Wilful Impropriety (23 page)

“So I surmised from Mr. Whitaker’s letter, though he was very gracious in not blaming you at any point.” Sir Phillip pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hardly know what to think, here. My daughter . . . my daughter has planned an elopement. Why?” Her father turned back to her. “Why didn’t you want to wait? Why didn’t you want my blessing? What did the stars tell you?”

Hannah dropped her head. “All of the charts said you would say no. All of the charts had said ‘no,’ save the one I used to plan tonight.” She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

“My dear . . .” His voice broke. He crossed the room and knelt in front of her. “And you truly love him?

“I do, Papa.” Hannah kept her head down, not able to bear to look at him. She smoothed the folds of her skirt over and over, trying to find order in the wool fabric. “I know it was wrong of me to not tell you, but at first I was not certain and then, because I was, I wanted—I had this dream of how we would tell you and then . . . and then I was foolish and everything went wrong.”

“Eloping? You cannot think that would repair it.” He sighed, sinking back onto his knees with a groan. “But I will grant that I did not realize how much Mr. Whitaker meant to you or you to him, until he wrote. I thought it was a childish infatuation.”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Well . . . well.” Her father handed her his pocket handkerchief. “Here. Wipe your eyes.”

Hannah took it and pressed the cloth to her cheeks. One corner bore the initials she had embroidered for him Christmas last. For some reason, that made her weep in earnest. “The way you talked about him—his heritage . . . I did not—I was not going to run away forever, Papa. The stars—”

“Hush now, let us have no more talk of the stars. Or if we do . . . why not? He has shown himself to be a man of integrity. Tonight is a night for rash decisions.” He pushed himself to his feet and strode to the drawing-room door, flinging it open. “Mr. Whitaker, will you join us?”

A rustle of cloth, and then Gideon stood in the door. “Sir?”

“My daughter says that she loves you. And you her, I understand.”

Hannah half rose from her chair, gripping the arm for support.

“Yes, sir.” He turned his hat in his hands. “Yes sir, I do.”

“And you wish to marry her?”

Gideon looked past Sir Phillip, meeting Hannah’s gaze. She trembled at his smile. “Very much so.”

“Then sir, you have my permission to address my daughter.” Sir Phillip stepped to the side, tucking his hands behind his back.

After only a moment of hesitation, Gideon came across the room. Hannah met him, hands outstretched. He took them with his large, capable fingers. With a breathless laugh, he got down on one knee. “Miss Miller, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

“Oh, yes.” Not caring that her father was in the room, Hannah bent to kiss her quicksilver youth, and blessed the stars for allowing her father to make a rash decision.

The skies were clear and the winds fair for Plymouth, the
Hesperides
flying before them like a swan, her wings unfurled from the yardarms and bellying out full. On deck, the gusts were strong enough to flick sailors’ tarred tails of hair forward over their shoulders; higher in the rigging, they were strong enough to knock my shoulders forward and test the set of my feet on the rope beneath. I grinned into the afternoon sky, momentarily letting the wind carry my concerns from me, away into the distance, as if to drown them in the deep.

I loved these moments aloft. The mast swayed in great arcs with the pitch and roll of the ship below, which had alarmed me greatly in my midshipman days. Now I found it exhilarating. And it was one of the few places aboard a frigate where one could feel truly alone.

Nearly three hundred men on the
Hesperides
, packed in cheek by jowl, and a trifle bloodied by our work at Algeciras two weeks before. But good spirits prevailed: our squadron had sunk two Spanish vessels and captured a French seventy-four, with scarcely more than a dozen killed on our side. It was remarkable how rapidly a decent victory could improve morale.

A decent victory, and the prospect of shore leave ahead. Our harbor was approaching, visible on the horizon without need for the spyglass thrust into my breeches. Duty called, as it always did. I called down to the deck in a strong bellow, then gripped the backstay in my calloused hands, piked my body upward to wrap my legs over, and slid down the thick rope with practiced ease.

