Historical Romance Boxed Set (63 page)

A look of contempt claimed his features. “So I was right. Your parents sold you to the highest bidder.”

“Do not judge them too harshly,” Jeannette said with a grimace. “My family has been through more than you can ever imagine.”

He seemed unconvinced of the necessity of their actions.

“As you well know, the French are not particularly popular in England at present,” she went on. “I could not expect to catch one of London’s most eligible bachelors.”

“No, but someone within a decade of your own age might not have been asking too much. Your parents should not have given their consent.” He stood and prowled around the cabin. “Damned aristocrats think everything revolves around blood and money.”

“Why do you hate us?” she demanded. “You lead a good life. You have the things you need.” She waved her hand at the expensive furnishings in his cabin. “Most of the women in England would consider themselves lucky to be on your arm.”

He gave her a bitter smile. “But not someone like you. A noblewoman would never settle for a bastard.”

Jeannette stared at him without speaking. She hadn’t realized he was illegitimate. What could she say? He was right.

He chuckled. “Never mind. I have no plans to marry, noblewoman or not.”

“You have made that clear. But if you ever change your mind, you might want to let me teach you how to treat a lady.”

Ignoring her remark, Treynor watched her with hooded eyes. “If you wanted the marriage so badly, why did you run from your new husband?”

She stared at the tiny stitches on Treynor’s quilt. “He had a rather creative plan for obtaining an heir.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Jeannette waved his question away. “Only that I won’t go back, ever.”

Treynor sighed. “It’s late. You had better get more sleep.” Retrieving the shirt he’d slung over the back of the chair, he winced as he shrugged into it.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I am the officer of the next watch.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly four in the morning.”

A knock on the door made Jeannette cower beneath the covers, but Treynor cried, “I’m on my way,” without bothering to answer it.

“That was the quartermaster,” he explained. “There is more food here, if you get hungry.” He nodded toward a tray covered by a linen napkin. “Lock the door behind me and whatever you do, don’t go anywhere.”

“Wait,” she said.

Treynor turned back when he reached the door.

“What happened to my dog?”

“You mean Bull?” he said. “The Hawkers have her, and even she’s happy that they’ve changed her name to Bonnie. Is it really your dog?”

Jeannette shrugged. “I found her.”

“Do you want her back?”

“Not if the Hawkers are taking good care of her.”

“They are good people. I am sure she’s fine,” Treynor said and left.

Wondering if he’d had any sleep beyond an occasional doze at her bedside, Jeannette locked the door behind him, blew out the lamp, and climbed back into his hammock.

“All hands!” The bosun’s voice rang down the companionway. “Larboard watch, ahoy. Rouse out there, you sleepers. Hey! Out or down here.”

With her stomach full for the first time in two days, Jeannette’s eyes grew heavy again. The warm bedding smelled of Treynor, and his hammock swung as steadily as a pendulum, lulling her to sleep. She had all but succumbed to its blessed oblivion when she heard the doorknob rattle.

Sitting up, she tried to see through the darkness. How much time had passed since Treynor left? Could he be returning? Did he need something?

She managed to wrap the blankets around her naked body and climb out of the hammock, which, encumbered as she was, proved no easy feat. Then she padded to the door, expecting the lieutenant’s voice to tell her to open it.

A soft knock came instead. “Jean Vicard? You in there, froggy?”

Cunnington! Jeannette jumped back as though burned.

“You might have escaped without a scratch the other day, but I am willing to bet it is just matter of time before you earn another whipping.” His voice was laced with the promise of violence. “And I shall watch with pleasure.”

Jeannette bit her tongue against a stinging rejoinder. Cunnington hated her enough already. The last thing she needed was to provoke him to act on his words. “I will see to my duty in future,
m’sieu
.”

His laugh sounded like a high whine through the door. “I will keep my eye on you, just to be sure.”

The knob rattled again. “Do you hear me, froggy bastard?”

Afraid he’d keep banging or force his way in if she didn’t, Jeannette responded. “
Oui
.”

Silence fell, then she heard the tread of boots on the wood planking as he moved away. But she couldn’t relax after that. She lit a lamp and began to search for her clothes. Being naked left her feeling especially vulnerable, not only to Cunnington, should he demand she open up to him, but to Treynor when he returned.

