A Different Sort of Perfect (20 page)

He expected her to huff and reach again for the
journal — why,
why
did he have to needle her? Why couldn't
he permit them to carry on a dry, factual conversation that didn't
do intolerable things to his inner workings? — but she surprised
him with a thoughtful contemplation that slid over his skin like a
cool compress. Was she actually peering at his chest?

No. Of course not. Mrs. Fleming's little boy needed
to rein in his self-consciousness. Or he'd be walking the
quarterdeck all night.

"We've had a lucky cruise so far," he said, as
seriously as he could manage. "We've avoided both friendly and
enemy ships, as we were instructed to do. We haven't been hit with
a storm or a fever, our supplies are holding up well, and the raw
landmen are shaping up into handy crewmen. If we continue to be
lucky, the doldrums will have narrowed rather than shifted south,
and we'll drift out of them soon."

"I see."

Her unfocused gaze drifted across his torso,
presumably without actually seeing him. Surprising, the degree to
which his skin seemed to physically feel it. As if she stroked him
with one of those crow quill pens. Beneath his shirt.

Not smart, Mrs. Fleming's little boy. Not smart at
all.

"And what's this ceremony undertaken at the equator?
Mr. Staunton barely touches on it in his journal. Is it similar to
a muster or Sunday divisions?"

Crossing the Line.

Crossing
the
Line.

When a handful of experienced crewmen dressed up as
arrogant Neptune, Davy Jones, Badger-Bag, lewd Amphitrite, and the
other obscene Triton members of the sea king's court. When they
bullied the new hands with rough, ribald humor, forcing them to
either pay a fine or be shaved with a barrel hoop and rancid grease
before they received permission to continue into Neptune's
territory. When the laughter and ribbing flowed unchecked and the
humor was blue.

To say the least.

Any last, lingering, imagined crow-quillish delight
skewed into pure emotional agony.

They had to cross the Line.

They didn't have to slow down for Neptune and his
court to come aboard. The hands would be upset, but he simply could
not permit such carrying-on, not with a gentlewoman under his
protection aboard the ship.

Something appeared to be stuck in his throat. And he
knew in advance that no amount of coughing would clear it.

"Oh, it's just a tradition the common sailors
sometimes employ. But I'm afraid we won't have time for it this
voyage. Lady Clara, please excuse me. I must confer with Mr.
Abbot."

Her gaze, again languid, lifted to his, and one
distracting wrinkle appeared between her eyes. "Of course,
Captain."

He ran — and knew it for a run, for an
escape
— and ran Abbot to earth in the fo'c'sle, watching as the hands
painted the bow chasers with flat brown paint. "Mr. Abbot—"

His first lieutenant reached up for a hat that he
wasn't wearing, rolled his eyes, and let his hand drop. "Aye,
sir."

"—I'm sorry to disappoint the hands, but I'm afraid
this voyage we won't have time for the usual ritual of crossing the
Line. King Neptune will just have to tolerate our polliwogs in his
territory without their first paying his penalty."

Abbot actually heaved a huge sigh. As if his captain
should have made that simple decision sometime last week, at the
latest. As if he hadn't been absolutely certain that his captain
would remember it in time at all. As if there had actually been a
possibility that he'd have allowed some of his hands to dress up in
women's finery, parade around the deck, and tell lewd jokes with
Lady Clara aboard. As if—

"Aye, aye, sir. And thank you."

Someone sniggered. Someone had the nerve.

Abbot whirled on the painting work party. "You there,
Wake! Look alive, man. You think I wouldn't let the cat out of the
bag for an old hand, well, you can think again—"

Fleming escaped. Again.

Even in tropical-weight clothing, standing on the
quarterdeck in the blistering sun was torture. He said nothing when
the watch officer and midshipman, Rosslyn and Staunton, gravitated
beneath Lady Clara's awning. When the watch changed, when Abbot and
Chandler took over, he said nothing when they both finally did the
same.

Even though it had seemed for a while there as if
Abbot might have preferred to roast.

He said nothing. But he didn't join them. He watched
her glance at his officers, her eyes sometimes thoughtful and
sometimes glazed, but never quite focused. And he wondered if he
could trust himself, if she looked at him with that dark, soft,
languid air again.

