Laura Kinsale (17 page)

Gryf cursed under his breath. “Where is he?”

“Here, sir. The doctor said not to move him, but I didn’t think you’d want to leave him ashore.”

“Hold there. I’ll get help.”

He roused the others. While they maneuvered the injured Gaffer aboard, Mahzu gave Gryf a description of the sailor’s condition, which was not promising. The broken ribs and arm weren’t fatal, but they would make Gaffer useless for this trip.

Gryf listened, and then grimaced. “We can’t sail shorthanded. Lord, old Gaffer of all of them—I can’t believe he’d let himself get tangled up in that kind of business.”

“I don’t think he did, Captain.”

Gryf glanced up. “No?”

“He was in a leaving shop—a fair enough place, sir. They came in and took him. Over two other younger ones, and better money.”

That news put an entirely new complexion on the matter. “It’s my hide they’re after, then.”

“The crimp sent a message. He’s got a man to replace Gaffer. The price is a hundred today and two hundred tomorrow, sir.”

It was an old battle between Gryf and the crimps. They had their trade, and they didn’t like a captain who generated enough loyalty in his crew to make the seamen turn down the inflated offers of new berths. Gryf wanted to be gone now as much as Sydney, but he did not dare sail short a working man.

“Cap’n,” one of the men whispered. “We got company, sir, two points for’ard o’ the port beam.”

“Ah, damn.” Gryf reached for his pistol. He too could see the faint rippling wake of the longboat that bore down on them. “Hail, ’em, and bid them keep their distance.”

That was done, but the boat came silently on. Gryf took aim, and placed a shot across her bow. The splash of oars abruptly ceased.

There was a pause, and then a voice roared,
“Capitaine!”

Gryf did not answer.

“Your new man is here,” the disembodied voice continued. “The one you asked for. One hundred francs, and another fifty for the trouble of bringing him out to you.”

“I asked for no one,
sangsue,
” Gryf spat.

A hoarse chuckle carried over the water. “How do you say that in English—‘sucker of blood’? I will drink your blood,
Capitaine,
if you provoke me. One hundred fifty francs.”

“We weigh anchor in the morning.”

“With seven men? I think not. I think you will be shipping an expensive crew this trip.”

The crimp obviously thought that Gryf would be looking for triple the number of men he had now, not just one more man. There would be no going back into Le Havre now for recruiting, not with this shark in control of the docks. After a long moment, Gryf said, “A hundred francs.”

Another laugh. “You are going to make me angry,
Capitaine.
”

“One hundred,” Gryf said stubbornly. He did not care about fifty francs one way or the other, but he did not want to appear too eager.

“
Bon.
He is coming aboard. The next one will be three hundred.”

“Extortion,” Gryf growled, for effect. He could just
make out the flutter of a telltale hanging from one of the furled sails, a sign that the breeze was rising. The moon would not be up for another hour. He drew a mental chart of the harbor entrance, and made a decision. “The money’s in the safe. You’ll have to wait.”

“Oh, I am a patient man,” said the crimp. “Very patient.”

Gryf handed the pistol to Mahzu, and murmured low instructions in his ear. Before Gryf had reached the companionway, silent figures, almost invisible in the darkness, were on their way up the ratlines. He pounded loudly down the stairs, fumbled to unlock the safe in the murk, and emptied the coins out of one of the bags. He turned, making his way to the sideboard in the saloon by feel, and loaded the empty bag with tin tableware, testing the bundle for the satisfying chink of metal when he dropped it. Scooping it up again, he slipped back up the stairs and strode out onto the deck.

“Sangsue,”
he sneered, leaning over the rail. “I want the man first.”

“Do you think I will cheat you,
Capitaine?
No, I want us to have a long and happy friendship. We will call this fine sailor your first token of my good will.” There was an order, and the longboat came alongside. Mahzu kept the pistol at the ready as a figure climbed awkwardly onto the deck amid curses and pushing hands. From the way he staggered, Gryf suspected the newcomer had never set foot on a ship before. He groaned inwardly.

“What do you think, my friend?” the crimp called from the longboat. “Worth a hundred francs, yes? A thousand!”

“Worth what I’m paying,” Gryf said, and tossed the bag of tin down into the longboat. At the same moment, Mahzu bellowed his orders, and with a booming crack,
the sails bloomed white against the black sky, high up, and the crimp’s shout was lost in the bang and flutter as the crew slid down and manned the sheets and the stay-sails.

