A Different Sort of Perfect

by Vivian Roycroft

  Wake laughed and shook his head, tossing more droplets across her.

  Topaze paused in the trough, then rose for the next wave. Clara braced against the bow chaser and hung onto the pinrail as the bowsprit lead the ship higher. Her heart thudded, wild with renewed life. She'd never felt so fresh and carefree, not even when playing as a child, almost as if she'd never lived before. Then the world and water tumbled and Topaze crashed down again, splashing them with flying spray, and she could contain herself no longer.

  "Oh, this is perfect!"

  Clara laughed and gasped with the crew as wave after wave splashed them. Within only heartbeats she was soaked through, it seemed beneath her skin, and it felt so marvelous, the pounding heat of the doldrums might never have been.

  As she grew wetter, the swell built and the waves became choppy. The air blowing across her right cheek and arm cooled, the sky darkened, and ahead, the looming clouds spread across their path. Clara shivered.

  "Might be time for you to go below and get warm again, me lady," Wake said, before her first shudder stopped. "And change into something dry afore you catch a nasty old cold."

  "Probably a sound idea, Mr. Wake." The fun had evaporated from the spray with the shiver, in any case. Her old grey sarsnet awaited in her cabin, and she could ask Hennessy for a towel. Clara turned.

  Captain Fleming stood at the foremast, staring at her. His eyes had widened, as if her childish behavior stunned him. Or was he shocked because her hair was again falling, threatening to scatter her few remaining hairpins into the sea?

  Her face warmed. She was hardly behaving as a responsible, contributing member of the crew. Granted, everyone seemed to have gone a bit mad for a few minutes there, with the wind's resumption and the spray and their escape from the doldrums. But perhaps she shouldn't have pushed in among the sailors and made such a public spectacle of herself. Something in his expression, some buried awareness or knowingness, implied her behavior hadn't met his approval.

  She nodded to him and hurried past, back along the gangway and down into her cabin near the stern. The grey sarsnet was already draped across the hanging cot, with a towel and basin of warm water awaiting her on the washstand. Clara shivered again and set to work.

  Drat, she'd just had the opportunity to ask Wake about the white dress he and Mayne were supposed to sew for her. And she'd forgotten it in her silliness.

  But she couldn't bring herself to truly regret it.

  No matter how shocked Captain Fleming might be.

  * * * *

  Her laugh, clear and full, had attracted his attention first. She'd stood among the common sailors, sharing the spray with them, and her delighted laugh had risen above their guffaws and exclamations as an arctic tern might rise above the ocean's surface. Again she'd thrown her head back, but this time was different. No longer was she collapsing beneath the weight of the tropical heat, but standing up to the wind and waves as if daring them to splash her. And every time they had, she'd laughed again.

  The rousing breeze had tugged at her improperly restrained hair. She'd ignored it. Her full attention had targeted the watery elements and she'd faced into them with a fierce delight. Her arms had been thrown back with her head as the next rain of seawater dashed over her. She'd looked like a living figurehead, braving the wind and sea, a glistening, wet carving as much a part of the ship as he was.

  She was playful, natural, graceful. She'd never missed her footing as the deck rolled and plunged beneath her. Instead of a figurehead, she could have been Topaze herself, shouldering aside the waves and driving on.

  She was magnificent, and her innocent dominance of the bows touched a chord deep within him, moving him in a manner he couldn't begin to describe.

  When she'd turned, the way the worn, softened material of that dress had clung to her skin. Outlined her. Hiding nothing.

  And he'd been the only one to notice.

  Or the only one indiscreet enough to look.

  Abbot stood before him, hat in hand. He was speaking, had been speaking, and he might as well have done so to empty air.

  "Forgive me, Mr. Abbot, I'm afraid I missed that."

  Abbot's expression turned cynical. "Aye, Captain, that particular malady befalls the best of us, or so I'm told. I said I'd like to spread some canvas on deck and trap the rain. We're about to get a ducking and we might as well use it to fill our casks."

  "Of course. You have my blessing."

