A Scandal to Remember (16 page)

And the lieutenant knew it. His smile narrowed. “It is not a criticism, Miss Burke. The devil knows I admire ambition in others, if only to make my own ambitions more palatable.”

Jane could hear the sharp edge of sarcasm in his voice, but for the first time, she wondered if the cutting tone was all for himself, and not for her. “And what are you ambitious for, Lieutenant?”

“Same as any navy man—a command of my own that lets me sail. And a fortune to make the living on it as easy and palatable as possible.”

Jane heard what he hadn’t said just as clearly as what he did admit. “And you haven’t that fortune now?”

For a moment Jane thought he might tell her not just the truth, but the whole of the inconvenient truth, so uncomfortable did he look, with one side of his face winced up as if he had the toothache. But all he would admit was, “You and your colleagues will most assuredly get your five hundred pounds’ worth, Miss Burke.”

“Even if it paupers you?”

“Let us hope it does not come to that, madam.”

There it was again—the word
madam
said in such a way as to give her warning that she was treading on dangerous ground. “Which is why I’m trying to thank you. I am not, as you’ve noted, entirely unintelligent. I know that the comforts I seem to be enjoying have come at some cost to others—namely yourself. And that, as I said, rankles.”

“Put it from your mind, Miss Burke. Such privations are merely part and parcel of duty. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He was obviously quite determined to keep a prudent, professional distance. His cynicism was like a well-worn old coat—put on only from habit, and having lost all its warmth.

And the conversation seemed to have come to an end, but she wanted—she was determined—to make him think better of her, even if he would not think better of himself.

And, she realized, she was interested in him, this lieutenant. She liked him. He was strange—handsome and off-putting all at the same time, like a spiny combed murex. Beautiful and dangerous and very, very interesting. And she wanted to catalogue his secrets. “What was your excuse for not saying the grace, Lieutenant?”

He laughed at her abrupt change of topic, but he proved himself to be honest about some things. “I don’t believe in God,” he stated flatly.

Jane could not stop a gasp from rushing out of her chest. “Truly?”

He shrugged, as if it were just another of his uncomfortable truths, of no more import than having to stand watch on watch. “I long ago gave up praying to a God who certainly had better things to do—and who was obliged to listen to the prayers of my enemies just as closely as he might listen to mine. It didn’t seem logical. But what of you, Miss Burke?” He turned the dark probe of his eyes on her. “Scientist or no, you do not seem the type to be atheistic.”

There it was again—his mention of her
type
. As if he wanted to figure her out, and catalogue her as a specimen just as much as she wanted to do with him. “I’m not atheistic. I believe in God, rather fervently. I am rather filled with wonder for all His extravagant creation. I just don’t care for conspicuous shows of piety. I thought it more appropriate for us all to have said our own private, silent graces—which I already had done when Mr. Phelps made show of it—as not everyone needs must share the same version of piety. Although I am as thankful as the next person—probably more so. But I would rather adhere to the principle that one should do good by stealth, and that God, who sees all and hears all that is done and said and thought in private, will reward one.”

“In private?”

“That I cannot answer for. I would be lying if I did not hope my reward in this life, and the one after, will be just and deserving. But I will do all that I can to make sure I deserve whatever rewards God is willing to give me.”

But as soon as she said the words, Jane was stricken with the lie.

More than any other thing she had said, this was untrue. However much she might think that she deserved, and had earned her place on the expedition through her own hard work, study, and diligence, the truth was that she had
not
been content with whatever reward, or lack thereof, that God had given her. She had taken matters into her own hands and chosen her own suitable reward.

She had railed against her father and God equally in doing what she had done.

“You astonish me, Miss Burke.”

She felt her own face heat, and pleat up into her own version of that wincing smile. “I fancy I astonish myself, Lieutenant.”

Within the space of a few days, she had become someone she didn’t altogether know. Someone who could see that the world was not so absolute as she might have thought. Someone just a tad more like the cynical lieutenant than she ever might have thought.

