A Scandal to Remember (14 page)

Though she sat as silent and docile as a lamb with her hands clasped demurely in her lap, she looked up at him from under her pertly arched brow, and met his eye. And smiled. A very small smile, as if she were trying very hard to subdue it, but could not manage the job, and let this sympathetic, almost mischievous little smile escape.

Dance quickly cast his gaze around the table, but the rest, even Lieutenant Simmons and Mr. Denman, had their eyes closed in grateful prayer.

And then the grace was done, and everyone was reaching for their spoons, and Miss Burke’s conspiratorial smile was gone as if he had only imagined it. “You were saying, Mr. Denman?”

“My plan of study is of the anatomical features—”

Dance closed his ears, and forced himself to concentrate on the pleasure of his own hot dinner without trying to mind the conversations at the far side of the table.

It were best if Mr. Denman and Miss Burke formed an attachment, scientific or otherwise. It were best for the ship and for her that she be seen to be his—Mr. Denman’s—and under his protection. It were best if he—Dance—concentrated on running his ship and keeping it from falling apart. And keeping the men in line. And eating while there was still food to be had.

In another moment Punch brought out a plate of ham, and Dance’s heart sank and his stomach shriveled at the sight of the Royal Society fellows tucking in so enthusiastically. Dance had put by three smoked hams to last him a good long while, but at the rate his tablemates were forking up slices, the first ham wasn’t going to last him the evening, much less the week.

He couldn’t fault them—they were no doubt as hungry as he for not having eaten a decent meal in two days, and they could have no idea of the state of the officers’ larders. Nor did he want them to know. This, at least, he could do to protect his ship and his captain’s good name.

Lieutenant Simmons, being a navy man, and understanding the need to make their store of foodstuffs last, took only a small slice of ham. He sent Dance an apologetic glance, and asked Punch for a second helping of the soup instead.

And poor Punch—the look he sent Dance was more than apologetic. “I’ll only put so much on the platter and no more, from now on, sir,” he whispered into Dance’s ear.

Dance nodded both his agreement and his understanding. “Rest easy, Punch. You’ve done well.”

For a long while there wasn’t much in the way of conversation—clearly for all their piety, the naturalists were all as hungry as he—until Sir Richard, with a glance first at Mr. Denman, attempted to engage Miss Burke in conversation. “And how have you fared thus far, Miss Burke, with adapting to our privations?”

Miss Burke offered up that engagingly determined smile. “Quite well, I thank you, Sir Richard.”

In another circumstance, Dance would not have been afraid to admire Miss Burke. In fact, he might have done a good deal more than admire her. In the soft lantern light Miss Jane Burke looked a great deal different than she had out on the deck. Without the severe brim of her ruthlessly practical felt hat, her face had a softness and ease that he had not noticed before. She looked … comfortable and ready to be pleased. Easy and pliable. Dangerously tempting.

Very dangerous. For a host of reasons, not the least of which was that he knew under that incongruous softness was that spine of tempered steel—he had already tested it more than once. And he knew that no one—no man or woman—voluntarily took themselves to sea without a very great deal of determination. She might appear soft and willing enough, Miss Not-So-Buttoned-up Burke, to bend under pressure, but Dance was willing to bet that she would never break. And anyone who thought her pliable—from Sir Richard to Mr. Denman—was a fool.

Dance might have been many things, but he was no fool.

And he could not afford to admire her.

But the conversation was going on without him.

“Although I am primarily a botanist, as you know”—Sir Richard condescended to remind them all—“I mean to take a close observation of the weather and climate as we journey along. Indeed, the Reverend Mr. Phelps and I were discussing that very idea this afternoon. The society would indeed benefit greatly from such a study.”

Miss Burke smiled, and made a comfortable sound of polite encouragement, as did the others. But Dance thought he saw something in her eye, that same struggle to subdue some mischievous thought, as if she were endeavoring to keep her opinion of such officiousness as quiet as he.

Or not perhaps as much.

When he said nothing, Miss Burke raised her pert eyebrow at him before she turned the strength of her clear blue gaze upon Sir Richard. “I expect our naval hosts should be a great help to you there, Sir Richard, as such information is kept quite routinely in the captain’s ship’s log.”