  "And you have mine, sir." Abbot replaced his hat and stalked off, calling for the bosun as the first fat drops of rain splatted on the deck.

  What a cryptic fellow his first lieutenant had become. What on earth was the man talking about?

  Chapter Twenty

  "On deck, there. A ship, hull-up, dead astern." The call came down from the mainmast lookout as first light threatened the eastern horizon.

  Fleming grabbed his best, most accurate apochromatic lens, stuffed it beneath his arm, and raced on deck in his breeches and shirt. His pulse beat in his ears, too loudly but not quick: the slow, steady pounding of the hunter's fierce delight, once the prey's in view.

  It could be Armide. Hope sang through the pounding. It could be.

  The watch below stumbled up the fore and midships ladders and swarmed the gangways, clutching buckets and holystones. Only the dimmest landmen tried to peer through the gloom, not yet broken by even the faintest of stars in the distant north astern. Fat lot of good such peering would do them, if the other ship was only hull-up. Fleming pushed through the excited sailors, grabbed the ratlines, and flew up the shrouds' rope laddering one-handed to the crosstrees.

  "Dead astern, you say?"

  "Aye, Cap'n, a small ship-rigged sloop or snow." The lookout scooted off the tiny platform, onto the spar. "She's coming up hand over fist."

  Unease whispered through the pounding in his ears. Fleming settled into the crosstrees, peered through the lens, and swept the glass across the distant horizon. A flicker of movement, almost lost in the night's moribund remains, drew him back a hair, and there it was, hiding in the deepest gloom, at least ten miles away.

  The pounding dwindled and died, predatory instincts fading to wooden disappointment. Armide was definitely a frigate, with three masts and a spanker behind, and would look totally different from that two-masted outline. Even at that distance, there was no mistaking the lack of a mizzen. His hunt didn't yet have its beast in view.

  Dawn stretched its first fingers across the ocean's surface and the gloom eased; details remained obscure but the distant ship's brilliant sails took on edges and sharper definition, standing out against the grey mass of clouds beyond. Two masts, one deck, and a rakish cutter's hull — only one brig still in service looked like that. The edge evaporated from his let-down.

  "Good eyes you've got, Taylor." Fleming snapped the glass closed, grabbed the closest backstay, swung out into space, and wrapped his calves around the line. Gravity took over and he let himself down hand over hand. Within seconds he'd shot down more than a hundred feet, controlling the descent with his legs' pressure — remarkably easy, that seemed now, after all those nights of pacing — and when he thumped onto the quarterdeck beside Lady Clara's chair, it was with a bang indeed.

  Rather like a Jovian thunderbolt, actually.

  She jumped in her chair and whirled. Her wild eyes met his, glanced down toward his open shirt, widened, then slid aside, and a well-known, delightful hunger stirred within him, something he didn't wish to consider too closely. Then she sat back in her chair with a whooshing sigh and reproachful look.

  "Captain Fleming." She pushed the well-thumbed journal aside and dragged her lace-making from her canvas bag, the white thread trailing sharp lines across her blue gown. "You do like to catch a lady's attention, don't you?"

  Did he? Perhaps he shouldn't consider that too much, either.

  "Forgive me, Lady Clara. Simply taking the quickest route down." The sun had lifted farther, a rack of clouds now stretched across the entire horizon, an
d its northern limit seemed touched with a gauzy mist at the line where sea met sky. It had been three days since they'd filled the water casks from their first tropical ducking south of the Line; it seemed they'd receive another ere long. He snapped open the lens and peered again. Only a ghostly outline of the little brig was visible without the assistance of the mainmast's height. But her every sail drew, full and taut, hard brilliant white in that gauze; at the speed she'd be traveling, she would be in plain view within a few hours. "That looks like the Flirt."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  He grinned. No need to see her expression when she used that governess-of-twenty-years tone of voice. "His Majesty's brig by that name, my lady, commanded by an old, tried, and true friend." That scintillating hunger unfurled, a risible warmth stretching through his blood — originating from his right elbow. Still he didn't need to look; some well-developed awareness of her presence told him her precise location. He held out the lens, and her hand slipped around its tube and raised it to her eye. "Commander Francis Lamble. Do you see?"

