Historical Romance Boxed Set (65 page)

Treynor bowed slightly. “Indeed, sir, but not at the expense of duty. If I am not mistaken, many of these men should be making ready to appear on deck for the next watch. Perhaps another time would be better for this?”

Cunnington’s face beamed scarlet, making Jeannette fear Treynor had pushed him too far. She sent a worried glance to where he was standing a step or two above Cunnington, but he simply motioned for her to precede him up the companionway.

Reclaiming her lamp and straightening her clothes, Jeannette started to obey, but Cunnington raised a hand to bar her passage. “How dare you,” he said to Treynor. “I am in charge here.”

“I apologize if I have offended you, sir,” Treynor said. “I merely meant to suggest a course of action more compatible with the orders I have received from the captain.”

Cunnington’s colorless lips pressed tightly to his teeth. “Which are?”

“To see to the smooth running of the ship, of course. It is still my watch, for the next few minutes. However, should you wish to discuss my actions or my orders—” his eyes darted pointedly to the men who watched “—it might be wise to do so in the privacy of my cabin. Or yours.”

Reminded of the spectacle they were making in front of the others, Cunnington seemed to waver. He obviously wanted to pull rank on Treynor, but he didn’t want to risk looking like a fool for playing out such a weak hand. The men should be about their work, not tormenting the newest lad on board. Treynor had the right of it, and from the look on Cunnington’s face, he knew it.

Still, for a moment, Jeannette expected pride to push him beyond wisdom or care.

“Attend to your tasks,” he said to the sailors. “Now. And if any of you are so much as a minute late for muster, you will pay with your hides.”

Jeannette breathed a mental sigh of relief as Beaner, Jack, and the others mumbled an “Aye, aye, sir,” and scattered. She tried to circumvent the first lieutenant and disappear herself, but Cunnington caught her arm.

“Watch yourself, Jean Vicard.” He regarded Treynor as though daring him to intervene, but Treynor said nothing. “Someday you will get what you deserve.”

“A tattoo?” Jeannette asked innocently.

Treynor coughed into his hand, and Cunnington’s eyes narrowed into slits. “A tattoo will be the least of your worries.”

* * *

Struggling to keep a tight leash on his temper, Treynor led Jeannette up the companionway without speaking. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, but he doubted it would teach her anything.

“What are we doing?” she asked when they passed his cabin without stopping.

He gave her a withering glare. “Keeping you out of trouble. Since you won’t stay put, I have decided to keep track of you another way.”

“Which means…”

“You will work—something I doubt you have tried in your short, pampered life.”

“I was about to thank you for coming to my aid, but—”

“If you had listened to me, my interference would not have been necessary. What do you do, sit and plot ways to get one of us flogged? Or are you looking for another turn over my knee?”

“Certainly not—”

Treynor whirled to face her. “Then why didn’t you do as you were told and stay in my cabin?”

Her eyebrows drew down over her startling eyes. “I …I …had something to take care of.”

They were almost out on deck in the cold, winter air where one had to shout to be heard. The singsong voices of the crew rose to Treynor’s ears, relaying messages from stern to bow and back again as the wind whined through the rigging far above, so much a part of his life he scarcely noticed it.

“Such as?”

She propped her hands on her hips. “I am not at liberty to say.”

He studied her for a moment, waiting for her reasoning, knowing he probably wouldn’t agree with it, anyway. “Suit yourself,” he said when she glared back at him, her chin set at a defiant angle.

With a slight nod, he strode across the deck, pausing only long enough to tap the shoulder of a man who was busy hammering oakum into the cracks of the deck. “Teach this lad how to caulk and then put him to good use, Simon,” he said, indicating Jeannette.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

A stout man with a paunch that rolled well over his belt, Simon was a quiet sort who kept to his own business. Treynor had known him for years. The man didn’t gamble or drink too much, and he religiously sent his wages home to his wife and children, something most sailors were not wont to do. Jeannette would be safe with him. Better yet, she’d be busy until dark and then too tired to cause him any more headaches.

Jeannette stayed next to Simon, but Treynor could feel her gaze trailing after him as he continued on to the wheel. He felt guilty for abandoning her to rub elbows with the crew. They were a crude lot, and hammering oakum was a tedious, grueling task. But she was the one who refused to listen, and he was determined to teach her a lesson.

