A Scandal to Remember (2 page)

While he waited for Flanaghan to carry out his order, Dance began making a list in his head of all the tasks for immediate attention, starting with the ramshackle animal pens moldering at the aft end of the quarterdeck. A single goat and a few skinny chickens picked their way through dark piles of straw dank with the ammonia reek of urine. The whole of it would need an unholy holystoning to clear out both the rats that were bound to be nestled in the bedding, and the stink.

But it was going to take more than holystones and lime to make
Tenacious
over into anything resembling a working naval ship. Everywhere he looked was work left undone by a lazy, shiftless crew. Broken ratlines in the shrouds. Loose hardware in the main chains. Slack halyards from the tops.

And he wasn’t the only one looking. No. He could feel the touch of the eyes of the men sizing him up, placing him in the rigid hierarchy of the navy by his age and the wear on his lieutenant’s uniform. Best to get it over with and let them have an eyeful. They’d find out the sort of man he was soon enough.

Dance stood at the quarterdeck rail and let himself be seen. He could still feel the weight of the crew’s curiosity, though they sifted out slowly to have a better look at him, like rats blinking in the watery sunshine, when a large fellow with the greasy look of a well-fed barn cat—not enough of a pet to be altogether civilized—picked his way up the nearby companionway ladder. With one foot over the combing, the man paused and narrowed his face, as if he could scent the particular stench of a superior officer in the air.

Fair enough. Dance’s hackles were standing up as well. Instinct honed by years of service told Dance this man was his natural enemy in a way that neither the French nor the Americans had ever been.

But he knew better than to let it show. When Flanaghan returned, shifting his eyes from Dance to the bulky man as if measuring them up, one against the other, Dance simply pretended he hadn’t seen.

The bulky man’s self-created uniform marked him as a warrant officer, a fact which Flanaghan immediately confirmed when he finally spoke. “Mr. Ransome be bosun.” The topman said the name quietly, and all but made the sign of the cross, as if he would ward off the evil eye that the bosun surely possessed.

The few men who had ventured out to have a look at Dance moved away from the bosun without a sound, dispersing to quieter, safer corners—rats scuttling back into the comfort of the dark.

So. It was like that.

Bosuns were rarely popular men—it was their job to keep the crew at their work, and to punish those found lagging—but on first impression Dance thought Mr. Ransome was the sort to be rather more hated and feared than he was respected.

Dance would have to think and move quickly to gain the upper hand.

He smiled, and spoke in the instant before the bosun opened his mouth—nothing was as effective as getting in the first word. “Mr. Ransome, I presume. Call all hands.”

But Ransome proved to be a devilishly cool customer, with mettle in his backbone. He took a long moment to look at this specimen of a lieutenant, as if he had seen twenty such men before, and found them all lacking. “And who be you?”

“The fellow with white facing on his coat, Mr. Ransome.” Dance indicated the sign of his rank, but kept his tone level, giving no room for argument. “Call all hands.”

The greasy bastard—and within the last few moments Dance had come to the conclusion that the man was indeed a clever bastard—slid his eyes sideways, and hesitated just long enough to set a quick match to Dance’s normally slow-burning temper.

Dance wasn’t a man given to ostentatious displays of either valor or displeasure. He did not indulge in fits, or set himself against other men. It wasn’t his way—it was too much work and too much excitement for too little return. But for some reason he had no time to fathom, he wanted to take Ransome on.

In less time than it took the big man to narrow his bulbous, round eyes, Dance had snatched the whistle that was the bosun’s badge of office from around his neck, and snapped it off its chain in one swift, violent tug. He had the whistle to his mouth and was shrilly piping all hands before the belligerent man had instinctively reached out his hand to grab it back.

Dance pivoted neatly out of the bosun’s reach, and looked pointedly at the big ham hock of a hand that hung in the air between them. “Careful, Mr. Ransome,” he said in a low voice. “Striking a superior officer is a hanging move.” Dance tossed the brass whistle back, and kept his voice low and even—conciliatory almost. “And I would advise you to repair your whistle, so that you are prepared to do your job the next time I might require you to do so.”

