Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection

by Scott, Scarlett

  “I swear, Uncle,” she said, turning to the professor. “Sophia is very much like your beloved marble statues – she may be physically present, but she really belongs to an era gone by!”

  The carriage slowed, and Samuel straightened himself in the seat. He had done all she had suggested to manage their minor scandal and it appeared to have worked, but he had said nothing else about the matter to her.

  The carriage door opened and Samuel alighted. He met her eyes briefly, then left Uncle Jonas to aid her down, while he arranged for their luggage to be taken to the ship.

  Laura’s Barbel blue gown was the color of the summer sky around them. She looked a picture. The effect was spoiled by a huge yawn but at least Laura was no longer in the sulks. The week-long voyage would have been unbearable otherwise. In fact, her cousin’s mood had improved since the beginning of June and, best of all, there was no Archibald Havers in sight. It would be too much to ask it to be a happy coincidence.

  Sophia took in the small crowds of people clustered around each ship; some were farewelling passengers, others were sailors loading cargo and provisions. All around buzzed with the energy of the docks and she could not help but be invigorated.

  “You’re always so chipper in the morning. I don’t know how you can stand it,” Laura remarked.

  The Calliope was not the biggest ship but she seemed to be the newest. Everything about it seemed to glow in the morning sun. They watched three large men hoist a trunk each onto their shoulders and, nimbly for men their size, cross to the deck of the ship ignoring the gangplank’s rope handrail.

  Laura worried her lips with her teeth. “Surely you don’t expect me to get to the ship on that? I shall fall in!”

  “No you won’t,” Sophia assured her. “Don’t look down, keep your eyes on the deck.”

  “I can’t do it! I can’t possibly do it!”

  “Come now, Laura,” said Samuel. “Of course you can.”

  Sophia’s patience evaporated. “Perhaps you would prefer to board like cargo?” she asked through gritted teeth and pointed to a large suspended net bulging with crates lifted by a hand-cranked davit. A sailor hung crab-like to the outside of the haul, giving instructions via a series of sharp whistles.

  Laura shuddered and boarded without any further comment. Sophia came aboard just in time to see the cargo net lower to the deck. The sailor jumped down athletically. On closer inspection, his clothes seemed a cut above an ordinary sailor’s. Grey breeches fit his legs snugly. The linen shirt, open at the neck, was of the highest quality. A gold earring glinted in his left ear. Something about the man seemed familiar, although she couldn’t immediately place him. It was too late to get her spectacles.

  He approached and bowed flamboyantly. “Ladies! And gentlemen… I’m Captain Christopher Hardacre. Welcome to the Calliope.”

  Captain Christopher Hardacre, at your service… My friends call me Kit.

  Memories of the Pembrokes’ spring ball returned. She was sure the surprise on her face was plainly evident, judging by the direct way the captain looked at her. His eyebrows rose, then furrowed as recognition dawned on him, too.

  Sophia held her breath and waited for him to make mention of their previous acquaintance. Did Laura recognize her erstwhile rescuer? Apparently not. Laura’s attention was caught by a grown man tugging a small but determinedly stubborn goat up the final few steps to the deck.

  The captain seemed to know she was discomforted by the circumstances, but the knave fixed her with a grin before addressing everyone.

  “Since the rest of my crew are busy, thus making me surplus to requirements until we set sail, it falls to me to show you around my ship.”

  Hardacre directed them toward the quarterdeck and down polished timber steps. The Calliope was remarkably spacious for such a small vessel. To the left were the captain’s quarters with light streaming through the mullion windows set into the stern. Through the open door, Sophia caught a glimpse of a bed across which was a magnificent bedspread in reds, purples and golds fashioned in a geometric pattern she recognized from Moorish architecture in Spain. The room included a large oval table and fitted cabinets with glass set in the doors. Not a thing was out of place. It was clearly a room as much for work as it was for rest.

