A Scandal to Remember (11 page)

And we’ll heave the old wheel round and round.

Good morning, ladies all!

The men plodding around the capstan took up the new cadence.

And when we get to Rio town, heave ho, haul,

It’s there we’ll drink and sorrow drown.

Good morning, ladies all!

“Up and down. Up and down,” came the cry from the crew working the anchor chain at the bows.

This was the moment he liked best, the moment when potential became real, when thoughts were turned into action. When wind filled the sails and a new voyage was begun. But still Dance hesitated, making them all wait in the morning’s chill for the old man to put in his appearance, and give them their sailing orders.

The cheerful song went on around them.
“Good morning, ladies all!”

Mr. Lawrence came back on deck. Alone.

“Well?”

The young officer shrugged his thin shoulders within his new uniform coat. “I gave him your compliments, sir. And he told me to get out.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.” Dance tried to sound cool and collected. But it was unheard of that a captain would not bestir himself to see his ship weigh anchor. But it was also unheard of that a ship not heed the Admiralty’s explicit orders. Which they had already delayed unconscionably while he had seen the ship repaired.

“Good morning, ladies all!”

Dance could feel the weight of eyes upon him just as he had that first day he had come aboard—weighing him out like short powder. Well, they would not find him lacking today. His way was clear. He would wait no longer. He knew his duty even if the captain did not.

He could feel the ship beneath him as if it were an extension of himself, feel the pulse of her hull riding the tide, feel the taut pull of the cable hard beneath her beak head, and wondered how the captain could not feel the living ship beneath his feet. Could ignore her so coldly?

Dance gave up trying to answer unanswerable questions, and tilted his speaking trumpet to reach the second lieutenant stationed on the forecastle. “Mr. Simmons?”

“Anchor’s hove short, sir,” Simmons called back.

“Very good.” He raised his speaking trumpet to the yards. “Loose headsails.”

“Loose heads’ls.” At the tops of the masts, canvas began to billow and fill against the sky. “Up anchor. Heave away. Loose tops’ls.”

This he knew, the setting of the sails, the smooth order of tasks to get the vessel under way. He knew his own job, but the only other time he had had to take on another’s was in the heat of battle. But they were in another sort of battle now—the whole ship seemed to be a seething battleground of wills and intentions. His versus the captain’s and the men’s. If this morning’s lessons had taught him nothing else, he knew he would have to take care who he set himself against.

“Mr. Whitely?” he asked the quiet sailing master at the helm. “How does she answer?”

“Well enough, sir.”

Dance could feel that it was so, as
Tenacious
shuddered to life, like a great sea animal shaking itself awake, answering her helm and beginning to make headway.

But on what course? In the captain’s damned absence, Dance made himself think as a captain, not just as a first lieutenant. He broadened his attention to the whole of the ship, not just to his official duties to a portion of it, or they would come to grief right there in Portsmouth roads with the eyes of half the fleet watching him, not to mention the bright blue eyes of the woman at the rail, who watched him just as closely as the men.

Even from the distance of half the quarterdeck, he could see that her eyes were shining with unshed tears. Well damn her for being intelligent enough to understand the crew’s barely concealed malice. And damn his own eyes for worrying about her, with the wind whipping up her cloak and skirts, and revealing her stocking-clad ankle to the leering eyes of his men, when he ought to be worried about the ship’s course, and the headland of the Isle of Wight off the starboard bow.

The wind that blew up her skirts was easterly, blowing directly down Channel, pointing his way. Dance found his voice. “Lay her two points large on the larboard tack, Mr. Whitely, and set a course to weather the isle.” Into the speaking trumpet he shouted, “Courses away.”

The cold morning breeze pushed its way into the billowing sails, and shouldered the ship slowly over onto her starboard beam, heeling to the wind as
Tenacious’
s bow breasted the first rolling wave.

“Anchor’s secure, sir.” Lieutenant Simmons fell aft, soaked from the bow spray.