The bastard was cagey enough to knuckle his forehead. But his greasy smile and sideways glance told Dance that there would be a reckoning.

“Another word of advice, Mr. Ransome.” Again, Dance made his voice conversational, bland even, and he kept his eyes on the men assembling under the waist. “I’m not a bastard for having my way. But I’ll expect you to see to your duty, and fulfill your orders when I ask you to. We’ll find our feet with each other, Mr. Ransome. And the sooner you understand where my toes start and yours leave off, the better off we’ll all be.” Dance nodded easily. “And now, with the compliments of the deck, I’ll ask you to call your men.”

Ransome slid apart from Dance, and started bawling what was necessary, taking his frustrations out on the hapless onlookers, lashing out indiscriminately with his cane. “Look alive there. Look alive.” He let a roar down the main hatchway, “Out or down. Out or down. Rouse you out, you grass-combing lubbers.”

Within two minutes, Dance counted perhaps sixty men grouped loosely in the waist before him, instead of the one hundred and forty that was the usual complement of a frigate in wartime. Even with allowances for the peace,
Tenacious
was severely undermanned.

And with only two other officers, and no midshipmen—he would have to see to that straightaway.

“Mr. Ransome, I’ll have the punishment and muster rolls, if you please.” Dance was careful to let Ransome have something of his way, and be seen to have a superior knowledge of the ship’s people.

“The rolls? Sir?”

There was enough real confusion in the man that Dance could take his hesitation for something other than insolence. “The books, Mr. Ransom, with the names of the crew and their positions and their allotment into starboard and larboard watches. The muster and punishment rolls.”

“Captain Muckross is not one much given to scribblin’ nor record keeping.”

Again, Dance was no slave to Admiralty regulations, but he had never heard of a ship that didn’t at least keep the minimum of records, especially a daily log and the names and wages of its crew. “Mr. Ransome, if you do not know where or by whom they are kept, then kindly find me someone who does know.”

“Givens,” the mate growled.

Another man, as well padded as the bosun, stepped forward.

Even without an introduction, Dance would have known the man was the purser. He had the nip-cheese look of the profession—the sort of man whose rat-quick eyes were constantly estimating the value of everything he saw.

“Mr. Mathias Givens, purser, at your service, Lieutenant.” The man even went so far in currying Dance’s favor that he doffed his hat. Dance had met his type before, oily and obsequious in his obvious attempts to please, but secretive and greasy behind one’s back.

“Mr. Givens, I require the ship’s books, specifically the muster and punishment logs.”

“But the punishment…” The purser’s eye slid back to the bosun.

And well they should, as the bosun was the one who carried out all punishments, and in the absence of a senior officer—at least one sober enough to write down the offense and its consequence in lashes—Dance would have expected a man like Ransome to have kept the books himself. Interesting. Neither man claimed the responsibility.

“Find them. Now.” Dance put all the cynical perturbation he could muster into his voice. “Best to sort the bad facts out sooner rather than later. In the meantime—” Dance took out his own hardbound blank book—brought in the now clearly foolish hope that he might write an account of the voyage himself for publication. “But as you will be engaged in finding the existing logs, I will need you to furnish the name of a literate man who can act as a clerk for the interim.”

“A clerk?” The purser licked his lips and looked more than flustered. “I’m sure I can do all that’s required, sir.”

“Not while you’re employed in the hunt for those books, Mr. Givens. A name, if you please?”

“If you’ll pardon me, sir.” One of the younger members of the crew, a wiry boy with a shock of sun-bleached blond hair, stepped forward. “I knows all my letters and numbers, sir. And can read and write.”

“Excellent.” Here was his first piece of luck, but hopefully not his last. “Your name?”

“Morris, sir.”

“Morris, you are hereby promoted to clerk, unless you are one of Flanaghan’s men.” Dance was careful not to take on the
whole
of the damn ship in this, his first battle. “In which case, your promotion is ad hoc and only for as long as it is necessary. At present, you will assist me in taking down the names of this crew.” He would meet each man, find his profession if he had one, his years and his level of skill. And see also what sort of men he was missing.

