A Scandal to Remember (43 page)

The deck was cleared forward of the stern cabin to admit the number of people necessary—Admiralty clerks and personal servants to the sitting captains, as well as the witnesses, who were kept out of Dance’s sight in the wardroom below.

But the gathering was surprisingly small. When Sir David saw Dance’s gaze taking account of the smallness, he growled, “I want the senior services’ dirty laundry aired to as few people as possible. I want this over and done with quickly.”

Dance could only hope the baronet’s speed would not involve a rush to judgment against him, but there was nothing he could do but stand as documents and orders were shuffled, clerks put pens to ink, and the charges were read against him.

“In the matter of the loss of His Majesty’s Ship
Tenacious,
frigate, sixth rate.” Sir David looked up from the document in front of him. “Lieutenant Charles Dance, acting captain, by the death of Captain Muckross. By storm, was it, Lieutenant?”

Dance couldn’t read the intention in Captain Douglas’s careful voice. “By storm, and neglect, sir.”

“Neglect, sir? Do you accuse yourself?”

Dance swallowed his oath and set his course. “Partly, sir,” he admitted, and hoped to hell he hadn’t damned himself. But the truth would out one way or another. But he had to go carefully. Any hint of disloyalty, or accusing a senior captain who was no longer there to defend himself, would not sit well with such post captains as were seated to judge him. Best to take the responsibility upon himself, and hope the truth would out. “I had thought I did all I could to see
Tenacious
brought into a state of readiness and repair, but I understand now that I could have done more as her lieutenant. But I failed then in my duty to convince Captain Muckross of the seriousness of the vessel’s state of disrepair.”

One of the other captains—a middle-aged man Dance had never encountered before—asked, “When did you come to this ship?”

Dance answered the question factually, and there was a little back-and-forth among the panel as to his particulars and record of service, before Dance thought it would behoove him to mention, “
Tenacious
was a Leda-class frigate, sir, built of pine using Mr. Josiah Brindley’s patent method of construction, without lodging and hanging knees, using instead iron fastenings and iron knees.”

That information had all the effect he might have liked, for the captains’ expressions turned sour in commiseration—it was well-known that pine rotted much more quickly than oak.

“And you say that it was under your orders that the ship was put to repairs?”

“Under my orders, and under considerable weight to my own purse. Upon a week of my arrival, the purser, Mr. Givens, absconded with
Tenacious
’s accounts.”

“The devil,” Lord Douglas murmured as he flipped the papers in front of him. “This fact has not yet been mentioned.”

The more vocal member of the panel spoke up. “Clearly there is a great deal more to this affair than has been mentioned—there is an accusation of murder.”

Dance forced his face to impassivity—he had known that Ransome was his enemy, and had accused him of the murder before, in front of Lieutenant Gibbs. But Dance had held out hopes that the bosun would think better of fabricating such a lie. Because it was a hanging offense, and it was a blow that knocked the wind from his lungs to hear it spoken so plainly.

“May I hear that charge, sir?”

Lord Douglas made a swift gesture of consent, and the clerk read out the charge. “Lieutenant Charles Dance stands accused of neglect of duty, abandonment of his post, and conspiring treason and murder against his captain, both as first lieutenant of the ship
Tenacious,
and acting as her captain.”

He asked even though he knew the answer. “Who makes this charge?”

“The boatswain, George Ransome,” answered the clerk.

It was all as predictable as a Covent Garden broadsheet. Ransome was called, and rolled in looking chastened and concerned and deeply respectful of the impaneled officers. He knuckled his forehead to each of them in turn, and acted almost reluctant to speak against Dance.

“I take no pleasure in it, your lordship.”

“Yes, Mr. Ransome.” Sir David was both pleased and impatient at this show of servility. “So you said. But I should like for the benefit of my fellow adjutants, if you would repeat for the court the accusations you lodged against your superior officer, Mr. Dance.”

Ransome laid it out meticulously, accusation after accusation—Dance’s preempting of the captain’s will to hire his own men, Dance’s setting sail against the captain’s advice, his captain’s accusations of treason, Dance’s insistence that no one see the captain’s body, and his command, against the advice of all others, to take them into the teeth of the storm. It was all there, fact after fact. And yet none of it was the truth.

