by Gwyn Cready
“Oh, I could definitely surprise him with that,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’m the only one who would enjoy it.”
Fifteen
René Duchamps gazed at the line of landsmen before him, all who were hoping for a job on his ship, La Trahison. Drunken, poxed buggerers, all—he had no high opinion of Scotsmen as sailors—and yet he, as acting lieutenant, would be required not only to teach them to make sail, keep a watch, and fight but to feed and clothe the brutes as well. In truth, the landsmen should pay him, not the other way around.
“Take this to the purser,” Duchamps said to the gap-toothed Scot before him. “He’ll provide you with breeks and a shirt.”
“I dinna wear breeks.”
“You do on this ship, oui?” He stamped the man’s papers. “We’ll have passengers on our next voyage. We cannot have them searching the sky for Polaris or Ursa Major and finding an orchard’s worth of Scottish plums instead. Next.”
“Harris, sir—Struan Harris.”
“Bonjour. I’m Lieutenant Duchamps. What are you here for, Harris?” The young man was nearly as tall as Duchamps but much slimmer, with features except for his thick, black brows that were as delicate as a girl’s, and the rosy cheeks and beatific smile of an angel.
“I want a job and I’m willing to work hard.” The lad lowered his head and swept off his cap, revealing ginger hair braided into a tight plait.
When the boy looked up again, Duchamps tried to find a place to look other than his blue eyes and long, lacy lashes. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Can you make sail, climb, and work a gun crew?”
The boy nodded. “Aye, sir. All verra well.”
“Then sign here. We have a ship full of cargo and could use your help.”
The boy leaned down to sign, and Duchamps leaned forward without thinking and drew in a lungful of the boy’s alluring scent. When he realized what he was doing, he jerked back hard enough to make his chair squeak.
“Is everything all right, sir?” the young man said.
“Oui. You can pick up your uniform from the purser.”
“Thank you. You won’t regret it.” The lad made a formal bow, then hesitated.
“What is it, Harris?”
“About the cargo—will ye be moving it into a warehouse or directly onto wagons?”
Duchamps frowned. “That’s an odd question.”
“Is it? I have a brother who works at one of the warehouses. I just wondered if I’d be seeing him.”
“Move along, Harris.”
The boy bent to pick up his bag from the floor and the opulent curves of his arse took Duchamps’s breath away. Horrified, Duchamps slapped a hand to his forehead, wondering if he was succumbing to a fever. “You, there!” he called to a passing cook’s mate. “Get me some coffee and make it strong, oui?”
Sixteen
Serafina’s blood thrummed with the happiness of being on a freshly scrubbed deck in the middle of a briny breeze as she looked out over the docks of Leith. Once she knew which cargo was Edward’s and where it was going, she’d be off the ship and on the way to collecting it.
A man in a blue coat with coal-black eyes stepped between her and the rail. It was the captain. She could tell by the lace at his shoulder. “We don’t pay men to stand around and stare. Who are you, sailor?”
“Struan Harris, sir. I’m new.”
“New is no excuse. Find your company and get to work. Next time it’ll be the cat for you.”
Serafina sniffed. A pleasure to meet you, Struan. Welcome aboard. So glad you chose La Trahison. Her father had been a disciplined captain, but discipline didn’t preclude civility. And a ship’s company worked together far better under a captain they admired than under one they hated. So, a French lieutenant and an English captain. She expected she’d hear a number of tongues aboard. Merchantmen traveled the world to gather and deliver their precious cargoes, and they picked up sailors anywhere they could get them.
Serafina followed a stream of sailors heading for the narrow companionway. What she wanted would be below. The ship had just arrived in port, and the wagons were only beginning to gather on the docks to collect the cargo.
“Are you here for the cutlasses and knifes?” asked the man at the bottom of the steps. The men before her nodded and she did too. “Dinna know how he expects the armorer to sharpen all these and fix the grates in a single afternoon, but I ain’t the captain, am I?”
When the men disappeared into the weapons room, she threaded her way to the next set of stairs and descended again. The lowest decks were dedicated to cargo, which would be packed in crates and barrels marked with the owner’s name.
The hemp of ropes as thick as her leg, the pine of spars, the sweat of men working the pump—the smells reminded her of the carefree happiness of her youth. She’d had a hundred hiding places in her father’s ship and could play from dawn to dusk without ever getting bored.
She turned the corner and found the cargo. The crates were stacked three high and ran for the length of the ship. Sailors were just beginning to secure the first ones for removal. She padded down the center walkway, reading the names on the containers.
Piggott-Jones
Macniece
Carlton
FitzGerard
Nixon
Foster & Blair
MacAfee
Cockburn
Frazier
MacNulty
No Turnbull. She walked the length again with no more success. Her contact had assured her the ship with Edward’s cargo was coming in this week, and Duncan’s questions at the dock the afternoon before had unearthed the fact that the Turnbull cargo would be on La Trahison, a red barque under a French flag. She stopped a man examining one of the ship’s ribs, angle in hand, a man she guessed to be the ship’s carpenter. “Is this all the cargo?”