The sooner she learned to obey him, the safer they both would be.

* * *

“That lad, Jean Vicard. Something isn’t right about him.” Lieutenant Cunnington stood with the captain at the helm, watching the boy clumsily wield a hammer as he pounded oakum into the deck.

Captain Cruikshank eyed him before looking out over the sailors moving about the forecastle. “Could the problem be that he is Treynor’s servant and not yours, Mr. Cunnington?”

Cunnington hid the flare of anger sparked by the captain’s pointed question. Keeping his voice neutral, he marked Treynor’s presence across the deck, where the other lieutenant was talking to a marine sentry. “Vicard was supposed to go to Bosun Hawker, if I remember correctly.”

The captain’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Are you questioning my decision, Lieutenant?”

Cunnington squinted out to sea. “No, sir.”

“Mr. Treynor earned the lad’s services when he took his stripes. Hawker agreed.”

“Yes, sir. But
why
did Mr. Treynor sacrifice himself for a French deserter?”

The captain chuckled. “After serving with Treynor for more than four years, you don’t know? Vicard might be French, but he is only a boy, and Treynor is an unusual man. He refuses to patronize the rich and often sacrifices himself for the weak. As strange as that may seem to you, Treynor has done such things ever since I have known him.”

“Perhaps being a bastard has taught him more empathy than is good for an officer.”

“Some might fault him there.” The captain clasped his hands behind his back and rocked up on the balls of his feet. “But it seems to work for him. The men go to great lengths to obey him. An officer could do worse.”

Cunnington stiffened, wondering if the captain’s words held hidden censure.

A glance at the older man’s weathered face revealed nothing. Still, a fresh wave of hatred for Treynor washed over him. How could Cunnington, the son of a viscount, born to the nobility, distinguish himself in the shadow of such a paragon? The captain’s voice never held the same respect for him as it did for Treynor.

“He seems to be particularly protective of his new servant. More so than the situation warrants,” Cunnington pressed.

“How so, Mr. Cunnington? Treynor could have the lad in his cabin darning his socks, if he wanted. Yet it looks to me as though Vicard is helping with tasks that benefit us all. Is that not the lad there?”

“Aye.”

The master approached and the captain turned away to discuss their navigation plans. When finished, he looked back. “Are we done?”

Cunnington remembered how Treynor had interfered in the tattooing incident and taken his servant with him. But he hardly wanted to share the details of that encounter with the captain. Any recounting would paint Treynor as properly justified and mindful of his duty. Yet Cunnington sensed something more in the second lieutenant’s behavior—a marked attention to Vicard that went so far as to interrupt the man’s usual focus.

“I suppose,” Cunnington said.

Cruikshank chuckled. “I suggest you spend your time on more worthy pursuits than pondering Mr. Treynor’s actions. He is not the enemy, you know. I will be in my cabin,” he said and lumbered away.

As Simon chastened the young Vicard, Cunnington wondered again what it was that bothered him about the French lad. Something in the way the boy moved. And there was a subtle difference in Treynor’s manner when he approached his new servant …

Cunnington couldn’t put a finger on it now.

But he would figure it out eventually.

* * *

Large blisters on Jeannette’s hands made it impossible to grip the handle of the hammer with any real conviction. She’d been pounding oakum into the cracks of the deck for hours, breaking only long enough to eat a breakfast of what Simon called “burgoo.” As far as Jeannette could tell, it was simply a concoction of poor oatmeal and bad ship’s water, but she’d been hungry and eager for anything to fortify her strength.

She saw Lieutenant Treynor occasionally, walking past her with the captain, calling to the men aloft, or checking the ship’s compass. His watch was over, but he didn’t seem inclined to go below where she’d no longer be plagued by the sight of him.

Cunnington had met with the captain at six bells, or eleven o’clock, part of his daily routine from what Jeannette could gather from the taciturn Simon. The first lieutenant was so preoccupied she doubted he’d take further notice of her, for the morning. Had Treynor been less angry, he could have let her return to his cabin. Instead, she was bloodying her hands by trying to swing a hammer.