“See to that forecourse, man.” Dance ordered Simmons about. “We’re not hanging out the damn laundry.” He moved his attention to the main. “Man those braces. Haul over hard, there. Haul, I say,” Dance roared to move the landsmen to greater efforts as ropes groaned, and tackles screeched under the strain, and
Tenacious
began to gain headway.

It was, of course, at that moment that the rest of their guests should all choose to come above deck and take to the rail. Sir Richard and his constant shadows, the Reverend Mr. Phelps and the sallow Mr. Pankhurst, took up a station at the larboard gangway, blocking the passage of the men moving to their work.

Damn them for the lubbers they were. “Mr. Lawrence, move those guests to somewhere out of the damn way.” They were like old women, hanging on to their hats with one hand and the rail with the other. Entirely out of their element.

So unlike the actual woman, Miss Burke, who quietly tucked herself out of the way braving both the wind and the men’s derision. Backbone, he had called it, as if it were something within her, over which she had no control—as if it were not a choice she made to simply be courageous.

Dance wrenched his focus back to the sails where they belonged, only letting his eyes stray to the binnacle to check his compass heading before he allowed himself a cautious breath. The damn ship was still afloat, and was actually sailing fairly well, all things considered. They were proceeding smoothly through the Portsmouth roads. It was as good a showing as he might have hoped for with only himself—and Simmons and Whitely, of course—to rely upon.

Where was the damned captain? He ought to be on his own damned quarterdeck, whether he wished it or not.

Dance flicked his attention to one of the least green of the Marine Society midshipmen. “You there.”

“Me, sir?” The lanky boy looked back and forth from his companions to Dance.

“You answer with your name,” Dance instructed.

“Rupert, sir.”

“Mr. Rupert, take my compliments to the captain, and tell him
Tenacious
is making for the Channel.” Perhaps the excitement and confusion of making way was too much for the old man, and he would be glad to come on deck once they were well away from the prying eyes of the fleet. But Dance had more important things to worry about than the captain’s pride. “Mr. Lawrence, get a party up to that foretop. I don’t like the way the fore topmast is answering. Get the carpenter up there before it comes to grief.”

“Aye, sir.” Lawrence went pelting forward to hopefully see to the foretop spar before it came raining down upon them before they made the full Channel. But better the damn spar should part now than in the middle of some gale.

“Sir?” The damn young midshipman was still standing there.

Dance only just refrained from swearing out his frustration. “Mr. Rupert, you’re meant to do what I ask of you the minute I ask it, damn your young eyes.”

“But, sir. My name isn’t Mr. Rupert. It’s Mr. Honeyman. I’m Rupert Honeyman, sir.”

This was what Dance had come to—amusing infant midshipmen. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Honeyman. Now go, Mr. Honeyman, damn your eyes, before I light your damned tail on fire.”

Beside him, the sailing master chuckled. “They’ll learn, they’ll learn. They are actually a fairly clever group of boys. That one especially. I have high hopes for him.”

Dance took a longer look at Mr. Whitely. Actually, he was looking everywhere and anywhere that wasn’t the pale blond spinster who was clinging to the larboard rail like a particularly bright-eyed barnacle, but the sailing master was wearing a curiously amused expression that Dance hoped was not indicative of imminent catastrophe. “How does she go, Mr. Whitely?”

The quiet man’s smile broadened. “Less and less like a pig, sir.”

Dance met the sailing master’s cautiously optimistic eye, and felt his own face curve into the first true smile he had enjoyed in months. “That will do for now, Mr. Whitely. That will do.”

It was all he would ask for. Anything more would be tempting an already volatile fate.

Chapter Seven

Lieutenant Dance stood as firm, tall, and unmovable in the center of the ship as one of the oaken masts. But Jane knew now he wasn’t unmovable. She knew he was just a man—albeit a man who had almost complete control over the world in which she had placed herself. From the front of the quarterdeck—as Punch had told Jane this portion of the ship was called—the tall lieutenant looked over the floating world that was this ship, and gave his steady stream of swift, sure orders. “Fall off two points.”

“Fall off two,” the order echoed from the sailing master to the helmsman.