“Why, lad? Not enough to keep you busy?”
“Lieutenant Duchamps asked for a status on the Turnbull cargo.”
The man laughed. “The captain will be handling that on his own, I expect.”
This was the right ship!
“Perhaps he’s already removed it to his cabin, then?” Serafina searched the man’s face for confirmation.
He returned to his rib. “You’re new, ain’t ye? Take my advice and let it go. The captain will handle it.”
Unfortunately, “let it go” was not in Serafina’s nature. She headed down the next companionway into the lowest level of the ship.
Here the ballast—usually iron pig or, as on this ship, rocks—sat to balance the vessel, and there were a dozen sailors redistributing the weight. The balls and shot for the great guns were stored here as well, in small rooms, and covered with grease to ward off rust. The foul-smelling bilge water lapped beneath the walkways, and she edged past two sailors knee-deep in the stuff. There appeared to be little enough of interest on this deck, but she wanted to be sure. A padlocked door stood at the far end of the deck. It could be the arms, but it would be unusual to store them in so damp an atmosphere. She made her way over to investigate. She was almost there when nearby men’s voices brought her to a halt.
“…you’re sure no one knows? You’re the only man on board I can trust. No one must know, aye?”
She recognized the voice of the captain. He was directly behind her in the walled-off carpenter’s walkway, the narrow space running the circumference of each deck used to inspect the timbers for leaks and damage.
She took a step to hide and the floor squeaked. The voice stopped. She hurried back toward the ballast and got in the long line down which men were transferring the rocks. A dozen rocks in, a hand came down on her shoulder.
“Monsieur Harris, what are you doing here?”
Had Lieutenant Duchamps been the man to whom the captain was talking? She hadn’t seen from what direction Duchamps had come.
The captain was nowhere in sight.
“I was looking for you,” Serafina said.
“Were you?” The man frowned and took a step back. “The carpenter said you might be.”
“I couldna find the purser. Someone said he might be on the orlop deck, but I must have gone one deck too far. I am used to my last ship. Forgive me, sir.”
“The purser is on the quarterdeck. Hurry along. The captain will be calling all hands soon.”
Serafina raced up the companionway to the top deck. She wanted no parts of the purser or the all hands. She was ready to leave and slipped, head down, into the group of sailors splicing rope and waited until Duchamps passed. Then she ran past the opening to the gangplank and jerked to a stop. An armed guard stood at the top, blocking anyone from exiting.
She sidled up to a sailor who was adjusting some rigging. “Why is the gangway blocked?” she asked under her breath.
“The captain says we’re sailing out.”
“Tonight?” The ship had barely arrived.
“Now.”
She felt a prickle on her neck and looked up. The masts, previously bare, were beginning to open their sails like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, and men ran barefoot over the yards, working in beautiful unison to secure the canvas. Serafina had no wish to be borne away to God knows where on a ship with a captain doing something questionable enough to want to hide it from his crew.
Panicked, she peered over the side in search of the metal footholds used like a ladder to descend into a boat. She spotted a set to her right. She swung herself over the railing and felt for the first rung.
Her toes had just found a purchase when a fist grabbed her collar.
“Harris, we do not take kindly to deserters.”
Seventeen
Gerard peered out the carriage window, Duncan next to him. The ship was a hive of activity, and wagons lined the dock, waiting to carry away the treasure within.
“Are you sure that’s the one?” Duncan asked.
Gerard nodded. “The ship she was watching was red with square sails.”
“And red with square sails was the description of the ship the dockmaster gave me when I asked him how Edward Turnbull’s cargo would be arriving.”
Gerard gave him a look. “You’re after his cargo too?”
“I asked on Serafina’s behalf yesterday. She sent me to the docks.”
“Our Serafina has had a busy twenty-four hours, hasn’t she? Well,” Gerard said, hopping out, “it’s the only red ship in port. She’s got to be around here.”
Duncan followed, but his attention was immediately caught by a young, well-dressed woman with dark hair standing in front of a chandler’s shop. He ran to her side, chatted with her briefly as she gazed at Gerard over her shoulder, and led her back to the carriage.
She carried herself with the bearing of a queen, and Gerard found himself bowing automatically.
Without ado, she said, “Did you find Serafina?”
“Possibly,” Gerard said.
Duncan said, “Lady Kerr, may I ask you to make the acquaintance of Mr. Gerard Innes.”
This was Abby, then, the chieftess with whom Duncan had fallen in love. Lady Kerr extended her hand, palm down, and Gerard, with a nod from Duncan, bent to kiss it.
“I’m Lady Kerr’s steward,” Duncan added.
Sure you are.
“And the man I am to marry—though you are not to say a word to anyone,” she added in a voice that expected to be obeyed.
“No, ma’am.”
“I am Abby to you, please—in private. Lady Kerr, otherwise, of course.”
Gerard nodded briskly.
Abby smiled. “I hear you are to marry Serafina.”
Gerard sputtered. “Is that what Duncan says?”
