A Different Sort of Perfect (32 page)

This mood.
She scoffed at herself. That was
inaccurate and unfair. It wasn't merely her mood; it was the
intolerable tension aboard the ship, spreading for'ard and aloft
from the great cabin, down to the wardroom and mids' quarters, and
keeping the entire crew on edge. Everyone was polite and kind,
certainly correct, even Staunton, even Chandler; she suspected Mr.
Rosslyn, the acting first lieutenant, of lecturing the midshipmen
on the decorum he expected to see from them during Phillippe's time
aboard. Staunton's reserve had continued and Chandler had shown her
gruff but good manners, little even of silent judgment, and she had
nothing concrete of which she could complain.

Distant. It was the best word to describe her current
relationship with the officers and crew. She'd heard not a single
witty remark, no silly comments, and no jesting at all. She'd been
treated as a well-bred guest aboard.

Not as a member of the crew.

And just the thought of the lower-deck sailors who
had treated her so kindly, now so thoughtful and silent, made her
close her eyes and yearn for some way out of her predicament. Every
time she looked out over the fo'c'sle, glanced up into the sails
and rigging, went below deck, she felt their stares. Never open,
never with disdain nor judgment, but with — she couldn't deny it —
with compassion. And reserve; always reserve. It was as if everyone
watched her to see what she'd do next, and hoped she'd make the
proper choice, whatever that was. Her floating village hadn't
kicked her out, hadn't convicted her, but they'd definitely placed
her on probation.

And the captain…

The grooves between his cheeks and lips had deepened
and lengthened, as if his lips were less inclined to smile than to
thin and roll together. During breakfast, when she could not
decently avoid him, he often fixed a brooding, quizzical stare upon
her, with a vertical groove between his eyebrows and their outer
edges clamping down, like a displeased horse's ears. She could not
at those moments meet his gaze, could not arouse and maintain a
worthwhile conversational topic; and so the breakfast table became
lonely in another and unexpected manner.

He could only consider her an abject, dismal failure.
And when in his presence, not only could she not think of a single
reason that might convince him otherwise, she found her own opinion
of herself rather in sympathy with his.

Boots clumped across the quarterdeck, heavy and
quick, and Clara returned to her crochet without looking up. She
still had difficulty bringing herself to speak with him, but lately
Phillippe had taken to standing at the taffrail —
her
taffrail, she couldn't help considering it — and watching
Armide,
his ship, now the property of His Majesty's Royal
Navy, as it sailed in line between
Topaze
and
Flirt
.
Yesterday he had convinced her to discuss the weather, hot and
brassy, the ocean's surface gleaming like molten metal in the
tropical sun. Doubtless today he'd attempt to take their
conversation further.

The footsteps stopped beside her. Large hands, soft
as her own and fleshy, wrapped around the taffrail, knuckles
whitening as he leaned and they took his weight. Waves whispered
along
Topaze
's side, her timbers creaked and popped, and on
the
Armide
, two cables' length astern, a rope dangled from
the stern-most starboard gunport, trailing along through the South
Atlantic water.

"
Flirt
surrendered. Why did you continue to
fire?"

She didn't say that. She could
not
have said
that, she could not have opened her mouth and allowed such bold,
accusing words to escape. But when she glanced up into his bitter
smile, it proved her wrong.

"Little Clara,
bien-aimée,
so much a woman and
yet at heart still a child." He turned and leaned back against the
taffrail, glancing up at the spanker, at
Topaze
's courses
and tops'ls, with the same professional, assessing stare she'd seen
from Captain Lamble. "War isn't just pretty uniforms, marching and
sailing, stirring music and splendid rows of tents with red-coated
soldiers standing beside them."

His words hammered at her, and the heat suffusing her
face had nothing to do with the African sun. He'd understood her
much, much more thoroughly than she'd understood him.

Understood her, yes. And cynically used her naïveté
to lure her in. He'd seen her in the assembly rooms and wanted her
for his own, like his château and vineyard, perhaps asked Diana's
older brother for details and to introduce them, and then he'd used
her infatuation to attach her to him. Perhaps he'd grown to love
her, over time.