For three more interminable, broiling afternoons he
managed to hold out, finding scraps of shade from the sails and
trailing them across the quarterdeck until they vanished over the
side, leaving him defenseless against the sinking sun's glare. But
one month out of Plymouth, he celebrated by giving in. He joined
her beneath her awning.

Fleming lasted less than an hour.

The afternoon was hotter than the one before. She'd
been her disgustingly chipper self in the morning, but as the day
progressed Lady Clara seemed to collapse in on herself and sat
baking with her head thrown back, her arms on the rests and her
shoulders sagging into the chair's support. Her hair tumbled free
from its silly topknot, slowly unraveling until it hung like a
soft, flaxen sheet of damp silk, drooping bare inches above the
deck. Sweat plastered her sailor dress to her like a second skin.
The half-sitting, half-reclining angle emphasized her long, slender
neck and drew his unwilling attention to — some of her other
charms, he'd say.

All those soft curves and graceful lines.

He couldn't stop looking at her.

And if he felt her gaze like a teasing quill, how did
she feel his?

His disobedient hand, against his direst decree,
reached toward that silken, feminine sheet of hair, hesitated an
inch away. She might feel it if he caressed those inviting strands.
She'd then know he couldn't be trusted. That he wasn't a gentleman,
not at heart.

And it seemed more important than anything else that
she continue to trust him.

In the end, he didn't dare. He let his hand fall back
to his side and he went below, where the sail-maker was turning out
the sail room on the orlop deck, examining their spare canvas for
the first hint of mold. It seemed a good time for a snap
inspection.

Nevertheless, the quarterdeck awaited his evening.
And night. Possibly for the rest of the cruise.

That day he ceased thinking of her as a spoiled
debutante or silly chit. Problem was, he'd no clue what assessment
he should insert in their place.

* * * *

It was hot. Too hot to work. Too hot to think. To
breathe.

It was certainly too hot to languish in the furnace
below decks. Clara sat beneath her awning, sharing it with whoever
came to call; she didn't have the energy to turn away a highwayman,
much less a quiet officer or mid on slippered feet. Pounding heat
poured over her, bathed her in sweat, in itself. It leached the
willingness to move from her, leached out all her tension and
worries, and left her empty, a steaming vessel waiting to be
filled.

Perhaps some people would call Captain Fleming
handsome, with his polite, earnest eyes, patrician nose, grooved
smile lines sculpting his tanned cheeks. Those gull-winged
eyebrows, with their sharp fold in the middle and flaring ends,
gave him a distinguished appearance, certainly. When he worked —
and he was amazingly durable, he worked even in this heat — sweat
plastered his cunning frilled shirt to his chest and back, so that
it flexed when he moved. The material was thinner than anything
she'd seen a man wear before and the view bypassed immodest for
indecent.

To her secret shame and even secreter enjoyment, she
hadn't let that stop her. Diana's influence must finally have taken
hold, leading to her new appreciation for male bodies. Well,
something had to have caused it.

Mr. Abbot wasn't as tall. His shoulders were broader,
and the muscles in his arms pressed harder against the material of
his shirt sleeves when he'd hauled on a rope in the ship's waist.
If he wasn't careful, he could rip through the soft cambric of his
frilled shirt. He worked on in the heat, as well, continuing his
patient teaching of the landmen. He'd gone aloft to impart some
lesson to the reefers, and he'd directed a repainting of the bronze
cannons and anything that didn't move on the deck. If she wasn't
careful, he'd have a team painting her soon. But it was too hot to
bother fighting them off.

It was too hot even to maintain dignity. But it
wasn't too hot to consider men. Diana would have been proud of
her.

Something had made her horribly bold, amazingly
shameless and immodest. The sea air, perhaps, or some unusual
ingredient in Captain Fleming's well-stocked table, or something
that had been imparted to the fresh water by its storage in the
cask. More likely it was being surrounded only by men or doing a
man's job that was making her so unfeminine. Aunt Helen wouldn't be
proud at all, and Harmony's round face would form a perfect O from
her dropped chin, if either of them ever learned of her brashness
aboard.

