Almost a Scandal (40 page)

She wouldn’t hear of it. “I don’t regret it. Not in the least.”

“Do you not? I think, dear Miss Kent, your injury has been rather more grievous than you imagine.”

The quiet pity in his voice strangled the air from her lungs. A feeling too much like dread—an acid combination of fear and helplessness—crawled its way under her skin. She couldn’t speak. She was too busy trying to swallow back the hot scald of fear. And there was nothing left to say anyway.

Captain McAlden filled the charged silence. “You have done well, Miss Kent, very well. No one could have done better. I wish to hell you were Richard Kent, for I’d know very well what to do with you then. I wish I had a dozen of your kind of Richard Kent with me every day. If you were Richard Kent, I’d ship you back into the gunroom posthaste and take pride and pleasure in watching your inevitably rapid advancement. You were good for my ship, Miss Kent.”

“I
can
go back. If you let me. I can be Richard, you’ll see—”

“No. No.” He said it emphatically. “I owe it to your father. I can do nothing less than send you home to him.”

“He’s not there, sir, but on the West Indies Station. And madder than a hornet, I’ll reckon, when he hears what he missed at Trafalgar.”

“You’re going home, Miss Kent.” He said it quietly and kindly, but there was no mistaking that Captain McAlden had given her an order.

It would do no good to tell him it wasn’t home. That it was just an empty, rambling house high on the cliffs without her family there with her. She beat back the heat in her throat and made herself speak clearly. “I understand, sir. I thank you for your kind attention.”

“I hope I do not overstep, but if you should find it … difficult being ashore, perhaps, with your father on the West Indies Station, you might try a voyage to the Bahamas. I recall you saying you particularly liked the climate.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded her head, grateful for the diversion. “Yes, I did. It is kind of you to remember.”

“If I may, let me also recommend Lady McAlden as a friend to you. I know she would deem it an honor to have you visit, and would very much like to be your friend. As I hope I have been.”

Sally felt the hot press of tears fill her eyes. She dashed her wrist across them. She didn’t want to cry. Not now. Not after everything. But there was nothing for it. Her cheeks were already wet.

But her captain did not censure her lack of control. He was kind enough to turn and walk to the window, and remain there for a long moment, admiring the view. “You remind me of her, you know. When I met Lady McAlden, she was a young woman equally resourceful and adventurous, not to mention ambitious. I am confident you will become fast friends.”

“Thank you, sir. You are very kind. That means a great deal to me.” She knuckled her achy forehead. “It has been an honor to serve you and
Audacious,
sir.”

Captain McAlden made her an elegant bow, and then took her hand. “The honor has been mine. Good-bye, Miss Kent. And godspeed.”

“Thank you, sir. Godspeed to you and
Audacious
as well.”

Captain McAlden made his solemn way to the door, but then paused at the threshold. “Ah. I see that before I go, I fear I must ask you the favor of temporarily becoming Richard Kent once more. I see a visitor below, who has requested to see you.”

The impetuous words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, though she strove belatedly for just the right amount of casual curiosity. “Is Mr. Colyear here as well, sir?”

“Alas, no. Acting Commander Colyear is helping to oversee the repair and readiness of
Tonnant
off Cape Trafalgar, and is also, I understand, helping the commander of that squadron in fending off challenges from the Spanish who have tried to retake the vessels.”

Which was all a fancy, calm way of saying that Col was still out there fighting. Still in harm’s way. And most assuredly not come to see her. She swallowed down another bitter dose of disappointment.

“Your visitor is young Mr. Jellicoe.”

Sally could feel the corners of her mouth curve upward at such welcome news. If she couldn’t have Col, she was more than glad to have Will.

In another moment she could hear her friend’s bounding footsteps on the stairs.

“Richard,” he said as he burst into the room, bringing all his sunny energy. “How do you go on?” He came over immediately and crawled right up, to sit on the bed. “Well, you’re coming along nicely.”

“Thank you.” She laughed. “It’s very good to see you, too. Though I must say, I’m so very sorry to have let you down, Will, and left you shorthanded with
Swiftsure
.”

