A Scandal to Remember (12 page)

Not that she had expected any interference from him. Her parents had swallowed her lie, and had waved her off on what she had told them was a long visit to her aunt, with no thought of anything but the inconvenience of having to do without her. They were like dogs—it didn’t matter where she was, only that she was not available to be with them. At her aunt’s, or on a ship bound for the Pacific—it made no mind to them.

They would know eventually what she had done—yesterday, on the morning of her departure, Jane had posted a letter to her aunt confessing all, but by the time the missive reached Aunt Celia in Somerset, and then Aunt Celia wrote her parents back on the Isle of Wight, it would be too late for any of them to do anything about it. Not that she expected them to do anything—they had for too long counted upon her to manage and arrange everything. Her father had not even had to do so much as sign his name to a letter, nor her mother to argue with the butcher over the price of a haunch, so thoroughly and completely had Jane arranged their lives. Mild, dutiful, organized Jane.

They would find out soon enough that she wasn’t so dutiful now.

And the Isle of Wight, and the whole of the coast of England, was slipping away to the stern. Nothing could stop her now. Not Sir Richard, nor the snide derision of the crew. Nor even Lieutenant Dance’s strange ability to soothe and discompose her all at the same time.

Perhaps the Bible verse had it wrong—it was not the truth, but her lie that had set her free. The irony could only make her laugh.

“You seem well entertained this morning, Miss Burke.” While she had been watching the isle, the lieutenant must have been watching her.

Jane tried to combat the rising heat in her face by turning into the wind. “It has been a most instructional morning.”

That twisted-up half-smile threatened to steal across his face. “And have all your—what did you call them?—collecting expeditions been as instructive?”

“If only.” But Jane thought it best to say no more on the subject of what she
had
learned. And so she instructed herself to smile more serenely while she prayed that her face did not color with betraying heat. “But I am very much looking forward to learning more.”

The lieutenant’s sharp, all-seeing glance slid across her face so fast she was surprised it didn’t cut her.

Oh, Lord. And there was the suffocating heat. It was a good thing the wind was chilling, or she would be as overheated as a boiled turnip. “I mean, I am very much looking forward to this overseas expedition. I have never collected outside of Britain, nor taken such a
long
expedition before. Two months is hardly the same as two years.”

“Yes, hardly the same.” His green, green gaze, which had moved on in a constant inspection of all the various and different parts of the ship, came again to rest upon hers. She could feel the pressing weight of his regard as if it were a stack of books sitting upon her chest.

“You do know, Miss Burke, that the Admiralty’s estimation of two years is based upon a sort of minimum requirement for getting to the other side of the earth and back?” His gaze spared her for a moment as it swept up the bowsprit. “Two years is the
least
amount of time it could take, barring bad weather and unforeseen circumstances, which, I will scruple to tell you, can be counted upon to plague us every sea mile of the way. The truth is, it will undoubtedly take far longer than two years.”

The news jarred the breath from her. She had
not
known, though clearly she should have. She had planned both her stores and her funds for reprovisioning at the standard stops of Madeira, Salvador de Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Valparaiso—just saying the exotic names had made her giddy with delight—to last only those two allotted years.

No, she had been careful in her preparation and generous in her funds. And besides, she had provisioned for two people—Papa and her, before he had changed his mind and decided they were not to go—when she would be only one. And those provisions had been a keepsafe—something to go along with the meals she would take sharing the captain’s table along with the rest of the expedition, as had been arranged. She would be fine—although she was certainly hesitant, as well as curious, to meet the captain after the lieutenant’s cryptic but descriptive comments upon her arrival.

“And if you were asked instead of the Admiralty, Lieutenant, how long would you have said the voyage was to last?”

“I would have said that we will be lucky to see England’s shores within five years, Miss Burke, not two. That is, if
Tenacious
lives up to her name, and doesn’t sink us all long before that.”

Jane absorbed the second blow in silence. She had thought only of what she might accomplish on such a journey, and not of the passage of time. In five years’ time she would be one and thirty. She would be the thing she had not wanted to admit to being, the thing that she told herself was not important. Being recognized as a talented, dedicated, scholarly conchologist had been what mattered. But the inescapable truth was that in five years’ time, and after having taken herself across the globe and back, she would be irrevocably ruined for marriage. She would be a spinster set firmly upon the shelf.

