A Different Sort of Perfect (24 page)

"Singing Rule Britannia,
Britannia rules the waves
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!"

A few of the hands swung toward her, jaws slacking in
surprise, and one of the sea lawyers scowled. But many other
sailors smiled as they sang, faces glowing beneath the wavering
lanterns. Most of them, in fact. And Wake leaned over, muttered
something to the musicians, something that caused Mayne to flash a
huge grin. The waister nodded, once, twice, three times, and they
broke together into "Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself."

It was impossible to resist that call. She could
stand still no longer; she must dance, if she wanted to live; and
before she took the first step, Captain Fleming slipped his hand
into hers and swung her onto the poop deck.

So much for not thinking of that name.

It would be lovely if there were other couples to
join them. But the music bounded across the deck and there was no
time for wishes. They would call this country dance between
themselves alone. She advanced then retired before him, ducked
beneath his upraised arm, twirled, repeated — returning them to
their home places, the fiddle's surprising grace notes and the
cheerful trills from the flutes sweeping them along.

He reached across, took her hand, and they circled
hands across without needing to signal the change, reversed,
repeated. Her heart pounded in rhythm as the sailors clapped and
stamped, the railing, mizzenmast, starboard railing, and looming
black cloud wall flying past in a dizzying whirl, the deck sloping
and swooshing as they capered. It felt as if they'd danced together
all their lives, knew each other's favorite patterns — even
figures-of-eight and "Mad Robin" around other, invisible couples,
never missing a step even when
Topaze
jerked beneath them in
the most ungainly manner.

It was the ship's wonderful movement creating the
perfect ballroom, of course. She'd known how fabulous dancing
aboard would be, from her first step onto
Topaze
's deck all
those weeks ago, and of course it helped that Captain Fleming
showed the same comfort with the ship's rolling, that he didn't
stumble nor lose his balance nor hang onto his partner nor grab the
rigging for support. At some point he'd lost his scraper and his
golden curls flew around his shoulders. His eyes never left her,
bold, challenging, and his smile flashed in the lantern light.

Mayne's fiddle rose on the penultimate note, then the
musicians drew out the last. Disappointment sank into her with the
curtsey. She could dance all night. Really.

Lieutenant Rosslyn murmured something, his voice
appreciative, but his words were drowned by the crew's wholehearted
applause and cheers, rolling aft from the fo'c'sle. Captain Fleming
rose from his bow, still staring at her across their imaginary
line, his smile dying. In the stern lanterns' light his flushed
cheeks glowed and his eyes seemed without color, hard and hot as
they flashed back the flames.

The crew's roar surrounded them, enveloped them, and
yet it was something apart from them, as if on another ship
entirely. It seemed that only the two of them, she and Captain
Fleming, inhabited
Topaze
, and as the applause died away and
the frigate's sounds resumed — the rushing of the water, creaking
timbers, the rising wind harping through the rigging — the fog of
aloneness deepened, until all she could see were the little flames
reflected in his pale eyes.

She should have realized before that such a flame
burned beneath his cool and elegant façade. All those hours they'd
spent together over the table, over conversation, over books, and
she'd never sensed those hidden depths. A polished captain, an
athlete in the rigging, a gentleman on deck, a fine dancer, and now
a man of passion and contained fire — such a complicated man on so
many levels. Would she ever truly understand all of his facets?
Perhaps Phillippe, so otherwise perfect, was shallow in comparison;
but how would she know?

She refused to look away; it would feel like a
defeat, although she knew not why. And between their test of wills
something ignited deep within her, a tiny miniature flame that
sizzled as hot as his stare, burning her from the inside out until
her face felt as flushed as his. His fire produced hers, calling it
from her innermost soul. But while the flames burned her, hotter
than glowing coals, they didn't consume her, instead feeding
themselves from his blazing stare. No matter the scalding heat, she
would not,
would not
look away.