“Get some hands to those braces. Mercer, put a hand to that main brace. Carey, you to the fore.” He never raised his voice, never wasted his words. He said only what needed to be said. Everything was calm, evenhanded competence.

After her disquieting scene with him in the wardroom, Jane had sought to follow his instruction, and keep herself from his regard. But the moment she had begun to understand the angry catcall from the crew, she had instinctively gone toward him, drawn to that unmovable surety he projected, the way a stray cat cautiously seeks the warmth and shelter of the barn.

And she had not needed to say anything. In his calm, competent way he had turned the ugly tide. With only one word to Punch, he had somehow changed the entire complexion of the morning.

And when his dark green eyes finally found hers from under the brim of his black hat, she felt she had to speak. “Thank you, Mr. Dance.”

“You are welcome, Miss Burke.” He touched his hat, and answered without taking his gaze from his sails. “Does this absolve me of my earlier greeting this morning?”

Jane could not hide her relief. “Yes, certainly. Good morning ladies,
all
, indeed. I hope I have not disappointed the men by not running crying to my cabin to escape the derision?”

“I hope you
have
disappointed them.
I
would be disappointed had you not.”

The humor in his tone warmed her more completely than her stout cloak in the chill morning air. “I must admit, were it not for the most excellent view this morning, I might have been tempted to do so, and stay there for the rest of the voyage. But I never like to give in to low expectations.”

“So I have learned. I can only hope the men will learn as quickly as I do.” His answer was as immediate as it was forthright. But then he shook his head—a sharp negative. “Don’t ever give in to them. If they see they can make you run, they’ll never let up. Never let you out again.” His sharp gaze canted sideways to her. “But you look the type who has learned how to stand firm.”

That was his second reference to her type. And she was strangely grateful to him for recognizing it. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m finding I
am
the type to stand firm.” First against her parents, and then Sir Richard and the lieutenant, and now against the derision of the crew. “And I am also finding that there are some men who are kind enough to stand firm on my behalf, for which you have my thanks.”

She had said something to the same effect yesterday to Mr. Denman, when he had spoken for her to Sir Richard. But yesterday she had had her own arguments, her own knowledge of what was right—if not exactly truthful—to add to Mr. Denman’s opinions. This morning she had had no other recourse to the chorus of ugly derision rising all around her than the lieutenant. Only he seemed to have any power over the men.

Jane might tell herself all day long that she was J. E. Burke, and that she had a right to be aboard, but only this moment did she understand that in doing so, how completely she had put herself into this single man’s power. The entire ship looked only to him. Sir Richard might bluster and say what he liked, but he had no sway over this oaken tower of a man. None of them did.

She would do well to remember that.

“It was not only on your behalf, Miss Burke, but for the good of the ship. If I had given in to their demand to put you off, or allowed the men their show of spite, I would not be doing my job, and would endanger us all.”

Oh, heavens. Jane instantly felt her lungs squeeze painfully tight. “They demanded you put me off?” She had thought she only had to overcome the academic objection of Sir Richard and his toadies, but if the truth of the matter was that the vast majority of the men on board objected to her mere presence, not just her scientific qualifications, perhaps she ought to run crying to the sanctuary of her cabin after all.

But Lieutenant Dance was already sweeping her unspoken fears aside. “Do not consider it, Miss Burke. The men’s
wants
come a slow second to their
duty.
Their duty is to man this ship as I, and their captain, see fit. But they want to do that with as little work as possible. Their dislike of you is just a convenient and temporary excuse to get out of their work—tomorrow their superstitious objection will be that Mr. Phelps is a black crow of a parson—and that I will not stand.”

No, he didn’t look like he would stand for much, with that grim, determined look in his relentlessly all-seeing eyes. If the crew’s spite kept him probing at them instead of her, perhaps she ought to be relieved.

She was relieved. Off the starboard rail, the Isle of Wight was slipping away into the distance. She had done it. She was aboard her voyage of scientific discovery. She had done exactly as she set out to do, and taken her rightful place without any help or interference from her father.