Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (42 page)

“
I am
sorry,” he said, his voice formal even as she hurried to say
something and rectify a dreadful situation of her own making. “It
really was a vast impertinence on my part. Do forgive
me.”

“
No,”
she protested as he looked away. “No, Will, it was not
impertinent.”

Larinda opened her
eyes, stretched, and looked about. She swiped at the window with
her sleeve, wiping away the accumulated moisture on the pane.

“
Uncle, have we arrived at Portsmouth?” she asked.

“
We
have. Now the hunt for your wretched brother begins.”

There was a certain
eagerness in his voice that twisted the knife Jeannie had stuck in
her own back, as if he were grateful to his niece for waking up and
sparing him further pain. Jeannie closed her eyes and kicked
herself mentally. Go back to sleep, Larinda, she thought. Close
your eyes again and let me have just five minutes more with Will
Summers. I will tell him how much I love him, and maybe he will
believe me. Please, Larinda.

But Larinda was awake
to stay. “What should we do, Uncle? Are there many ships in
Portsmouth?”

Captain Summers gave a
dry chuckle. “Bless me, Larinda, this is where the Royal Navy calls
home. When the fog lifts, you’ll see what I mean.”

They rode closer as the
sun burned away the fog and Larinda saw what he meant.

The bay was filled with
ships of all sizes, ships at dry dock, turned on their sides,
copper sheathing peeled away like the hide of a great animal, and
parts of ships, rows and rows of masts and spars, and everywhere
the sound of hammering. Many ships rode at anchor, bobbing light
and empty, waiting cargo and crew, or riding heavy in the water,
hulls filled and bound for distant ports. And farther out in the
magnificent bay, more ships anchored.

“
How
will we ever find Edward?” Jeannie asked.

Larinda nodded, her
eyes filled with apprehension.

“
We
will first wangle a list of ships from the harbormaster,” said
Will. “We will search only those vessels ready to slip their
moorings, the ones bound for Spain.” He patted Larinda’s hand. “And
we will try to find Bartley MacGregor and see what he knows about
all this.”

The harbormaster was
remarkably unwilling to supply any information, even with the
threat of Lord Smeath rolling about like loose cannon on the deck.
“Now, if you had something in writing from the gent, Captain,
perhaps I could find a list somewhere,” he said as he leaned across
his desk. “But as it is, I wouldn’t take the word of Our Lord Jesus
Christ if it wasn’t in writing. Begging your pardon, madams, but
after all, this is the Royal Navy and we do have standards.”

With an oath that
caused Larinda to jump and Jeannie to suddenly find a fascination
in a wall calendar, the captain dug into his pocket and slapped a
handful of coins on the desk. After another moment’s pause, a list
found its way into his pocket, and the harbormaster returned,
dignity intact, to the more pressing matter of a hundredweight of
biscuit that weighed only seventy-five pounds.

Captain Summers took
the list out into the better light and air of Portsmouth’s early
morning. “I’d like to flog the lot of them around the fleet,
harbormasters and quartermasters,” he said under his breath. He ran
his finger down the list. “The
Dauntless
, by God! And the
Adventure
,
Polyclitus
, and
Atropos
, bound for
the Channel Fleet. And look you, here is the
Minotaur
for
the Baltic, and look,
Amaryllis
,
Melanthion
,
St.
Peter of Lubeck
, and
Samson,
all troop ships for Lisbon.
Jeannie, we will find him on board one of those, I’ll be
bound.”

The captain procured
two sleeping rooms and a private parlor at the Winston and left
Larinda in reluctant possession.

“
Uncle, I do not wish to remain here,” she said, and she
appeared dangerously on the edge of tears.

“
No
scenes, Larinda,” he said. “I am going to sprinkle this wharf with
coins, asking the whereabouts of your brother and admonishing them
to direct all intelligence to you here at the Winston. You will see
to it that any news finds us in the harbor. No argument, my dear.
Come, Jeannie.”

A waterman was easy to
come by, a one-legged man safe from the press gang because of that
wooden leg, and smug about it, too.