“He’ll say different.” Ransome pushed his chin toward Dance. “I’ll be bound he does. But there’s no one left as can say otherwise. He’s got rid of them all. Wrecked or killed. And he destroyed his logbook in the fire when we found him. So’s there wouldn’t be any evidence against him.”

Dance was both astonished at the man’s audacity, and enraged at his cleverness in arranging it all so damningly. There was only one thing he could say that would not feed into the half-truths and innuendo that the bastard had set up. “I did not destroy my logbook, sir. I was with Lieutenant Gibbs at the time, and whatever was destroyed, I do not believe it was my log, which is with the rest of the material that Mr. Gibbs had packed up from our time on the island.”

“Our?” The post captain to the right of Sir David narrowed his eyes. “Were you not alone when
Centaur
found you?”

Ransome made a snide sound of delight, but before the bosun could say anything derogatory about Jane, Sir David cut him off with a withering eye, and a firm command. “Pass word for Lieutenant Gibbs to search for that logbook. Now.” He refocused his gaze upon Dance. “How long were you in command of
Tenacious
before she was lost? With nearly all souls, I might add.”

“I was in command for twelve days, as captain, sir, though I had all the responsibilities of the command from the moment of weighing anchor in Portsmouth. To my knowledge the captain only came out of his cabin once during all of the time I was aboard.”

“That’s a lie,” Ransome countered.

“It is the truth.” Dance kept his voice calm, but it sounded more weary than he had intended. But in for a penny, in for a bloody pound. “The captain had been going slowly blind. His eyesight had deteriorated to the point where he could barely see. I believe this was the reason that he killed himself, because he was found out.”

“Blind?” Sir David was something between astonished and angry at such an inconvenient charge.

The shrewd post captain to Sir David’s right sat back in his chair. “So we have the opposing word of two men, one an officer and the other a warrant, and no other way to verify either of their testimony?”

“I am sure that my log will confirm the truth of my testimony,” Dance averred.

“There is no log,” Ransome repeated.

“But the loss of the vessel—” Sir David began.

“Pine-built, Leda-class. I wouldn’t have wanted to go round the Lizard”—the sharp post captain waved his arm in referring to the legendary rock of the south coast of England—“much less round the Horn. And you effected repairs on a lieutenant’s pay?” He looked to Dance to answer.

“And what I had saved in prize money, sir.”

“And you spent how much?”

Dance swallowed over the uncomfortable reminder. “All I had, sir. Or nearly all of some eight thousand pounds. I have not had a letter from my banker since I signed for oak in Recife. But I suspect he will be displeased.”

The post captain was rifling through the pages in front of him. “You were in what vessels before
Tenacious
?”

Dance gave his bona fides. “Midshipman in
Audacious,
sir, under Captain McAlden, who promoted me to
Swiftsure
with him as third lieutenant, and then with Captain Colyear, again in
Audacious
as second, before being promoted to first lieutenant back with Captain McAlden in
Irresistable,
as
Swiftsure
was renamed.”

“Which meant that you were made lieutenant when?”

“At Trafalgar, sir. In the year oh-five.” Dance took a very great risk bringing up that battle, as he knew Sir David had not been a part of it, and might resent the reminder.

But the sharp post captain sat back in his chair, and gave a satisfied nod. “Your captains must have valued you to promote you back and forth amongst themselves.”

“I hope I served them well, sir.”

But Sir David was not as impressed by Dance’s record. “Mr. Ransome here is a twenty-year veteran, as well, and has no marks against his service.”

“So two men, with two exemplary records—”

“I don’t know that I would say that Lieutenant Dance’s record is exemplary,” Sir David opined.

“I would,” the post captain responded shortly. “Not all of us share your insistence upon family and lineage, Captain Douglas.” The use of his rank rather than his title brought the point home. “Service and merit is what matters.”

The older captain on the other side of Sir David spoke up for the first time. “And we have two men, of unequal rank, with fine records of service from which we must choose, and weigh one man’s word against the other.”

