Almost a Scandal (18 page)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but her head hurt like thunder. She felt as if her skull were being pounded in by a caulking mallet, until the dull throbbing in her temple consumed every other sense. Almost every other sense. The instinct to escape to the air was still as strong as ever.

If Pinky’s bemused look and tutting were any indication, her cheek must be purpling up nicely, although her eye didn’t appear to be swelled shut, as she could still see. But she wanted fresh air. She couldn’t stand still long enough to accept any more of Pinky’s ministrations than the cool, brine-soaked rag he pressed carefully to her cheekbone.

“I can’t like the looks of that.” Pinky’s face pruned up in disapproval. “What you need is a good beefsteak on that.”

As if there were fresh beefsteak to be had on board. As if the hold carried an icehouse, and as if the closest thing to fresh beefsteak weren’t overboiled stew meat, or leathery strips stored dry in barrels. And she didn’t need a beefsteak. She needed cool, clean air. She felt as if she would strangle from the lack of air in the cockpit.

“Leave off, Pinky.” She shoved herself to her feet. “I’ll be fine. Save your breath to cool your porridge,” she joked as she left him, still muttering imprecations under his breath.

She kept the rag over her eye as she ascended to the quarterdeck. The sky was overcast, with a flat gray light over the sea. They must be close to the north coast of France for the heat of the land to cause such haze. At the gangway, Sally took a moment to orient herself. They appeared to be tacking southeast by south, close-hauled on the larboard tack with the wind out of the east. She took a sniff of the breeze, to see if she could detect any shore smells, but so close to the deck, her nose was still full of the funk from below. Perhaps when she was in the top she could pinpoint her location more exactly. It was always fun to make a mental guess and then check her calculations from the noon sighting to see if she were right.

Sally climbed to the foretop before the changing of the watch. The smooth familiarity of the ropes beneath her hands, the rhythmic creaks and groans of the arthritic spars, and the quiet chill of the morning air were just what she needed to clear her head. And to think. It had seemed such a simple thing last night to resolve to make a study of Mr. Gamage, but in the harsher light of morning, it was more difficult to sort out how to get around her own feelings of ambivalence to the man, as well as his own antipathy for helping himself.

But that dilemma was too hard. She had much rather keep track of Mr. Colyear, wearing a tattoo on the deck below, and think of more ways to talk to him again. And touch his hand.

Eight bells rang out, signaling the end of the morning watch and the beginning of the next. The topmen who had served through the night went down to find their breakfast as they were relieved by their replacements on the next watch.

“Morning, Mr. Kent.” Willis tugged his forelock in greeting when he reached the masthead. “That’s a right ‘beaut,’ as the sporting fancy would have it,” he added, pointing to her cheek.

“I believe I’m supposed to say, ‘You should see the other fellow,’” she joked.

“Would the other fellow be Mr. Gamage, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

“No. I’m sorry, Willis.” She had not forgotten Willis’s split lip, courtesy of Mr. Gamage, but she was conscious of Mr. Colyear’s warning’s as well. “But I don’t think Mr. Gamage will be giving you any more trouble, so you can put him from your head.”

“That’s all right then, Mr. Kent. I heard
all
about it.”

Oh, devil take her. It was a small world, a ship. Although it did feel good to know she had her division’s approval, for however long it lasted. But she couldn’t let it go to her head. She had work to do. Work that didn’t include gazing stupidly at Mr. Colyear.

So Sally got back to the job at hand, and cast her gaze over the miles and miles of rolling sea. Anywhere but at Mr. Colyear. Anywhere but at the man who loomed so large in every thought from her head and every sigh from her lungs. Anywhere.

But as she was looking anywhere but at Mr. Colyear, her eye was caught by a flash of color passing in the spray racing along the hull of the ship. She looked again, narrowing her eyes against the glare off the water from the white haze of the overcast sky, until she saw it again, a bobbing speck of color. Orange color.

It was an orange peel.

Her heart began kicking hard against her chest, but she kept her eye on the water, moving down onto the futtock shrouds, to get a closer look and try to find another.

“Willis,” she called over her shoulder as she descended. “If you would give me leave—” She didn’t wait for his answer, but climbed lower still, hanging out off the shrouds, searching the water off the larboard gangway.

