A Scandal to Remember (6 page)

And then the confounding little woman actually went over the side, back down the batten ladder on the side of the hull—with a great deal more agility than she had shown on her way up—and started directing the sailor who was unlading the boat. “That lens must stay exactly as I had it. Exactly. The boat must be taken aboard as a whole.”

“Madam,” Dance called down to her. “Miss Burke—”

But Miss Burke was oblivious, and bending over in the bottom of the boat, delving underneath a tarpaulin, and giving him, despite the cover of her cloak, an absolutely spectacular view of her backside.

And he was not alone in his admiration. Half of the crew was gaping over the rail. A crewman loosed a raucous whistle of a catcall.

It was all Dance could do to keep himself from striking the man. “Damn your eyes, Mercer,” he growled. “You’re not in a dockside tavern. Keep your eyes inboard. Find work or I’ll find it for you.”

In any other circumstance, he would have admired her, this buttoned-up lady scientist. Miss Jane Burke might have been just his type—a shapely little pocket Venus of a woman. And as English as a summer rose, with her fair skin and hair, and light blue eyes the color of the sky on a fair day. No matter if she were as naïve and buttoned up as a buttercup. She had backbone.

But he was going to spend the next two years keeping his eyes, and especially his hands, to himself.

Fuck all.

There was nothing he could do but wade into her fray. Dance dropped down into the pinnace. “Miss Burke, kindly leave the disposition of the cargo to me and my crew. You will do yourself an injury here.”

“But everything is stowed just so.” Her voice had gained insistence. “The microscope and hand lenses are packed in wicker crates with straw,” she was explaining with something more than insistence—with a sort of soft, quiet passion. “And the colored india ink as well. I’ve calculated everything quite precisely.”

Well, of course they were. Of course she had. With her mouth pursed up like that she looked the sort to have calculated everything quite precisely.

But above at the rail, Dance could see the men taking snide pleasure in their lieutenant’s being confounded by one tiny little woman. Damn their eyes.

And damn his own too. He could not spend the entirety of the afternoon watch dealing with this aggravating spinster naturalist, no matter her dancing wide blue eyes, or enchanting smile. Not if he wanted to keep order upon his ship, and get the bloody expedition put to sea before winter.

“Rest assured that your equipment will be stowed quite carefully in the hull, madam. I don’t like to have extra weight at deck level. We can’t afford anything that pulls this vessel out of trim.” The ship had problems enough with her trim as it was. Though why he was even explaining himself to this bluestocking spinster, and in front of his crew, was beyond him. He might just as well talk to the wind for all the understanding he was like to get from her.

“But I’ve made calculations,” she protested.

To stop her, Dance broke his new-made rule, and simply put his hands upon her slender shoulders, and turned her physically back to the ladder, which he quickly scaled. And before she could say or do anything to stop him, he reached down through the entry port, grasped her wrist, and hauled her topside.

She came as readily as a fish on a line, and he caught her against his chest for a moment before she could gain her own two feet.

“My goodness,” she breathed.

Yes, that was the way to deal with her—manhandle her until she was too breathless to speak.

But the moment he put her down, she stymied him again, the damn intelligent girl. She fished around beneath the bloody cloak, and produced a notebook with what appeared to be a full page of mathematical equations for determining the weight of the laden vessel, as well as what appeared to be a diagram of how she had stowed the equipment in the hull of the pinnace. “But I’ve calculated everything most precisely.”

If he weren’t so put out at her, he would be impressed. And he couldn’t afford to be impressed.

“Miss Burke, I am not about to hoist your boat upon the davits just to test your theoretical calculations. This is a frigate-of-war, madam. No matter our peaceful scientific mission, we carry armament. The weight of guns must be taken into account.”

She looked at the thirty-two-pounder carronades lining the quarterdeck. “The pinnace can’t possibly weigh as much as even one of your guns.”

