A Scandal to Remember (5 page)

“Not on my part, sir.” Her voice gained strength, with only the tiniest trace of tremor and trepidation. “Or should you like to quiz me, to prove it so? Shall I fetch my pen and paper from my trunks, and draw you the Mollusca aggregating on the bottom of the hull?” At their blank looks she explained. “The barnacles there—
Lepas balanoides
as classified by Linnaeus in the last century. Which, by the way, I believe may be an incorrect classification, as to my way of observation, the animal shares more characteristics of Crustacea than Mollusca.” Miss Burke tipped up that alabaster chin as if she were knocking back a stiff belt of brandy.

Would that he could do the same.

But she was as potent as a belt of brandy just looking at her. Now that she had stolen the wind from Sir Richard’s sails, she stood firm, like the calm eye in the center of a hurricane, this tiny little woman, impervious to the havoc that was emanating from her like waves from a storm.

Poor Sir Richard was entirely buffeted back, almost into the arms of the three men who had gathered at his back. The assembled naturalists seemed to have been drawn up to the quarterdeck en masse by the dangerous threat of this small woman’s argument. “You believe
the great Linnaeus
to be incorrect?”

“Yes.” Miss Burke was undaunted by the man’s obvious alarm. “I have been working on the problem for quite some time now, and it seems to me that the necessary identifying and classifying characteristics ought to be—”

“Young woman,” Sir Richard cut in, his face ashen with repressed outrage. “I will not debate Linnaean classification with you!”

“Good.” Miss Burke was all tiny, unbending resolve. “Then I trust we shall need no further examination of my knowledge before I am allowed to take my place with the expedition.”

“It is impossible.” Here Sir Richard looked to Dance for confirmation. “See here, Lieutenant. Surely the Royal Navy will not allow this…”

Dance declined to partake of the man’s outrage—he had troubles enough of his own. “Don’t look to the Royal Navy, sir. As I told
Miss
Burke,
Tenacious
is responsible to the Royal Society for your party’s transportation to the South Seas, not for the makeup of your party.”

“But it is impossible.” Sir Richard was as tightly pursed and disapproving as a high church bishop.

“Nothing is impossible to the Royal Navy, sir.” The fact that he was going to take this coffin of a ship, and all the souls within it, out to sea as soon as may be was proof enough of both his and the navy’s obstinacy. And its idiocy.

Miss Burke nodded as if in complete agreement with the idiot obstinancy, but under the wide brim of her practical felt hat, her fair face had gone white with the strain, though now Dance was sure she would not do anything so missish as succumb to a swoon. Despite her small stature, she clearly wasn’t the type. She was clumsy and unworldly, yes, but far too intelligent and determined to ruin her slim chances with a maidenly display of womanly weakness.

Instead, she raised that undaunted chin. “I am not only
possible,
Sir Richard, I am
actual.
I
am
here.” She swept her shaky arm out toward the entry post. “That is my boat, with all of my collecting gear carefully stowed. I am the conchologist you invited to join this expedition. And I accepted that invitation. As you well know.” She all but shook the packet of letters in proof.

And despite her obvious trepidation, Miss Burke—tiny, adamant, intelligent Miss Burke—was now well and properly angry, though she only gave vent to it in the cuttingly precise tone of her voice. And the agitated tremor in her tightly clenched fist.

She had backbone, Dance would give her that.

And when Sir Richard made her no answer, she tipped that seemingly delicate chin up another notch, and included the cluster of men behind Sir Richard in the rising disdain of her gaze. “Your correspondence indicated you needed a conchologist to fulfill His Grace the Duke of Fenmore’s requirements for a full complement of naturalists on this voyage. And your correspondence furthermore gave me to understand that I was both your first choice, and the only conchologist you had invited to join this expedition.”

Sir Richard admitted the truth of her statement with ill grace, at the same time as he finally admitted the obvious. “Yes, but while that may be true, I must point out that your correspondence made no mention of the fact that you are
female.
”

Despite her tremulous anger, Miss Burke kept a cool head. “I did not consider the fact of my gender germane to our correspondence. I am a naturalist and a conchologist first, and a grown-up woman second. I take no more note of my own gender than I would of a mollusk’s.”

