A Scandal to Remember (41 page)

Where were the others from his ship?

And more importantly, where was Dance?

“You were always a mouthy little thing, talking back to the captain.” Ransome’s laugh was as mirthless as ever it had been—too full of his own surly pleasure. “Cat got your tongue now?”

“What do you want?” Jane took a step toward him, but also toward her drawing area, where she could take surreptitious hold of the small but sharp knife she kept for sharpening her pencils.

“I want my own back. What he took from me.” Ransome took out his frustration with Dance on nearby inanimate objects, ripping the water bag down from the tree, and kicking it about as a way of showing her that she would soon be treated the exact same way if she did not give him what he wanted. “Where is it? Where’s the damn log?”

The logbook from
Tenacious?
The one that Dance had kept under his coat, and that she had stowed safely away in the oilskin pouch? How could a book give him his “own back”?

Her knowledge of the book must have shown on her face, because Ransome advanced toward her slowly, as if he were savoring the moment before he throttled her to death.

Where was Dance?

“It’s here somewhere.” Jane feigned looking around as she backed away, picking up the small work board on which she drew, and carrying it with her, keeping it carefully between them. Ready to cosh him if she could.

Except that she didn’t know if she could really cosh him, because the fear was like a vise around her lungs, cutting off the air—she could hear her breath start to come in little gasping pants.

“That’s it,” he agreed on a raspy laugh. “Be afraid. You’ll think better when you’re afraid, and you’ll do as yer told. Where is it?”

Despite her best intentions to lie and prevaricate and do whatever else she could think of to stall Ransome until Dance got there, the image of the very book Ransome sought—the dark marbled paper on the thick cover—rose in her mind, and her glance strayed toward the small stack of oilcloth pouches where she had placed it last.

And Ransome saw it on her face. “Where is it? Or so help me I’ll gut you from stem to stern and leave you bleeding for the seagulls to pick to pieces.” He pulled out a knife that looked bigger than her foot for emphasis.

Jane was more than convinced of his sincerity. Her heart was pounding in her ears, filling her up with the rush of fear. But even afraid, she had to be smarter than Ransome. She had to think of something, anything to keep him until Dance could get here. Dance would know what to do. Dance would stop him.

But Dance wasn’t there. She was.

And she was J. E. Burke, conchologist, and she was going to handle Ransome. She was going to manage him. Somehow. “I’ll get it for you—I’ll get it, if you’ll just put that knife away.”

Ransome had his own ideas of bargaining. “I’ll not put the knife away until you hand it to me.”

“I’ll get it for you, I will. Just”—she made her face the picture of weak, feminine distress—“don’t hurt me.”

Ransome smiled, and lowered his knife slightly to show he would do as she asked. But his smile—his smile held all the single-minded meanness of a great feral tomcat who likes to toy with its mouse before he devours it. The moment she gave him what he wanted, he would turn on her with that knife.

And where was Dance? Dance who in the past month had hardly ever been so far away as out of the reach of her hand. Strong, loving, protective Dance.

Where was he?

Where was he while she was alone with Ransome?

She couldn’t give Ransome what he wanted—but she couldn’t
not
give him what he wanted. She had to
pretend
to do so.

She sidled around him toward the small stack of identical notebooks, neatly arranged in their protective pouches, just as she had stacked them. Efficient, organized, meticulous Jane.

“Did you want the captain’s old log, or Dance’s new one?” she lied. “Or the copy of the old one?” She meant to page through the books, as if they were the ones she was looking for. Stalling until he realized they were not, in fact, logbooks.

“Fuck me blind,” the greasy bastard muttered. “I thought I’d taken the damn thing.”

Jane tucked that piece of information away in her brain, and refrained from answering. And Ransome’s question was purely rhetorical—not that he would know what that meant. Because another idea had popped into her brain—if Ransome had taken the logbook, why did he not know he had? Or had Ransome been unable to tell one book from the other?

He had needed young Honeyman to write that note for him, hadn’t he?

