Almost a Scandal (3 page)

“I know you’re displeased—”

“At the moment … I’m not.” That laconic, almost-soft voice pushed up hard against the solid weight of the pause he took between the words. “You’re a dark one, Mr. Kent. But I think you might just do.”

Oh, but
he
was the dark one, because then he smiled and the corners of his mouth tipped down just enough to press dimples deep into the sculpted planes of his cheeks. It was a begrudging smile, but a smile nonetheless. She felt it unfurl slowly within her. The jangle of warning melted into a burst of pleasure that she felt all the way down to the tips of her sodden toes.

It made her want to say more, to tell him the number of sails and the square footage of canvas, to share her unbridled enthusiasm for the glorious thing that was this ship. Just so he might be impressed. Just so he might be tempted to let his mouth stretch open across his white teeth in one of the rare wide smiles she remembered, but had yet to see. Just so he might let loose with the booming cannon of his laugh she had heard that long-ago summer.

But he wasn’t going to be impressed.

Mr. Colyear had not gotten to the elevated rank of first lieutenant at the young age of four and twenty, under such a man as Captain McAlden, by being the kind of man who would be impressed with a dizzy, jabbering midshipman. A man as ambitious and careful with his career as Col would not let himself be taken in by such an obvious attempt to win his admiration. He would look beyond the extraneous recitation of facts and want to know the reason behind it. He would look at her more closely, more carefully, the next time, and he would not be so easy to fool when the light was better, or his vision was not obscured by the pouring rain.

If she were to carry this imposture off, she needed to steer clear of his admiration. She would have to curb every last impulse to attract his notice. She would have to remember duty, service, and family honor came before all else. She would have to keep her distance from the admirable, handsome, ambitious Mr. Colyear.

Her lovely, idiotic euphoria had certainly been checked by the cold grip of reality now.

“Your berth, Mr. Kent.” Mr. Colyear shouldered a short bulkhead door open. “Do make yourself as comfortable as you can.”

This time, Sally could hear the wry humor warming his tone. Comfort would not be an option. The cockpit was the mean, dark area set off at the sternmost portion of the lower deck, below the waterline, for the midshipmen to mess and hang their hammocks. The room Mr. Colyear showed her was as cramped and low as she had expected in a frigate, the space allocated to midshipmen being commensurate to their rank—nonexistent.

Two lone boys currently inhabited the small space. One was splayed in a hammock in the deep, openmouthed sleep of the young and completely exhausted, while the other sprang up from the narrow table in the center of the room, where he appeared to have been reading in the low wash of light afforded by the lantern hanging from the beam overhead. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Sally could discern Richard’s sea chest taking up space just inside the passageway, efficiently delivered by some unseen hand while Mr. Colyear had taken her to see the captain.

“Your fellow inmates include Mr. Jellicoe here.” Mr. Colyear gestured to the blond boy in the bright new blue coat—clearly his was not a hand-me-down—who was standing to attention at the table. “And Mr. Worth, I should think.” Mr. Colyear hooked a thumb in the hammock’s direction. “There are sure to be a few more young gentlemen, if the rats haven’t eaten them. Introduce yourselves. You’ve missed mealtime, Mr. Kent. As have I.” The emphasis in his quietly ironclad tone told her his trip to fetch her from the quay had been the reason. “But I’ll expect you to come on duty with the larboard division at eight bells of the afternoon watch. Understood?”

It was remarkable how a voice so even and disconcertingly calm could convey such implacable warning. “Aye, Mr. Colyear, sir. I’ll be on duty for the dog watch.”

There was a flicker of movement from his straight, dark brow that was all the reward and acknowledgment she was going to get for making it clear she was conversant with the watch and time-telling system. “Good. Because now, if you young gentlemen don’t mind, I’ve got a full load of powder to take on board.”

And with a final wry, glittering look that was still not quite a full smile, he backed out, shutting the bulkhead door behind him.

Sally wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that sagged through her quavering innards at his departure. Whatever it was, it allowed her to turn her mind to what came next. The dog watch didn’t commence until early evening, so Sally reckoned she could remain at leisure for at least an hour more before going on duty for the first time. It was more than enough time for her to get settled in and get the lay of things.