Or perhaps it was a deeper appreciation of the
closeness of life and death, with nothing between her and the
hungry sea, and ultimately her Maker, except the frigate's fragile
hull.

Steel clanged, clashed, scraped together, rang like a
bell. Beneath her awning, Clara sighed over Staunton's journal.
Here they come again.

Morning sunlight splashed across the freshly scrubbed
quarterdeck, crisscrossed with black ghostly rigging lines and
already dotted with pitch melted from the yards. She peered between
the stern-most starboard six pounder and the wheel, still manned
despite its current uselessness. Within moments, a small shadow
backed into that walkway, at first only the head, and it stayed
there, swaying and jerking, as the clashing rose in pitch. A
ringing clang, a shuffle, and Staunton danced backward into full
view, blocking again and again, high, low, high once more. Then
Chandler's greater reach told and Staunton gave more ground.

Ending with his back bumping her table.

As they'd done every single time before.

"Enough, Mr. Chandler." Mr. Abbot stepped between
them. Both cutlasses lowered. "Can't fault your footwork, Mr.
Staunton. It's just the length of your arm's letting you down. And
it's wise of you, Mr. Chandler, to play so to your strengths and
his weaknesses. Being a gentleman of course has its place—"
glancing sidelong at her "—but during a fight to the death with the
King's enemies is not one of them."

Sweat dripped from both mids and plastered their
checked shirts to their scrawny forms, their disheveled hair to
their foreheads and ears. They glared at each other across the
quarterdeck, Staunton contained but with glittering eyes, Chandler
flushed and panting like something wild and cornered, as if he was
the one who'd been forced to back up half the ship's length.

Five times.

Perhaps now Mr. Abbot would put a stop to the unequal
contest. But she wouldn't say anything, no matter how distressed
she became. If she had to fight her own battles, well, Staunton
surely knew he had to do the same.

Even if it wasn't right nor fair.

"Once more, gentlemen." His face expressionless, Mr.
Abbot turned and strode back the way they'd come.

Clara sighed, as quietly as she could. What on earth
did the first lieutenant expect, when a thirteen-year-old boy was
faced with one of eighteen, almost a grown man? Some sort of
miracle?

The clumping footsteps diminished and Mr. Abbot
vanished behind the mizzenmast.

Chandler shoved Staunton's shoulder. "You can do
better. Now fight, blast you." He stomped off after Mr. Abbot.
Staunton, face darkening, followed, his free hand clenched.

She would hold her tongue. No matter how much she
yearned to give Chandler another piece of her mind and temper. No
matter how fiercely protective she'd become of the younger
midshipman. Besides, when Chandler pushed Staunton during their
training sessions, he was driving the lad to improve his skills,
and that could only be a good thing, could it not?

She'd continue to tell herself that.

A quick lift and slide of her chair, and Clara peered
between the six pounder and wheel, all the way to the quarterdeck
railing. Halfway along, beside the stern ladder and skylight, the
two mids crossed their stubby, blunted cutlasses again.

Chandler lifted his head. His gaze meshed with hers.
A flush started at his collar, brilliant red in the brassy morning
sunlight.

He knew she was watching them.

And he became self-conscious and clumsy when
watched.

Oh, dear.

The flush mounted, rising higher in a scarlet tidal
wave until it collided with his dark sandy hair. His lips thinned,
his face tautened as if yanked back by the ears, and some emotion
between desperation and determination hardened his face until he
seemed as brittle as crystal. With an obvious effort, he yanked his
attention back to Staunton as Mr. Abbot's hand dropped.

Again steel clashed and clanged. But this time was
different. Chandler's swings were stiff and choppy, and they didn't
knock Staunton's blade aside as easily nor as often. His blocks
lagged his opponent's attacks, and instead of holding firm against
the other blade, Chandler's cutlass quivered when struck. He didn't
look away from their duel again. Nor did his flush fade.

It was Staunton's turn. He pressed Chandler back
along the quarterdeck toward the railing, step by awful, embattled
step. Near the capstan, Chandler faltered and thrust out his
cutlass with a sudden flash of desperate venom. Staunton twirled
his blade about the other, guiding it aside, and in the same motion
swung down and in. The blunted edge slammed against Chandler's
unprotected thigh, inches above the knee.