“Mr. Kent?”

At the larboard fore chains she saw another peel bobbing along the current, some twenty yards off. “Willis,” she called back up. “Do you see that, Willis?”

“Bit of garbage?” he returned. “Orange, is it, sir?”

“Get a glass on it. Search forward for more!”

In another moment the sharp-eyed topman called back. “There, sir. And there. Two points off the bow.”

“Well done, by God. Deck!” She turned back, but the contrary wind kept her voice from reaching Mr. Colyear on the quarterdeck.

A large form blocked her passage. “What do you think you’re doing, Kent? Get back aloft.”

“Mr. Gamage!” He seemed to have made a remarkable recovery from his unfortunate acquaintance with the Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper powder. And this would make it up to him. “Mr. Gamage, pray be so good as to report to Mr. Colyear that you’ve sighted garbage floating off the larboard bow. Orange peels! Look.”

Gamage looked, but what he could see was entirely different from what Sally saw. “Garbage? What’s next? A report that you’ve sighted a fish?”

“Only if it were a toasted sardine. Gamage, don’t you see?”

He didn’t. No one saw. Not even Willis, who was staring down at her as if she’d taken leave of every last one of her senses. But Col would see. And understand.

She would bet her soul that her Mr. Colyear would know the significance of those peels in a heartbeat. And she wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to help Gamage find his way out of the pit of his stupidity.

But he blocked her way. “Don’t think you’re going to make a fool of me again, Kent!” he ground from behind his teeth. “We have a score to settle, you and I.”

“Mr. Gamage?” It was Mr. Colyear’s voice, a piece of bland perfection, as if he were merely taking a turn about the deck for air, supremely uninterested.

“Mr. Kent is away from his duty, sir.”

“True, Mr. Gamage. Care to explain, Mr. Kent?” When Gamage stepped out of the way, Mr. Colyear took one look at her and swore magnificently. “Fuck all. What happened to you?”

She waved his concern away impatiently. There were more important things than a bruise, devil take it all. “Compliments of the foretop, Mr. Colyear. Willis and I have seen orange peels—
Valencia
orange peels, I should reckon—floating by on the current west by south off the larboard bow, sir. I thought to get a bucket upon the flotsam to see if there’s anything more.”

Gamage made a sarcastic scoffing noise. “You’ve wasted enough of Mr. Colyear’s time, Kent.”

“If you please, Mr. Gamage.” Mr. Colyear’s voice regained its usual low, smooth rumble, but Sally could feel his interest, the strange intense ferocity building behind its walls, as he turned those unfairly intelligent eyes to her. “Spanish oranges?”

He understood. Sally let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Her words came out in a tumbled rush. “I think it could be smaller, a
tangerine,
from the look of it. I came down to see if I could get it with a net, or a bucket off the side.”

Another noise of derision spewed from Gamage before he sneered, “I doubt Mr. Colyear has the time to be interested in fishing for garbage.”

“Ah, but I am, Mr. Gamage. And so should you be.”

Oh, Gamage felt it now, the careful intensity of Mr. Colyear’s regard. The older man stepped back a bit and the tic of his lip proved he was already regretting the fact that he had called that focused regard down upon himself.

“See to it, Mr. Kent,” Col instructed.

Sally scrambled for the side, calling to one of the idlers on the forecastle deck, who were no doubt beginning to gather at the prospect of another famous set-to between herself and Gamage, to assist with a rope and bucket.

“Perhaps it might interest you to know, Mr. Gamage,” Col continued in that ironically calm tone, “that
tangerines
are winter fruit, grown in North Africa. In Tangiers. Hence the name.”

He paused to see if this information would have any effect upon the hearer, before he continued. “They are also grown in
Spain
. Ah, thank you, Mr. Kent,” he added as Sally brought the small bit of peel out of the bucket and presented it to him. “It should be well known the dons carry winter oranges, such as Mr. Kent has offered us, as provisions against disease. So the garbage does interest me, Mr. Gamage, because, as Mr. Kent has no doubt already surmised, it has undoubtedly floated off a Spanish ship somewhere nearby. You will, of course, remember we are actively engaged in a search for just such ships? Mr. Gamage?”

