Historical Romance Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  Jeannette saw the same tic in Treynor’s cheek she had witnessed earlier, when he and the captain spoke of Cunnington, and felt the deep-seated enmity between the two men.

  “Everyone knows there is no discipline in the navy without the lash,” Cunnington replied. “I think it is time to remind the entire crew.”

  “What have we here?”

  The crowd shifted again. This time Captain Cruikshank emerged, his white eyebrows drawn into a single, furry line. “Cunnington, what are you about?”

  Cunnington’s attention shifted reluctantly from Treynor to the captain. “I witnessed this boy trying to flee, sir. At a time when we need every able body we can get, I feel it imperative that he be brought to quick justice. The appropriate punishment is outlined in the Articles of War—”

  “I know the Articles, Mr. Cunnington,” the captain said.

  “This is a young boy, only thirteen,” Treynor chimed in, appealing to the captain now, too. “And he is new to the navy. With that in mind, surely there must be some other more fitting punishment.”

  “This from a man who takes a party to shore and comes back with less than the number he started with,” Cunnington added derisively.

  The captain raised a hand to silence them both, but Jeannette could tell by his expression that he’d already decided against Treynor. Whether her fate had been determined more by Cruikshank’s desire to prove his point—that he would not interfere between his lieutenants again—or by the appropriateness of her punishment, she didn’t know.

  “After Dade’s disappearance, I think it time to remind the men of the consequences of such actions,” he said. “We cannot have them running off every time we put in.” To Treynor, and loud enough for the others, he added, “Discipline is inherent in the smooth functioning of any ship. Vicard might be a boy, but the rules apply to all.”

  “Twelve lashes, then?” Cunnington asked.

  “Ten,” the captain replied. “And for God’s sake, use some discretion.”

  “Indeed, Captain.” Cunnington gave Treynor a gloating smile. “Let’s clear the deck.”

  “Captain,” Treynor said, but they both moved away as he spoke and Jeannette could no longer hear what was said. The captain shook his head, listened some more, shook his head a second time. As they disappeared from view the deck erupted once again in chaos.

  An hour crawled by and not a soul dared talk to her. Following that initial eruption of energy, a strange hush had fallen over the ship. Jeannette needed nothing to bind her in place-her fear was more than enough-but the burly sailor stayed with her. Every once in a while, she shot him a glance. Could she survive a lashing without giving away her gender? She didn’t see how…

  “I have prevailed.” Carrying a baize bag, Cunnington returned with another sailor. “Meet the bosun’s mate. He will deliver your punishment. But because of your young age, we shall use a light cat. And I just happen to have one.”

  The bosun’s mate hesitated when Cunnington shoved the bag holding the whip at him.

  “Do as I say!” Cunnington snapped. “Or you will be next. This is captain’s order.”

  “Aye, sir.” The mate glanced at Jeannette with sorrow in his eyes, but took the whip.

  “That’s it,” Cunnington said in approval, then chucked Jeannette under the chin. “You will be fine. Only ten lashes. ‘Tis nothing.”

  Fighting tears, Jeannette looked around for Treynor. He’d joined the group, but he wasn’t saying or doing anything to help her. She couldn’t even tell what he was thinking. His expression was an inscrutable mask.

  Cunnington tossed him a gloating smile. “Lieutenant, you may record the proceedings and read the relevant section of law aloud for the edification of all. Bosun—” he turned to single Hawker out of the crowd that was forming “—pipe the men to the deck and maintain order. The rules must be observed.”

  Jeannette heard a small, fearful sound and realized it was her own voice. She tried to shrink away, but it did her no good. The burly sailor had too tight a hold.

  “Remove her breeches,” Cunnington said.

  God, no! She turned beseeching eyes on Treynor. “Sir?”

  The man grabbed hold of her trousers, but he didn’t get any farther than that before the second lieutenant stepped forward. He didn’t drag her away from the man who held her tight, as Jeannette wished, but Cunnington didn’t appreciate the interruption even still.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Treynor began unbuttoning his own coat. “Dade’s disappearance was my fault, not the lad’s,” he said, his words terse, his movements quick and decided. “I will take the lashes.”