“It’s all right. You’d been clouted on the head, hadn’t you? It was a hell of a thing. Lord, but it bled right proper, didn’t it,” he added with his characteristic affinity and fascination for gore. “I was amazed you lasted as long as you did. Moffatt was, too. And both he and I slept for a day when we got back to
Audacious
. At least I did.”

“I have to thank you for everything you did for me, Will. You were a true friend.”

“You’re welcome, Richard.” He shook her hand happily. “So when are they going to let you come back to
Audacious
? It’s been brilliant with so many people gone. Marcus, Ian, and I have all been promoted to acting lieutenants!”

“Congratulations. I am very pleased for you. But I shan’t be coming back, Will.” She looked her friend in the eye. “I’m being sent home.”

“For a clout on the head? I mean, I know it’s bad—I can see
that
—but for that they’re sending you home? Half the lieutenants on
Tonnant
and
Royal Sovereign
have lost arms and whatnot, and they’re not sending them home. At least, I think not. Though they do have to send the
sailors
home who’ve lost arms, since they can’t haul or work anymore. But
officers
are different. Admiral Nelson went about for years with only one arm. But I suppose you heard that he’s dead. Died in the battle.”

“Yes, I knew. I’d heard before I got ‘clouted on the head.’”

“Oh, right. I remember. But I’m sure if you ask Captain McAlden, he’ll let you stay.”

“No. They’re sending me home for another reason, Will.” Sally decided not to dance around the topic any longer. Because Will Jellicoe had been her friend, and she wanted him to know. “Because they’ve discovered I’m a girl.”

Will looked at her, his mouth open in astonishment, before he burst out laughing. “You’re not,” he stated with all the confident conviction of a twelve-year-old who cannot imagine the world to be such a strange, disordered place.

And when she only smiled at him patiently, waiting for him to see the truth and understand, he blustered, “But you’re one of us.”

“I am, aren’t I? Thank you, Will. You have no idea what that means to me. I will treasure your opinion always.”

He slid off the bed, away from her, but Sally was glad to note, he went no farther than the bedpost. He draped his arm around it, and stood with one foot leaning against his shin, nonplussed but not really taken aback. “It’s not just my opinion. Everyone feels that way, I’ll wager. Especially Mr. Colyear and Moffatt. He’d not let anyone say a word against you, I’ll warrant, girl or no. He really liked how you called him an anvil of a man.”

“Did he?” But the endorsement did make her smile again. She’d no idea she had called the mate “an anvil” out loud. Must have been when she was too exhausted to remember. “And what did Mr. Colyear say?”

“Oh, nothing. He’s already gone. He was given command of a prize,
Tonnant,
and left
Audacious
to take command of it.”

“Ah, yes, Captain McAlden told me that.”

“Mr. Lawrence has taken his place, as first, and Ian and I are both third, though I’ve laid him a groat I’ll make second before him.”

“Have you forgotten Captain McAlden doesn’t approve of gambling?”

“No, but without Mr. Colyear there to see to things … Well, things are different now. Though I will say, it’s not the same without him. Too much work for one thing.” He looked up at her again, searching her face as if he could find the fault that showed her to have been a female. “Are you sure you can’t come back? We could use the help. And girl or no, it won’t be the same without you, either. None of the rest of us ever would have had the bollocks— Oh, I beg your pardon. But, well, you know—to take on and poison Mr. Gamage like that.”

“It wasn’t really poison. But thank you, Will. I might try, but at the moment, until I’m strong enough to get out of bed, I can’t promise anything.”

“You should come back. Because if you are a girl, it’s going to be a lot harder to live with that face than it will be to live with us.”

He could not have doused her any more effectively if he had pitched her headfirst into a cold bucket of seawater.

Whatever else Will had to say, and whatever fond farewells she made herself say, passed without any further notice. Because the casual, unthinking cruelty of his words had awakened in her a dreadful suspicion that could not be allayed until he had finally left, and Sally was alone, and could ease herself out of bed and make her slow, shaky way first to the bedpost and then across the few steps to the corner, where there was a mirror.

And then, as her face slowly came into view past the edge of the frame, she saw what they had been talking about. She saw the swelling and the purple bruising that seeped across half of her face. She stared at the long sweep of stitches that itched and bristled from her face like hedgehog spines.

And she finally understood.

She was completely and utterly ruined in the one way that she had never, ever envisioned or even thought possible.