Remembering the spanking Treynor had given her made her resentment grow. He was such a contradiction. He behaved like a gentleman sometimes and a rake at others. He was hard and unyielding, yet he would take the stripes for a lad and help a runaway woman he didn’t even like. Jeannette didn’t know whether she wanted to slap him …or kiss him.

Slap him, she decided. His arrogance irked her.

“Don’t give out on me.” Simon watched her with a wary eye. “The bosun’s mates will start ye right enough.”

Jeannette had collapsed in an exhausted heap while Simon’s hammer rang loudly in her ears. Renewing her efforts to help him with the caulking, before the bosun’s mates lashed her with one of the short, hard ropes they carried for just that purpose, she cursed Treynor under her breath for his roughness with her, for abandoning her to Simon, and for confusing everything she once thought she admired in a man.

“I hate him,” she grumbled to herself.

“Who?” Simon asked, overhearing.

Jeannette hesitated. “Treynor,” she admitted at last, enjoying the vitriolic bent of her own words.

“What ye got against the lieutenant, lad? E’s not a bad bloke, far as officers go. ‘E’s done pretty well for himself.”

Jeannette made no reply.

“And he’s done right by you. A boy in yer position ‘ought ter be grateful fer that,” he went on. “The navy’ll teach ye fast enough.”

“So I hear.” A blister burst, leaving raw skin exposed to the hammer’s handle. Shaking the pain away, she tried using her left hand, but her awkward wielding of the tool only earned her another sharp look from Simon.

“I’ve known girls what can ‘ammer better than the likes o’ ye.”

Jeannette was so cold, sore, and tired that, in utter resignation, she almost told him she was a girl—and that his beloved and revered Lieutenant Treynor knew it. Rather than do that, she pulled her shirtsleeve down to protect the sores as best she could and transferred the hammer to her right hand.

Many of the crew performed maintenance chores such as Simon’s caulking. Some retarred the rigging, sewed worn-out sails, or repaired a damaged cannon. Others worked in messes, preparing the main meal of the day to be served at noon.

Jeannette kept one eye on her work and one on the hatchway to the galley as the sour smell of cheese rose to her nostrils. She never dreamed she’d be so eager for such simple fare, but her stomach’s growl gave evidence that the bad-tasting “burgoo” of breakfast had long since passed through her system.

Catching sight of the petty officer who’d beat her in the roundhouse, Jeannette ducked her head. She had no desire to gain his attention, but the sight of him carrying a bucket tied around his neck piqued her curiosity.

She studied him from beneath her lashes. “What is that man wearing around his neck?”

When Simon glanced up, she gestured to indicate who she meant.

“‘Tis a spitkid.”

“A spitkid?”

“Aye. Lieutenant Treynor caught ‘im spittin’ on the deck. Now ‘e’s target practice for the rest of us.”

Jeannette couldn’t resist the smile that spread across her chilled face. Because they couldn’t smoke, most of the crew chewed tobacco. She had witnessed the telltale bulge in many a sailor’s cheek and had viewed, with great disgust, the steady stream of brown juice they spat from between dried, cracked lips. It was a pleasure to imagine them trying to hit the petty officer’s bucket and missing, as they often did.

Lieutenant Treynor stood at the wheel, deep in conversation with a fellow officer. Jeannette glanced covertly at his broad shoulders, noting how his uniform accentuated his lean hips and long legs. Was she the reason the petty officer wore the bucket? Had Treynor punished the man who’d harmed her?

Probably not, but if so, Treynor’s retribution represented yet another contradiction. He hated her. Why would he bother to punish one of his crew for hurting her?

Just before noon, Jeannette watched the master and the master’s mates measuring the angle of the sun as it reached its highest point off the horizon. Prodded by her many questions, Simon explained that they were calculating how far north or south the ship was by using quadrants, which also established the correct time.

A gangly youth changed the date and day of the week on the log-board, eight strokes clanged on the ship’s bell, and Bosun Hawker piped them to dinner.

Jeannette gladly relinquished her hammer as Lieutenant Treynor approached. Anticipating a tray of food to equal the one he had brought her the night before, she stood, even forced a smile to her lips, only to learn that he expected her to mess with Simon while he visited the wardroom to eat with the captain.