Perhaps. But his comments did not inspire much hope
in her heart.

His voice continued, words echoing in her thoughts as
if from a great distance. "War, little Clara, is staying alive, and
making certain you stay alive by ensuring your enemy does not." He
gently took her hand, again clasping it between both of his own.
The bitterness faded from his smile, leaving the tenderness she
remembered. "But you are very much a woman,
mademoiselle
.
Your business is with life, not death. You know nothing of war, and
I prefer it should remain so. I still intend to win you, you
know."

Anger exploded through her, hotter than the doldrums,
and she yanked her hand from his. "I have experienced war
firsthand, under your direct tutelage. No one can say I know
nothing of the subject." She whirled away; sitting below was vastly
preferable to breathing the same air as he. But no, that wasn't the
message she meant him to have. "I never really knew you, did
I?"

He laughed. He actually laughed. "
Désolée,
mademoiselle
." He reached again for her hand.
"
Désolée.
"

She backed out of his reach. "Tell me, Captain
Levasseur — who shall protect the world once you've won, once
everyone else has surrendered and you've continued to fire into
them?"

He glared at her, all tenderness and familiarity
whisked aside by the southeast trades. Her heart pounded. Something
in his expression… Captain Fleming would never—

Shocked to her core by Phillippe and by her own
thought, Clara left him standing. Her supplies were on the writing
desk in the great cabin, and the log needed fair-copying. The
captain's clerk had a job to complete.

* * * *

Their mealtimes had drifted apart, with Lady Clara
content to take hers in her cabin, or as a sandwich on the poop,
leaving Fleming with a hollow sensation inside that no amount of
Hennessy's country cooking could fill. She erected other defenses
between them, as well, bringing the log book for him to sign
without a word, listening to his clipped instructions without
meeting his eyes, avoiding the great cabin during the hours when he
might have need of it. So when he found her there, fair-copying her
notes from Titus Ferry's book into the log, forming each
copperplate letter with deep attention, Fleming paused in the
doorway. He shouldn't interrupt her work. But he'd had so few
opportunities to speak with her; when one offered it shouldn't be
wasted.

And yet, what could he say? This new awkwardness
between them was despicable. A humorous comment would break the
ice, but his brain refused to cooperate there. Discussing the
weather would be asinine; it hadn't changed in days and wasn't
about to.

Finally he cleared his throat. A compliment would
serve, surely. "Your hand is beautiful."

But instead of smiling, she stiffened. Her gaze
touched her hand — her actual, physical hand — then rose to stare
at him, eyes wide.

Blast it. He couldn't even get a compliment right. "I
mean your penmanship."

Lady Clara glanced down and sighed, setting the pen
aside. Her smile was small, tight, unhappy. "You were right, you
know. Captain Levasseur is the man for whom I searched."

Topaze
creaked and swayed around him, a timber
popping, the ocean rippling alongside. On deck, Lieutenant Rosslyn
bawled at someone to
look alive, there
. Loudest of all,
though, was the slow rush of blood pounding in Fleming's ears. "As
a ship's captain, I have the authority to perform a binding
marriage ceremony." It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say.
But he couldn't allow his honor to take second place, not even to
hers.

The blood drained from her face, a sudden whitening
as if someone had scraped away all her color with a holystone in
three strokes. She stared out the stern windows, a wrinkle between
her eyebrows, her mouth small. She didn't look happy at all.
Confused, perhaps. Again both hunted and haunted.

Not what he'd expected. The conversation wasn't
getting any easier, but he forced himself to continue, imbuing his
words with all the gentleness he could muster. "Do you desire such
an office be performed on your behalf?"

"I don't know."

And suddenly he could breathe again. "Pardon my
impertinence, but when you first came aboard, you were very certain
indeed."

Her tigerish temper should have flashed at that.
Instead she looked down at the book. One hand smoothed over the
letters she'd written, as if testing the ink, although she had to
know it was long dry. "I'm not the same person as the one who came
aboard."