Perkins was waiting for me below, hat in hand. I accepted my cover from the midshipman with a nod and, settling it upon my head, made my way aft through the routine bustle of sailors and ropes, all the bones and sinews and blood that kept the ship in flight across the waves. The
Hesperides
was more battered than her men; a thirty-two-gun frigate had no business in a battle between ships of the line. But broken yardarms, splintered deck planks, shattered rails—those could all be repaired, and would be. Leave would give us time to rest, and everyone was eager to get to it.

Except the lieutenants of the
Hesperides
, who faced a different fate. I found Harry brooding on what remained of the taffrail, broad shoulders hunched inside his coat, sea-colored eyes slitted against the force of the wind. “Plymouth in sight,” I said, as if he might not have noticed, and got only a grunt in response. “It’s only a party, Harry.”

It gained me a half smile. “I thought you hated parties.”

I did. They were invariably attended by mothers with unmarried daughters, who saw a promising young lieutenant as a reasonably likely prospect. Dedicated rakes might enjoy that game, but as Britain’s least eligible bachelor, I found it nothing short of torture. Still—“It’s good to get off the ship once in a while.”

“Never long enough to see your sister, though. Does it bother you?”

“I wish Victoria’s health were good enough to allow her to come south,” I said. “But the mail packet should bring another letter, which is always good.” It meant my arrangements were still holding.

“No Almack’s for her,” Harry said, his gaze still fixed outward. “No society at all, for an invalid. It must be hard.”

I found it odd that he should say so. Neither of us had ever been to Almack’s—though one heard the tales, even out at sea. Did he miss the elegance of that life?

For my own part, I did not. This was what I loved best: sails and rigging, rudder and hull, the salt spray peeling at my face. Life on land would be safer, for sure—I never yet heard of a dancer at Almack’s losing a hand or leg to someone’s misstep—but with less of glory in it, and less
purpose
.

I did not voice these thoughts to Harry. There was no need: he and I were joined in our love for the sea and the service that commanded our loyalty. He was my dearest companion in all the world, and I, if I did not miss my guess, was his. We had been friends since my first day as a midshipman, and had hardly been separated since, excepting my brief and ill-fated assignment to the
Persephone
. We understood each other even without words.

Usually. Yet I had no idea what troubled him today.

From behind us came a familiar, hated voice. “Looking ahead to the whores? There will be none for us. Fine ladies instead, much good may it do.”

If I had little need to share my thoughts with Harry, I had even less desire to do so with Byrom. But did not like having him at my back, and so turned to face
Hesperides
’ second lieutenant. “You’d prefer Plymouth’s pox-ridden women? Myself, I’d sooner lick the sores of a leper—it would be safer for my health.”

A faint, supercilious smile often lurked about Byrom’s mouth; now it grew nastier. “Indeed. Perhaps your preferences lie elsewhere, Ravenswood.”

My back went rigid. For words like that, I could call him out, and any man alive would call it justice. But if I did . . .

Byrom knew his hold over me, and missed no opportunity to exert it.

Rage boiled in my veins, less for the present insult—merely the newest in a long series—and more for the despicable pos ition into which I had fallen. The thought had even entered my head, during the battle, whether it might not be worth the cost to shoot Byrom where he stood. Him, and then myself: I almost believed I had rather endure hell’s punishment for a suicide than the ordeal I suffered now. Though if the devil had any sense of irony, my punishment would be exactly what I sought to escape.

I received the bosuns’ yells with gratitude, for they broke me from my black and murderous thoughts, summoning me to my work. Without speaking, I pushed past Byrom and went to do my duty.

Harry followed me down to the ship’s waist. In a voice I hoped was not clear to the men’s ears, he said, “Honestly, Simon—no one could fault you if you called him out.”

“Granger doesn’t like his officers to duel,” I said, pausing to let some of the men swing up onto the ratlines, heading aloft to reef sail.

