A Scandal to Remember (23 page)

“Dinner, sir.” Dance gave almost every appearance of being his normally collected, calm self, though Jane could see and feel the tension emanating from his body, so close to hers. “Another plate for the captain, Punch.” He looked across her to Mr. Denman. “You were saying, Jack?”

“Yes.” Mr. Denman took his cue, his demeanor as calm and collected as the lieutenant’s. “I have been very interested in the long-term health of former sailors, and in making sure that the Royal Hospital at Greenwich is known to be available to them. It’s a remarkable facility, although there are times when I think our government would have been better served, and served our veterans of the navy better, had the hospital been located nearer to one of the navy’s larger ports, such as Portsmouth or Depford. Have you ever had occasion to visit the hospital, Lieutenant?”

Captain Muckross had no interest in hospitals. “What is this I hear?” he demanded. “Three more good men deserting—driven out by you? What have you to say to that, sirrah?”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Dance answered without evasion, but immediately changed his tack. “That is why the repairs are being made apace, so I might ask for permission to take
Tenacious
back to sea as soon as possible to prevent another such occurrence from happening.”

“Out to sea, man?” the captain argued. “The only place this ship should go is back to Portsmouth, where she belongs. Where we all belong.”

“But our expedition, sir, is bound for the South Seas,” Sir Richard ventured cautiously. “That is the place where we”—he gestured to the assembled naturalists—“belong.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“Sir Richard Smith, Captain Muckross. You may recall, we shared some correspondence.”

But both Sir Richard and his correspondence had already passed from the old man’s rambling mind. “A song!” he commanded. The captain punctuated his abrupt request by slapping his hand against the table hard enough to make the cutlery and glassware dance. “I want a song.” He turned the narrow focus of his light blue eyes on young Lieutenant Lawrence. “In my day we liked a bit of song with dinner. Sing, boy.”

Young Mr. Lawrence’s eyes slid to Lieutenant Dance for permission.

Which only served to rile the old man even more. “Sing,” he commanded. “Sing, dammit, sing. ‘In Amsterdam.’” He named the song he wanted. “Sing.”

“But…” Lieutenant Lawrence blushed a vivid shade of scarlet.

“Sing it!” The captain was oblivious to the shocked looks and silence surrounding him. He raised his own scratchy voice, and began to bawl,
“In Amsterdam there lived a jade, an abbess of the whoring trade—’”

The older men gasped their astonishment and looked wide-eyed at Jane, but it was the lieutenant who stopped the captain’s lewd warble.

“I have a song for you, sir. ‘Fathom the Bowl.’” Dance interrupted the old man with the same calm, unperturbable tone as he normally used on the quarterdeck—at least when he wasn’t speaking to her. And then the lieutenant leaned back a little in his chair, tipped his head up to the low beamed ceiling, and set himself into a song.

Come all you bold heroes, give an ear to my song

And we’ll sing of the praise of good brandy and rum

There’s a clear crystal fountain in England does roll,

Give me the punch ladle, I’ll fathom the bowl.

His voice was low and fine, a baritone of warmth and power, but it was his relaxed, easy grace that changed the atmosphere in the room from one of dread to delight. A smile actually curved his lips as he sang.

Heads began to nod with the rhythm, and fingers and toes tapped along in time. The song was obviously well-known to sailors, as the others of the seafaring profession, including the soused old captain, joined Dance in the chorus.
“Give me the punch ladle, I’ll fathom the bowl.”

Jane might not have believed the ease of transformation if she hadn’t been watching with her own eyes, but Lieutenant Dance was in the space of a few moments once again the charming man of the plaza in Recife. But he was more than merely charming. There was something slightly bashful about the way he put his head back and sang to the ceiling. And something utterly boyish about the smile reluctantly tugging up the corner of his mouth, as if he were trying to be pleased but had forgotten how.

It was remarkable that a man who could so easily ruffle her feathers every time he saw her would go to such obvious lengths to make everyone, including her, comfortable in such an uncomfortable situation. She hadn’t thought the lieutenant’s rough manners could ever compare favorably to Mr. Denman’s always reserved, gentlemanly demeanor, but it had not been the doctor who had kept the dinner from devolving into something far less civilized—something with choruses of abbesses in the whoring trade.