Her breeches and shirt were in a heap against the wall. Jeannette donned them before taking a seat on the floor in the corner. She didn’t want to soil Treynor’s linens with her dirty clothes any more than he wanted her to.

Hugging her knees to her chest, she waited several minutes before creeping across the room. She wanted to make sure Cunnington had truly left, but even after pressing her cheek to the floor she couldn’t see anything through the narrow crack beneath the door. For all she knew, he hovered about the corridor, waiting for her to peek outside.

She returned to where she had been sitting and tried to doze off, but the itchy stiffness of her clothes prevented her. Preoccupied with thoughts of Cunnington, she fidgeted for an interminable time. But eventually she remembered Amelia, the woman she had met in the hold. Had Amelia’s beau brought her something to eat? Was she warm enough?

Treynor had left food for her, which provided an opportunity. Each watch lasted four hours. She didn’t know how much of that time remained, but she hoped it would be enough to visit Amelia. It seemed unlikely that whoever had impregnated her was taking good care of her.

After strapping down her breasts so she could venture from the cabin, she wrapped some bread and cheese and a few slices of cold meat in the napkin that had covered the food and placed the small bundle under her hat. Then she stole the wool blanket from on top of the lieutenant’s feather comforter and rolled it up, tucking it beneath her arm.

Despite a firm belief that Cunnington had returned to his own cabin, Jeannette’s fingers shook as she unlocked the door. She waited several seconds before swinging it open, half-expecting a hand on the opposite side to force it the rest of the way.

When she finally stuck her head out, she found the corridor empty.

Taking a small lamp, she sallied forth before she could lose her nerve and headed to the companionway that would lead to the lower decks.

Almost directly below the lieutenant’s cabin, she stumbled upon the galley. The ship’s cook was there, a one-legged, balding man with long sideburns. He had already lit the range and was busy preparing what looked to be an oatmeal gruel for breakfast.

“Morning,” Jeannette murmured as she passed.

He nodded, and she hurried on.

The decks were being scrubbed again, with sand and holystone, then mop and bucket. Other men polished brass fittings until they gleamed in the predawn light that was just beginning to filter through the portholes.

She descended another steep flight of stairs lined with cannonballs set into wooden planks and found several locked rooms, which she guessed were gunpowder stores, maybe even a handling chamber or two.

In the very cradle of the ship’s hull, the hold was cool, damp, and pitch-black beyond the circle of Jeannette’s light. No seamen hefted barrels through the door and up the stairs. Neither did any voices break the silence until Jeannette raised her own in a whisper.

“Amelia? Are you here?”

Nothing. Only creaking timbers and an occasional scratching broke the tomblike stillness. This last noise caused the hair on Jeannette’s arms to stand on end despite her efforts to ignore it. Rats. From the sound of their movements, they hovered just beyond the ring of her light, but she tried to convince herself that only her fear made them seem so bold.

Wrinkling her nose against the noxious air, she lifted her lantern high and called louder. “Amelia! It is me, Jeannette.”

The halo of her lamp revealed only barrels and crates. The outer reaches of the hold were draped in blackness; waves outside brushed against the hull, seeming to order all within not to break the silence.

Shhh …shhh …shhh
…

Jeannette opened her mouth to call again when an angry voice finally snapped, “Go away!”

“Amelia?” She paused, unable to remember with any certainty the sound of her friend’s voice. “Is it you?”

“Aye, ‘tis me. Who’d ye expect? But I don’t need the likes of ye thunderin’ about down ‘ere, callin’ after me. Ye’ll cause me nothin’ but grief, that ye will. Ye almost got me caught last time.”

“I have brought something for you to eat.” Gingerly, because of her sore stomach and aching head, Jeannette walked closer to the voice. “Are you hungry?”

Momentary silence answered her, as if Amelia’s hunger warred with her desire to be left alone.

“A bit,” she admitted at last.

“Hasn’t anyone brought you some food?”

Another silence, then, “Ye can take yer grub an’ go. My man will be ‘ere any minute. ‘E’s just busy, ye know. ‘Tis ‘ard ter get away.”

So the situation was as she’d feared…. “Come and eat. I got the food from Lieutenant Treynor’s cabin so it’s fresh. And there is meat.”

“Why don’t ye eat it yerself then?”

