Scandal's Heiress

by Amelia Smith

  Thomas came up a wave and spotted his quarry. Three more strong strokes would bring him to the boy.

  George seemed to sense him and turned around mid-stroke. “Leave me alone!” he hollered.

  A huge wave swept up behind the boy.

  “No!” Thomas shouted. The wave crashed down, swamping George in its turbulence, dragging him under, mouth open. Thomas dove.

  The waters off the coast of Spain were by no means cold, by English standards, but they were chilly after the seas off the Malabar coast. Thomas questioned his own sanity again, but he was in the drink now and there was nothing to do but swim on. He ducked his head under the churning surface and pulled towards the boy. One, two, three long strokes and he sensed the depth of water above him change. He came up for air just in time to take in a lungful before diving under the next crashing wave. The boy was just beside him, flailing aimlessly, no longer moving forward with the strong, certain strokes he’d taken before.

  Under the surface of the water, under the next wave, Thomas grabbed the boy around the middle. A moment later, George was clinging to him like a piece of driftwood. At the next valley between waves Thomas grasped him more firmly.

  “Be still or you’ll pull us both under!” he said.

  The boy nodded mutely, eyes wide, as the next wave descended.

  They came through that one, and then another smaller swell rolled up without any treacherous churning foam on the top. Thomas rode up it, holding the boy and looking around for help, if any were coming. The ship was barely visible now through the lashing rain, but a boat had gone over the side and a small crew rowed towards them. Thomas shouted, hoping against hope that they would hear him, then another wave dragged them down.

  Wave upon wave crashed down, bearing them closer and closer to the rocky coast, but they'd been sighted.

  “You’re a damn fool!” Thomas said – whether to himself or the young George, he wasn’t sure. They weren’t through it yet. The men in the boat might as well turn tail and leave them to crash on the rocks, save their own skins. Thomas kicked, hoping to reach the boat, moving them farther out into the ocean, away from the shore.

  It could have been a lifetime, but probably no more than twenty minutes had passed when the boat reached them and Thomas threw his free arm around the ring buoy.

  “Up you come!” The second mate himself was in the boat. His name was Mr. Green, Thomas remembered. The man helped him over the gunwales while the sailors hitched a rope under the boy’s arms and shifted him into the boat.

  Despite everything, despite Thomas’s daring or foolhardy rescue, the lad looked back once more to the coast of Spain, as if wishing he were being washed up on those unforgiving rocks. Thomas grabbed him by the arm.

  “Don’t even think it!” he growled.

  As Thomas was bundled into a relatively dry wool blanket, the men in the boat clanged their bell, signaling to the Whistler. They left George lumped between rowers in the middle of the boat, shivering. Thomas was helped to the stern and handed a flask of brandy.

  “M-may I have a blanket?” George stammered after the men had set to oars.

  Mr. Green frowned at the boy.

  “You may, only if you swear on your mother’s grave never to pull another stunt like that while you’re passenger on this ship, or any other ship, for that matter.”

  George shivered. The mention of his mother’s grave had made his Mediterranean complexion go paler than sea foam for a moment. He sat very still as the oars splashed in and out of the water, bearing them closer to the ship, which sat with its sails furled, waiting for them.

  “All right then, I swear it. On my mother’s grave.” George's teeth chattered.

  Mr. Green tossed him a blanket and the boy huddled down, holding his head between his knees. Thomas and the second mate sat at the far end of the boat, far enough away to talk without being overheard by the boy.

  “You’re a strong swimmer,” the mate commented.

  “Hmm.” Thomas had learned to swim in India, where the surf could rise high, but at least the water provided some respite from the crushing heat.

  Mr. Green shook his head. “I forgot that the boy was an orphan,” he said.

  “Is that how he came to be in Captain Grey’s, ah, household?” Thomas asked. He was in no fit condition for idle talk, but the brandy was warming him already.

  “In a manner of speaking,” the mate said. “I understand he’s a bastard. His mother was the captain’s housekeeper.”

