Historical Romance Boxed Set (53 page)

Jeannette shaded her eyes. Though she could see only their tips, three slender masts rose into the sky, looking like giant needles threaded with rope.

“The one in the bow is called the foremast,” Treynor explained, following her gaze. “The one in the middle is the mainmast, and the one in the stern is the mizzenmast. The large, horizontal poles that cross them are called yards and bear the sails, but because we’re in port, the sails are lashed down.”

“You will see them unfurled soon enough when we set sail,” one of the officers she’d seen at the Stag volunteered.

The skiff bumped another small boat, and Lieutenant Treynor and the others turned their attention to jostling for position at one of several ropes that dangled into the water. While they worked, choppy waves buffeted their small vessel and the wind whipped at Jeannette’s clothing. She was going to freeze without a better coat.

“Frenchie?” Treynor was waiting for her.

Jeannette hesitated as she watched sailors use the ropes to walk nimbly up the sides of the ship. How would she manage with a dog? She wasn’t strong enough to haul herself up, even without a squirming bundle under one arm.

His mouth quirked with impatience, the lieutenant laughed. “Put your dog down. I’ll bring it.”

She exchanged the dog for the rope he handed her and began lifting her own weight, only to feel his hands on her bottom as he shoved her halfway up the ship’s side.

Once Jeannette gained her footing, she copied the others and struggled the rest of the way on her own, eventually heaving herself over the gunwale.

To her embarrassment, Lieutenant Treynor easily carried her dog, pinned between his arm and body, up behind her. When they were both on board, he handed the animal back to her. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked, scratching behind its furry ears.

Jeannette’s mind froze. “Name?”

“Yes, surely it has one. You seem so devoted to it.” The lieutenant smiled at her, waiting.

“B-b-bull.” She couldn’t think of anything better.

Eager to be set down, the dog twisted and turned in her arms, revealing her belly.

Treynor glanced at it, then gave Jeannette a quizzical look. “Bull? Did you know she’s female?”

“
Oui
…ah…” Jeannette tried to force her sluggish brain to provide some good reason her dog would be named Bull, female or no, but her wits had completely deserted her.

Fortunately, a heavyset man in an officer’s uniform called for Treynor, and he turned, saving her from whatever inanity hovered on her lips.

The other man drew the lieutenant away, and Jeannette promptly lost herself in the crush of bodies that surrounded her.

“Bull?” she repeated, rolling her eyes. Something about the lieutenant turned her into a fool, and Jeannette felt fairly certain she could guess what it was. The memory of those few minutes in his bed came to mind every time she looked at him, and sometimes for less reason than that. Knowing how he behaved in such intimate circumstances, how his body felt against hers, how he smelled like soap and wool and man made her weak in the knees. Having held him almost naked in her arms made it too easy to undress him again in her mind.

The heat of a blush crept up Jeannette’s neck, and she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could shut off her thoughts as easily as her sight.

Forcing herself to forget the lieutenant, she lowered the dog to the deck and searched for something to keep the animal from running off.

When she found a bit of rope, she improvised as best she could. “Be good,” she said as the dog strained at the new leash. Then she looked around in earnest, this time concentrating on what she saw—which was purposeful action and chaos all at once. Sailors prepared the frigate to set sail. Their wives garnered a parting gift or hug against an uncertain future. And bumboat men and women sold merchandise to the crew.

The bumboat people fascinated Jeannette. From temporary stalls, they hawked their wares, just as they would in a marketplace on land. According to their bleating voices, they sold, on credit until payday, fresh fruit, clothes, trinkets, and any other items that a sailor might fancy.

Ragamuffin children darted through the melee, along with numerous dogs, cats, parrots, and other pets.

She might be safe from Lord St. Ives, but what would she face here? The hundreds of ropes that controlled the sails and supported the yardarms looked extremely complex….

But she would never have to learn them. She wouldn’t be around long enough.

The thought of London cheered her as she watched barefooted sailors check the rigging high above.

“Vicard!”

Lieutenant Treynor had to call her three times before she realized he was speaking to her. Recognizing her blunder, she finally turned—but knew she’d never survive in this new world if she couldn’t keep her own name, and her dog’s, straight.

