now neither Kent nor Gamage were anywhere within sight. A wash of apprehension swilled around his gut like a cold swallow of salty seawater.

Col knew he ought to be grateful that she was keeping assiduously out of his way, that she appeared to be applying herself with all diligence to her sworn duty. That he hadn’t seen her in days. It had been his objective in rearranging the watchkeeping schedule to keep them apart.

And he couldn’t stand it.

“Mr. Worth,” he called to the nearest boy. “Pass the word for Mr. Kent.”

“If you please, sir. Mr. Kent is in the cockpit, sir, working with Mr. Gamage. If there is anything you require, I’d be happy to do it for you, instead of Mr. Kent.”

So she really was doing it—tutoring Mr. Gamage. Or at least she was trying. And if Mr. Worth’s offer was any indication, the rest of the midshipmen would do just about anything to see that she remained trying.

“No need, Mr. Worth. I’ll see—” Col had no excuse that wouldn’t make him look three ways to foolish. “I’ll see to it myself.”

Col made his way belowdecks quietly, almost surreptitiously, so he could fetch up outside the cockpit unannounced and unseen. Low light from a lantern shone from under the closed door, and he paused there at the threshold to listen.

“I tell you what.” Kent’s voice was clear and low. “We’ll go over the projection again, but this time, we’re going to use different colors of ink for each one of the lines, transects, and arcs. It will make it easier for you to differentiate them, both in your mind and on the paper. So let’s make the rhumb line yellow, to stand for the foam in the wake of the ship, because that’s the direct line that represents the course you want the ship to hew to. And we’ll make the horizon line black, because that’s what you see when you look at the horizon…”

Amid the clinking of pens and ink bottles, Col let himself into the room as silently as possible so as not to disturb them, or wake Jellicoe and Beecham, who were asleep in their hammocks. Kent and Gamage were seated with their backs to the door, side by side at the table, which had been moved so that it canted across the small room at an angle. The reason for which was soon explained.

“Exactly,” Kent was encouraging her pupil. “And remember again that north will be at the head of the paper, and that we’ve seated ourselves in the same orientation, so that you are drawing your trigonometric projection in the actual direction you will need to calculate, to make it easier to envision.”

“And I have to make this basic projection every time? Bloody waste—”

“It’s working, isn’t it? You’ve gotten the first two distances right, Damien. Just keep using the framework now, and soon you’ll be able to envision it on the paper even if you haven’t drawn it out. But for now, until it’s in your memory, start with the colored ink and work from there. It will take longer for a while, but soon you’ll be fast enough.”

Damien? Since when had Gamage become Damien? And Kent was sitting so close to the man that their heads were nearly touching, and her shoulder was rubbing up against his.

“Mr. Kent.” He hadn’t meant to make his voice so harsh.

She immediately scraped back her chair and rose. “Mr. Colyear, sir, I didn’t see you there.”

Was that nervous guilt he heard in her voice? Or flustered pleasure? It bothered him that he had no idea. Gamage had risen as well, and now stood looking back and forth between Kent and Col. Now he had to explain himself. “I came to see how you were getting on. You and Mr. Gamage, that is. With your studies.”

“Very well, thank you, sir. I was thinking—we were thinking—of asking Mr. Charlton if Mr. Gamage might rejoin the midshipmen in their lessons in the morning, but I realize we need to apply to you, sir, to see if Mr. Gamage might be taken off duty and watchkeeping during the forenoon.”

We?
The acid scratching through his gut could not possibly be jealousy. He was not jealous of Gamage. He refused to be.

For his part, Gamage seemed content to let Kent do all the talking. But Col didn’t like the sharp look in the man’s eyes as he kept tacking back and forth between Kent and himself.

“That may be arranged, but Mr. Gamage will have to ask Mr. Charlton’s permission himself.” Col shifted his focus directly to Gamage so the man had to do the same. “You will have to apply to the sailing master directly for readmittance, and make a case as to why he should do so.” Col had not been privy to the dismissal of Gamage from the classroom—it had happened long before he had joined
Audacious
—but he was damn sure that Gamage needed to atone for whatever sins he may have committed personally with Mr. Charlton. And it gave Col a reason to speak to Kent alone.