“Yet you should!” Sir Richard clung to his argument like one of the barnacles Miss Burke had described fouling the bottom of
Tenacious
’s hull. “Think of your family. Think of the scandal.”

But Miss Burke was as stubborn as Sir Richard, and hung on just as tenaciously as any barnacle. She raised that honey-dark, disdainful eyebrow. “Scandal? How can there be any scandal in collecting seashells for scientific cataloguing, sir?”

Sir Richard gaped at her, as if the reasons ought to be obvious to anyone with half a brain. “This is a voyage of some duration,” he blustered. “You will be away from your family. There will be hardships no doubt too great for you to bear.”

But Miss Burke had more than enough brain. Her smile was all intelligent, resolute pity. “As I assured you in my letter when you first wrote me last May, I am well aware of, and indeed I hope properly prepared for, the
hardships,
Sir Richard. I assure you, sir, I have not got to my age and level of experience without understanding both the physical rigor, and the painful sacrifices involved in proving myself both capable and successful. This is
not
my first collecting expedition.”

Dance almost admired her cool, intelligent persuasiveness. It was a balm to his cynical soul to watch her discompose Sir Richard so.

“Yes, yes, be that as it may, although you feel properly prepared,
we
do not. We have not planned on a young woman amongst us. I assure you we do not want to be remembered for a scandal.” Here Sir Richard made a sweeping gesture to induce the three men at his back.

Miss Burke spoke before any of them had time to concur. “If
we
are any good, we will be remembered for the quality of our science, sir, rather than any imaginary scandal.”

“Well said, Miss Burke.” The tall, bespectacled younger naturalist at the back of the small pack met Miss Burke’s eye, and even touched the brim of his hat in polite greeting. “Miss Burke seems to know her business, Sir Richard.” His voice was calm, and his tone measured and mild, but Sir Richard reacted as if he had been reprimanded, turning instantly to the fellow with obvious deference. “I, for one, see no reason why she might not join us if she is so prepared, for she is very clearly conversant on her subject. And surely she is old enough to make up her own mind?”

The moment the grave young man spoke, Dance felt the short hairs at the back of his neck bristle with hostility, much as they had with Ransome. Which was ridiculous. If this naturalist admired Miss Burke, as he so obviously did, and wanted to be her colleague, it was no business of Dance’s. He had more than enough trouble of his own without borrowing some from a lady scientist.

He flung his undisciplined mind back into work. “Pass word for the carpenter. I want a report on those repairs to the bowsprit.”

But his mind wasn’t on the bowsprit. It was on the dangerously intelligent Miss Burke. Because at the word of the bespectacled scholar, and with his own silent agreement,
Tenacious
was to be home to this tiny, resolute, pocket-sized spinster of a lady scientist for the next two years.

And he, Lieutenant Charles Dance, was going to have to leave her alone.

Damn him to hell. Because he could no more stop himself from admiring her than he could stop the captain from taking his drink. His palm instantly conjured up the feel of the taut curve of her body beneath the layers of dowdy woolen fabric. And it had not been one-sided—his fascination. He had not imagined her untutored response to his nearness. Nor the flare of awareness in her wide blue eyes.

He would have to take steps to keep her well away from him.

He turned to one of the men he had collected in Portsmouth—a ginger-haired, one-legged sailor he had known in his days aboard
Audacious
, and signed on to serve as a steward to the wardroom. “Punch, have Miss Burke’s dunnage stowed in my cabin.”

At his command, all of Miss Burke’s considerable aplomb vanished—she looked as pale and shocked as a virgin at an orgy. “Sir! I shall most emphatically
not
be sharing any accommodation with you.”

Dance did his level best not to let his normally wry sense of humor have its way. Nor did he allow himself to point out that she would be far better off with him than with anyone else, or with taking her chances with the crew.

He made himself touch his hat to her in a respectful manner before he spoke. But even he could hear the cynical amusement in his voice. “Fear not, madam. I mean for you to occupy it quite alone.”