But the blond boy’s face contained nothing of her certainty. Poor lad. At least she knew what could be expected aboard ship. This must all be utterly new and confusing to him. She extended her hand. “Richard Kent. How do you do?”

Her greeting was met with only a tentative, wavering sort of smile. “William Jellicoe. Will. So you’re the missing Mr. Kent. I recognize you from the inn.”

Devil take Richard. Devil take him. Sally had thought he had kept to their room at the George Inn, preferring to retreat into his sad tome full of dreary sermons while she and Jenkins, the manservant her father had sent along to accompany them to Portsmouth, had completed the last of the necessary purchases for Richard’s dunnage, but who knew what her brother had gotten himself up to. Perhaps Will Jellicoe had even seen Richard as he made his escape, crawling out a window, or sneaking off on the post chaise. It was a small world, the navy.

“I’m sorry.” Sally waded in with vague politeness. “There were so many fellows there … I don’t quite recall…”

“I’m sorry I never got a chance to introduce myself. There were a lot of other boys there. It seems to have been a popular inn for naval officers.” His hand fiddled with the edge of his coat. “I was just afraid I might have offended you, when I offered to stand you a pint.”

Oh, the devil and all his nasty minions could take Richard. She could only imagine that Richard had informed Will Jellicoe trenchantly that he did not drink spirits. Or that twelve-year-olds ought not to be buying heavy drink in public houses.

“No, not at all. I hope you will forgive
my
manners. I had … something else weighing on my mind at the time. I’d be honored to call you Will. And you must call me Richard.”

God forfend anyone should call her Dickie. That would be too ironic even for her admittedly unrefined tastes.

“Thank you.” Will Jellicoe sank back down to the table with what she hoped was more equanimity than before. “I had no idea it was going to be like this.” He gestured to the cramped space with scattered, disorganized sea chests littering the floor. “It’s not at all as I imagined.”

The poor boy looked completely at sea, in more ways than one. While she might have her own concerns about what the devil she was going to do if she were caught impersonating her brother, at least she wasn’t so completely out of her element as Will Jellicoe seemed to be.

“Not to worry. I’m sure there will be a servant along presently, but we can set it all to rights in no time. How many of us are there?”

“Six, I think,” her new friend informed her. “That’s Ian Worth there, sleeping. Mr. Beecham is on deck with the watch and Mr. Dance is … something to do with signals, Mr. Colyear said. I think.”

“Are we all new?” What a raveled cat’s-paw that would be, with six midshipmen who didn’t know the way of things.

“No. Just the three of us, here. Mr. Lawrence—I think he is the third lieutenant—said Mr. Beecham and Mr. Dance joined
Audacious
on her last cruise, but I don’t know when that was. And then there’s Mr. Gamage.” Everything about Will Jellicoe’s heavy, resigned tone held a warning.

“And Mr. Gamage is…?” Sally prompted.

“Damien Gamage. He’s older than the rest of us. Older than even Mr. Colyear, and Mr. Horner and Mr. Lawrence, who are both third lieutenants, I think. Mr. Gamage has made it clear he’s very much senior here, and we’re to do his bidding.”

“What does he mean, his bidding? Does he mean to play the bully boy?” Already Sally could feel her blood rise against the indignity and injustice, though her stomach knotted in dread.

Her father had never tolerated such behavior aboard his ships, but Sally had heard enough talk from her brothers to know Mr. Gamage’s type—a man who had been midshipman for far longer than the allotted six years, and who had probably failed to pass for lieutenant. That made him in all likelihood stupid, and potentially mean. While she was sure that such an active and intelligent commander as Captain McAlden would put paid to such behavior, in the meantime she would watch her step with Gamage, and caution and advise Jellicoe on how to do the same.

“He’s starboard watch?”

Will shrugged with hopeless confusion. “Don’t know, but he’s up there now, with the others. And he didn’t sit to classes with the schoolmaster with the rest of us this forenoon—which is what they called the morning, which seems to have been what they called the night—although no one remarked upon it.”

“You’ll grow accustomed to it,” she assured him, “and I’ll help.” But there was another offense for Mr. Colyear to add to the list of her sins—she had missed the day’s mathematics and navigation lessons whilst waiting in vain for Richard.