  “Ah!” Thomas shielded his face from a line of rain with the blanket. He puzzled it out. The young lady, then, was the boy’s half sister. Quite unorthodox. If Thomas recalled correctly, gently bred young ladies were usually ignorant of their father’s bastard children. In the event that they knew of them, they certainly didn’t take charge of their educations.

  “Not an entirely respectable family then?” Thomas queried.

  “On the contrary,” the mate said. “Captain Grey is the second son of a marchioness and his sister wed an earl. Besides which, as I’m sure you’ve heard, he’s possibly the most efficient supply line officer in the navy. A little eccentric, though. He will be forever in your debt for rescuing the lad.”

  The prospect of having Captain Grey in his debt mollified Thomas's sense of his own foolishness. The thought warmed his stomach, helped along by a deep gulp of brandy. The rains and wind seemed to ease a bit. From the relative safety of the boat, he was free to contemplate what had driven him to leap in after the boy. He didn’t have to think far.

  It wasn’t the boy himself, though he felt sorry for the lad, with those two interfering females hovering over him. No, it was Miss Grey. The look of despair in her eyes had goaded him to dive out of a perfectly safe ship into a very high chance of immediate and merciful death.

  Thomas had no desire to engage in idle chatter with the second mate. He kept himself warm with occasional sips of brandy as they made their slow journey back to the ship. He would have volunteered to help row or bail to keep warm, but it was too much effort to speak. Besides, the men worked well together, far better than they would if he tried to put his shaking hands to the oars.

  The irregular swells and whitecaps made slow going, and it was nearly evening by the time the boat nosed alongside the Whistler again. The downpour had slowed to a steady rain which fell more straight down than sideways, as it had when the wind was at its height.

  The rope ladder came down and a slender white hand reached out alongside it. Miss Grey’s face shone out of the gloomy evening air like a beacon. Her eyes were damp with tears, luminous blue-grey, like the shining clouds brightened by a few last rays of sunlight. She bit her lip and leaned forward, revealing more bosom than he'd seen in... well, at least since Gibraltar. Blood rushed to parts of Thomas’s anatomy that had resisted the brandy’s effects.

  He stepped onto the ladder first and scrambled towards her. When she was just before him, he took her delicate fingers in his wet, salty hand.

  “My lady,” he said and kissed the back of her hand. He smiled up at her. Droplets of water shone like diamonds in her hair. That once-severe cloak hung wet around her shoulders, clinging to her curves. Her eyes had all the intensity of the sea and none of its chill.

  One of the sailors pursed his lips to whistle, but another elbowed him broadly before he made a sound. They all raised their eyebrows at the little tableau of Mr. Smithson bowing to the young lady. Miss Grey’s blush deepened and she pulled her hand away. Thomas relinquished it reluctantly and climbed the last rung onto the deck.

  George was pushed up the ladder next, to be greeted not by his half-sister, but by the more forbidding face of Captain Hotham.

  “Alive, I see,” the captain observed. “It’s better than you deserve.” He turned to the first mate, who waited beside him. “Mr. Bromley. Lock the lad in his cabin.”

  “But I…” George started.

  “There’s no excuse for what you’ve done.”

  George choked back a g
enuine sob. He was still shivering – the long row back had chilled him even more than the swim. “I know Captain,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Captain Hotham grunted. “That’s as may be. I am sure you are, having seen what the Atlantic surf can be like. Nonetheless, I think it best if you spend the remainder of our journey firmly inside your cabin.”

  “And you will translate Homer and work sums until your tongue comes out of your ears!” Miss Grey added. Her voice cracked, sounding almost hysterical. “But I am glad to see you alive,” she added more quietly.

  The captain nodded to the first mate, who marched George off to his imprisonment.

  “Do make sure he’s well, Miss Grey,” Captain Hotham whispered. “And don't hesitate to send for the surgeon if you need him.”

  “I will,” she promised. “I certainly will.”

  Thomas still stood at the rail. She turned to him and he realized that he’d been staring at her throughout the whole, heated exchange.

  “Thank you, Mr. Smithson” she said. “I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

  Thomas thought of a few things, none of which would bear mentioning to a lady with any hint of respectability. The brandy had gone to his head.