Topaze
jerked, the entire deck swooping
higher. A pause while Captain Fleming blinked back his fire, then
the frigate crashed down with an almighty, timber-cracking smash.
Men scattered. And Clara found herself blinking as well, as Captain
Fleming's spirited playfulness, his heat and passion, all fell
away. His face firmed, jaw jutting. He touched his scraper, jerked
his gaze away — the effort required was obvious — and hurried to
the stern chasers, tugging on the ungiving ropes one by one.

Hennessy, his mate, and the coffee cups had all
vanished. Chandler clambered over the davits, double-checking
lashings, and Lieutenant Rosslyn yanked on the lines restraining
the starboard six-pounders. In the swinging light of the stern
lantern, his face already seemed bloated and pale, the truest
weather gauge aboard.

Clara slipped through the scrambling sailors, down
the aft ladder, past the Marine sentry still faithful at his post,
and closed her cabin door behind her.
Topaze
rolled again
and smashed into another wave, even harder; she'd best let the
sailors concentrate on managing the frigate.

And release their captain, as well. Considering the
startling strength of the pot they'd stirred between them, as
strong as the swell and the storm brooding without — considering
that strength, nothing less than time alone would allow her to
return the world to the way it should be. She needed to get away
from his burning eyes and her own fiery response.

But the fire refused to release her, and even the
gentle rocking of the hanging cot, as it negated the jolts and
slams of the storm-tossed frigate, didn't help her sleep that
night. And no amount of concentration could bring forward
Phillippe's image. Whenever she closed her eyes, the face that
awaited her boasted patrician lines and gull-winged brows, and eyes
of pale molten flames.

Which all made a horrible sort of sense. But not one
she cared to consider.

A deep breath, so humid it felt like inhaling water,
as if she had gills. Her heart pounded as hard as the waves
breaking over
Topaze
's waist, and the crash of water on the
upper deck shook the frigate to her wooden knees. The massive storm
had well and truly struck. Clara had listened to the crashing and
booming in the great cabin for an hour, indulging in confused
thoughts of Phillippe and Captain Fleming, Captain Fleming and
Phillippe, as the deck rolled and pitched in a mad frenzy and the
hanging cot swung like a hammock. Behind her overactive thoughts,
she'd tried to picture the plunging sea, what soft, fluid water
would have to become to create such sounds. But her imagination had
proven insufficient to the task.

Almost no light penetrated below deck. Only the upper
steps of the aft ladder made a pale blur in the darkness, and
Morrow, the Marine standing guard outside the captain's cabin, only
a few feet away, might as well have been a ghost. Hopefully, there
would be enough light; she only wanted a glimpse.

Morrow cleared his throat. "'Tis a nasty night out
there, me lady. Not a fit night for man nor beast."

"You're very kind, Morrow. One glance, that's all,
and then I'll tuck myself away again." Another deep breath, and
Clara eased up the aft ladder, step by cautious step through the
raging gloom. Another step. She lifted her hand, and finally she
could see it in front of her face.

Literally.

One more step. Clara peered above the deck into the
storm.

Air and water slammed into the back of her head and
shoved her chest into the hatchway's edge. The wind's ululation
became a full-throated shriek, like some rampaging predator
scenting her blood and screaming for it.
Topaze
seemed to
twist around her. The ladder turned about, and instead of standing
on the step, Clara flailed for footing, for balance, for anything.
She hung in space, unsupported, unable to fall. Panic exploded
through her.

Then
Topaze
twisted again, crashed down into
the belly of the wave, and there was the hatchway, right where it
was supposed to be. Clara grabbed the coaming and held on.

There was no telling where sea ended and sky began.
They were so thoroughly mixed, the gloom so intense, she
would
need gills if she were to remain on deck. And there
didn't seem to be any clear direction to the mayhem, with the ship
crisscrossed by flying water torn from the storm — from waves or
rain could not be determined.

Topaze
shuddered in the wave's trough. Next
her bow would rise, pulling Clara's weight behind her and trying
again to throw her down the hatch. If she intended to look around,
see what could be seen in the half-daylight, now was the time.
Clara twisted on the ladder and faced the ship's weather side.