With Morris situated on an upturned cask, Dance had restored enough of the balance of power in his favor to be able to redress Mr. Ransome. “I’ll have the professionals first, Mr. Ransome, followed by the topmen.” As the men working the sails would be directly under his command, Dance wanted a good look at them, for their skill and professionalism would be put to the test in rounding the cape of South America, a difficult task in a good ship, and an impossible one in anything less.

“But before we start, I will tell you, one and all, that your hours of leisure are over. From this moment, until the moment we warp over our anchors and proceed down Channel, you will have nothing but unremitting work. Hard work. This ship, in its present state, is unfit for service, and a blight upon the honor of every man jack that belongs to her. You may all be perfectly resigned to sending yourselves to the bottom, but I for one am not. And so we will work, and we will refit this vessel from her loose tops to her rotten bottom.”

Dance leaned his arms on the quarterdeck rail and looked down at
Tenacious
’s ragtag people with what he hoped was stoic severity. “We’re going to make something of this ship, if it kills us all.”

Chapter Two

In the chill November wind of Portsmouth harbor, the unsteady mixture of hope and nerve that had sustained Jane Eliza Burke through long months of clandestine planning and preparation burned away like the morning’s fog, leaving her nothing but her naked, shivering ambition. And her determination.

Pray God that her shaky determination held firm.

Because she had only this one chance to make all the years of study and sacrifice come right. It must be now, or it would be never. And never was a very, very long time.

Jane forced a deep, calming breath into her lungs, and told herself that all she had to do was tell the truth. The Bible said the truth would set her free, and so she would make it so. The truth was that she
was
J. E. Burke, the conchologist. She
was
an experienced, knowledgeable naturalist who was more than capable of fulfilling all the needs and requirements of the Royal Society’s expedition. She was. She had arranged everything in readiness.

There. She had almost convinced herself.

But the wretched truth was that she was terrified. Terrified that they would not accept her aboard. Terrified that they
would.

So terrified the pounding of her own blood filled her ears.

Her grip grew hot and clammy on the tiller of her well-packed sailing pinnace, and a cold coil of worry twisted up her insides, until she felt she couldn’t breathe. She almost pushed the tiller of the little pinnace hard to port, and headed back across the bay toward Ryde, and home. Almost.

But she didn’t. Because it was too late. She was already there—the hull of the big ship loomed above her, and sharp eyes had already detected her presence.

A sailor’s shaggy head appeared over the rail. “Whatta you want?”

Jane swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat, and said the words she had rehearsed all the way across the bay, and longer than that—all through the summer and autumn. “I am J. E. Burke, the conchologist.”

The sailor’s response was entirely underwhelming. “So?”

Of all the responses she had imagined—from outright hostility to her papa’s sort of patronizing dismissal—Jane had never imagined she would generate this sort of idle apathy.

She firmed her quaking voice. “I wish to come aboard.”

“No women aboard,” the sailor said sourly. “Lieutenant sent all the whores ashore.”

Heat burst into her cheeks with such fiery force that Jane thought the brim of her wide felt hat might catch fire. She clamped a hand atop her head just to be sure, and tilted her chin up to speak, so she would be understood. “I am not a wh—” She could not even say the vulgar word. “I am a member of the Royal Society’s expedition and—”

The sailor let out a raucous, gull-like cackle of a laugh, and spat over the side. “Sell me another tale, darling.”

Jane pulled her thick wool cloak tighter, as if its folds were armor against the sailor’s derision. She put all the lofty surety her aunt Celia, the Viscountess Darling, employed when speaking to recalcitrant men. “I assure you, my good man, I am a member of the Royal Society’s expedition. And I should like to speak to someone in charge.”

“Not worth my hide.” The sailor shook his shaggy head, but turned to someone behind him. “Lookit,” he called to someone out of Jane’s sight. “Have a look at this shorebird.”

Another head, this one sporting a gap-toothed grin, now gaped down at her. “Damnedest whore I ever saw. Looks more like a lady parson.”

At their loud guffaws, more faces appeared from above, staring down at her. “P’raps it is a lady parson, sent by the lieutenant to preach sobriety to us.”