And of course, she was right. Lady Clara had changed,
matured, sobered. All those times during their outbound journey
when she had aimed for dignity, she'd only managed a sort of
staunch brittleness, or that nose-in-the-air,
I-don't-recognize-your-existence of a spoiled, silly debutante. Not
actually a goose, although perhaps the distinction was a fine
one.

But now she'd achieved her goal. She'd pulled on a
mantle worthy of the Roman goddess Diana. She'd completed her
transformation into a marble statue on a pedestal, behind a glass
container: untouchable, reserved, distant. And no one dared treat
her in any other way.

He couldn't help considering it a change for the
worse. Dignity came at too high a cost, and it didn't become her
nearly as well as her previous fire and brimstone.

The understanding embarrassed him, as if seeing
within her soul was the same as seeing her without her clothes.
Discomfited, he bowed and left.

The cabin barely moved and the night air stuck to her
like a scorching second skin. Late in the middle watch, with the
sun long gone, but she couldn't escape the doldrums' heat. So of
course she couldn't sleep. Impatient, Clara swung from the hanging
cot; for the first time it had failed in helping her rest.

Even the deckboards felt cooked beneath her bare
feet. The gunport already yawned open, a lighter square against the
black-seeming bulkhead. She dragged her little desk chair across
the cabin and sat; if the air moved at all, it would be there.

But honesty compelled her to admit it wasn't merely
the heat keeping her awake. It was her thoughts, that maddening
indecision that shocked her, shuddering and alert, whenever she
started to drop off. It was the answer to Captain Fleming's simple
question, hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles.

Did she want to marry Phillippe?

She didn't love him, and now she knew she never truly
had. Her previous emotion had been what Diana would call a
béguin
, an infatuation, a liking that went further than
prudence allowed — and even that, with her current awareness, was
more than she could bear. Now, with her eyes painfully opened, with
her new, clear image of Phillippe's true nature, she knew in her
bones and blood and soul that she did not love him.

But that wasn't what the dratted man had asked.

In truth, nothing had changed. She still needed a
husband before her nineteenth birthday, less than three months
away, or she would lose her father's inheritance. Now that she
understood the strength of a village, floating or land-bound, now
more than ever she wanted that inheritance. And in all honesty, her
relationship with Phillippe had only changed in her perception; she
hadn't loved him before, and she didn't love him now.

But did she want to marry him?

He'd proven himself bloody-minded, dishonorable,
condescending, insufferable. But by the standards of the law,
Phillippe was still an acceptable husband. And if her choice
remained between Phillippe and the viscount—

She shuddered.

Trickles of sweat dripped down her face, her spine,
beneath her breasts, collected into pools in places she couldn't
bring herself to name. In her shift. She couldn't remove any more
clothing and retain her modesty. If she were home in Plymouth, now,
she could have an ice and ask the footman to fan her. Here, the air
didn't move at all.

Did she want to marry Phillippe? No.

Should she, though? Now, there was the rub. He still
brought certain advantages to the bargaining table, such as the
château and vineyard, a handsome face and physique — and yes, she'd
confirmed that he filled out his dress coat to anyone's
satisfaction — education and manners, good conversation so long as
they stayed off the subject of honor in wartime, and excellent
dancing. It seemed he still harbored some sort of affection for
her. Besides, as a naval captain he'd be gone for months and even
years at a time, leaving her with an open
entree
into Paris
society, the best in the world.

If she couldn't marry to oblige her heart, which
ached as if it would never feel again, well, these weren't
inconsiderable assets.

But it seemed so cynical. As cynical as Phillippe.
She shuddered again.

It was impossible to sit still any longer. She threw
on her sailor dress, the last symbol of her pitiful attempt to join
the Topazes —
what had she been thinking?
— and dragged
herself through the unbreathable air to the poop deck. She'd never
received the white gown that Wake had promised her. Surely now it
was too late; no matter her decision, to marry Phillippe or no, the
crew would never accept her again.