  Cunnington’s jaw sagged. He turned to the captain, who was just now lumbering up from behind, as did everyone within hearing distance.

  “I suggest you let the boy take his due,” Cruikshank said. “You will have twice as many if you don’t.” Resolute, he squinted at Treynor, waiting for his response. Despite his words, Jeannette could tell the captain hoped the lieutenant would listen and back down.

  But if Treynor understood Cruikshank’s wishes, he did not heed them. Instead, he untied his stock and removed it along with his shirt before stepping up to the grate. “Then I will have twice as many,” he said.

  Cruikshank shook his head. “You are a stubborn man, Lieutenant Treynor, but so am I.” With a nod to Cunnington, he turned and left.

  A satisfied smile spread over Cunnington’s face as he motioned to the bosun’s mate to do what was needed.

  A gasp went through those who watched as Cunnington sent someone to his cabin for a sturdier cat-o-nine, one intended for a man, not a boy. Meanwhile, the bosun’s mate tied Treynor to the grate.

  “No!” Jeannette had been as quickly forgotten as she was released—but she had to speak up before it was too late. “You cannot flog him!”

  Treynor looked heavenward. His broad back already showed an abundance of scars—previous lashings, swordfights. It looked as though he’d even taken a ball. Jeannette had no doubt he knew what to expect. His muscles bulged beneath his skin, rigid with tension, and he clenched his teeth.

  “Listen to me! Please!” Lunging forward, she grasped the bosun’s mate before he could finish securing the lieutenant. “I can stop this if only—”

  Cunnington yanked her away. “You can stop nothing. Stand aside, or I will ask the captain to double his lashes.”

  Treynor scowled back at her and before she could utter another syllable, a rough hand clamped down over her mouth. Twisting, she tried to pry it away, but whoever held her pulled her back through the crowd.

  “Will ye get ‘im double, ye little fool?” Mrs. Hawker snarled.

  Jeannette continued to squirm, trying to fight off the much heavier and stronger bosun’s wife. She had to gain sufficient air to cry out the truth. She had to stop the beating before it began. Except she couldn’t so much as breathe. Kicking and flailing, she fought madly as the courier returned with the whip. Then the sound of the rope thongs cracked on the air and Jeannette froze, waiting in agony for Lieutenant Treynor to cry out. But the only sound she heard was the cat singing through air again, striking flesh.

  Bosun Hawker came to assist his wife. Between the two of them, Jeannette could no longer move or speak. They held her still, ignoring the tears that coursed down her cheeks.

  Treynor’s sandy-colored head fell lower with each bite of the whip. Finally, it dipped below the height of the silent crowd, and she could see him no more.

  “Look at that,” Mrs. Hawker whispered to her husband.

  Jeannette cringed inside.

  “I told ye this lad was up to no good, but ye ‘ad to let ‘im go.”

  The bosun didn’t respond, at least to his wife. He stood, still restraining Jeannette and shaking his head in apparent disgust. “I ‘ope you’re ‘appy, lad,” he said at last. “That’s a fine man ye earned a beatin’.” With a nod to Mrs. Hawker, they dragged her below.

  * * *

  His ba
ck was on fire. Lieutenant Treynor lay on his side in his dark cabin nearly eight hours after his whipping, trying to ignore the pain by counting the number of years it had been since his last personal encounter with the whip. As a boy one year older than the slight Jean Vicard, he had been sailing under Captain Edward Hamilton, a man known for his brutality.

  A man not unlike Lieutenant Cunnington. Treynor’s muscles tensed as his mind’s eye conjured his superior officer’s face. The first lieutenant was a cruel man, and the money and connections that provided him his rank gave him the opportunity to abuse others without reproach.

  With a groan, Treynor shifted in his hammock. Twenty lashes was mild punishment compared with the eighty to one hundred most men received. Those who were flogged around the fleet received as many as three hundred, but they usually died.