As if a little pocket Venus of a bluestocking woman knew the first thing about naval armament. The thought shocked whatever gentlemanly sensibilities or instincts he still possessed right out of his system. “And do you know the weight of that thirty-two-pounder carronade, Miss Burke? Or that of the eighteen-pounders lining the gun deck? Over forty-six hundred pounds per gun, Miss Burke. Over fifty-six thousand pounds to be kept in delicate balance. And then you will need to make another calculation to add the weight of the gun carriage, and the weight of the canvas and cordage stowed below and above deck. And the force of the wind that will try to tip this vessel to heel over until her beam ends are awash. Have you made that calculation, Miss Burke?”

“Oh. No, but—”

“I thought not, madam. I shall not presume to tell you anything about whether barnacles are Crustacea or Mollusca, so pray don’t try to tell me anything about ships or boats. Be so good as to let me do my job without any interference from you.”

Chapter Four

“Yes. Of course. My apologies, sir.” With that righteous blast singeing her cheeks, Jane swallowed the dry dust of her embarrassment. For a moment or two she had thought the lieutenant just might be her wry ally, if not her actual friend. But clearly, she had used up whatever goodwill she had at first engendered. “If you would be so kind as to inform me of your final dispensation of my equipment and stores, I would be most obliged.”

Thankfully, that took some of the steel out of his cutting tone. But only
some
. “I will. And if you would be so kind as to remove yourself from my quarterdeck, and the risk of any further bodily harm, I will get on with doing just that.”

“Of course.” Jane could not get away fast enough. But the moment she lifted her foot to step over the combing and move down the ladder, she tripped on the edge of her cloak, and managed to collide with two sailors who happened to be coming upward. “Oh! I beg your pardon.” She regained her balance, and collected herself enough to berate herself for being so awkward and so out of place upon the perilously steep stairs.

But the sailors took advantage of the moment, brushing brazenly against her body with their hands. One of them even laughed, “’Tis
our
pardon, miss.”

“Carey. Mains. Damn your eyes.” The lieutenant’s put-upon growl cut across the deck like a lash, yet Lieutenant Dance’s hand at her elbow was restrained—gentle even. “Miss Burke, if you would, please?”

The lieutenant’s steadying escort took her safely past the men, and downward, farther into the dim depths of the ship, to the foot of a very steep ladder. Jane was nearly out of breath from their swift descent, but the lieutenant was entirely unaffected. “The wardroom is aft, madam. You’ll be safer from molestation here, away from the men. Just follow Punch. And of course”—he touched the brim of his hat—“Mr. Denman.”

Jane swallowed around the mortifying breathlessness that seemed to happen every time he touched her—which was more often in the past twenty minutes than in the whole twenty and six previous years of her life. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Miss Burke. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us.” The lieutenant’s dark eyes seemed to settle into her, as if he could see every one of her fears and misgivings writ large across her face. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

The gentle gruffness in his voice was almost her undoing. But it wasn’t her mind that needed changing. It was her life. The life of managing other people’s lives, and other people’s dreams. Of being taken for granted, and thought less than nothing.

No. She would not change her mind. She would not go back.

She would cast her own shadow for better or for worse, but she would make her own choice—she would choose to be brave. “I thank you for your concern, Lieutenant. But I have already kept you too long from your ship.”

“You have. See that it doesn’t happen again.” But he smiled as he said it, that wry smile that curved up one side of his face. And with that gently cryptic warning, and a quick tug on his hat, he disappeared back up the ladder to the open part of the deck above, calling his orders as he went. “Hoist those davits. Carey, unstep that mast. Mains, get a line on— Why the devil hasn’t that line been replaced? It’s as worn as an old shoe and liable to give way. Get me Ransome. I want that pinnace dismasted and swayed up aft, where it will be out of the bloody way. You there—”

The lieutenant strode out of hearing, and was gone.

Jane felt the first cautious easing of the tingling excitement that had stolen into her lungs, and made her breath come short and fast. There. She could breathe now. It was done. She had managed—not elegantly or without trouble, but it was done. She had been brave, and she was come aboard.

Her shortness of breath had everything to do with achieving her long-sought, carefully planned-for goal. It had nothing to do with the lieutenant and his nearness. Nothing.