But one problem at a time. “Right. Where’s Mr. Gamage’s dunnage?” At Will’s blank, uncomprehending look, Sally amended her question. “Where does he like to hang his hammock and store his sea chest? There?”

There was one sea chest stowed apart from all the others, taking up easily twice as much space as the others.

“I would guess that was his, though he did not say so,” was Jellicoe’s best answer. “Worth and I came in just as he was going on deck, and he did not introduce himself beyond shoving my face against the wall, when I made the intemperate mistake of looking at him.”

“Good Lord. Are you all right?” Sally was appalled. And for the first time, even a little afraid. The tangle in her stomach knotted up tighter. The threat of physical violence from a shipmate had never occurred to her. But Will Jellicoe and Ian Worth were both smaller than she was. They would be even more vulnerable. They needed protection.

It seemed she was going to have to swallow both her fear and her new-made vow to steer clear of Mr. Colyear to appeal to him on their behalf. He was sure to see to their defense. “Devil take the man. But the first thing we need to do is give this Mr. Gamage plenty of room and little to complain about.”

Sally fell to the piles of dunnage with her usual single-minded zeal. “The first thing you need to know about naval life is that it never pays to be idle.”

Will Jellicoe fell right in with her. He was an energetic helper, and made logical suggestions while they sorted out the sea chests and various storage boxes. What was more, he kept a good humor throughout the exercise, even while young Ian Worth, who looked to be a very young twelve, slept on, oblivious to their exertions.

“I’d rather shift his lot,” Will said with matter-of-fact cheerfulness, “than have him wake up and start heaving again.”

Sally took another look at the boy asleep in the gently swaying hammock. On closer examination, he did look a bit fishy around the gills. “He’s been sick?”

“Since the moment he set foot in the boat at the sally port this morning.”

Poor lad. Sally herself had never had occasion to suffer from seasickness. Perhaps it was because she had gone to sea aboard her father’s ships as a youngster and had gotten her sea legs under her before she’d had time to worry about being ill. Or maybe some people were just built that way.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though. It is said that Admiral Nelson himself, a man my father esteems very highly, suffers terribly whenever he goes on board his ships. How about you? How have you fared?”

Will shook his head. “So far so good. Although I must say, when he first started at it”—he hooked his thumb at the sleeping boy in unwitting imitation of Mr. Colyear—“the stench was foul enough to fair turn my stomach.”

“Please.” Sally was about to hold up a hand to stop him. Just because she had never felt seasick before was no reason to tempt fate to be unkind. “I can imagine.”

But Jellicoe rambled happily on with the fascination for disgusting things peculiar to young boys—a fascination she needed to share if she were to be taken for one of them. “All over his clothes, it was, but Lieutenant Colyear, he took one look at him when we came on board, asked him if he could swim, and then pitched him straight back over the side, into the harbor.”

“No!” Sally felt her eyes grow round as a porthole. “Mr. Colyear threw him into the drink? That’s famous!”

Will nodded, his own blue eyes dancing with the terrible, ghoulish amusement boys seemed to get at the pain and suffering of their compatriots. “Pitched him right off the deck, by the seat of his pants, he did, and told the boatswain—”

“Say ‘bo’sun,’” Sally broke in to instruct.

“He told the bo’sun to ‘fish him out,’ cool as you please. But he was all right, Worth was, only cold and dripping wet. But it stopped him pitching up. And stinking, anyway,” Jellicoe finished with a satisfied sigh. “It
was
absolutely famous.”

Sally couldn’t keep herself from laughing out loud. Mr. Colyear—no, Col; in this instance she really could only think of him as Col—had repeated a trick she had heard her brothers talk of, any number of times. A good swim was often the best cure for a bout of the queasies. But pitching a boy like a mackerel over the side of a frigate, fifteen feet above the water, was a spectacle well worth admiring. Sally was more than sorry she had missed it.

There she went again, letting her admiration for Col get the better of her brain. Mr. Colyear was too sharp and decisive by half. Better to turn her brain to figuring out how to deal with the problem of Mr. Gamage without attracting any more of that steely awareness.