It took the crimp even longer to grasp the situation than Gryf had anticipated, and the first gunshot rang out well after the ship’s bow began to swing under strain of the slip rope aft and the force of the backed headsails. The pistol shots sank into an unfeeling wooden hull.

“Let’s go aft!” Gryf shouted. With a pause and a shudder, she bounded free. The sails filled. Like a great bird startled into flight, the
Arcanum
gathered silent way. As the wind laid her over, she seemed to dip and curtsy. He could almost imagine that he heard her laughing as she left the longboat and its crew behind, wasting ammunition on a target that rapidly drew out of range on the brisk night wind from the east.

A
week out of Le Havre, Gryf stood next to the binnacle, watching for the twentieth time as the new man, Stark, missed his order to loose the fore royal. The man was strong as an ox, and smart enough at backtalk, but he seemed deaf and dumb up there in the foretop. Only after the main royal was already sheeted home and hoisted did it appear to occur to him to throw off the gaskets and drop the bunt, so that the ship staggered awkwardly as the loosed sail caught the wind a moment too late for smooth trimming. Stark couldn’t have timed it better if he had meant to foul things up.

Gryf would have kept his patience if Stark had shown the least desire to cooperate. But the man was too old to start at sea—past forty at the least, with his salt-and-pepper beard, and he seemed to take instructions as an insult, unable to overcome the notion that just because the crimp had promised Stark a berth as steward, he should actually assume that position. Gryf had no use for a steward, but he had a crying need for a warm body in the foretop. Even though the
Arcanum
’s blocks and running rigging had been changed and changed again over the years to make her work as light as possible,
there was a minimum crew below which Gryf dared not drop. In fair weather, she could sail with a crew of six by rotating through the watches, but in another storm like the one off Gibraltar he would need every manjack aboard. So they drilled, for Stark’s sake, and Gryf figured the man would appreciate it when he found himself at the top of a swaying mast in a howling gale as they rounded Cape Horn on some wild night in November.

Passing an order to Mahzu, Gryf gave up on exercises for the day. He was about to go below when Mr. Sydney appeared in the companionway.

“Ah, Captain,” the botanist said, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat, “I’m glad to have come across you before I forget again—I had a letter which I was requested to pass along.”

Gryf looked at his passenger in surprise. “To me?”

“Oh, yes—” He glanced down at the letter in his hand. “Captain Gryphon Frost. That is you, is it not? I should be distressed to find that it wasn’t, at this late hour.”

As always, it was impossible to see anything but guileless concern on the little man’s face, but Gryf knew by now when he was being roasted. He took the offered packet. “I’m only curious about who would have given you a letter for me.”

“Oh, as to that—” The botanist paused, making an ineffectual attempt to smooth a sparse strand of hair across his bald pate in the stiff breeze. “Lady Tess, of course.”

Gryf stopped in the motion of breaking the seal.

“The late earl’s daughter,” Sydney added, with a helpful smile as he scanned Gryf’s shocked face. “You remember her well, I expect. She’s sponsoring this expedition, God bless her.”

“Sponsoring…” Gryf looked down at the letter in his hand as if it were a snake. He said, faintly, “Do you mean—paying for it?”

“Yes, indeed. And most generous she has been, don’t you agree? She specifically suggested that we take passage with you.” Sydney beamed at Gryf, and patted his arm. “Well, well, I have done my duty. I believe I’ll wait on dinner below.”

Gryf was unable to find his voice. He watched Sydney disappear down the hatch, and then walked to the stern rail to stare blindly out at the horizon.

Tess.

The money that had saved him, had bought back his ship and his self-esteem; the money that lay now in the safe below…

All hers.

It was like a heavy blow to the jaw. It left him blank. Reeling. He looked down at the blue water that rushed past and felt physically sick.

How could she…She took his pride and his soul and his dreams—hadn’t that been enough? He had hated her, ached for her, shut her out of his mind with merciless determination. And now Mrs. Eliot found time in her busy day to pull him from ruin with a flick of her little finger. She wrote him a letter.

He crackled the paper in his fist. What would she say? That she was happy? That Stephen Eliot was a fine husband? It had been over a year—there might be a child. Gryf would have laughed, if he had been able to breathe. An heir. He might open this missive and find that there was a new heir to Ashland.

And what difference would it make? He was purchased and paid for now. Bought…for ten thousand pounds and a letter.