In front of her, the steward Punch hoisted her large trunk over his shoulder as if it were made of feathers, though he had only one good leg—the other was fashioned of a wooden peg. But he seemed to manage easily enough, leading his hopscotching way into the dark and increasingly dank hull.

Jane was still clutching her packet of letters, her talisman of both her right to come aboard, and her lie. Which wasn’t really a lie. She was J. E. Burke. She was a conchologist. She had drawn each and every specimen in the handsome folio edition of
The Conchology of Britain
. Just as she would draw each and every specimen in the book that would result from this voyage. But this time, she would do all the work
and
get all of the credit.

Yes. She could do this. She could adapt and survive two years completely on her own, away from every comfort and every person who cared for her. She could endure the hardships as easily as she had assured Sir Richard she would. She would. Nothing could stop her.

Nothing but the overwhelming smell of men.

It was almost like a living thing, the funk that hovered between the decks. And while they passed along this lower deck, a great number of the crew seemed to have stopped their work to stare at her as she followed the steward aft through the hull. Despite Mr. Denman’s presence in front of her, the crewmen actually crowded closer to stare at her openly, as if they had never seen a woman before.

Surely not? Hadn’t the sailor Mercer said there had been whores aboard just this morning? But perhaps it were best not to think of that particular incident, though Jane did clutch the folds of her cloak securely in the hopes that she did actually look too superannuated and parsonish to be taken for a whore.

Oh, heavens. How on earth was she to endure two years of
that
? Surely they should get used to her? Or perhaps it was she who had to get used to them?

“Here y’are, miss.” The steward led her and Mr. Denman through a batten door, whereupon he turned up a lamp, and moved toward the end of the line of doors to one side of the neatly organized space.

“Thank you, Mr. Punch,” she answered. “And where exactly is here?”

The room was almost entirely fitted out in oak and canvas, with every inch of space carefully allotted. The lantern hung over a table situated in the center of the room and was fitted directly into the backside of one of the great masts that rose up through the decks.

“Oh, not mister,” the steward answered. “Just Punch, miss. This be the gunroom, or wardroom, if you like, miss. Officer’s quarters. Best there is next to the captain’s.” He gave her the information as if it were a great compliment, and opened the last small canvas and wood-framed door to show her inside with a flourish like a conjurer’s trick. “This be the first lieutenant’s cuddy, miss. Bigger’n the rest. If you’ll give me a minute, miss. I’ll have the lieutenant’s dunnage shifted out of your way.”

“Thank you.” She moved closer so she might have a look inside the place that was to be her home for the next two years, but all she could see was the steward balling up linens to tuck under his arm. “Are you quite all right? May I offer you any help?”

“Bless you, miss, no. I’m spry enough, with me peg. I’ve had the peg now for longer’n I ever did have the leg.” He chuckled. “No trouble for me at all, miss.” But then he stopped, and looked up at her. “That is, if it isn’t a bother to you, miss. Have you brought someone to do for you, miss?”

“No. I—I haven’t.” The thought had not occurred to her to have her own personal servant. She had always been the servant, the quiet assistant. She had always planned and arranged and worked for her father. She had been the one to make the measured drawings of each and every specimen. She had been the one who made the precise observations in careful notes. She had arranged each and every collecting expedition, and combed each beach and tidal pool for shells. She had done it all, without one lick of the credit. But that would be changed now.

She had changed it.

Which gave her a convenient answer of sorts. She would use her father’s excuse, when he had declared she was too delicate, too prone to asthmatic fits to undertake the voyage. “My assistant was unable to come due to her health.”

“Oh, aye.” The steward bobbed his gingered head in easy acceptance of her lie. “So you’ve no one, no servant to fetch and look after you, like?”

She had never had a personal servant to fetch and look after her at home. She had never been attended to. Her mother did have a lady’s maid to dress her, but Jane had always been the one to see to everything else. Just as she had always seen to herself.

She had fancied herself to be quite self-sufficient—above the infantizing need for assistance in matters of dress and menial work—but she could see that this steward pitied her for it, and perhaps even thought less of her as a result. “Have all the other members of the expedition brought servants with them?”