While Dance could only agree with her, the sharp intelligence in her smile alarmed him. “What do you know of ship’s logs, Miss Burke?”

She kept her tone firm and neutral, as if reminding both of them of his earlier outburst. “Nothing, sir. Only what I have observed of each of your officers on the watch—is that how it is called?—recording time of day, and wind speed, and the speed of the ship through the water, and the noontime sighting of the sun.”

Dance nodded, and relaxed a fraction from his vigilant unease. “Yes. Just so.” She was only observant, as a naturalist must no doubt be, and not prying into the affairs of the ship. She could not know that their captain did not appear to keep any log, or notice anything about the running of his ship. Or that Dance was keeping his own log independent of the captain. But what else was he to do?

“But are there recordings of the ambient temperature, and sea temperature, and cloud formation, and wind direction all together?” asked Mr. Parkhurst.

Dance took pity upon the man for the ship’s sake, and made more of an effort to be conciliatory. “Only generally recorded. Wind fair out of the east, for example. So I am quite sure your observations would not go amiss.” And anything that would keep them occupied, and out of the ship’s company’s way for the long length of the voyage, would never go amiss.

“And you, Mr. Denman?” Miss Burke smiled brightly at the reticent man to her right, making sure he had a share in the conversation. “What will occupy your mind as we travel to our destination?”

Your luminous creamy white skin, Dance answered for him. And your soft, pillowed curves.

Mr. Denman was of a more scholarly turn. “While my anatomical studies cannot be undertaken until we encounter native islanders, I am sure that I will find plenty that will occupy my time and talents for the duration.”

His answer seemed dull and uninteresting until Dance saw a small sign of some private amusement—the faintest curve on one side of Denman’s mouth—that indicated otherwise. Perhaps the myopic Mr. Denman was more farsighted than Dance had given him credit for, and had taken in more of Miss Burke’s anatomical offerings than his scholarly bearing let on.

“Yes, I am sure.” Sir Richard put a stop to Dance’s innuendo-filled wonderings, by taking back control of the conversation. “As I was saying to our esteemed patron and your dear friend, His Grace of Fenmore, when we first met to discuss the proposed expedition—I said to His Grace, Mr. Denman seems particularly well suited to a sea voyage. And he agreed with me, did he not, Mr. Phelps?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” the Reverend Phelps concurred.

“You are very lucky,” Sir Richard observed as a compliment, “in your friendship with such a great man.”

“Yes.” Mr. Denman’s tone was almost apologetic. “His Grace has been a very good friend to me these many years. I owe this opportunity to join this expedition entirely to his generosity.”

“As do we all.” Sir Richard seemed more than happy to be included in the good duke’s benefice. “I was most gratified when His Grace sought me out to offer his patronage of the expedition. It removed a very great number of impediments to our voyage.”

Not all of them—His Grace had clearly had little influence on the choice of vessel, and its general state of readiness. But this then would account for the deference Sir Richard had shown Mr. Denman. The tall, bespectacled scientist was a substitute for their patron in Sir Richard’s eyes. To offend Mr. Denman would be to offend the Duke of Fenmore.

“And you, Miss Burke?” Sir Richard was clearly trying to make up for his chilly original reception of Miss Burke now that Mr. Denman had shown his support. “How shall you pass the time productively? Alas, we are too far from shore for you to collect any shells.”

“Indeed, Sir Richard.” Miss Burke nodded, all cautious cordiality. “But I thought that I might use this voyage by making a more particular study of the barnacles I mentioned growing on the hull, as I have an idea that they may not be mollusks at all.”

Since she did not bring up his ill-mannered encounter with her over those very same barnacles, Dance chose not to take her observation as an indictment of his ill-kept hull—and her study seemed genuine.

But Sir Richard’s face immediately puckered up with both displeasure and disapproval. “I hope I need not caution you, Miss Burke,” he began, his icy tone clearly indicating the opposite. “But I certainly should not advise an amateur such as yourself, to dare to challenge the wisdom of Linnaeus himself.”

The man was working himself into a red-faced lecture, which Miss Burke calmly forestalled by the simple expediency of agreeing with him. “Indeed you are right, Sir Richard. Which is why I shall undertake this small study—if only to confirm once and for all the validity of the Linnaean classification. One may learn as much in failure, as in triumph. Would you not agree?”