The idea was disconcerting. And liberating at the same time.

Because there was no turning back. Even if she had wanted to, it was not possible to turn the ship around in the middle of the black ocean and return her to her life before.

And the truth was, she did not want to return. She had already crossed some invisible line. And there would be no turning back.

Chapter Ten

Out in the open ocean they had more than a week of fine sailing. Dance began to hope that
Tenacious
would spare him any additional gray hairs. Close hauled on the larboard tack to take advantage of the brisk westerly trade winds, the ship stood her canvas well, and gave him a good thirteen knots for several days on end. With the wind at their back, the following sea better suited the flaws in the vessel’s construction, and he and Doc Whitely could get a good turn of speed from her sailing with the wind blowing up the ship’s skirts from astern.

And other, more picturesque skirts were also blowing in that following wind. Miss Burke was proving herself to be a steady sailor, though she still had moments of clumsiness while traversing the ladders and decks. Dance would not admit it to himself—nor to anyone else who might have asked—but he had been keeping a weather eye on the companionway in anticipation of her arrival. She was always one of the first people on deck, though she mostly kept quietly to herself, tucking down against the rail with her pad of paper, drawing her barnacles, or who knew what.

He told himself he watched for her for the sake of the ship—he had not explicitly asked her to keep her conjectures as to the state of the ship’s affairs to herself, and wanted to make sure she did not spread gossip, or add to the constant undercurrent of discontent swirling about the men on the berth deck. He needed time to establish his authority, and to prove himself—to both his crew, and to the naturalists—to demonstrate that he knew his business and was making good on the Admiralty’s promises.

But the plain fact of truth was that he watched her simply because he could not stop himself. He could not stop his gut from tightening in pleasurable anticipation of her arrival. He could not stop from hoping she would speak to him again. From wanting more of her interesting, intelligent conversation, and the dangerous pleasure of having her alone to himself, even while he chided himself for wanting the distraction of talking to her.

But what happened today when her dark felt hat appeared above the edge of the combing was that it was accompanied by the tall, bespectacled surgeon. They moved to the taffrail, where she was staring down into the water as if it were telling her secrets. Secrets he wanted to know.

Dance wanted to hate Denman, to cast him into the same void as Givens, and the captain. But he couldn’t. The surgeon was far too useful, and far too generous to hate. He had already eased the Reverend Phelps’s woes, and physicked a few of the seamen into feeling better about their lot.

Perhaps enough crewmen would fall ill for the surgeon to be so taken up with care that he would have no time for Miss Burke?

No. Dance ruthlessly quashed such an unworthy daydream. It was the last thing he needed, for one of the infant midshipmen he had plucked off the parish rolls to prove pestilential, or rife with a putrid fever. Not even a surgeon educated in the rarefied air of Oxford would be able to help them much then. They would be lucky to make Recife let alone the South Seas in such an instance.

No. Best to let Miss Burke and Mr. Denman be, and let the surgeon work whatever charm he had hidden behind his spectacles to enchant her. And good luck to them all.

But luck was not what they had. Not a bit of it. As soon as the wind eased,
Tenacious
began to pitch and wallow—as Mr. Whitely so cogently predicted—like the veriest pig.

Which brought predictably bad news.

“She’s wet again, Mr. Dance,” the carpenter reported, as if the ship were an infant in swaddling clothes and not a thousand-ton behemoth. “It’s the pine, sir.”

“The devil you say.” Dance continued to swear fluently in the privacy of his mind, but the truth was he had been expecting such an occurrence. He had understood the first day he had come aboard and inspected the ship, that the iron straps fastening her hull in place of oak lodging knees meant that
Tenacious
had been constructed during the height of the war years, when good strong oak had been scarce, and durability had been sacrificed to speed of construction.

“Don’t tell me.” Dance knew without even looking. “Water is seeping into the bow with every single pitch and yaw.”

“Aye. Works her seams open something chronic in these rollers, sir.”