Shame flooded him, and excruciating anger. He
wished he had taken the Frenchman’s offer—better a second-class pirate than her charity case. Better crushed beneath a falling mast. Better dead. It burned his fingers, that letter. It burned his heart down to cinders. He flung the thing violently away, watched it arch and then fall, and disappear in the white wash of the
Arcanum
’s wake.

“Captain.”

Gryf turned at Mahzu’s address. The mate stood below the break of the deck, in the traditional place of petition for an audience with the captain. It was not a custom normally followed on the
Arcanum,
since her captain spent almost as much time on the foredeck or in the tops as the other men, but Gryf understood the gesture when he saw the solid figure of Stark standing behind the African.

“Well?” Gryf snapped, not in any mood to listen to the newcomer’s grievances.

“It’s Stark here, sir. He’s asked to speak to you.”

“Concerning what?”

Even Mahzu looked a little disconcerted at the chill in Gryf’s voice. “Concerning his duties, sir.”

“I thought you ought to know,” Stark added quickly, “that my talents is being wasted—”

“Your talents.” Gryf’s words cut across the other man’s. “What talents, Stark? Scraping chain cable? Picking oakum? Maybe you’ve noticed the standing rigging needs to be tarred down.”

Stark appeared to miss the threat. Mahzu didn’t, but he made no comment, only looked at Stark with a resigned expression that clearly stated, “Give a man enough rope…”

“I don’t know about all that,” Stark said, a little impatiently, “but I’ve experience in service, sir.”

“Ah.” Gryf smiled coldly, finding an outlet for the
helpless rage that ate at him. “Waiting at table, pouring wine…that sort of thing?”

“Yes, sir. Exactly, sir. I expect, with you and the passengers and all, and there being no service in the cabin, that you would want to use me there.”

“Do I understand that you’re volunteering for the position of steward?”

“Yes, sir!” Stark said enthusiastically.

“Really! And you’ll take that on for no more pay than a common seaman?”

“Course I will, sir.”

Gryf looked at Mahzu. “He’s starboard watch?”

“Aye, sir,” Mahzu supplied.

“All right, Stark. When the starbolins go below, you come on duty as steward and stay till the next watch.”

“This evening, sir?”

“Of course this evening.”

“But sir—” Stark looked slightly discomposed. “I’ve been workin’ since dawn, sir.”

“I suppose you’ll have to get used to that. It’s bound to be a problem, for a man taking round-the-clock duty.”

“I don’t know as I understand your meaning, sir.”

“No?” Gryf asked with a deadly mildness. “You don’t see how that might wear a man out? To stand duty on deck with the starboard watch, and then take port watch as steward? After a few days, I think lack of sleep will be the least of your worries, Stark, for God knows when you’ll find the time to eat.”

Stark looked satisfactorily shaken as the truth dawned on him. He rallied as Gryf started to turn away, and said indignantly, “I hardly think that’s fair, sir—I only thought, being as how you had a lady of quality on board, that you might be in need of my particular assistance.”

Gryf stopped, glancing back in exasperation. “If we have any ladies of any description at all on board, then you know more about it than I do, Stark.”

For a split second, the man’s dark face held startlement. Then his broad features took on a sly look. “I don’t know as I don’t then, Captain. I guess I’d ask that cracked old cock with the queer hat about it, if I was you, sir.”

From the corner of his eye Gryf saw Mahzu stiffen, and fought down the same reaction in himself. The snide assurance, the self-important grin…He realized Stark was sure that he was speaking out of some clear knowledge beyond Gryf’s own. “I’ll see Stark in the cabin at eight bells, Mr. Mahzu. Keep him busy until then.” Gryf started to jerk his head in dismissal, and then stopped, and added, for the pure relish of hazing Stark, “Oh, and Mr. Mahzu—throw half of that fancy tobacco Stark brought along overboard. From now on, he won’t have time to smoke those stinking Burma cheroots.”

The tiny cabin where Tess confined herself, impersonating the seasick Thomas Cartwright, had grown exceedingly dull. At first, she had been content to sit and smile and listen to the familiar slap of waves against the hull as the
Arcanum
rocked along. Sometimes she recognized Gryf’s voice, muffled, shouting orders on deck as the ship tacked out of the English Channel and into the open sea. Sometimes she heard him in the saloon, talking to Mr. Sydney, and she pictured them poring over charts, the one head a tawny-gold and the other balding, bent together in conference to decide where in the whole, wonderful, wide, free world they might take her.