“
The
Melanthion
, and smartly, lad,” Summers ordered as he helped
Jeannie into the wherry.

The waterman’s
assurance wilted. “Not with a lady, sir, surely not. There’s a new
gang of pressed men on board.” He made a face. “Didn’t I just see
them rowed out in chains. Hard cases, Captain.”

“
Just
do as you’re told,” the captain snapped.

He sat with Jeannie in
the thwarts, wrapping his cloak about her to keep off the spray.
Jeannie stole a glance at him. His expression was set, and he did
not appear like a man in need of any chat. She kept her thoughts to
herself as the waterman and his oarsman put their backs into it.
They skimmed across the bay to the great transport riding low in
the water.

As they approached the
ship, Jeannie felt Captain Summers begin to relax. The tension
drained out of his body and his arms went around her. He was at sea
again, even if only in a little boat, and at perfect ease with
himself.

“
A
beautiful woman and the ocean,” he sighed, his lips close to her
ear. “I think I am in heaven.”

“
But
you’re not sure,” she was prompted to point out.

After a moment of
startled silence spent digesting that comment, he pulled her to one
side so he could look into her face. “No, I am not sure,” he
replied slowly.

She looked at him, and
now he was embarrassed because he would not meet her eyes. Jeannie
touched his cheek and then settled herself against him again so he
could be spared the trouble of gazing into her face. She chose her
own words carefully, knowing they were spoken too late even as she
said them.

“
Tom
was never on time to anything, in all the years I knew him,” she
said, looking straight ahead at the helmsman of the little craft,
who stood now with a coil of rope in his hand. “He was
even-tempered to the point of placidity, and many is the time I had
to bite my tongue when he should have scolded the butcher or the
gardener and did not. I suppose we would have had some lively
fights, had he been around long enough for the newness to have worn
off. Setting all that aside, I loved him, Will, even if he was not
perfection itself. I love you, too.”

Silence. She expected
nothing else, so she was not surprised. She sat up straight then
and folded her hands in her lap. Ah, well, she thought, this is
surely not the time to bring up that rather delicate matter of
yesterday’s proposal.

“
Lay
us alongside,” the captain was saying to the waterman.

The waterman looked at
Jeannie dubiously. “We can call for a boatswain’s chair,” he
offered.

“
Not
necessary. I’ll help the lady. You can surely find something to
occupy your attention elsewhere while she goes up over the
side.”

“
Aye,
sir,’'’ replied the waterman, grinning.

The
Melanthion
rode low in the water, no copper showing.

“
She’s
ready to sail, Jeannie, or almost so. I wonder ….” He stood up
then, pulling his cloak back and exposing his uniform
front.

“
Why
have you brought me along?” she asked point-blank.

He smiled, but it
dissolved into no more than a bleak attempt. “I think you
know.”

Her chin came up. “If
you are intending to use this experience on me as you used Caleb
Matthews on Edward, you are wide of the mark, sir, and will have no
better luck.”

“
It’s
more than that,” he said. “When we find Edward—and we will, make no
mistake—I want you to be with me and make sure that I do the right
thing.”

The waterman stroked
against the current now and the wherry slowed. The helmsman cast a
line to a sailor on the
Melanthion
’s deck. The boat slowed
as another line was cast off the stern and they were made fast
alongside.

“
What
is the right thing?” she asked.

“
That
will be for you to say, Jeannie. I have no judgment in this
matter.”

With that quixotic
comment, the captain grabbed hold of the chains on the
Melanthion
and pulled himself up onto the deck. He motioned
for Jeannie to follow.

Her eyes on the
captain, who seemed so far above the wherry now, she gathered her
skirts around her. After a moment spent considering the issue, she
realized that any attempt to climb aboard with her hands thus
occupied would be unsuccessful. She glanced over her shoulder at
the wherryman and his crew, who were looking the other way, intent
on some distant occurrence on the Isle of Wight.

Tom, you were wrong
about the navy employing no gentlemen, she thought. She forgot her
skirts and climbed up the side of the ship, holding out her hand to
Will Summers, who pulled her up in one practiced motion.