Color streaked back into her cheeks, before the embarrassed flush spread downward across the pale neck like a swath of strawberry jam. “Forgive me my misapprehension,” she said. She put a gloved hand to her chest in a small attempt to reclaim her veneer of calm, and restore herself to order. “But there is no need to put yourself out, sir. I am sure the accommodations provided for the rest of the society’s scholars are more than adequate.”

“The accommodations on a frigate of war are never more than inadequate at best, even for men who are used to a life at sea, madam.” And for these landsmen from the Royal Society, Dance doubted that the simple, narrow cuddies partitioned off on the berth deck would provide any more comfort than a prison cell. “But I am afraid nothing else will do, madam. Nothing that will let me comport myself as an officer and a gentleman.”

No other cabin was as far removed and protected from general congress with the men, save the captain’s rooms—and there would certainly be no help from that quarter. But his reasons were not altogether gallant and altruistic—the first lieutenant’s cabin was both the largest of the officers’ cuddies, and the only one which had its own private head, as the privy was called in a ship. Keeping Miss Burke’s toilette entirely private would be best for her and the crew alike. The last thing he needed for the next two years was this little woman having to share her ablutions with fifteen-odd officers and naturalists.

“But where will you go?” she asked with that naïve forthrightness. And then blushed to the roots of her fair hair. “I mean that I should not like to discommode you in any way, Lieutenant. I should have no other accommodation but that which the other members of the expedition have been given.”

“Madam, I take leave to advise you that only my cabin will do.” He repeated his order to the one-legged old servant. “Punch, please see Miss Burke’s trunk stowed in my cabin, and have my dunnage removed to—”

Here Dance faltered for a moment, not wanting to upset the delicate sense of seniority, especially with the entrenched warrant officers, like Ransome, whose cabins were tucked just outside the wardroom on the berth deck. He had allocated all the free cabins for the Royal Society men before he had gone ashore, but now there was Lieutenant Able Simmons as well as himself to find accommodation.

“Just move my bloody dunnage out of Miss Burke’s way,” he muttered to the steward before he spoke to her. “Punch will take your personal chests to your cabin.”

The tiny woman opened her mouth to tax him with something else, when she was saved from the necessity by the tall, solicitous, spectacle-wearing scholar.

“Miss Burke? If I may be so bold? I might press upon Sir Richard for an introduction, but under the circumstances…” He smiled charmingly, damn him. “Mr. Jackson Denman, another member of your expedition. I would be happy to show you the way to the wardroom.”

So Mr. Jackson Denman knew the way, and knew enough to call the officers’ quarters the wardroom. Dance hated him already.

Especially when Miss Burke’s cheeks warmed with a new color—a rosy glow that had nothing of embarrassment or indignation.

And Dance’s gut twisted with uncalled-for jealousy.

He ought to be rejoicing. He ought to be glad that the scholar had so openly staked his claim to her. Spinster or no, it would wreak havoc among his men were they not to think of her as “taken” or under the protection of some one of the gentlemen. The bespectacled man was just the fellow for the job—just tall and physically imposing enough not to be an easy target for the men.

Not that it mattered to Dance.

Not at all. His job was the care of the ship, and the men. In that order. There was no room for any thoughts of females, spinsterish, blond, pink-cheeked or not.

None of his business at all.

“I thank you, Mr. Denman.” Miss Burke took the arm the scholar offered, but then—because fate was not yet done tormenting Dance—she addressed him again. “I should like to settle the stowage of my pinnace and equipment and stores.”

“The rest of your dunnage will be stowed below. And the pinnace”—she
would
call the little sailing craft by its proper, precise name—“will be sent in to the dockyard to sell, or be stored to await your return, so long as you are prepared to pay the hefty fees.”

“No, if you please.” Miss Burke’s white forehead pleated up under the brim of that hat, and she dropped Mr. Denman’s arm to hurry back to the rail, as if she—this tiny woman—might physically stop any of the crew from removing any of her gear. “My equipment and stores are most exactly stowed, so that there should be no shifting, damage, or wear.”

“Everything,” she repeated, “is most carefully stowed so that I may transport the whole of it to the shore, and have everything I need at the ready once we reach the South Seas. Oh, no, that crate houses the microscopic lens, which is extremely fragile and—”