By now Gamage had paled considerably, his face ashen except for two bright patches of high color in his cheeks. Even he must know Mr. Colyear did not say anything lightly and as a result was all the more terrifying for the matter-of-fact manner in which he spoke. There was plenty of irony in his humor, but no hidden meaning. He said what he meant and meant what he said. No wonder his captain valued him. No wonder he unnerved Gamage.

“Good.” Col went on in his deep, easy, unbreakable voice. “Perhaps you’ll want to think next time before you berate a junior midshipman, Mr. Gamage. Mr. Kent, have you finished those complicated calculations of time and tide and speed of current you are no doubt making in your capacious brain yet?”

Sally swallowed her thrill at having gotten the best of Gamage. Mr. Colyear was doing her a favor, subtly reminding her that finding the enemy was far more important than a temporary triumph over Gamage. “I haven’t the gauge of the current, but the tide has already turned and is flowing northeast by north. If the current is anything under five knots, then the dons are somewhere along the coast to the southwest, and likely headed south to the Atlantic coast of France.”

“A safe enough assumption, but good. If you please, Mr. Kent, go make your report to the captain. He’ll want to know.”

She tugged the brim of her hat and did her best to control her smile.

“Honored, sir. Willis has been tracking it, sir. To see if he can get a better idea of the tide. Shall I go back—”

“No. I’ll take his report.” He canted a look up at the masthead to see Willis scanning the water with his glass. “You report to the captain.”

Col was giving her the triumph of telling the captain of her discovery herself. Generous man.

She went directly to the captain’s cabin. “Compliments of Mr. Colyear. He and the lookout have sighted garbage from a Spanish ship.”

“Which is?”

“Oranges, sir. Willis is endeavoring to track it on the current, sir.”

“Excellent. Come with me, Kent.” Captain McAlden removed directly to his cabinet from whence he immediately chose a rolled chart, which he opened upon his table.

“The devil of a thing for a Spanish ship to be this far north. But whatever ship these oranges came off, we will find it. If this blasted fog will ever clear away.” He scowled out the stern gallery windows at the gray blanket of heaven, as if by sheer force of will he could burn off the offending weather.

And then he was back to the charts, one finger instantly pinpointing their current position, while the other ran westward along the inked line of the coast. “He’ll be hiding inland, as close to the coastline as possible to hide the spars and rigging against the dark of the land.”

The silhouette of a ship stood out much more starkly and clearly at sea than against the visual backdrop of the land. But he was looking at the flat map, tracing his hand along the chart as if he could see tides and winds and moving water beneath his hands. There was a moment of stillness, and his eyes narrowed at a point she could not see. He had made his decision.

“Thank you, Mr. Kent,” he said as he jammed his hat on his head. “And get back to your top.”

Sally did not need to be told twice. She held the door for her captain and followed him to the deck, where he gave orders to change course, tacking due south toward the coast of France. “And a guinea to the man who first sights her.”

By the time Sally had regained her place at the foremasthead, Willis had already rearranged his sharpest-eyed men to best advantage along the foremast yards, and they followed the trail of garbage long enough to get a sense of the Spanish ship’s course. As the forenoon wore on, the wind freshened out of the east, pushing them down Channel, and the sun began to burn off the worst of the fog until they could sight the coast of Brittany off the larboard bow.

Sally could feel the strain, the tension in the air, as if it were a physical thing. Her eyes began to feel gritty and ache. “I’m beginning to see things,” she muttered to Willis.

“You may be.” Willis kept his eyes moving. “The trick, sir, isn’t to look for a ship, but to look for ocean without any ships. If you’re looking for what is there, what you expect to be there, your brain will find the thing that’s different. I look for the ocean if I want to find a ship.”

It was brilliant in its simplicity. “Devil save you, Willis. You could give training to the whole fleet.”

“Nothing most of the fleet doesn’t already know. Had it from the captain of my top when I first went aloft. Saved my hide a time or two. And made me a fine guinea or two as well.”

“I tell you what, Willis. I’ll match the captain’s guinea if any man of this foremast sights the ship. And I’ll split a guinea with the whole division if we sight it before any of the other masts.”