It mattered not at all. Mr. Sydney, that dear little man who had faithfully stayed at home for years and cared
for the plants and animals her father had sent back, deserved his day of adventure. He was almost beside himself with joy—each time he brought a tray of food to her cabin he had to sit down with her as she ate and rhapsodize about his gratitude and pleasure with a sincerity that was impossible to resist. They had been lucky: it had only taken Mr. Taylor four months to locate the
Arcanum
in dry dock in Portugal. Tess tried not to imagine too often the magnitude of the storm which had put the ship there, for when she did, a cold mixture of fear and relief crept into her belly. What little Tess had seen of the
Arcanum
’s deck bore the scars: fresh wood and paint that clearly outlined the repair of smashed bulwarks and gaping holes in the planking.

Mr. Taylor was gone now, back to Brazil and his ailing wife, thinking he had left Tess in capable and conservative hands with Mr. Sydney. Tess had not been about to disabuse her trustee of this pleasant notion, and so she had never mentioned that she and her father’s curator had been cohorts in crime since Tess had learned to walk. Together, they had perpetrated uncounted escapes from the schoolroom and other dull places, and never been caught out once. Mr. Sydney had fallen in at once with Tess’s plan of impersonation.

He brought her food, and seemed to think that no one noticed anything unusual about Thomas Cartwright’s weak stomach that consumed three square meals a day. But Tess was restless, longing to see Gryf, not just to hear him; wanting to tell him so much that seemed impossible to explain. She had considered a hundred ways of confronting him and discarded them all. One was too abrupt, another too ridiculous—what was she to say? “Oh, good day, sir, I was just taking a stroll and happened upon your ship in the middle of the Atlantic.” The original plan had been to reveal herself just out of
port, but with each passing mile, she had lost her courage, becoming more and more sure that she would not be welcome, that Mr. Taylor had been right, that Gryf could only despise her for the things that she had done and said.

It was out of that cowardice that she had decided to write the letter. She’d spent three days over it, writing and revising. She ended up with a missive that was far too long and said almost nothing of what she wanted, but at least it held the facts—she was here on the ship, she had been wrong, and knew it now to her sorrow; her marriage to Stephen Eliot was dissolved as if it had never existed…and she loved Gryf, even if he could never forgive her and love her again in return.

The last sentence about never forgiving she had added after some debate and polishing. It was true, of course, but she wasn’t above milking the last degree of remorse from the situation, in hopes it might salve his wounded pride. In fact, she rather thought that she wasn’t above anything that could work to bring him back to her. Masquerading as one Thomas Cartwright, renowned and seasick botanist, had only been a way to keep Gryf from retreating from her before she had a chance to explain. Once he knew the truth, she vowed, she would not press him.

Well…maybe she would a little…perhaps she ought not to make that vow just yet.

She frowned at the two gowns she had laid out. Mr. Sydney had passed along the letter. At any time now, Gryf would read it. Might already have read it. The thought made her heart leap uncomfortably. She forced herself to look at the gowns, one sapphire-blue, the other a deep-wine, and try to make a decision. She wanted to look her best. She had a fear, deep and only half-admitted, that her time with Stephen had somehow
changed her: that in place of a young woman there was now a haunted, hollow-eyed wraith, that her face still showed what it had shown the first time she had looked in a mirror after Mr. Taylor had brought her out of Ashland. She looked anxiously in the glass above the little washstand in the cabin. She was pale still, and her eyes looked too large, but as she thought of Gryf and the coming reunion, bright color spread up from the ruffled neckline of her camisole and touched her cheeks.

The sound of booted feet on the companionway stairs made her turn with a start. Mr. Sydney had come back down into the saloon ten minutes ago—that could only be Gryf, and to judge from the staccato pounding, he was in a hurry. Her hand flew to her mouth, pressing back sudden panic.

Mr. Sydney’s voice gave a congenial greeting, muffled through the door. Tess bit her finger, listening for an answer, but her heart was pumping too loudly for her to discern the exchange. Then Gryf said, quite clearly and coldly, “I think it’s time I met your colleague, Sydney.”

He had read the letter, then. Tess gulped in excitement and distress. Mr. Sydney kept his calm, as Tess had known he would. She knew she could count on her old friend, but the hardness in Gryf’s tone did not bode well for her fate.

She heard Mr. Sydney answer with an amiable ramble, something to do with his colleague being on the mend, and out soon, no doubt about it. Then, before she could summon the coordination to dive under a blanket and cower there, which was what she wanted very much to do, Gryf uttered an impatient oath and crossed directly to her cabin.