It wasn’t difficult to hear her skepticism. “I am full.”

Amelia crept out from a narrow alley between the ship’s stores and entered the light, giving Jeannette her first glimpse of the pregnant stowaway. Her heart-shaped face was plain, but not wholly unattractive, and she certainly wasn’t as old as Jeannette had hoped—probably no more than fifteen. She possessed a rather pointy chin, a quick, furtive gaze, and long, stringy dark hair that fell down her back, matted with the same dirt and grime that stained her dress. As for the pregnancy, her stomach was every bit as swollen as Jeannette had feared.

Amelia squinted against the lamp’s brightness as Jeannette retrieved the food from under her hat and placed it in the girl’s outstretched hands.

“What’s the lieutenant to ye?” she asked, swallowing an entire mouthful almost before she had begun to chew.

“The lieutenant?”

“The man what came after ye. Ye daft?” She stopped eating long enough to shoot Jeannette an irritated glance.

“He is nothing to me, of course. He is an officer—”

“I know
who
‘e is. What I can’t figure is where ye fit in.” Her gaze slid over Jeannette’s boy’s clothing.

“I do not fit in,” Jeannette admitted. “I stole aboard like you, which is why I am wearing these clothes.”

“Then ‘ow’d the lieutenant find out about ye? An’ if ‘e caught ye—which I saw that ‘e did—what ye doin’ runnin’ about an’ carryin’ off ‘is food?”

Jeannette almost explained that the food she’d brought had been given to her, not stolen, except that she had, indeed, taken the blanket. “I brought something to keep you warm,” she said, ignoring the question.

“Ye’ll get yerself flogged, woman or no.” Amelia glanced askance at the covering Jeannette held out. “The navy don’t take kindly ter thieves.”

Jeannette’s gazed move to Amelia’s swollen belly. “At the moment, you need it more than the lieutenant. Here.”

Amelia shook her head. “Oh, no ye don’t. I’ll not be caught with an officer’s blanket.”

“Take it.” Jeannette wondered how a child born to this stubborn girl would ever survive. “You can always tell them you found it.”

Amelia made a noise of incredulity. “They’d never believe me!”

“Then say I gave it to you. I will not deny it.”

“An’ why would ye do that for me?”

Jeannette sat the blanket on the closest barrel. “Not for you. For the baby. How is it, by the way?”

She shrugged. “It’s still there.”

“You have been feeling well then?”

“Better now.” She cracked a smile. “Thanks for the food. I’m sorry I was …well, ye know…”

“I understand. Have you had anything to drink?”

“Aye. There’s a leaky barrel. Rum,” she announced as if it was liquid gold.

“Why not come out of here?” Jeannette asked. “This dank place cannot be good for you. The smell alone would kill me. And what about the rats?”

“They don’t bother ye so long as ye can move.” The suspicious look returned to Amelia’s face. “Who are ye, anyway?”

“I told you. I am no different than you—”

“Oh, yer different all right, with yer fancy French accent and fine speech. But I’m not one ter nose in what don’t concern me. An’ if ye really want ter ‘elp me, ye’ll keep yer bloody trap shut an’ not come back ‘ere.”

But how could she? “What about your baby?”

“My baby is just that—
my
baby! Ye worry about yerself before ye get us both in trouble.”

Jeannette silently cursed the sailor who had gotten Amelia with child and then, by all indications, abandoned her. “Can I give your man a message for you?” she asked, hoping to deliver him a good tongue-lashing as well. “If you will give me his name, I could—”

“No!” The protective note in Amelia’s voice warned Jeannette not to press the issue. She’d only undermine Amelia’s trust and ultimately get nowhere.

“All right. I am staying in Lieutenant Treynor’s cabin for the next couple of days if …if you need anything. Otherwise—”

“Are ye Treynor’s girl, then?” Wistful admiration overrode Amelia’s gruff manner. “That man’s ‘andsome as the devil, that ‘e is.”

Jeannette flushed. Treynor was virile enough to tempt the most virtuous maid, to say nothing of the hussies. Even she had to admit that. “No. He is …he is merely helping me a bit.”

Amelia let out a soft snicker. “A man such as ‘e likes to use what ‘e’s got in ‘is breeches. If ye don’t know that yet, ye’ll be learnin’ it soon enough.”