“Come along, Bull.” She started forward, but wasn’t particularly eager to meet the square, ruddy captain who’d been conversing with Treynor and a handful of other officers for several minutes already.

“Yes, sir?”

Treynor waved her to his side. Not wanting to get close enough to him to rouse any more thoughts of the Stag, she reluctantly obeyed.

“You need to accompany Captain Cruikshank to his cabin so his clerk can enter you in the muster book. Otherwise, you’ll not get paid,” he told her.

With all the news of the war, Jeannette had some understanding of the subject. Boys received a pittance, if that.

“
Oui, monsieur
.” Pay was the least of her worries. She wouldn’t be part of the navy long enough to collect it.

“Has the lad any experience?” The captain turned bloodshot, watery eyes upon her.

Another officer, who wore his impeccable uniform like a badge of honor, reached out to grab her hands. He turned her palms up and rubbed the soft flesh with his thumbs. “Not a callus in sight. With such delicate hands, I would say he has not done a stitch of work in his life. Isn’t that just like the lazy French?”

Jeannette was glad she’d scrubbed dirt onto her face, for it had left plenty beneath her nails as well. She refrained from making a response to the officer’s demeaning comment while hoping that the others wouldn’t look too closely.

The captain waved off the other man. “It takes no calluses to be a bosun’s servant, Mr. Cunnington. Those will come with the job. And a French lad can learn as easily as an English one.”

“I didn’t know a frog could do anything quite as well as an Englishman.” Cunnington and another man laughed, but the captain cut them a glare that wiped the smiles from their faces.

“Regardless, the bosun needs a lad, and this one will do.”

The officer named Cunnington eyed her again. “Actually, I have been in need of a steward for some time now. I could use the boy myself, Captain, if you could see your way clear to indulge me.”

A prickle of fear skipped down Jeannette’s spine. She already knew two or three days spent in the company of this man would be too many.

Fortunately Treynor spoke up. “Too late, Lieutenant Cunnington.”

The captain hesitated, then affirmed his agreement with a nod.

“But I hardly think Hawker deserves more consideration than I.” Indignance oozed through Cunnington’s voice and his gaze lingered on Treynor before returning to the captain.

Treynor tensed. It was a subtle change in his demeanor but one Jeannette caught right away—along with the gleam of extreme dislike in his eye. “My apologies, Lieutenant Cunnington. Perhaps next time I go ashore I will be lucky enough to find you a good lad, a good English lad, if you can’t manage to do that for yourself.”

“You are pleased about this, are you not, Mr. Treynor?” Cunnington said.

The captain scowled. “We will have none of that, Mr. Cunnington. I have promised a servant to Mr. Hawker, and he shall have this boy.”

Cunnington’s lips thinned and his nostrils flared, but he did not speak again until the captain motioned to the confusion surrounding them.

“Get these people off this ship, Mr. Cunnington.”

“Aye, aye sir. I am working on it as we speak.”

Cruikshank stared at Cunnington for a moment, as if weighing his arrogant tone against his actual words. “That will do.” Motioning to Jeannette, he lumbered toward the quarterdeck where she assumed they’d find his cabin.

Grateful for Treynor’s reassuring presence at her side, Jeannette followed. As uncomfortable as the memory of their time together made her, he was the only thing remotely familiar in this strange world. Fleetingly she wondered what the lieutenant would do if he discovered her to be the wench who had left him rolling in agony.

With a sideways glance at his tall, muscular frame, she hoped he would never find out.

“Mr. Cunnington is first lieutenant and my second-in-command, Mr. Treynor,” the captain said as they walked, with Bull still fighting his rope leash.

“I am aware of his rank, sir,” Treynor replied, his hands behind his back.

“Then perhaps you have forgotten your own.”

“No, sir.”

Captain Cruikshank stopped and turned to face him. “Let me be more direct: Mr. Cunnington doesn’t like you.”

Treynor’s eyebrows rose. “Does Cunnington like anyone, sir? With his excessive fondness for discipline, I sometimes wonder if we should fear mutiny more than the French.”