“But he’s given you no command against it.”

“That’s a lawyer’s argument, Harry, and unlike you.”

He winced, and I regretted the barb. But the anger in his tone wasn’t directed at me. “
I
should like to see you call him out.”

If only I could. But Byrom would never accept the challenge. “The Navy’s golden boy? Lowry wouldn’t like it if I damaged his future lieutenant.” Much less killed him, as he deserved. The rage flared up again.

“They intend him for promotion, obviously,” Harry agreed. “Lowry takes prizes aplenty, and gives their command to his officers; the Admiralty rarely revokes the promotions. They say the
Inimitable
may be the finest ship our yards have turned out. Lowry will be in a hurry to test that.”

Which meant Byrom might be a commander within a year, and a post-captain soon after. I wondered if God had placed me in this position as punishment for my sin. But why wait so long to inflict it? And why punish innocents along with me?

Determined to turn my thoughts from their course, I bent to the task of bringing the ship into port. “Never mind Byrom. Let’s go to meet our doom.”

•   •   •

Our doom consisted of genteel music, finely dressed gentlemen and ladies . . . and one face whose unexpected presence struck me with the force of a musket ball.

Lady Katherine Deverell stood beside her husband in elegant lace, her hair coiffed in the latest fashion, greeting her guests with a smile and the graceful extension of one gloved hand. All that gentility was as good as a disguise, compared with the hoyden she had been, years before; and yet I should have recognized Kate Lyon were she painted like a harlequin.

Her eyes fixed on me even before Captain Granger finished his introductions. There was no way she could fail to remember the name of Simon Ravenswood; it had not been so many years as that. But how much did she guess?

“You seem to know the gentleman,” Lord Deverell said, noticing Kate’s interest—as any man might who has fifteen years on his pretty young wife and knows it.

I spoke before she could. “The lady and I were acquainted in childhood,” I said, my tone cordial but distant, to lay her husband’s fears to rest. “Before she went to Italy. She was good friends for a time with my sister Victoria. We have not seen each other in many years.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed. But she could hardly say anything, not there in front of everyone, and I felt mixed relief and regret as we made polite small talk and then moved away so that she and her husband could greet their other guests. Either, I supposed, would be short-lived; I could hardly avoid her for the entire night. Whether I wanted to or not . . . that question, I could not answer.

Nor did I have time to consider it. Before long, I had another matter to distract me.

I had met Harry’s family before, and greeted Mrs. Wycliffe and her daughter with a smile and a well-practiced bow over their hands. The third lady with them, however, was unknown to me. “Lieutenant Ravenswood, may I present Miss Charlotte Fanning?” Mrs. Wycliffe said, ushering the girl forward. She beamed fondly at Miss Fanning. “Harry’s fiancée.”

Despite my self-control, I stuttered visibly in my bow. Fortunately, the angle concealed my expression from the ladies—I could only hope Harry himself had not been watching. By the time I straightened, my look was one of pleased surprise. “Harry said nothing to me of an engagement!”

It was not the best response. Miss Fanning smiled awkwardly; no young lady would like to hear that her husband-to-be has kept her a secret. But Mrs. Wycliffe gave her son an indulgent pat on the arm. “He is dreadfully superstitious. I cannot deny that the life of a naval lieutenant is a dangerous one, and difficult for his family; I’m sure your own sister feels the absence keenly, Lieutenant Ravenswood. But it’s nonsense to think that speaking of good news will bring ill fortune in return.”

Superstitious? No more than any sailor. Why had Harry not said anything of this to me? We might leave a great many things unspoken, knowing the other would fill in what had not been said, but this was close-mouthed even for him. I was not some dockside fortuneteller, to ferret out secrets I had not been told.

He would not meet my gaze, either, when I glanced at him. Well, he could hardly offer an explanation here, in front of the others. But I would have to press him for one later.