  To the right were small but neat passenger cabins. Hardacre showed them the first one. Morning light beamed through the brass-bound porthole window, illuminating the trunks set at the foot of each bed dressed with plain blue woolen blankets. This would be the cabin she would share with Laura. The only other furnishings were a small dressing table, a stool, and a washstand. She assumed the covered boxes discreetly placed under the beds contained chamber pots.

  Uncle Jonas would be in the cabin next door, Hardacre informed them.

  Toward the widest part of the ship was the officers’ mess and, further along, the crew mess. As they headed down the center of the ship, Hardacre pointed out the galley, the crew quarters, and, finally, the bow, which housed a small infirmary.

  Hardacre said the deck below was the cargo hold. Sophia heard the scrapes and bumps as men put away the stores and goods for the journey.

  They emerged from the forward set of stairs to the deck once more. Hardacre looked up at the sky and then at his hunter watch hung on an elaborate gold chain.

  A man, about the same age and build as Hardacre, approached. “It’s time, Captain.”

  Hardacre gave a nod of acknowledgement before turning to the passengers. “I’d like to introduce Elias Nash, my second-in-command.”

  The man bowed slightly. His brown hair, the color of walnut, ruffled in the breeze coming up from the river. The wind gusted again. Ropes securing the ship to land shifted and strained at the change in tide.

  “Let’s be away,” said Hardacre.

  Nash stepped away and announced in a booming voice, “All ashore that’s going ashore!”

  Laura threw herself into Samuel’s arms. Samuel returned the embrace and Sophia imagined herself in Laura’s place. In her mind’s eye, he would hold her close, telling her he would miss her every second of every day while she was gone and he would only ask one thing – a kiss to sustain him and the promise she would write every week.

  “Sophia?”

  Samuel stood before her. Her heart trebled its beat as he smiled.

  “Thank you so much, Cousin,” he said. “I’m sure you regret leaving that convent and getting caught up in our family drama.” He hesitated and, for a moment, Sophia wondered whether he would kiss her. Instead, he squeezed her hands. “I only ask one more thing of you – please take good care of Laura.”

  Sophia swallowed her disappointment and nodded. There were no words of devotion for her.

  Samuel went ashore and she joined Laura and Uncle Jonas at the rail where they felt the draw of the current pull them away from the dock. The snap of the sails heralded a filling breeze. She spotted Samuel in the crowd. He waved to them enthusiastically. His figure became smaller and smaller as they moved further and further away.

  And, strangely, she did not feel sad.

  Sophia frowned. It was the second time her fantasy of a romance with Samuel paled when faced with its reality. She glanced about. No one else seemed to notice her world off-kilter. Perhaps it was better that way. She straightened her back and turned to the breeze to cool her face. When she opened her eyes, Hardacre was watching her.

  “You seem… preoccupied, Miss Green.”

  “Just a little woolgathering, Captain,” she answered with more assurance than she felt. The smile he gave her was sympathetic.

  “Our heart’s desire can be elusive when one is too close.”

  “Meaning?”

  Hardacre leaned forward until he was only inches away then nodded out towards the Wapping Dock disappearing in the distance. Samuel was gone.

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  *

  Kit called for the men to trim the sails as they left the safety of the estuary and entered the English Ch
annel. Pristine white triangles of canvas snapped taut as they picked up the southeasterly wind. The ship responded smartly, adding speed.

  The Calliope was already a good ship when he bought her. But now, with a complete refit, he was keen to test the improvements.

  Kit joined Elias at the helm. In silent shorthand, born from the familiarity of long years working together, his first officer gestured an offer to relinquish the wheel. Kit shook his head. For now, he was content to watch the ship cut effortlessly through the small, choppy waves.

  They left London with other vessels as a loosely allied fleet, but the Calliope was built for speed. Here on the open sea, she left the smaller coastal ships behind to keep within sight of a large clipper at full sail. The magnificent ship was making the crossing around Africa, bound for either India or China, and would one day return with a bounty of china, tea, or splendid silks.