It was a bitter tonic to swallow at the very start of her triumph. It was almost frightening.

Oh. This time it was she who looked more closely at the grim pleasure on the lieutenant’s face. “I see. You mean to frighten me, Lieutenant Dance.”

He nodded, all purposeful admittance. “I do, ma’am, I do. I mean for all of you, from Sir Richard on down the Royal Society’s muster roll to you, J. E. Burke the conchologist, to be frightened into understanding what might come. Sir Richard spoke of hardships. Make no mistake, Miss Burke, there will undoubtedly be hardships, but there will also be danger—very real, threatening danger. The dislike of the crew, and the resistance of Sir Richard will seem like nothing compared to it.”

He meant it, this sharp-eyed, grim-faced man. He believed the truth of every word he spoke. “You’re a cynic.”

He laughed into the wind. “Assuredly, Miss Burke. But at least I am not a worthless drunk.”

His warning chilled her down to her bones, even though she knew he was trying his best to frighten her. But she did not run back to the relative sanctuary of her dark and airless cell in the wardroom. Not when there was such air and such a day to be found above decks.

Because the horizon stretched out before them in all directions. And the sea—the sea that she had seen outside her window every day of her life—looked so different now. So manageable for a man like Lieutenant Dance who seemed to have been at sea all his life, while to her it seemed so wild and untamed. So unknowable. Fathomless.

The word struck her now in a way it never had before, that the distance below her feet was beyond her comprehension. That nothing but the miracle of the wind and buoyancy was keeping them from hurtling straight to the bottom so far below.

But that space, which she had always pictured as so empty, was teeming with life. Even now, the barnacles that she had spotted peppering the lower reaches of the hull—or perhaps
salting
the outside of the hull with their gray and white apertures shining dully in the sun was the better description—were alive and living and breeding and growing. All without any interference from them above. Remarkable.

Punch came on deck, and with a friendly wave in her direction, climbed easily out into the chains off the starboard quarter.

Jane followed, because he looked much more comfortable and nimble than she ever might have guessed, and because an idea was taking shape in her mind. “Punch?”

“Morning, miss. You’re out bright and early.” He touched his forelock, and returned both hands to playing out line from a rectangular wooden fishing reel.

“Are you fishing?”

“Yes, miss.” Punch laughed with good-natured patience at her ignorance. “For our supper, as they say, miss. Good seas for bluefish, miss. Have it as a roasted fillet with a mustard butter.”

“Excellent.” The sound of such a feast nearly made her stomach grumble in protest—they had not been given any supper last night. But perhaps that was due to the somewhat chaotic circumstances of the Royal Society’s party settling in.

Jane stood watching Punch test the tension on the line, which trailed out in the sweep of the ship for some distance. “Is it very difficult?”

“To fish? No, miss. Easy as sitting.”

“Excellent. Because I should like a favor from you, but I shouldn’t like to interrupt your fishing.”

“A favor from me, miss? You’ve only to ask and I’ll do whatever I can for you, miss. You don’t need my favor.”

“Thank you, Punch. But I only wondered if you might be able to see some barnacles along the side of the hull from where you sit? Along the waterline below you?” she clarified.

The man bent his head to look beneath the deadeyes attached to the thick chain wale where he was seated. “I see some, miss. Though the lieutenant did set the idlers to scraping them off as best they could right before we set to sea.”

“Did he?” Jane could easily recall the lieutenant’s scowl when she had mentioned the barnacles to Sir Richard—the lieutenant had no doubt taken her words as an indictment of his precious ship. “Yes, he’s a very efficient man, your lieutenant.”

“Has to be, don’t he?” Punch shook his head in sympathy with his superior officer.

“Yes, I suppose he does, Punch. But do you think if I minded your fishing line for a short while, you might be able to scrape off a few of the very low-lying barnacles for my study?”