Dance was running short of creative curses. “Yes. If this ship hasn’t the devil’s own luck.” The men’s muttering and superstitious warnings would only get louder and harder to ignore at this latest setback.

“Too true, sir,” the carpenter agreed. “They’re after saying it’s the curse of that female we’ve got on board, but I know better. Always working loose her seams,
Tenacious
is. I been in her since she was launched, and she’s always been a wet sailor.”

It was only small comfort to know the ship’s less than ideal circumstances could not be laid entirely at Dance’s feet. And a comfort that not all of the men seemed to have taken an unreasoning dislike of Miss Burke. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless. Dance would take whatever he could get. “What do you typically do to keep her dry and afloat?”

“Don’t know about dry, sir—never has been very dry. But typically I’ll recaulk them seams afresh, and see what I can do to keep them iron strappings from shifting overmuch. But there’s only so much hemp and tar can do to save a seam from opening. What I could use, is more good, well-aged oak in the hold to brace her up. But…” The man fingered his dusty beard, and let the thought die away.

Dance understood all the same. “Don’t tell me.” Dance slapped his hat against his knee in disgust, and pushed his hand through his close-cropped hair to exercise his frustration. “There’s no money for oak.”

The carpenter shook his head in agreement, looking just as wearied by the ship’s constant state of disrepair. “Never was much in the way of money, ever. Always hauling tight, on close rations with Cap’n Muckross.”

It was just as Dance had feared. Despite his recent spate of care and repair,
Tenacious
had been kept too long in a state of ill repair, with the monies that ought to have been spent on oak and canvas leeched away from an inattentive captain by a thieving purser. Damn, but Givens certainly had a lot to answer for.

“Do what you can, man,” Dance instructed the carpenter. He could all but hear his money—the money he had earned from all those years and years of attentive duty and risky prize taking, money which he had hoped would see him in good stead when establishing his own captaincy—running through his fingers. “I’ll do what I can for the oak when we make suitable port.”

That would mean constant vigilance across the wide reach of the Atlantic until they could make port in Recife or Salvador de Bahia, where they could take on food and water, and negotiate with a shipyard for ship’s timbers. And whatever else they would need by then.

“Aye, sir. Aye, aye. With some luck, she’ll hold.”

Dance didn’t believe in luck—he believed in preparation and action.

He kept one eye on the glass and another on the weather in momentary expectation of a late-season hurricane to come roaring down upon them from across the Southern Equatorial current. And prayed to a god he no longer believed in.

A god who seemed determined to put Miss Jane Burke in his way.

She approached him alone—a glance to canvass the deck told him Jack Denman must have gone below. Dance schooled his gaze to check the compass heading instead of taking a reading of Miss Burke’s snug, sand-colored gown—a color like a warm dune on a sunny day. “How goes your study of the devious barnacle, Miss Burke?”

“Well, I thank you, Lieutenant.” Her face was alight with something more powerful and lasting than mere excitement—it was the thrill of accomplishment that put that rosy glow in her cheeks. “I am absolutely sure that there are at least two—and possibly three—different species of barnacles found on
Tenacious’
s hull. The plate arrangement of the carapaces differ significantly—the smaller gray barnacle peppering the hull has both end plates overlapped by side plates, while the other, white species has only one. And what I believe to be a third species has a simple, regular tube-groove arrangement in its side plates. So curious. And so interesting.”

Dance hadn’t the vaguest idea what she was on about, but she sounded so utterly convinced, and so passionate, he could not resist urging her to keep talking. “That sounds promising.”

“Yes.” She gave him a marvelous flash of a smile that chased away all his resolve to be reserved with her. “And because of that I must ask you a favor.”

“A favor?” Dance’s mind leaped to several startling possibilities.

“The only way I am going to be able to identify and document the differences is if I can make a more thorough study under my large, fixed magnifying glass, which is safely stowed, just as I so persistently insisted”—she made a face full of self-deprecating chagrin—“in my pinnace dangling off
Tenacious’
s stern davits. And the water looks dark and unspeakably cold. And I am clumsy, and not an idiot.”