  She leaned against the taffrail, her elbow nudging a belaying pin in its hole, then she swept the lens along the horizon. "Yes. The Flirt, you say?"

  Not a soul hovered nearby… nor seemed to be paying any attention. Holystones growled for'ard on the quarterdeck, the line of working sailors out of hearing by any practical stretch. But the shipboard magic of a curious crew meant nothing was ever safe from prying ears and eyes. Whatever Lady Clara and he said would spread from stern to stem post within minutes. While there was no impropriety in his history with Lamble, there had been considerable mischief and some discretion would be best.

  Fleming coughed. "We served together as mids aboard the old Druid, during the last French war, and I must say we were rather like Staunton and Chandler."

  "Oh?" She returned the lens. One eyebrow curved up, the other stayed level, and her lips twisted into a wry smile. "And you both survived?"

  Her lips… No, he'd not consider them, either. As a matter of fact, there had to be something on the blasted ship he could consider other than her. Or her features. Her nearness. Her curves. Her warmth… What on earth am I thinking?

  The lens, yes. He took another look. The distant sea wavered, then there was the Flirt — and indeed it was she — centered within the lens' little circle and already visibly closer. But the distraction, while welcome, made no impact upon his body's attention. Not even the looming storm drew him out. He needed room. "She'll be up with us before noon. Perhaps Lamble can stop and lunch with us." Fleming closed the lens, nodded to Lady Clara, and left her standing.

  And he didn't need to look to know that she stared at his back as he walked away, until his feet clattered down the aft ladder and the deck closed above him.

  Safely enclosed within the great cabin, Fleming leaned over the dining table's polished mahogany and released his pent-up awareness. When had he become so smitten, so physically enamored of her? When had his body learned to recognize her without his conscious mind's assistance? He'd realized his — yes, his lust for her, from their first breakfast together; but this had gone far beyond simple lust. This jealous sensitivity encompassed his body and emotions, driving out all else and refusing any distraction.

  Including Topaze.

  Meaning with Lady Clara around, he was no longer fit to command.

  This was a disaster, a flaming disaster. And he was supposed to help her find the man she loved? Without flattening the brute or firing into his ship? Fleming's arm muscles spasmed beneath his weight. Impossible.

  He straightened, wiping damp palms on his breeches. Handprints marred the mahogany's polish. Hennessy would have a fit. Let him.

  Even though it would cast an ugly stain over his honor, he'd have to rescind his word. Hopefully they wouldn't overtake Armide before they reached the Cape. Then he could put Lady Clara ashore for her return trip to England while they took on stores. No matter how loudly she fussed. Then he could concentrate on his command and the fight to come. No matter what his rebellious body thought of the matter. And then he could—

  —he could—

  Sleep in his own blasted hanging cot and get rid of this nagging backache.

  The sheets would smell of her. That clean, fresh, female scent. And the satin would stroke across his skin in the night, soft as innocent kisses. His entire body would rock with the cot and the ship's swaying, hungry, yearning.

  Alone.

  He might never sleep again.

  A flaming, outrageous disaster.

  * * * *

  Captain Fleming had taken his excellent glass below when he'd inexplicably vanished. But Staunton cheerfully lent her his battered one, and with its assistance Clara examined the onrushing Flirt: her perfect cloud of white sails, her low-slung hull, the officer peering back with his own spyglass from the quarterdeck, and the swarm of multi-colored signal flags snapping before the wind.

  "It's a sort of code," Lieutenant Rosslyn explained. His sandy queue, clubbed at the end, swung behind his neck as he glanced down at her, then swung again like a pendulum when he jerked back toward the railing. He always seemed so self-conscious around her, eyes darting from side to side, up then down, unwilling to hold her gaze nor look in her direction for long. "There's fourteen of those flags in different patterns and colors, and Admiral Popham, he's a serious, scientific sailor, a surveyor and such, he arranged them so's various combinations of two or three flags mean a certain word. All the midshipmen must do is memorize that code book, and then a ship can transmit messages as far as a spyglass can see."