“No,” said a quiet voice from the back of the room. “There is more.”

*   *   *

Jane had forced her way into the proceedings by the simple expediency of lying, and saying that she had been sent for by Sir David. Who did not look best pleased to find her interrupting his court.

“Young woman.” His eyes blazed at her over the top of his spectacles. “I have advised you that this is not the place for you. You ought to have taken that advice, for your family’s sake, if not your own.”

“My family, sir, would want me to do my duty in seeing justice served.”

“And who are you?” asked one of the captains sitting in judgment behind the table.

Jane tipped up her chin. “I am J. E. Burke, the conchologist.”

“And how are you concerned in this matter?”

“I was a member of the Royal Society’s expedition aboard
Tenacious.
And I come in support of the lieutenant. As do these officers.” She turned and indicated the empty space behind her, knowing full well that Lieutenants Simmons and Lawrence, as well as Mr. Whitely and Mr. Denman, had all been denied entry at the door, as potential witnesses were kept apart from the proceedings until they were called, while Jane had presumably been admitted on the grounds that she could not possibly be of any use, being both female and small. She was taking great pleasure in disabusing them of that notion.

And she did so, by going to the doors, and pushing them open to admit
Tenacous
’s officers. “These gentlemen come to testify in the lieutenant’s support as well.”

But Sir David was not done teaching her a lesson. “You were shipwrecked with the lieutenant, were you not? Alone on an island? Who is to say that your sensibilities were not turned by him? Especially in such harrowing, and forgive me, intimate circumstances.”

Jane could feel heat scalding her cheeks, and the hot pressure wrapping like a hand around her throat, threatening to choke off her air.

No. No. She would not succumb to it. She had outgrown such childish panic. And Dance was much more important than any threat of scandal—his very life was at stake.

She drew breath by force of will alone. If Sir David wanted a scandal, she would give him one to remember. “Intimate? What do you allege, sir? Surely your lordships can see that I am not the
type
of woman to have my sensibilities turned. I am not a green girl, my lord. I am a conchologist and a scholar. And Lieutenant Dance is a gentleman. But I do not invite you to take my word for it. I have brought you the evidence of the lieutenant’s log.”

*   *   *

It was a vast deal of time later before Dance’s pulse returned to normal. The adjutants had taken a great amount of time deliberating over the logbooks—Doc Whitely, Able Simmons, and Jack Denman all produced theirs, taken with each of them during the shipwreck—and closely questioning all those men.

“Do you mean, sir,” the sharp post captain probed Lieutenant Simmons’ testimony, “that both you, and the bow works, were deliberately attacked?”

“I do, sir. And I believe it was that man”—Simmons pointed his finger at Ransome—“who did so. I accuse him.”

Sir David’s straightforward case was going up in flames around him.

“It was Manning,” Ransome countered. “He’s the one. Locked Miss Burke in too. Wanted revenge on her for finding out about the captain.”

Sir David passed a hand before his eyes. “Finding out what, exactly?”

“That he were blind. And broke—” Ransome bit his answer off.

“And so the captain
was
blind, and did
not
take part in commanding his ship?”

“I never said—” Ransome began.

“Yes,” Dance countered in a stronger voice. “Yes. And while both Miss Burke and I can testify that Manning was indeed the one who locked her in, I find it curious that he should have tried to damage the ship and strike a superior officer. Especially as he is not here to defend himself. What happened to Manning, Mr. Ransome?”

“What happened to all the men in your gig, Mr. Ransome,” added Able Simmons, “when you quite deliberately ignored Mr. Whitely’s orders and took your boat apart from all the others?”

“Ignored orders?” Not even Sir David could overcome such an offense. “And who is this Manning?” He consulted the papers spread out before him.

“Steward to Captain Muckross,” Dance clarified. “I believe he took the captain’s suicide quite hard.”

Ransome leaped upon the idea. “Devoted to him, he were—as were we all—and crazed with grief. That’s why he coshed Mr. Simmons over the head with that lever, and locked in herself. Crazed.”

“And where is this Manning now?”