She reached for the stack of oilskin parcels, and took the first one off the stack, but her hands were shaking so hard, she dropped it to her feet in the sand, opening so he would see that it was not the logbook he sought. And if he couldn’t see that—if he really couldn’t read—she would simply tell him that she had the wrong book, and would go on to the next. And then the next. Stalling for time.

But Ransome either didn’t see or didn’t care. He rushed forward to snatch the book she had dropped out of Jane’s hands, and immediately throw it, oilcloth bag and all, straight into the cooking fire. The oils embedded in the canvas to make it waterproof quickly caught fire, sending up an inky smoke.

And then he grabbed the rest of the small stack and tumbled them all into the fire after.

“No!” Jane started toward the fire, as if she could do something—kick sand over the flames to smother them out, or simply snatch the precious volumes out of the flames—and save the books.

And save herself.

But Ransome was as quick as he was ignorant, and he hauled her back, wrenching her arm behind her back, and holding her helpless to do anything but watch the books go up in licking flames.

“No.” Jane struggled vainly against his strength. “No. Those aren’t—”

“Jane!” Dance came striding around the bend in the beach, and into view with a host of others—a blue-coated officer and a party of red-clad marines. Dance’s face was animated and pleased, sure of their deliverance, until the moment he saw Ransome. “Let her go this instant.”

But Ransome—Ransome had his own ideas and ambitions, and had his lies at the ready. “I’ve caught her trying to destroy his log,” he said to the blue-coated naval officer. “But I was too late.” He must have judged the books sufficiently destroyed because he shoved her away from him.

“No!” She fell to her knees in front of the fire, maniacally shoveling handfuls of sand onto the burning remains, desperately trying to smother the flames sufficiently so she could grasp the singed corner of a cover, and pull it out. But the book was still so hot it burned the ends of her fingers.

She dropped it upon her knees where the sparks popped, and embedded themselves in the wool of her dress.

Dance was there in another moment, pulling her up so that the book fell to the sand, batting away at her skirts to extinguish the burning embers. Her dress was peppered with a dozen blackened holes. “Jane,” Dance said again, as if she were a child, and could not understand what was happening. “Jane, it’s all right. We’ve been saved.”

Perhaps he had been saved. But she had just been ruined.

Ransome smiled as if he had heard the words in her head. “And there
he
is.” He pointed his rough-whiskered chin at Dance. “There’s the man I told you about—the man who killed Captain Muckross. Take him.”

*   *   *

For a very long moment no one moved. No one so much as shifted in the sand before the rage that he had been keeping clamped in irons roared free, and Dance launched himself at Ransome. “You lying bastard.”

Ransome tried to duck behind a scarlet-faced, sweating marine, which only served to further enrage Dance, who came on like a gale, and struck hard, clamping onto Ransome’s throat.

He was going to throttle the life out of the bastard here and now for both his lie and whatever it was he had done to put that look—that devasted, hopeless look—upon Jane’s face.

And then there was a red wave of marines swarming over them, pulling him off his former bosun. Dance let them, and shook himself back to reason within their grip.

“That will do.” The blue-coated naval lieutenant drew his sword. “I’ll see the next man who moves flogged.”

Dance stilled in the arms of the two marines who flanked him, but he did not take his eyes from Ransome. “Mr. Ransome has a very convenient way of twisting the truth to suit his own needs.”

Ransome smiled, and muttered low, “The truth will be as I say. And you can’t say otherwise.”

Of course he could. And would. And there was no court-martial in the world that would convict him of the murder of Captain Muckross. Not even if Jane was the only other witness left. But she had been on deck with him at the time. She had even thought it
her
fault.

Lieutenant Gibbs of HMS
Centaur
sheathed his sword, and looked from Dance to Ransome and back, clearly not knowing whom he ought to trust. So instead of relying on trust, he fell back on duty. “Escort both Captain Dance and Mr. Ransome back to the boats.”

Dance acted as if they hadn’t just effectively put him under armed guard. “Thank you, Lieutenant. As I was saying to you before Mr. Ransome accosted Miss Burke, Miss Burke is a conchologist with the Royal Society’s expedition, and is under my protection. And if we are to remove to your ship, she has various equipment and material that will need to be carefully transported back to the ship.”