“
Excellent, Mrs. McVinnie,” he said. His smile was broader than
ever, and he appeared totally relaxed.

She knew why. He was
safely in his element again, and she was the stranger. Jeannie gave
her skirts a shake and looked about her on the deck. There was
scarcely a space not tangled with rope, thick tarry rope, wider
than her wrist. As she watched, the confusion of rope and sail
seemed to sort itself into an orderly kind of disorder, like a
puzzle viewed at from several angles. The
Melanthion
was a
transport preparing to get under way and about deadly business in
troubled waters. The guns were battened down to the deck, the
boarding nets folded carefully, all the trappings of power
harnessed, at least for now.

The captain of the
Melanthion
came toward them on the deck, picking his way
gracefully through the tangle of cable. He saluted smartly and then
extended his hand.

“
Sir
William,” he said as they shook hands, “you honor the
Melanthion
.”

Will inclined his head.
“I read in the
Chronicles
that you had assumed command of
this vessel, Nicholls. It is promotion overdue.”

Captain Nicholls
grinned, proud of himself. “Thank you, sir. I consider that high
praise.” He looked about him with the air of a man determined not
to show pride of ownership but bursting with the joy of it anyway.
“True, ’tis only a transport, but as you say, it is my
command.”

The preliminaries
disposed of, Captain Summers introduced Jeannie and explained their
presence on Nicholls’ ship.

Captain Nicholls
scratched his head. “I have several new midshipmen,” he said, “but
none of them fit your description.” He laughed. “Other than your
part about ‘plaguey young chubs!’ Lord, Captain Summers, do they
grow more green and raw every year, or do I get older?”

Summers nodded. “I am
sure we do not age,” he said. “But look you here, sir, I would see
your newly pressed seamen and any new hands you may have
acquired.”

“
Aye,
aye, sir.”

Nicholls turned and
spoke to the first mate, who stood close by. A word or two, and the
mate turned to the boatswain, who blew a blast on his whistle and
then another. Jeannie heard the sound of many running bare feet,
followed by the more precise stamp of shod marines. Behind them
came the pressed seamen, still in chains.

“
Order
now,” snapped the first lieutenant. “You there. Take his
name.”

A ragged line snaked
along the crowded deck of men young and old, the bald, the
toothless, the able, the raw, the men in chains who had been
coughed up from prisons bound close to the men, still in civilian
clothes, who had unwisely ventured out in a seaport town when the
press gangs roved.

Captain Summers clapped
his hands behind his back and strolled the length of the line. The
manacled felons were pale, some hopeful of expression, others
resigned to the sure knowledge that they had traded one hell for
another.

Will Captain Nicholls
ever dare unchain them? Jeannie asked herself as she gazed down the
rank. What is to prevent these desperate men from killing him and
taking over the ship? How can anyone command such men? It would
take …. She paused and swallowed. It would take one even
harder than they.

The pressed men were
even less promising, to Jeannie’s eyes. Some wore the rough clothes
of farm laborers, who even now probably had wives and babes
wondering about their fate. Others, paler of face and shifty-eyed,
reminded Jeannie of the young cutpurse who had a set upon her
outside of the Pantheon Bazaar. Who was to say this was a better
life?

And there was another
man, darting forward as far as his chain would allow toward Captain
Summers, who, to his credit, stopped but did not flinch and
regarded the man as he would a dog on a leash. The man was speaking
urgently to the captain, even as he fumbled with a bag about his
neck. The captain leaned closer, and Jeannie held her breath.

Captain Summers
motioned to Captain Nicholls. “I think, sir, you have snabbled a
Yankee here.”

Nicholls uttered a
mighty oath. “I am also short of hands, Summers,” he muttered.

“
He
has an American protection,” the captain replied, and held it out
to the commander of the
Melanthion
.

Nicholls looked it
over, a sour expression on his face. “You can buy these for five
pounds in any port,” he argued as he looked over his shoulder to
the marine corporal. “Cut him out, and be smart about it. And send
him back to Portsmouth.”