As if on cue, the captain broke the congenial mood of Dance’s song. “I want a drink.”

Punch stepped forward with the decanter. “Claret, sir?”

“Claret? Claret is the liquor for boys.” Captain Muckross misquoted the famous Dr. Samuel Johnson. “You’re all boys. In my day we were men, and sang about swiving cunning wenches like men, not sipping punch and claret like women.
‘Weigh hey roll and go
!
’”
he sang for his own amusement and slapped his hand against the table once more. “Like
men
!”

It was too much. Despite all her best intentions to be quiet and invisible, Jane could not hold her tongue. “But not like a gentleman.”

*   *   *

Dance spoke into the gasping silence. “Captain, sir.” He tried to make his correction as polite as possible. “There is a lady present.”

“What?” The blasted old ass lofted his eyebrows like gray jibs in some arcane mixture of drunken outrage and disbelief, before he turned his rheumy squint down the table, raking the face of each of the men until he found her—the lady. “Gad.”

Dance spoke to keep Muckross from saying anything more lewd or damning. “During your illness, sir, I was unable to introduce you to our esteemed guests from the Royal Society. Captain Edwin Muckross, I present you to Sir Richard Smith.” He went around the table without pause, not wanting the captain to be able to say anything. “The Reverend Mr. William Phelps. Mr. Albert Parkhurst. Mr. Jackson Denman, who has agreed to act as surgeon, you’ve met. And Miss Jane Burke. Also Lieutenant Able Simmons, a former shipmate of mine, who was able to join us as a cartographer and second lieutenant, is here with young Lieutenant Lawrence, while Mr. Whitely has the deck.”

That announcement served to divert the captain’s aggressive attention from Miss Burke, just as Dance had intended. “What?” the old man shouted. “What? Hiring a lieutenant? Without my say-so? By God, sir, you go too far!”

Dance felt his collar grow unaccountably tight under his black silk stock. “I consulted with you, sir.” Dance bent the truth to serve his lie. “About the need for more officers along with a detachment of marines and midshipmen. We discussed it along with the muster rolls, sir. Some weeks ago now, before we proceeded to sea.”

“We did not!” The old man was convinced of it. “I know nothing of this man. Nor any of them.” He flung his arm out at the assembled table. “Nothing of these dinners. What have you all been doing here? Plotting, no doubt? Plotting to take my ship from me?”

“No, sir.” Dance hated the quick desperate edge he could hear in his own voice. “Not at all. We were discussing the state of the men’s health, and Mr. Denman’s professional opinion of the services available to veterans—”

“You were discussing nothing of the kind. You were singing! Inveigling the other officers to join in your mutinous schemes with bowls of punch. I’m on to you, sirrah. I am. I ought to have you put to the lash.”

Miss Burke gasped. There was nothing else to call the breath of fright and outrage that flew from her mouth, and brought the captain’s beady, displeased gaze back to her.

“And a woman!” the old man carried on, oblivious to both the utter senselessness of his tirade, and the deadly seriousness of the charge he laid against Dance. “Who told you you could bring a woman? I won’t have your whore in my ship, sir. I won’t.” Again he slammed the flat of his palm down upon the table, making Miss Burke jump along with the cutlery. “What have you to say for yourself?”

Before he could give voice to the black rage clawing at his chest, Miss Burke spoke. “No one brought me, sir. I brought myself at the invitation of Sir Joseph Banks, and Sir Richard Smith. I am a conchologist, sir. A naturalist the same as these men. You may take my qualification up with the Royal Society, but I believe the time for you to air your objections has long since passed.”

Devil take him for admiring her, but she had spine.

She spoke with a shaky voice, but Dance could hear her anger and frustration. This he knew too well. She stood, as if she might remove herself from the table, for fear that no defense would come from Sir Richard, who might take the opportunity to renew his objections.

But she was right. The time for objection was past. Dance tugged her back into her seat. “You signed the correspondence yourself, sir, authorizing Miss Burke to come aboard as part of the delegation from the Royal Society.” The damn man had taken their money as well. But the present situation did not seem a good time to bring up the subject of that fraud. It might only make the captain worse.

Next to him, Miss Burke slowly sat back down, but in her agitation, she kept ahold of his hand, as if she needed its reassurance.