  “I assure you, Miss Grey, I am always glad to come to a lady’s aid in her moment of distress.” It was a platitude, but it was the best he could manage. His toes weren't gripping the deck properly, and he stumbled, but managed to catch himself on the rail before losing his balance.

  “That is most gentlemanly of you,” she said, with no idea of all the un-gentlemanly thoughts in his mind. “We are in your debt,” she continued. “You have my sincerest thanks, as well as Captain Hotham’s.”

  “Indeed,” the captain said. “I might not have judged it worth the risk to the Whistler to rescue the boy alone, especially with young George making so surely for the Spanish coast. However with you in the drink too, Mr. Smithson…”

  “I thank you, too, Captain Hotham,” Miss Grey said, looking back and forth between the two men, as if unsure who was really responsible for her brother’s rescue. “I really must go see to George now.” With that, she hurried away down the deck.

  Thomas watched her go, shaking the sea water from her cloak.

  “She was here at the rail the whole time,” the captain said to him. “She was sick with worry, and not all of it was for the boy, I think.” He winked, and Thomas felt like… it would be better if he stepped away and into his cabin before he made a further fool of himself.

  “You ought to have stayed on board,” the captain said.

  “I thought that,” Thomas said, “especially when I realized that the lad was trying to go over to Spain.”

  “Perhaps he thought his mother’s people would let him run wilder than his English relations.”

  “Relations who are unlikely to even acknowledge him,” Thomas said, “on either side.” He shivered.

  “I will walk with you back to your cabin and see that a hot brazier is brought,” the captain said. He looked back at the fading coast of Spain. On the main deck, the men were raising the sails, preparing to get underway again.

  “You will, of course, not mention this to the ladies when you return to England,” the captain said as they walked. “It will go better for Miss Grey if she isn’t beset by this scandal, too. Common enough to have a bastard in the family, but you know…”

  “Indeed, I do,” Thomas said. He could well remember the furor that had been raised when his uncle had taken up too openly with his mistress and left every un-entailed scrap of his property to his bastard son. “But do tell, what other scandal can already be afoot regarding the girl if she’s spent her life in obscure Gibraltar, studying Latin and Maths?”

  “Ach, I assumed you knew. It’s a tired old matter of her ancestry, though as you can clearly see, Miss Grey is a lady to the bone, no matter what her grandmother might have been.”

  The wind, which had grown slack, picked up again, blowing from the north. The ships ahead of them faltered in their course.

  “Curse this wind!” the captain said. “Reef the sails again!” he shouted. “At this rate it will be a month before we reach England,” he complained to Thomas.

  “That long?” Thomas wasn't sure if he were glad of the delay, or if he wished the journey already done. At least his cabin was before him, its door opening in his hand, the brazier sitting ready on the deck outside.

  “Perhaps not quite so long,” Captain Hotham said, “but we should have cleared Spain days ago. Please, pardon me for rattling on. You are in no state to stand out here in the wind. Go inside and warm yourself. I’ll have one of the boys check in on you shortly.”

  With that, Captain Hotham marched away, leaving Thomas wondering what other mysteries Miss Grey harbored.

  #

  “Good gracious, Hyacinth, you must be soaked to the bone!” Mrs. Hotham exclaimed as Hyacinth came into her parlor.

  Hyacinth unclenched her fingers from the sodden cloak to warm them at the freshly lit brazier, while Maria prepared one in her own cabin. Mrs. Hotham looked well enough, considering the storm that had just passed.

  “I am rather damp,” Hyacinth said, “but it’s Mr. Smithson who is truly drenched.”

  “And young George, I imagine,” Mrs. Hotham added.

  Hyacinth shook her head. True, George was wet to the bone, but that was the least of her worries. What worried her was what would become of him, how he could have done such a foolish thing, and how their father would take the news when it inevitably reached him. The boy was a fool and a reckless, thoughtless one at that, despite all the Greek and mathematics she’d managed to work into him. He had not a whit of common sense.