  To one side of the deck, near the steps up to the quarterdeck, Kit stopped under the shade of a canopy erected for the comfort of his passengers and idly listened to their conversation as they relaxed on canvas-slung folding chairs built by one of the men from leftover timber and sailcloth.

  The professor and Miss Bluestocking, as he had christened Sophia in his mind, did most of the talking. It seemed the woman was a scholar. By contrast, the beautiful and stylish Miss Laura sat silently under the additional shade of a parasol, no doubt to further protect her pale skin.

  “… one should never underestimate the ingenuity of the ancients,” continued Professor Fenton. “Imagine how much faster a journey to India would be if we could emulate the Babylonian ruler, Darius, and cut a channel east and west through the River Nile to connect the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.”

  Kit smiled to himself. He’d heard about this. Napoleon left some of his finest engineers in Egypt who found stelae marking the construction of the ancient, but now lost canal. He recited an inscription aloud from memory.

  “‘I am a Persian. Setting out from Persia, I conquered Egypt. I ordered this canal dug from the river called the Nile that flows in Egypt, to the sea that begins in Persia. When the canal had been dug as I ordered, ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia, even as I intended’.”

  Miss Green’s brown eyes looked back at him with surprise. The professor seemed impressed.

  “You read the classics, Captain?” he asked.

  Behind him, he heard Elias mutter, “Show off.” Kit turned and flashed him a grin, then looked back at the professor.

  “My knowledge is all about the quest for profit. Any idea that can help a man make a profit should be pursued.”

  “What about knowledge for its own sake, Captain?” asked Miss Bluestocking. “Surely that should have the same value as commercial gain?”

  “The price of something is worth whatever one will pay for it. They will pay with coin, with time, with the sacrifice of leisure… and pleasure. But it all comes down to profit in the end, doesn’t it?”

  “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?” Elias intoned. Most unhelpful, in Kit’s opinion. When he glanced back at his friend, the bastard wore a smirk.

  Kit ignored his first officer and addressed his audience of passengers, particularly Miss Bluestocking. For some reason, he was beginning to enjoy baiting her.

  “Knowledge for its own sake is useless. It must provide some benefit – tangible or intangible. The canal is a perfect example. The fact one existed in ancient times is an entertaining tidbit which might have profit in as much as it amuses the listener, but its real value is the idea of using modern engineering methods to create a canal that won’t succumb to silting.”

  Out here, under the early summer sky, Sophia Green looked far less severe, the sun highlighting gold in her dark locks. Her skin, which had seemed so sallow at the Pembrokes’ ball all those months ago, now showed warmth. The outdoors suited her well. By the end of the voyage, he thought her arms might color to an appealing tawny brown.

  Miss Laura leaned forward out of the deep shadows. She was, without question, a very beautiful woman. But, to Kit’s mind, she seemed insipid compared to her cousin.

  “I don’t understand why we have to go all the way to India or China, wherever it is, and get silk,” she said. “Why can’t we grow silk in England? We grow cotton – miles and miles of it. I shall ask Samuel why we don’t get some silk plants.”

  Kit became conscious of his jaw dropping and of the change of expression in Miss Bluestocking when she noticed his face. The touch of mischief lived for just a moment before she turned and addressed her cousin.

  “No dear, England imports most of its raw cotton from the Americas and India. And silk is not a plant – it comes from silk worms.”

  The debutant squealed. “Take that back! It’s not true! Worms?”

  Sophia inclined her head. “Well, from the cocoons of their larvae to be more precise.”

  Laura dropped back into her seat, her face so shaded from the sun Kit couldn’t see whether the horrified expression remained.

  “Perhaps we should reconsider formal dress for dinner to mark the end of our first full day at sea, in deference to Miss Laura’s aversion to silk?” he suggested.

  “We wouldn’t dream of upsetting your plans, Captain,” Sophia said smoothly. “You will find us the most agreeable guests. Won’t he, Laura?”