A wall of water towered over her, over the rail, over
the yard, and still it rose higher. Her heart stopped mid-beat, her
breath caught in her chest, and she craned her neck back, watching
the wave tower ever higher. At the mizzen-masthead it began to lean
toward
Topaze
, and then the gale smashed through it like a
fist through a wall.

She had time to gasp. Then the torn water slammed
into the upper deck, making the hollow booming noise she'd listened
to for the last hour. A moment later the wave itself crashed onto
the quarterdeck and over her.

The blow shoved her back onto the hatchway's edge
again, a sharp knock on her shoulder blades, and the water's weight
held her there as the wave collapsed. Water roared down in truly
Biblical proportions, a seemingly never-ending waterfall across her
face. She squeezed her eyes closed, fought against breathing,
forced her face to the side, and tightened her fingers around the
coaming's wooden planks. Her chest threatened to burst and still it
poured down. Her throat closed and her body's demand for air tried
to consume her. She clenched her teeth and resisted.

Then, like a pump gone dry, the waterfall stopped.
Seawater streamed across the deckboards past her face.
Topaze
began to roll the other way, and the liquid sheet
changed course, back toward her. Clara didn't wait for the South
Atlantic to change its mind again. She scrabbled backward down the
aft ladder to the gun deck below.

Let the sailors handle the storm. Her own nautical
education had not yet progressed to such an ambitious level.

Her sweet little blue sailor dress was wetter than it
was possible to be, and she wasn't in much better condition. The
grey sarsnet would be dry, though, and a towel hung beside her
washbasin.

As she closed the cabin door behind her, what sounded
suspiciously like a snigger came from Morrow's previously silent
corner, in front of the captain's cabin. But he wouldn't dare,
would he?

* * * *

The storm raged on.

The weather decks shattered into a wild, wet, windy
chaos.
Topaze
twisted and seesawed through wicked
cross-currents, seawater dashing across the bows and over the rails
and through the hatchways and seams into the ship's belly, the wind
blasting and screaming among the rigging. There'd been no sighting
of the sun, just variations in the shades of gloom surrounding the
ship, and while Fleming's instincts thought it had been a full day
since Lady Clara had poked her head above the deck, he couldn't be
certain.

He'd called for sail-trimmers hours ago, when it had
become clear they'd have to reduce sail voluntarily or the storm
god would reduce them himself, breaking a mast or two along the
way. The yardmen had inched out along the footropes high above the
deck and gathered the whipsawing sails into their arms handful by
handful, one set of rope-haulers easing off the halyards while the
other hauled the clewlines, rain pounding into their squeezed-shut
eyes and waves breaking over them again and again. Each wave roared
higher than the last, a landscape of maddened liquid mountains
slashed apart by the howling wind, and what should have taken
minutes required hours.

A waister fell down the fore hatchway and was carried
to the infirmary with a bloody head. An experienced fo'c'sleman,
able to hand, reef, and steer under normal circumstances, was
driven against a bow chaser by a rogue wave, snapping his arm above
and below and bending it like a W.

Rosslyn had long since collapsed below, greener than
the water crashing over the
Topaze
. The remaining
able-bodied officers and mids lived on deck, monitoring the masts,
spars, rigging, and the single scrap of storm-sail they'd left
aloft on the foretop.

No, it wasn't the worst weather he'd endured in his
years at sea.

But it was awfully close.

* * * *

Clara's hair and blue sailor dress were reduced to
sodden messes, so she wore her ink-stained grey sarsnet, which was
at least drier although nothing now truly qualified as dry. Water
dripped and poured below deck, streaming in miniature waves across
the cabins with
Topaze
's gyrations, and her fingers and toes
shriveled from the constant wetness. The clacking of the pumps
formed a constant, rhythmical backdrop to the shrieking and
crashing of wind and waves. A part of her, in the back of her mind,
kept expecting the discomfort to be a nagging irritation, but she
found she bore it without much thought. This was simply the way the
world was, for this stretch of time, and with nothing to be done
about it, she accepted it.