Her hand was cool, and soft, and surprisingly strong for such a small woman. “She has been undertaking a study to eliminate the barnacles from our hull.”

The inanity served its purpose as a diversion. “The hell you say,” was the captain’s ridiculous response.

“Indeed, sir.” Dance refused to react to the captain’s language, and strove to keep his tone as even and mild and patient and factual as if he were talking to one of the infant midshipmen, who were no doubt listening at the keyhole. “Science put to use, sir. Quite remarkable. And quite useful. And here is your fish course, sir.”

Punch quickly slid a warmed bowl of fish stew before the captain.

“And perhaps Punch, here, will favor us with a rendition of the old ballad ‘The Butcher Boy’ while we eat. Punch plays the fiddle, sir.”

“Fiddle? I don’t have any fiddlers on my ship.”

Dance considered that now was perhaps not the best time to tell Captain Muckross that the wardroom steward was another man Dance had hired without the captain’s say-so. “What would you like him to sing for you, sir?” And then without waiting for the old man to suggest another lewd and vulgar song like “In Amsterdam,” he hastened on. “You’ll like ‘The Butcher Boy,’ sir.”

Punch retrieved his fiddle and set himself to a low, slow air, and Dance forced a deep breath into his lungs. But beside him, Miss Burke was still tense and wary, and holding his hand as if he were the only thing keeping her in her seat. And perhaps he was. So he said the only thing he could think, which was the thing he had meant to say for hours and days. Forever. “I’m sorry.”

He had pitched his voice low, for her ears only, and her response came back just as quiet. “You are forgiven.”

And just like that the tense fear and rage that swilled in his gut like a barrel of brine was gone. The weight of worry and responsibility had pressed down on him like a grating, scoring his flesh, and marking him as an angry, malcontented man. He had to do better. He had to be more equitable.

Because Jane Burke was counting upon him. And she was still holding his hand. And he liked it.

Chapter Fourteen

As abruptly as he had appeared, the captain left. One moment he was spooning fish stew into his mouth, and the next, he wandered out of the wardroom.

Dance bolted to his feet to pursue him—if only to try and prevent any more incidents that might expose his drunkenness to the crew. But the captain’s faithful servant was waiting outside the wardroom doors.

Behind Dance, Punch spoke. “I passed word for Manning, sir.”

“Well done, Punch.” Dance drew in another lungful of air. “Thank you.”

“No need, Lieutenant. No need.” The banty, one-legged man shook his head in pity. “Didn’t know he was that bad.”

“No.” Dance didn’t know what else to say that wouldn’t expose the old man. A crew needed to respect their captain. Or at least respect his authority. And it was Dance’s job to see that they did. “Do what you can to squelch the gossip, Punch.”

“Aye, sir. You’re not to worry about that. You’ve enough on your plate as it is.”

What was on his plate was cold. And he’d never acquired a taste for fish anyway. “I’m for the deck. If you’ll heat a bowl, I’ll send down Doc Whitely presently.”

“You’re a good man, Lieutenant. Too good for the likes of him.”

Dance could only assume Punch was referring to the captain, and not to their long-suffering sailing master, Mr. Whitely. For if Dance were put upon, so much more so had Whitely been, who had sailed—or sat idle, rotting in port—with the old man for years. But no matter to whom Punch referred, it wouldn’t do. “Punch. For the love of God, don’t say such things out loud. Don’t even think them. We’re here to serve
Tenacious,
both you and I, and that’s an end to it.”

Dance was glad of the quiet solitude of the evening watch. Because the truth was he was poleaxed. He had faced the guns at Trafalgar with a great deal more confidence than he could face the mad old man who was his captain.

And he didn’t think he had ever before held hands with a woman like Miss Jane Burke.

She terrified him more than even his captain and all his drunken charges of mutiny. Because he liked her. He admired her. He admired the steel in her spine, and he adored the soft trepidation that made her hold on to his hand for support.

And he wanted to hold more than her hand.

The object of his obsession came up the aft companionway and made her quiet way along the weather rail, a silent ghost of a girl in her light muslin dress made gold in the glowing moonlight.

Below, the hum of Punch’s sad Welsh tenor wafted up from the wardroom.