by Julia Quinn
Then again, until this week, it had never occurred to her that she might wish to. Which made her feel . . . odd. Odd and uncomfortable.
It wasn’t the nicest of feelings, and it made her wonder what else she’d never noticed. She had always thought herself open-minded and curious, but she was coming to realize how impossibly small her world had been.
But instead of Ethiopia, she got to learn more about Kent. (Engineering Methods of the Ancient Ottomans turned out to be far more about engineering than it was about the Ottomans and was thus not only not exotic, but also completely indecipherable.)
And so Poppy was examining the illustrations of the Aubrey Hall orangery after dinner—for perhaps the dozenth time—when Captain James came in, alerting her as usual with one sharp rap before entering.
“Good evening,” she said, glancing up from the chair she’d dragged over to the windows. The view didn’t change, but it was beautiful, and she’d become devoted to it.
The captain didn’t look as tired as he had the last few nights. He’d said that all of the sailors had got over their putrid stomachs and were back on duty, so maybe that was it. She imagined everyone would have to work harder when three men were out sick.
“Good evening,” he said in polite return. He headed straight for the table, lifted the lid off one of the dishes, and inhaled deeply. “Beef stew. Thank you, Lord.”
Poppy couldn’t help but chuckle. “Your favorite?”
“It’s one of Monsieur LaBaker’s specialties,” the captain confirmed.
“Your cook’s name is LaBaker? Truly?”
Captain James sat down and dug into his meal, taking two very happy bites before saying, “I told you he was from Leeds. I think he just put a La in front of his name and called it French.”
“How very enterprising.”
The captain glanced at her over his shoulder. “He can call himself a potato if he wishes as long as he keeps cooking for me.”
Poppy being Poppy, she immediately began to wonder what Mr. LaBaker couldn’t call himself and still have a job cooking for him.
Captain, probably. It was difficult to imagine Captain James tolerating that.
“What are you grinning about?” he asked.
Poppy shook her head. It was just the sort of meandering thought there was no point in trying to explain.
He turned his chair so that he could see her without twisting in his seat. Then he sat back with that effortless masculine grace of his, long legs stretched out as a devilish smile played across his lips. “Are you plotting against me?”
“Always,” she confirmed.
This made him grin—truly, and Poppy had to remind herself she did not care if she made him smile.
“I’ve yet to meet with success, though,” she said with a sigh.
“Somehow I doubt that.”
She shrugged, watching as he went back to his supper. After three bites of stew, half a roll, and a sip of wine, she asked, “Do your men eat the same meals you do?”
“Of course.” He looked somewhat offended she’d asked. “It’s served more plainly, but I’ll not give them substandard fare.”
“A hungry man cannot work hard?” she murmured. She had heard it said, and she was sure it was true—she herself was worthless when she was hungry—but it did feel a somewhat self-serving statement, as if a man’s food was only worth the labor he might provide to his betters.
The captain’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment it felt as if he were judging her. And perhaps not favorably.
“A hungry man quickly loses his spirit,” he said in a quiet voice.
“I agree,” Poppy swiftly responded. She felt no need to impress this man—if anything, it ought to be the other way around—but it did not sit well to think that he thought badly of her.
Which was nonsense. She shouldn’t care.
But apparently she did, because she added, “I did not mean to say that I think a man’s potential for hard work is the only reason to feed him well.”
“No?” he murmured.
“No,” she said firmly, because his tone had been too mild, and she feared it meant he did not believe her. “I agree with you that a hungry man loses his spirit. But many men don’t care about the spirits of those they consider beneath them.”
His voice was sharp and perfectly enunciated when he said, “I am not one of those men.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t think you were.”
“There are many reasons to feed one’s men well,” he said, “not the least of which is the fact that they are human.”
Poppy nodded, mesmerized by the quiet ferocity of his voice.
“But there is more,” he continued. “A ship is not the same as a mill or a shop or a farm. If we do not work together, if we do not trust one another, we die. It is as simple as that.”
“Is that not the reason why discipline and order are so essential in the navy?”
He gave a sharp nod. “There must be a chain of command, and ultimately there must be one man in charge. Otherwise it will be anarchy.”
“Mutiny.”
“Indeed.” He used the side of his fork to cut a potato, but then he seemed to forget that he’d done so. His eyes narrowed, and the fingers of his free hand drummed along the table.
He did that when he was thinking. Poppy wondered if he realized this. Probably not. People rarely recognized their own mannerisms.
“However,” he said so suddenly that she actually jerked to attention, “this is not the navy, and I cannot invoke King and Crown to foster loyalty. If I want men who will work hard, they must know that they are respected, and that they will be rewarded.”
“With good food?” she asked dubiously.
This seemed to amuse him. “I was thinking more about a small share in the profits, but yes, good food helps too. I don’t want to lead a ship of miserable souls. There’s no pleasure in that.”