  She’d stood at the rail all afternoon, rain, wind, and all. They couldn’t budge her from her vigil. It was all she could do for George, and it was nothing. Captain Hotham ought to have left him to his foolhardy swim. If Mr. Smithson hadn’t jumped in, too, they might have sailed on, and she would never have heard from George again, most likely, or known whether he’d lived or died. That would have been worse, she supposed, than this feeling of helplessness, of uselessness in the face of George’s ill-timed rebellion.

  She must have muttered something in comment, because Mrs. Hotham was talking again.

  “Your father is more than usually generous with the boy.”

  “He always has been,” Hyacinth said, “but now I don’t know what he’ll do. He might cut George off entirely. I wouldn’t blame him. I don’t much feel like speaking to him, myself.”

  “And Mr. Smithson!” Mrs. Hotham exclaimed, as if she hadn’t heard a thing Hyacinth was saying. “How valiant!”

  Mr. Smithson had plunged through the sea like Poseidon. Hyacinth had thought her heart would burn right through her chest at the sight of him. She turned back to the fire to hide her blush as she thought about him. Hyacinth looked up, but Mrs. Hotham hadn’t guessed the direction of her thoughts. She was only indulging her own admiration of the man.

  “Do you think it was on your account?” Mrs. Hotham asked teasingly.

  “No. Never,” Hyacinth said. “Although he did say as much, some nonsense about doing anything to ease a lady’s distress. To be honest, I think it was the only excuse he could muster. He must have been half-mad to jump in like that. And George was worse than foolish. He at least has the excuse of being still a boy, but Mr. Smithson is a grown man…“

  Mrs. Hotham giggled. “My dear!” she exclaimed. “I thought you would have noticed that before!”

  Hyacinth’s blush ran all the way up to her hairline. She avoided looking at herself in the bit of mirror beside the fire, but she could feel the heat of it on her brow. “I had known that he was a man, of course, but I suppose I hadn’t truly appreciated it until this afternoon. He took his shirt off. It was all most…”

  “Scandalous, I should say!” Mrs. Hotham tittered.

  Hyacinth wished that Mrs. Hotham would be serious. She might be trying to be cheerful, but it wasn
’t helping. It was so deeply embarrassing that Mr. Smithson had leapt to her aid, to George’s aid, when she’d been able to do nothing but stand in the way while the sailors lowered the boat to try to save the swimmers.

  “It’s hardly a scandal,” Hyacinth said. “If I hadn’t been present, a shirtless man would have been completely commonplace. We are at sea, after all. They can hardly be expected to go about in full evening dress.”

  “I still say it is all very thrilling,” Mrs. Hotham said. “I am only sorry I wasn’t well enough to see him half-naked on the deck!”

  “You are?” Hyacinth was frankly shocked. She tried to laugh. “But you’re a married woman,” she said, “and in your condition, too!”

  Mrs. Hotham pursed her lips. “I am happily married, but my condition doesn’t blind me to the charms of a handsome and daring man. You’ll see soon enough, after you catch yourself a husband in London this season.”

  Hyacinth shook her head. To think of finding a husband, at a time like this? She had her responsibilities to George first, and then she would have to sort out her inheritance. Finding a husband would only be a hindrance and a distraction.

  “I don’t know,” Hyacinth said after a pause. “Did you manage any embroidery this morning, before the storm?”

  Hyacinth managed to direct the conversation away from herself and more towards embroidery until the ship was steady enough for the cook to ladle out a simple supper. She excused herself as soon as they had eaten and went to see to George in his imprisonment.

  #

  Chapter 4: Night

  Thomas huddled over his brazier until feeling returned to his limbs. He lay down on his bunk to rest for a moment, and woke hours later, with a clear night sky outside and the full moon shining through his porthole. A covered dinner sat beside him, gone almost cold, but he didn’t mind that. He devoured it and poured himself a glass of wine.

  With a full belly and relatively calm seas, he should have fallen asleep again almost immediately. Instead, he sat on his bunk and felt the minutes drag by. Lingering discomfort from his afternoon’s swim needled him. His muscles, unaccustomed to so much exertion, were starting to ache despite the wine, and he couldn't help but think how close to death they’d been out there, he and the boy. He hadn’t minded the danger. What happiness did he have to lose? All of that had been destroyed.