“What’d you want with them barnacles?” As if he couldn’t imagine what anyone would want with such a useless, pestilential thing, and questioned her sanity.

“I’m making a close, scientific study of them. Find out more about where they come from, and why they cling to the bottom of ships, and what damage they do.”

“Well, I can tell you that, miss, without any study—get stuck on and make ’er bottom heavy and sluggish through the water. But they ain’t so bad as the teredo worms, miss.”

“Worms?”

“Swim into the ship they do, and bore holes right through the hull. Turn an oak ship into mush in no time. Got to sail fast to keep off from them worms.”

“Does
Tenacious
have a problem, an infestation with these worms?” Is that why the lieutenant was so relentlessly vigilant about the ship—did he fear that they would be turned to mush at any moment? The idea was both frightening and fascinating.

Jane’s hands gripped the smooth wood of the rail and gave it a surreptitious shake, as if she could test the stoutness of the hull. “Can you see any of the worms, Punch?”

He squinted along the waterline, but shook his grizzled head. “No. I reckon Mr. Dance keeps us sailing too fast for them to latch on, miss.”

That was certainly a relief. Jane relaxed her grip on the rail. “Yes. That is what he would do.” Always pushing the crew to trim the sails, and work the helm to get a faster turn of speed out of the vessel—a proverbial rolling stone that would gather no moss, nor worms if the lieutenant had his way. But despite their speed and the lieutenant’s vigilance, the hull had collected barnacles. “But do you think you might be able to get a sample of barnacles for me? And then perhaps retrieve something for my study out of my pinnace?”

Punch took another squint-eyed look at the hull beneath him, and stroked his ginger beard in consideration.

“I would of course pay you for your trouble,” Jane added to sweeten the pot. “Not much, but something. A few coppers at least, for your trouble.”

“No trouble, miss. I’m happy to oblige you.”

“Excellent.” Jane felt a pleasurable excitement bubble through her—an interesting little thrill of accomplishment at having achieved her object. “I’ve brought you a small glass vial for the purpose. And a knife.” She fished out the small pocket knife she carried with her on expeditions.

“Right so.” Punch was nothing if not agreeable. He took the glass but declined the small blade with a laugh, drawing a much larger blade from his waist. “Got my own, don’t I, miss. Now if’n you’d mind the line? Just hold it there, firm like, ready should you get a bit of a heavier tug.”

Jane felt her mouth spread wide in a grin. “And that is how I shall know there is a fish on the line?”

“That’s how you’ll know, miss. But you just tell me, and I’ll drag it in for you.”

“Drag it in?” Jane was envisioning a fish as large as herself, with a tremendous dorsal fin and a long pointed nose spear like the one she had seen mounted on the wall of the fishmonger in Cowes. “How big is a bluefish?”

“Not so big as you can’t handle,” he answered with a laugh. But Punch had already handed her the long-line reel, and had disappeared back into the chains, so Jane gave the line an experiential tug or two, and reeled the line in a bit to get the feel of the thing.

“Fishing for your supper, are you, Miss Burke?”

What a time for Lieutenant Dance to decide to take notice of her. His gaze washed over her back, and left her shoulder blades itchy with heat. “Indeed, sir.” Jane tried to make her voice as breezy and easy as his was dark and difficult. “I’m rather fond of fish.”

“There’s one blessing. You’ll make some fisherman an excellent wife.”

Something about the lieutenant’s tone of voice conveyed what Jane could only think was cynical amusement, his implication being that she might indeed be a good wife, so long as she were not
his
wife.

As if she would have a man like him. He was nothing she wanted, and everything she disliked in a man. Cynical, ungodly, unlearned. She would make it perfectly clear she
would
make some other man a good wife, so long as that man wasn’t him. “Thank you for your kind words on my marital prospects, Lieutenant. I’ll be sure to canvass the fisherfolk for unmarried men when we reach our first suitable port.”

From his lack of reaction, Jane was unsure if she had succeeded in ruffling the lieutenant’s iron-clad feathers or not—two spots of warmth sprouted high on his already high cheekbones, though otherwise he gave no sign. His voice was as measured and detached as ever. “Practical, as always, Miss Burke.”