“For you or the souls,” she quipped.
He tipped his fork at her in salute. “Exactly. Treat men well, and they will treat you well, in return.”
“Is that why you have treated me well?”
“Is that what you think?” He leaned forward, a warm, lazy smile on his face. “That I’ve treated you well?”
Poppy forced herself not to react to his expression. He had a way of looking at her as if she were the only human being in the world. It was intense, and thrilling, and she’d had to learn how to steel herself against it, especially since she knew she could not possibly be its sole recipient.
“Have you treated me well?” she echoed. “Aside from the actual fact of the kidnapping, yes, I suppose you have done. I cannot say that I have been mistreated. Bored out of my skull, perhaps, but not mistreated.”
“There’s an irony there,” he remarked. “Here you are on what will probably be the biggest adventure of your life, and you are bored.”
“How kind of you to point that out,” she said dryly, “but as it happens, that exact thought has already entered my mind. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“An hour,” she ground out. “Twice a bloody hour. At least.”
“Miss Bridgerton, I did not know you cursed.”
“It’s a relatively new habit.”
He smiled, all white teeth and mischief. “Formed in the past week?”
“You are so astute, Captain James.”
“If I might be permitted to pay you a compliment . . .”
She inclined her head graciously; it seemed expected.
“Of all my conversational sparring partners, you rank easily in the top five.”
She quirked a brow. “There are four other people in this world who find you as vexing as I do?”
“I know,” he said with a woeful shake of his head. “It’s hard to believe. But”—at this he raised his fork, complete with carrot speared to the end—“the counterpart to that is there are four people in the world who vex me as much as you do.”
She considered that for a moment
. “I find that reassuring.”
“Do you?”
“Once I’m back home, never to see you again . . .” She clasped her hands over her heart and sighed dramatically, as if preparing herself for her final soliloquy. “It will warm my heart to know that somewhere in this big, cruel world, someone is irritating you.”
He stared at her for a moment, stunned into silence, and then he burst into laughter. “Oh, Miss Bridgerton,” he said, getting the words out when he was able, “you have risen to the number one spot.”
She looked over at him with a tipped-up chin and a clever smile. “I do try to excel in all of my endeavors.”
Captain James lifted his glass. “I do not doubt that for a moment.” He drank, seemingly in her honor, then added, “And I have no doubt that you succeed.”
She thanked him with a regal nod.
He took another long drink, then held the glass in front of him, watching the dark red liquid as he swirled it about. “I will confess,” he said, “that for all of my egalitarian views, I don’t share my wine.”
“You did with me.”
“Yes, well, you are a special case.”
“Aren’t I just,” Poppy grumbled.
“I might even have shared my brandy,” he continued, “if I had any.” At her questioning look he added, “That was what Brown and Green were supposed to get at the cave.”
“And instead you got me.”
Poppy wasn’t positive, but she thought he muttered, “God help us both.”
She snorted. She couldn’t help it.
“Watch your manners,” he said without any bite whatsoever. “I could give you grog.”
“What is grog?” She’d heard Billy talking about it. He seemed to like it.
The captain tore off a piece of his roll and popped it into his mouth. “Mostly just watered-down rum.”
“Mostly?”
“I try not to think about what else might be in there. I had enough of it when I—”
He stopped.
“When you what?” Poppy asked. He did that sometimes—started to tell her something, then cut himself off.
He set down his fork. “Nothing.”
And that was what he always said when she probed his silences.
But Poppy kept asking. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.
Captain James stood and walked to the window, hands on his hips as he gazed at the indistinguishable horizon. “There’s no moon tonight.”
“I had wondered.” She’d been sitting by the window for hours, and she’d not seen one drop of moonlight flickering along the waves. It made for a slightly different seascape than the previous evenings.
“It means the stars will be staggeringly brilliant.”
“How nice of you to let me know,” she muttered.
She was fairly certain he’d heard her, but he did not react. Instead he asked, without turning around, “What time is it?”
Poppy shook her head. Was he so lazy that he could not twist his neck to look at the clock? “It is half ten.” Your Highness.
“Hmm.” It was a rather short hmm, one that said he accepted her words as true and was now pondering a related issue.
How she knew how to interpret his grunts, she did not know, but she would have bet real money that she was correct.
“Most of the men will be below by now,” he said. He turned back to face her, leaning against the spot where the wall met the windows. “They work in shifts. They each get eight hours for sleep, but more than half take it at night, from nine to five.”
It was interesting—she liked these sorts of details—but she could not imagine why he was telling her this now.
“I think,” he said with a slow, deliberate tilt of his lips, “that if I were to take you up to see the stars, it would not cause such a large commotion.”
Poppy went very still. “What did you just say?”
He looked at her, something in his expression hinting at a smile.
And something hinting at something more.
“You heard me,” he said.
“You need to say it,” she whispered. “You have to say the words.”