“Yes, indeed.” Mr. Denman played his position of knight errant nicely, using his influence to defuse any of Sir Richard’s anger. “Well said, Miss Burke. Descartes would have us apply reason and skepticism to all fields of learning, no matter from whence, or from whom that learning came.”

It was as politic and prevaricating an answer as Dance could ever hope to make in keeping the peace on his own ship. He might have to take a lesson at Mr. Denman’s knee. Perhaps the man had so much experience from going on bended knee to his patron? It was an art that Dance would do well to learn.

But while Miss Burke gave Mr. Denman a sunny smile of gratitude and encouragement, she did not emulate Mr. Denman’s example of the politic. She would not hide her keen curiosity simply to soothe even Mr. Denman. “And what of you, sir? Are you of the mind that Dr. Linnaeus’s classification of human beings with that of the great apes is correct? Or do you stand with those”—here she cast a quick gaze at the Reverend Phelps—“who say that such a conjecture is doctrinally unsound, and must be corrected?”

Though Denman may have looked at Miss Burke with something more of respect for her learning, as well as for her daring and backbone, he still sought the answer least likely to offend. “You are certainly well read on all matters of classification, Miss Burke. Like you, I have read the
Systema Naturae,
but I shall try to approach the classification of the peoples I encounter with exactitude and thoroughness, without reference to either proving or disproving any theories, but to illuminate.”

“There,” Sir Richard exclaimed, as if what Denman had said disagreed with Miss Burke, when to Dance’s admittedly unscholarly mind he had done no such thing. But Sir Richard was more interested in praising Denman that in scolding Miss Burke. “And there is the brilliance which no doubt brought you to the attention and patronage of the esteemed Duke of Fenmore.”

Mr. Denman again demurred. “It was youth that brought us together, sir, and certainly not brilliance. The duke and I were shipmates together—midshipmen—in our youth, on a vessel very much like this one.”

“Shipmates?” It was Dance’s turn to be intrigued by Denman. “How so?”

“Long before I had even thought of ever becoming a scholar, I was sent to sea as a young midshipman under Captain James Marlow on
Defiant,
back in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four. But I didn’t last long. And although I was never commissioned as a naval surgeon, I should very much like to offer your captain and you—as you are the officer in charge of the dispensation of the crew—my services, as I am a surgeon and physician both by my later education and training.”

“But we are a scientific expedition in a time of peace, not war,” objected Sir Richard. “I hope for your sake that you will not have the need to perform any surgeries.”

“True, Sir Richard,” Mr. Denman countered. “But my old captain used to say more men were lost to disease and accident than ever to cannonballs.”

“Devil take me if he wasn’t right.” Here finally was a stroke of pure good luck—the first true good luck Dance had yet encountered on
Tenacious.
“What education and training, sir? Not that I have any idea of the proper education or training of a physician or surgeon, but I can only think that whatever you have done to learn your trade is going to be a vast improvement over letting one or other of the men take to playing apothecary to the rest of the crew.” With this crew, they were more apt to poison each other on purpose.

“Trade, sir?” Sir Richard again objected on Denman’s behalf. “Mr. Denman is a learned professor, sir. An academic, not a tradesman.”

“I take no offense, Sir Richard. For in truth, I find medicine to be both a trade and a scientific discipline. But to satisfy you, I was educated in France and then Oxford, and am now a fellow with the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and a consultant surgeon at the Royal Hospitals in Chelsea and Greenwich.”

“Good Lord.” Educated in France. Dance thought that he and Denman looked to be of an age, which meant that if his education had been in France before Oxford, he’d had to have been there during the wars. Which made Dance wary. But a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons was too much of a boon to pass up. “Dare I hope that you know anything of tropical diseases?”

“A little. But that is one of the purposes of this voyage. To make a greater study. And study the physiology of the native peoples we meet.”

It was Dance’s opinion that there existed in London a greater cross section of the world’s peoples and their varied physiology than a man could ever find on a South Seas island, but that was why he was a lowly lieutenant in His Majesty’s Navy, and not a learned fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He’d best leave the fellow to his business, and get on with his own.