  Still, twenty lashes left an impression. The trick was to give the pain no audience.

  A knock at the door made Treynor frown. Who might want him at this time of night and in his current state? The doctor had already rubbed salve on his back. The cook had brought him a bowl of broth for his supper. He wasn’t due on deck until morning….

  “Come in.” Momentarily distracted by the promise of a visitor, he would have rolled onto his back had his wounds not prevented the slight movement of raising his head.

  A large woman entered, judging by the outline of her bulk. Mrs. Hawker, he realized, blinking against the light that poured into the room from a lamp in the corridor. Only she wasn’t alone. She had a boy in tow—Jean Vicard, by Treynor’s guess.

  “Mrs. Hawker? What—”

  The bosun’s wife plunged them into darkness by shutting the door behind her. “I hate ter disturb ye,” she whispered. “But Mr. Hawker sent me.”

  In all of his and the Hawkers’ acquaintance, never had Treynor known the bosun to send his wife anywhere. She acted only on her own initiative, but she was generally levelheaded, if forthright to a fault. He knew if she stood in his cabin in the middle of the night, she had good reason to be there.

  “What is it?”

  “Ye might want ter light a lamp.” She proffered a small stick of punk, glowing at the tip.

  Treynor was as surprised by this request as he was by her unexpected appearance. For what would they need a lamp? Was it truly necessary to make him move?

  Biting back a groan, he stood. “You do it,” he growled.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as soon as the lamp’s wick caught.

  “This.” Mrs. Hawker turned flinty eyes on Jean Vicard. “Tell ‘im.”

  The boy glanced at the bosun’s wife, then at the floor.

  Giving a snort of impatience, Mrs. Hawker reached out and grabbed hold of Vicard’s shirt. Treynor heard the fabric tear right before he saw a pair of tightly bound breasts, their soft white flesh swelling above bands that looked tight enough to asphyxiate.

  His jaw dropped. The woman—for it was definitely a woman, though she was young, perhaps eighteen—gasped and tried to shield herself from his view.

  “Bloody hell!” He stared, swallowed, then glanced back to Mrs. Hawker for some sort of explanation.

  The bosun’s wife nodded smugly. “Name’s Jeannette. She told me just as the mate finished with ye. Couldn’t stomach the violence of it. Never seen the likes, I expect.”

  The young woman hung her head in shame.

  “I would ‘ave brought ‘er right away, but she insisted on cleanin’ up first. An’ the way she smelled, I had ter agree. Then I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be better ter wait until dark. I mean, ye brought ‘er aboard an’ all. I’d ‘ate ter see what Cunnington would try to make of it….”

  Refusing to gawk any longer, even though he was surely tempted to do so, Treynor clamped his teeth together. Jean Vicard was feminine in the extreme. He’d noticed before, but he’d never suspected …damn! The truth now crystallized with amazing rapidity. How could he have been so easily duped?

  He knocked her hat to the floor with one hand and grabbed her with the other, dragging her closer to the light. Jagged locks of thick black hair stuck out in an unruly mess above a fine-boned, delicately sculpted face with arched eyebrows, a small nose, and a rather sharp chin. A blind man could have seen what he’d missed. Not only was this a woman, she was a beautiful one.

  “Hell!” His movements had caused the pain of his stripes to crescendo like some great symphony. He never should have brought Jean Vicard aboard. Had he paid more attention, had the others not been standing within earshot, had Dade not disappeared …

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “She won’t say—” Mrs. Hawker started, but Treynor put up a hand to silence her. He needed answers, but the bosun’s wife was not the one who could best provide them.

  “You can go back and get some sleep, Mrs. Hawker. I will handle this from here. She will tell me what I want to know if I have to beat it out of her.”

  “But you’re in no condition—”

  “Which is fortunate for her.”

  The bosun’s wife nodded. “Yes, sir. I am sorry ter disturb ye. I didn’t know what else to do—”

  Treynor softened his voice. “You did the right thing. Thank you. And please, don’t tell anyone about this until I have made a decision.”