“No, that’s what Undine says. Duncan says you bedded her and made light of it to one of the curates at St. Giles.”
Gerard flushed. “It was a moment of annoyance, and I have come to see the error of my ways.”
“He has also come to see his breakfast again,” Duncan added helpfully, “when he cacked it up on the cobbles of the Royal Mile after an urgent meeting with my knee.”
“I’m glad to hear of it. Serafina is a most treasured friend. We are quite glad she had the opportunity to attempt to dismiss her odious fiancé from her thoughts with your, well, assistance. However, if you have any hope of being permitted to marry her, you will behave in a manner more befitting a gentleman, aye?”
“Permitted to marry her? Who are you, the pope?”
“I am the chieftess of Clan Kerr, and as a guest of mine, Serafina is under my protection. Until such time as she decides to remove herself from it, you require my assent to marry her.”
“You’ll require mine too,” Duncan added, amused, “but only because she’s my friend.”
Gerard looked from one face to the other. “Oh, this is rich. I’m dragged from my bed against my will, and now you’re saying somehow I have to earn the right to marry her? Listen, I have no intention of marrying Serafina, but if I did, the only person’s assent I’d need is hers.”
He didn’t know how Abby could look down her nose at him given that he was easily four inches taller than she was, but she managed to. “Good news, sir. With that sort of regard for her feelings, you’re on your way to earning my approval.”
Maddening! The women here were pushy, willful, and utterly full of themselves. Why would any man want to stay? Then he remembered the feel of Serafina’s hand in his before they kissed and the way her legs enveloped him on that stack of rugs in the spire.
Duncan saw the sudden change on his face and laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Well, all of this marriage talk is well and good, but until we actually find Serafina, we’re wasting our breath. There are three idiots with pistols following us—the worst kind of idiots, in my opinion—who are probably looking for her too, and I’d prefer they didn’t find her first. If that’s the ship, then the cargo of Edward the Odious is sitting there, waiting for someone to collect it. Oh, shit.” Gerard pointed to the ship, where, high above them, a sailor hung half over the railing, searching for an external rung with a questing foot.
“He won’t fall,” Abby said, unconcerned. “Sailors do that all the time. They’re absolute monkeys when it comes to climbing.”
“That’s not a sailor,” Gerard said. “At least not a career one. It’s Serafina. I’d recognize that ass anywhere.”
An officer in a tricorne—clearly the captain—grabbed Serafina by the collar and jerked her back onto the deck.
“Christ, now what?”
Abby tapped Gerard’s arm and pointed to the top of the main mast. “We have bigger problems. That flag means the ship is about to leave port.”
Gerard grabbed Duncan’s arm and pulled him toward the carriage. “C’mon! I need your clothes!”
“Again?”
Eighteen
Serafina was deposited inside the captain’s quarters with a shove by a burly sailor by the name of Rondo, whose only words of collegial support were “Stand there until the captain comes” and “Take yer hands out of yer pockets.”
She was well versed in the ways of shipboard justice. She had heard her father mete out whippings and floggings, though she’d been confined to her small quarters when the actual punishment took place. Once, when she was nine, she’d shimmied up to the barrel at the top of the mast in order to see a sailor of whom she had been quite fond receive his twenty lashes. The spray of the blood and the jerk of the man’s body had horrified her to such an extent that she’d cried herself to sleep that night and nursed a silent grudge against her father for weeks. After that, she’d always taken care to curtsy deeply to the sailor. It seemed to her a campaign of dutiful respect was the only cure for the abject humiliation he’d suffered.
The captain’s quarters held a gleaming mahogany dining table that ran the length of one side. His desk stood against the opposite wall, covered in stacks of the usual lists, logs, and reports necessary to the running of a ship. A latched glass-doored case holding a few books, a shaving cup and brush, and a silver elephant hung on the wall beside the desk, and beside that, on hooks, was an ancient ebony-handled pistol and the whorled tusk of a narwhal. Everything on a ship had to be secured in place, except the lanterns that swung from the ceiling, to ensure they didn’t fall off a table, and decanters of wine, which were round-bottomed, to roll with the swells during dinners. If Edward’s shipment was in here, it was a rather small one. Gems, perhaps, or gold. The only place to hide anything was the curving row of floor lockers topped by cushions that formed a bench under the stern windows. She briefly considered trying the desk drawers and lockers but decided surviving might be a better objective for the moment and turned her attention to that. An armed guard stood outside the door, standard in a working ship where the threat of mutiny was ever present. Her best option was the tiny balcony beyond the stern windows. She could swim—many sailors couldn’t—and if she could reach it to jump into the water…
The captain strode in, head ducked for the low ceiling, dashing her hopes. He closed the door behind him and sunk into a chair at the dining table.
“Where is your salute, seaman?”
She did as he asked.
“You were rated an able seaman.”
“Aye, sir.”
“In my experience, able seaman do not have trouble finding the purser, they do not find themselves accidentally in the hold, and they don’t help themselves to shore leave without permission.”