The captain shook his head. “The two of you are very different. I know that. Do you think I cannot see how the men admire you? You are one of them. You rose to your present rank from a mere cabin boy. They would follow you anywhere.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“That’s not all.” He glanced in the direction of his first lieutenant. “Devil take him, Cunnington will advance to captain someday because of who his father is, regardless of his record, while you have less chance. That is how the system works, and there isn’t a bloody thing any of us can do about it.”

His weathered face lost in concentration, Cruikshank looked at Jeannette, but she could tell he wasn’t really seeing her. He was thinking, selecting his next words carefully. “He is your superior,” he said at last. “I will not intercede again.”

A muscle twitched in Treynor’s cheek, the only outward sign of emotion Jeannette could detect. He nodded once. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good. Wait here. When my clerk is done you may bring the lad to the bosun.”

* * *

Mr. Hawker looked much younger than his wife. Jeannette studied him from beneath her lashes, wondering what it was, exactly, that had drawn the two of them together.

Lieutenant Treynor, who was still with her, greeted them both before taking a seat in their small cabin on the orlop deck, which was one level above the hold, or so he’d said when he brought her here. “This fine, strong lad is Jean Vicard,” he said. “Captain Cruikshank has agreed to let him be your new servant. And this is his dog—” he shot a glance and a half-smile at Jeannette “—Bull.”

Jeannette greeted the Hawkers in the deepest voice she could summon, and tried to look taller.

The stocky bosun was balding, but his thick reddish eyebrows and mutton-chop sideburns gave him the appearance of a hairy man. “Strong, ye say?” he scoffed, reading the lieutenant’s grin the same way Jeannette had. “A weaklin’s better’n nothin’, I suppose. And ‘avin’ another dog might be nice. Rusty died last spring.” The bosun scratched his hairless head. “But the wife ‘ere looks a mite stronger’n yon lad.”

Jeannette nearly burst into laughter. Mrs. Hawker stood behind her husband, a great hulk of a woman with shoulders almost as broad as Treynor’s.

A kindred thought must have occurred to the lieutenant because he cleared his throat as if to conceal a chuckle. “He is young yet. He will grow.”

Mrs. Hawker moved forward and poked Jeannette in the ribs as though looking for a good piece of meat. “Skin an’ bones,” she concurred.

Jeannette stuck her chin out, trying to look belligerent. “I am strong enough,
monsieur, madame
.”

“Ye’ll do,” the bosun replied with a shrug.

“We thank ye kindly, Lieutenant.” Turning to the chest behind her, Mrs. Hawker withdrew two wrinkle-free shirts. “I finished yer laundry. They’re clean an’ pressed to perfection, that they are.”

“Thank you.” As Treynor reached into the pocket of his knee breeches to hand the older woman a few coins, Jeannette couldn’t help admiring the long lines of his legs.

“When do we sail?” Mr. Hawker asked.

“I can’t say for sure. The captain was just telling Lieutenant Cunnington and me that he’s received orders to wait until tomorrow. There may be a change of plans.”

A change of plans? Jeannette’s breath caught. Certainly that did not bode well.

“We will see London a day later, then,” Hawker said.

“Evidently.” Treynor turned to Jeannette. “You will be all right here, Frenchie.” He flashed her a ready smile. “If you need anything, I am not hard to find.”

“
Merci beaucoup, m’sieu
,” she murmured. “You have been most kind.”

Jeannette quelled the urge to beg him not to leave her as he strode through the door and closed it behind him. As Jean Vicard, she’d experienced a very likeable side to the lieutenant. Gone was the cool, unyielding man she had seen in the tavern with the serving wenches, the one she’d met before passion had transformed his reserve into something else entirely. Now that he thought her a boy, he treated her with nothing but frank kindness.

She hoped the Hawkers would do the same.

* * *

“Are you listening to me, lad?”

Jeannette looked into Mrs. Hawker’s narrowed eyes and swallowed. For more than an hour, the woman had been drilling her with information and instructions, most of which Jeannette had been unable to absorb. Her breasts ached in their bindings to the point of distraction; she longed to tear the strips of cloth from her chest. How would she survive another two days of such misery? She must have been mad to think she could play the part of a boy for so long. But, of course, she hadn’t known their trip would be postponed.

“Where will I sleep?” she asked and received a scowl for the interruption.