He took a small step back, just enough so that he could offer her a courtly bow.
“My dear Miss Bridgerton,” he murmured, “would you like to join me on deck?”
Chapter 12
Poppy set down her book, never once taking her eyes from the captain’s face. She had the strangest notion that if she did, if she broke that contact for even a moment, his suggestion would pop in the air like a soap bubble.
She made the tiniest of nods.
“Take my hand,” he said, reaching out.
And even though everything within her that was sensible and true screamed that she ought not touch this man, she ought not let her skin even so much as brush against his . . .
She did.
He was still for a moment, looking down between them as if he couldn’t quite believe she’d done it. His fingers curled slowly around hers, and when their hands were truly clasped, he brushed his thumb against the tender skin of her wrist.
She felt it everywhere.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s go above.”
She nodded dumbly, trying to make sense of the strange sensation that was unfurling within her. She felt light, as if at any moment her heels would rise from the floor, leaving her tiptoed and ungrounded. Her blood seemed to fizz beneath her skin, and she tingled . . . not where he touched her—her hand felt warm and secure in his—but everywhere else.
Every spot of her.
She wanted . . .
Something.
Maybe she wanted everything.
Or maybe she knew what she wanted and was afraid to even think it.
“Miss Bridgerton?” he murmured.
She looked up. How long had she been staring at their hands?
“Are you ready?”
“Do I need a shawl?” she asked. (Then realized the irrelevance of her question and blinked.) “I don’t have a shawl. But do I need one?”
“No,” he said, his voice warm with amusement. “It’s quite mild. The breeze is light.”
“I do need shoes, though,” she said, pulling her hand from his. She paused, for a moment forgetting where her short black boots even were. She had not bothered to put them on since she’d arrived. When would she have needed to?
“In the wardrobe,” the captain said. “At the bottom.”
“Oh yes, of course.” How silly of her. She knew that. He’d put them there on her second day, after he’d tripped on them three times.
She grabbed her boots and sat down to lace them up. She’d sworn to herself—just this evening!—that she would not feel gratitude to any of the men on the ship, no matter how kind they were, but she could not seem to quell the traitorous urge inside her to throw her arms around him and gush thank you thank you until . . .
Well, maybe just twice. Any more would be ridiculous.
But the point was—
She paused. She had no point. Or if she did, she no longer knew what it was.
He did that to her sometimes. Jumbled her thoughts, tangled her words. She, who prided herself on her gift of conversation, her ready supply of wit and irony, was rendered without speech. Or at least without intelligent speech, which she rather thought was worse.
He turned her into someone she didn’t know—but only sometimes, which was the most baffling part. Sometimes she was precisely the Poppy Bridgerton she knew herself to be, quick with a rejoinder, mind sharp. But then other times—when he’d turn to her with a heavy-lidded blue stare, or maybe when he walked too close and she felt the air around her grow warm from his skin—she lost her breath. She lost her sense.
She lost herself.
And right now? He had disarmed her with a kindness, that was all. He knew that she was desperate to leave the cabin. Maybe he was even just doing this to butter her up for some future injustice he would commit. Hadn’t he once said that his life woul
d be easier if she wasn’t spitting mad?
She’d told him she never spit. That was Poppy Bridgerton. Not this scatterbrained peahen who couldn’t find her own shoes.
“Is something wrong with your laces?” he asked.
Poppy realized she’d stopped tying her laces halfway through her left boot. “No,” she blurted, “just lost the thread of my thought.” She finished up quickly and stood. “There. I’m ready.”
And she was. Somehow, with her sturdy shoes on her feet, she had regained her balance. She gave a little jump.
“Your boots look very practical,” the captain said, looking at her with a combination of amusement and curiosity.
“Not as practical as yours,” she said, with an eye toward what were surely custom-made tall boots. Such well-crafted footwear did not come cheap. In fact, all of the captain’s attire was exquisitely made. Privateering must be more lucrative than she’d imagined. Either that or Captain James came from a lot of money.
But that didn’t seem realistic. He was certainly wellborn, but Poppy doubted his family was rich. If they were, why on earth would he have gone into trade? And such a trade. There was nothing respectable about his profession. She could not even imagine her parents’ reaction if one of her brothers had done the same.
Her mother would have died of shame. Not literally, of course, but she would have declared her death by shame often enough that Poppy would have feared her own demise by repetitive aural torture.
And yet, Poppy could not see anything within the captain that warranted such disappointment. True, she did not know the nature or extent of his business dealings, but she saw the way he treated his men—or at least Billy and Brown and Green. She saw the way he treated her, and she could not help but think of all the so-called gentlemen of London—the ones she was supposed to adore and admire and want to marry. She thought of all the cutting remarks, the cruelty and unkindness they displayed toward the men and women who worked for them.
Not all of them, but enough to make her question the strictures and standards that declared one man a gentleman and the other a rogue.