  The kindest thing to do to ease his squirming was continue looking through Staunton's glass. But the Flirt was now so close, even a grateful man wouldn't be fooled. She closed the glass and set it aside. "And what is this combination of signal flags telling us, Lieutenant Rosslyn?"

  Pink crept up his cheeks, up his high forehead, and he turned away again. Clara sighed. He never seemed embarrassed around the men. But ever since dinner with the wardroom— And his glance had never yet strayed below her neck. If it even went that far.

  "Up top's her number, and the flags on her fore and mizzen backstays are the private signal, to let us identify her properly. The rest of it says, 'I am carrying dispatches,' Lady Clara." He shook out a line from the rigging and faked its end down on the deck in a neat spiral, around and around, from the outside in, until the line's end tucked into a tiny clear spot in the center of a perfect circle. "Meaning the captain's friend won't be able to stop for lunch." Awkward again, Lieutenant Rosslyn touched his scraper and strode away, stumbling one step when Topaze bucked gently.

  Perhaps he'd do better in another line of work. Clara settled her lace-making on her lap, the rows of little flowers still no better formed and the sheet of lace no longer than when she'd left Plymouth, and sighed. So perhaps might she.

  The sun hadn't yet reached its noontime height when Flirt tore up on Topaze's windward side, splashing closer and closer, a terrier ranging up on a pointer's heels. By Topaze's wheel, Lieutenant Rosslyn scowled and Chandler, the midshipman of the watch, muttered short, angry words beneath his breath. Clara peered more closely at Flirt. Granted, the round-seeming officer midships laughed while they grumbled, as if he deliberately sought and delighted in their ire; but she could see no reason for such censure.

  Then Flirt's shadow crept up over the poop deck, the two ships within hailing distance, and Topaze's lower sails flapped. Air spilled from them, her way came off, and they slowed in the water as Flirt, no longer challenged by their speed, swept even closer.

  Clara gasped. "They're blocking the breeze. The nerve!"

  Beside her, Fleming's laugh seemed abrupt, not its normal easy-going self at all. He clasped his hands behind his back, beneath his coattails. "Stealing our wind, it's called. And that, Lady Clara, is Lamble all over." He strode to the rail.

  Meaning Commander Lamble had been the Staunton-like mischief-maker in their midshipman days. Oh, she'd love to give him a piece of her min
d for this prank. The slope fell from Topaze's deck, the mizzen and mains'l billowing with rustling cracks, and the rush of water alongside dulled to a whisper. Since leaving the doldrums they'd had a splendid run of sailing large, with the wind less than a point off the stern, sails and stu'nsails set to the royals like massive white thunderclouds chained to the masts. As captain's clerk, she'd written each day's run in the log, and the southeast trades had driven them one hundred and fifty miles each day between noon and noon, with never a need to shift the sails nor touch a rope. Now along came this gimcrack showing away. If they logged less than one hundred and fifty miles this day, the oceans wouldn't be large enough for them both.

  Granted, that nasty-looking storm might slow them a bit, as well.

  The round-looking officer laughed and waved his scraper, a gesture between a greeting, a challenge, and a salute. The drum-taut stays'l above Flirt's sloping deck framed him like a picture. He wasn't overweight, but several of his various members seemed spherical or curved: a round face on a round head, round ears tight within his short brown hair, while his rounded shoulders reflected a larger inverse of his wide, mischievous smile.

  "Wish you could come aboard for lunch, Lamble, but I'd have to smack you around for your disrespect." Fleming's powerful bellow easily covered the yards separating the two ships.

  "Carrying dispatches, Fleming, old man, and can't stop." Lamble's chin lifted. His roving, professional eye skimmed Topaze's sails and masts, then lowered and stopped on Clara. "Although I'd love to."

  She might have to smack him herself.

  "Save the story for me," Lamble yelled as Flirt began drawing away. "Oh, are congratulations in order?" For a moment his laugh lingered as he clapped his hat on fore-and-aft, then the southeast trades whipped the sound away and Flirt was gone.