The lieutenant frowned at Dance in confusion, but gave his order without even looking at the small encampment. “Have this gear packed up and taken to the boats.” He turned to regard Jane with something just less than respect, and Dance saw his error—he had just exposed her to the censure of all of these men by stating that she was not married, but under his protection. His mistress, they would all think.

Jane was still staring at the fire, and picking at the charred remains.

Dance lowered his voice, and addressed Lieutenant Gibbs again. “Miss Burke is my betrothed, sir, and as such I expect the navy’s courtesy to be extended fully to her.”

This time Gibbs looked from Dance to Jane and back, weighing this new information much as he had the last, and just like the last, he fell back on duty. “I will see to Miss Burke personally, sir, if you will go with my men.”

Dance took one last look at Jane, hoping that she would look at him and understand, hoping he would be able to tell her good-bye. But she was pulling charred books from the sand, and did not look at him. And so he did the only thing a king’s officer could do—he did his duty, and obeyed.

*   *   *

Immediately upon their arrival upon the deck of the third rate HMS
Centaur,
Dance was escorted—which was a very polite way of saying compelled under guard—to the captain.

Captain Sir David Douglas was a man Dance knew by reputation only—a veteran of twenty years’ seniority, and a frigate captain of some renown before being elevated to the position of Commodore of the Fleet working out of the Valparaiso station and promoted to the third rate. He had a reputation as a hard man who made up his mind quickly, and never looked back.

When Lieutenant Gibbs announced him as Captain Dance, he decided that discretion was probably the better part of valor with such a formidable commander, and corrected Gibbs. “Lieutenant Charles Dance, sir. Lieutenant Commanding.”

“Lieutenant Dance.” Sir David Douglas made his own correction. “You have given me a rather extraordinary amount of trouble these past days. I have been fishing what is left of your crew out of the Pacific.”

“My thanks, sir. How many of
Tenacious
’ s men did you recover?”

“
Centaur
has encountered only one boat thus far, with a single man, but I judged it best to search these waters for more. We were, of course, forced to alter our course to answer your signal.”

“Again, I thank you, sir.”

“Mr. Ransome, your bosun, provided your name. And the fact that
Tenacious
was lost.”

“Yes, sir, at approximately forty-one degrees latitude, and one hundred and eight longitude. Driven off the cape by a polar gale.”

“Ah. I see,” Sir David said, though his tone indicated the opposite—that he did not care to see or hear Dance’s account of the loss. “That is what this Ransome character said. But also that you had gone down with your ship.”

“It may have appeared so, sir, as I went back to save one of my passengers, my betrothed, Miss Burke, who is a naturalist—a conchologist—and a member of the Royal Society’s expedition. One of my crew had quite deliberately locked her in, and left her to drown.”

“Miss Jane Burke? Of the Devon Burkes?”

“I—” Dance was embarrassed to find he had no idea—only that her great-grandfather was the Duke of Shafton, wherever that was. He had never asked.

Sir David’s reaction was only slightly less than scathing. “Do you mean to tell me you do not know the family of your betrothed, sir?”

The accusation stung, and Dance felt his unshaven cheeks grow hot. “Miss Burke’s grandfather is Lord Thomas Burke, the son of the Duke of Shafton.”

“Of course he is—the Devon Burkes,” he reiterated. “Well, Lieutenant, you seem to have landed yourself in it.”

“Sir?”

“First losing your ship—your
ship,
sir—and now, ruining the reputation—for that is clearly what you have done to get yourself betrothed to the Duke of Shafton’s relation.”

Dance said the only thing he could think to say. “I did all I felt I could do to save the ship, sir.” The other, he would not venture to speak of, because the baronet was correct.

“Did you?” Sir David looked down the very great length of his nose at Dance. “But that is yet to be determined.”

Despite the fact that he had been expecting just such an outcome since the moment he had given the order to abandon ship, Dance felt his gut tighten into a knot. No matter that a formal inquiry was standard procedure after a ship was lost, it still felt as if his competence, as well as his integrity, were being questioned.

And it was. The captain looked hard at Dance, as if he were trying to assess his character at a glance.