*   *   *

The real trouble began the moment she had to return to Sarah Alice Kent and leave Mr. Midshipman Kent behind.

Her period of recovery in the home of the sherry merchant, Mr. Harvey, passed without incident, and her voyage back to Falmouth went as well as she could have hoped because, as her sea chest held no clothes other than her uniforms, and she had no inclination to get suitable replacements, she chose to continue to be Richard. As Mr. Kent, she was shipped back to England in the more spacious comfort of a three-decker, with a number of other officers also being invalided out, who did not look or stare at her face, just as she did not stare at their missing limbs. As Mr. Kent, she traveled easily by post along the wet winter roads. As Mr. Kent, she knew what to do.

Every day, she thought about how she was to effect the change back to Sally, and every day, she managed to come up with a fresh excuse as to why she need not.

Because as a veteran of Trafalgar and therefore a hero, she was given the utmost respect and deference. As Richard, her wound gave pause—the bandage could not be hidden—but it was a pause followed by the proffering of ale or claret, depending on the class of the beholder, and the promise of the best rooms. As Richard, she was patted on the back and thanked, and had her health and good fortune drunk to.

But once through the doors of the imposing Queen Anne–style house on Cliff Road, everything changed. Almost everything.

The house was exactly the same. The same key let her in the door, and the same umbrella stood poised against the wall of the entryway, exactly where she had left it the day she and Richard had departed. The entry hall still smelled vaguely of dune roses, and the drawing room fireplace was still laid with alder logs, and the house still echoed with the emptiness of a family that was gone.

Everything was the same. Only she had changed.

“Mr. Matthew?” Mrs. Jenkins waddled up the corridor from the kitchens. “Or is that you, Mr. Richard?”

“No, Mrs. Jenkins. It’s Sally. Sally Kent.”

“Oh, Miss Sally! Oh, Miss Sally, what happened to you?” Mrs. Jenkins greeted her sudden return with tears of sorrow and despair. “Oh, when I look at you, I can only think of what your dear mother, God rest her soul, would say, and I don’t think we’ll ever forgive ourselves. Isn’t that right, Jenkins?”

“Oh, aye. It’s a terrible thing what you had to do, Miss Sally, go off like that, though I know why you’d done it. The country’s full of nothing but talk of the fearful battle. I only hope your brother appreciates it as he ought.”

“Thank you, but it’s not so very terrible, Jenkins. Many men lost their lives that day. I rather considered myself fortunate to come away with so little lost but my vanity.”

But Mrs. Jenkins could not be consoled out of her tears, for she had nursed the secret of Sally’s disappearance like a viper to her bosom. “We ne’er could tell a soul. And not knowing … Oh, you never did have enough vanity for your own good. And now, what are you to do, living out your days a spinster in your father’s house, hiding your face from the world.”

It was a shock—a nasty, cold, breath-stealing shock—to hear her own fears articulated so baldly. The specter of such a future sent spiders of chill crawling up and down her skin. “Surely it’s not that bad, Mrs. Jenkins. Surely I’m made up of more than a scar.”

But she couldn’t even convince herself. And with every passing day, every day that she looked in the mirror and saw the same vivid cobweb of dark red lines snaking their way around her temple, she feared it was more and more true. And she grew more and more fearful.

It was a new sort of fear. The kind that followed her from room to empty room. That accompanied her about the garden. The kind that crept up to her in the middle of the night and kept her from sleep.

Not that she was getting much of that. She still awoke on watch time, after only four hours of sleep, to hover on the edge of consciousness, waiting for the sound of the bell, or the shrill of the pipe to call her to duty, before she would remember and give in to the despair.

She hadn’t been afraid of dying. But she was afraid of exactly what confronted her now. Of living like a ghost in her own life. Of living on, alone. Of living without him.

Col didn’t write. Each day brought the horrible moment when the post would come. At first, she would go to it eagerly, sure that by now he would have heard, that he would have kept her as fresh in his thoughts as he was in hers, and written. Others wrote, but he did not. November came and waned into December, and still nothing came. She took to walking out, longer and longer tramps along the cliffs, to prevent herself from waiting, hating the fresh stab of hurt at each successive daily disappointment.