  Chapter Four

  The beautiful, mahogany drop-leaf table Sophia noticed earlier was now at its full extension and set for six diners. Silverware shone gold in the lamplight. Filled crystal goblets cast blood red shadows across the crisp, white tablecloth.

  Sophia wore one of Laura’s cast-off dresses in dove grey, trimmed under the bust and around the hem with tiny silver, white and grey glass beads. Her cousin sparkled in a gown of primrose yellow festooned with gay yellow and white ribbons.

  To her chagrin, Sophia felt nervous. She felt the hand of Captain Hardacre resting gently at her back as he guided her around the large table to her chair. It had come as a surprise when the captain offered to escort her into dinner. It was usually Laura who received preferential treatment from gentlemen.

  Laura took her seat opposite, aided to her place by Lieutenant Nash. Seated to her left was Uncle Jonas. Taking the end of the table, opposite Captain Hardacre, was one of the most striking men she had ever seen.

  His skin was the color of ebony so the white of his dress shirt stood out against it starkly; the navy blue of his jacket set off his broad shoulders. He was more muscularly built than the captain and his first officer. When he spoke, his voice was soft and melodic. He introduced himself as Jonathan Afua, the Calliope’s sailing master.

  “There’s no better man to chart the waters of the Mediterranean than Mr. Afua,” said Hardacre, breaking the small bread roll on the plate beside him. “Every islet, every cove between here and Alexandria, this man knows them all. He is a master navigator and the Calliope is fortunate to have him.”

  Captain Hardacre was a most gracious host. The awkward silence that threatened the beginning of the meal disappeared when the dishes arrived served on ornate Sheffield plate – Florentine of rabbit, pork griskin, fricado veal and a delicately flavored vegetable broth.

  As the dishes were served, Hardacre proposed a series of toasts. To the King of England from whence they had departed, to the King of Naples which was to be their destination, to the Calliope herself as this was her first voyage under a new name and new owner.

  By the time the table was cleared for the second course, conversation flowed freely. Laura informed Mr. Nash about the latest gossip of the beau monde, Mr. Afua and Uncle Jonas animatedly discussed modern and ancient celestial navigation techniques.

  That left her and the captain. Not once since boarding had he mentioned that night so many months ago in London. Perhaps he had forgotten the specifics. Sophia abandoned the thought the moment it formed. The man punched Archibald Havers. Twice. She didn’t know how often men came to blows, but she was sure one would
remember such a thing.

  Well, she couldn’t spend any longer looking at the tablecloth. Sophia breathed in deep and turned to her dinner escort. Once again, he watched. In the lamplight, his eyes were hard to describe, sometimes tawny, like a cat’s, but there was also a hint of blue or, perhaps, even hazel.

  “We’re going to be living in each other’s pockets for about a week, Miss Sophia. Isn’t it better if we got everything out in the open?”

  Sophia started. “I… I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Really, Captain, if you—”

  “—you’re not going to deny our previous acquaintance are you?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that…” Sophia dropped her voice and inclined her head towards Laura. “… the matter is still delicate. It would be awkward, and since Laura doesn’t seem to recall….”

  “Ahh…”

  The tension left her shoulders with Hardacre’s long, drawn out syllable.

  “I’m so glad you understand,” she said. “I think it’s best we treat today as the first of our acquaintance.”

  “If that’s what the lady wishes.”

  Sophia took a long draught from the water glass at her elbow, pleased it dissolved the lump forming in her throat. When she next spoke, it was in her normal, strong voice.

  “So tell me, Captain Hardacre, how did you come to acquire the Calliope?”

  *

  Kit wondered at the perversion that lay in his soul.

  Elias recognized his self-destructive tendencies – so too did Jonathan, come to think of it. It never ceased to be a surprise when, at the end of each voyage, both men signed on with him again when all good sense should have told them to seek safer employment somewhere else.

  In fact, that was true of all his men. For the past seven years, he put their lives at risk raiding heavily-fortified ports on the African coast. Sometimes, they barely escaped with their lives after the lightning attacks.