  “Aye, sir. Ye’ve been right good ter me and Mr. Hawker. I’ll leave the matter up to ye an’ not speak a word of it to anyone. Not a word.”

  “Very well.” Treynor held himself rigid until after she left. Then he moved to the only chair in his crowded cabin and carefully sat down. The change in position did little to relieve his misery.

  “So. Do you volunteer the information, or must I drag it out of you?” he asked. “I should think, after everything you have put me through today, that you would cooperate to that extent.”

  He studied the abject girl before him. There was something vaguely familiar about her. Had he met Jeannette before? What could have motivated her to dress like a boy?

  Suddenly, her petite size, and the fact that she was wearing trousers, connected with a memory—a very vivid and recent memory.

  He sprang to his feet. “Dear God! You’re the woman! The one in my bed!”

  She backed up until she bumped against the far wall. “No. I do not know what you are talking about.” A blush stained her cheeks, revealing her words for the lie that they were.

  “Let me refresh your memory,” he said. “We were nearly naked, the two of us. In my bed. You were warm and responsive—” He advanced upon her. “—as eager as any barmaid I have ever met, until you had me so full of lust I would have done anything for the pleasure of five more minutes with your glorious body. Then you—”

  “Enough.” She clapped her hands over her ears—an infantile gesture, but proof in itself.

  “You don’t deny it?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you wearing these clothes? Why did you come to my room last night and damn near do me in? Why did you join His Majesty’s navy and then try to desert, managing to get me flogged in the process?” Treynor realized that he was almost shouting and struggled to keep his voice down. “I will have those answers, for a start.”

  She bit her lip and did what she could to avoid his gaze. “I had to steal Dade’s clothes to join the navy. Appearing in your room was an accident that I could remedy only by—” her voice faltered “—by the action I took.”

  “You could have said something.”

  “I was frightened. I did not know what you would do.”

  He glowered at her. “And you are here now because…”

  Her words started slow, then came in a rush. “I lost my post as a governess and had no other way to provide for myself.”

  “Like hell!” Treynor pounded his desk, then winced at the pain it caused him. “That man on the docks was looking for you. That is why you couldn’t say anything last night. You didn’t want me to know who you were.”

  Her eyes wi
dened. “No!”

  “You have to be the baron’s wife. There is no other explanation for all of this. Had your husband’s solicitor mentioned that the woman he sought was French, perhaps I would have realized sooner that you were no boy.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “But I stupidly fell for your ruse, to the point of taking twenty stripes. You must be very proud of yourself. Perhaps you should take up the stage instead of navy life.”

  “Please stop shouting. Others will hear.” She squared her shoulders and lowered her voice. “You volunteered for the flogging. I did not mean for it to happen, to either of us.”

  “You did nothing to stop it.” Treynor grabbed her by both arms, noting with satisfaction the fear that flickered behind her eyes, fear she struggled to mask as she glared up at him.

  “Do not touch me! You are going too far.”

  “Whatever I do will be less than what you deserve. Did you ever stop to think how your actions might affect those around you—like me, for instance?”

  “You were the last person on my mind.”

  “That, I believe. You are not the first lady I have met who could not see beyond her own wants and desires.”

  “I couldn’t say anything—”

  “Because you were too busy trying to escape your new husband, who happens to be a friend of my own mother’s.”

  Jeannette reached up to remove his hand from her arm. Her fingers were as cold as ice, but her voice remained surprisingly steady. “You know him?”

  “I know of him.”

  “He is not what he appears.”

  “Many people aren’t. You have proven that quite nicely.” The light scent of soap on her skin brought back the feel of her, nearly naked, in his arms, and with that came the memory of her painful blow to his groin and a fresh desire for revenge. He smiled. His mystery woman hadn’t escaped him after all; he would take great pleasure in making her pay. “Take off Dade’s clothes. The ripped shirt—the trousers—everything.”

  “What?” Her bottom lip quivered but he saw no tears.

  “You heard me.”