Georgana's Secret (Proper Romance)

by Arlem Hawks

  Her mouth went dry. How had he known? If the story was out to the crew, she was ruined when she returned. She inched backward, preparing to run. Though she had seen kindness in Étienne’s ministrations, she suddenly worried about being on the orlop alone with the foreigner.

  He watched her reaction, then chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me, mademoiselle.” The Frenchman wandered over to a chest and rummaged through, one hand still holding the bowl. “Though I am immensely curious as to how a lovely girl such as yourself ended up in this position.”

  “Who told you?”

  He arched a thick, dark eyebrow. “I am a man of medicine. Do you think I cannot recognize a woman?”

  Georgana flushed. Had the bindings not worked as well as she thought?

  The surgeon held up a little bottle, unstopped it, and added a few drops to his bowl. “In truth, I had suspicions since the early days of our voyage. But it was when I saw you at Lieutenant Peyton’s bedside that I knew for certain.” His eyes focused somewhere far away. “Something about a woman’s love—it is hard to disguise. Especially to one who has known such a love.”

  The air rushed out of Georgana’s lungs.

  “I could not help noticing the lieutenant looking poorly this morning,” he said. “He insisted all was well. Just as you did a moment ago.”

  Georgana’s eyes burned, and her mind raced to the image of Dominic’s stricken face when she’d panicked about being left behind. She hadn’t let the tears fall since their conversation yesterday morning. She’d avoided the wardroom and the upper deck when he was on watch, and when she had to go below, she used the ladder near the stern instead of the one near the officers’ quarters. But everywhere she looked, she saw him.

  “Trust can be very hard to give,” Étienne said. He sought out yet another ingredient. She’d never seen such a complicated poultice. “I am guilty of it, to be certain. It is hard to trust my shipmates.” He gave her a sidelong smile. “You may relate to that situation.”

  Georgana didn’t return it. She only nodded. “They find it hard to trust you.”

  “Yes, yes. Bien sûr. It is difficult to see the face of an enemy. They think me a spy.” Étienne snorted. “As though I could gain any useful information from this voyage.”

  He continued to talk, describing his home of Marseille and his seaman father. He had trained to be an army surgeon, but his heart was always with the sea.

  Just like Dominic’s. Like most men who left their wives to sail for adventure and glory. She wrapped her arms around herself. She needed to return to the main cabin, to find a corner to hide her tears that had begun to well up from the void inside.

  “I must go.” She ran for the door, but the surgeon caught her wrist. His pestle clattered to the floor, splattering his green-tinted concoction over the deck.

  “The poultice is not ready.”

  She pulled against his grip. “I’ll return for it.” A chill ran up her spine at Étienne’s creased brow and the intensity in his dark eyes.

  “I do not suggest you go above just now.”

  She leaned away from him, but his hold did not loosen. “Let me go. Please. The captain—” She grunted as she tried to break his grasp.

  “It is too dangerous, mademoiselle. He does not want you above.”

  Georgana stilled mid-pull. The surgeon’s weary face watched her with sadness. “What is happening?” But she knew. Bile rose in her throat. She should have seen it coming.

  Jarvis’s endearing himself to the crew, his taking command, his refusal to bring reports to her father. It meant only one thing.

  Étienne nodded. “Une mutinerie.” Mutiny.

  Papa! She jerked her hand free and bolted from the room. Étienne cursed in French. The sound of his bowl falling to the wood deck echoed through the orlop.

  She lost herself in the black, trailing her hand along the walls. She had left her lantern in the surgeon’s room. Several times she smacked into doors and tripped over rope or debris, but she kept moving in the direction of the ladder. She had to get above. She had already lost Mama. And Dominic. She couldn’t lose Papa, too.

  Dominic knelt by his sea chest and inserted the key into the lock. His hands slipped as he pushed the lid open. Standing on watch would get easier. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

  The hole Georgana left did nothing to help his fatigue. It was nigh on two days since their conversation, and he couldn’t rid her frightened eyes from his head. They were there each time he looked at the sea or tasted the wind. Wherever he went—the wardroom, the gun deck, the forecastle—he pictured her pained face. And yet, he had not actually seen her since their conversation. Somehow she had managed to hide herself. Perhaps it was for the best.

  He loosened his thin black cravat and pulled it from his neck. If he wanted to regain his strength, he needed to rest.

  Sitting atop his clothes was the square of paper the carpenter’s mate had salvaged from the side of the ship, the image she’d drawn of him at the bay. Dominic didn’t look at it long. He tucked it beside the unfinished letters and little package he should have given her before everything broke apart. The gift could easily go to his mother, but he didn’t want to give it to his mother. He’d imagined Georgana wearing it too often.

  Footsteps in the wardroom nudged him out of his ruminating.

  “This way, Lieutenant.”

  Two red-coated marines blocked the doorway to his cabin. They carried muskets with bayonets fixed. A pair of irons hung from one marine’s arm.

  “What is this?” He thrust himself to his feet. Their grim expressions sent tension through his muscles.

  “We’re to take you to the captain’s cabin.” One of the marines lifted his musket, training it on Dominic. Well, they weren’t heading to a meeting to discuss sailing conditions, he should think. Something had happened since Jarvis took watch.

  “On whose orders?” He couldn’t think why Captain Woodall would have him escorted to the gun deck under armed guard.

  “Captain Jarvis’s.”

  Dominic went cold. Jarvis! What would push him to such idiocy? He ground his teeth together. They’d trapped him in the tiny cabin with no way of escape. If he were healthy, he’d take his chances in a round of fisticuffs with these two. But they had muskets, and he could hardly stand unsupported after walking the deck so long on watch.

  “Come, Lieutenant.” One of the marines strode forward and seized his arm. The man’s sharp movement pulled the tender flesh still healing around Dominic’s ribs.

  He followed the men out of the wardroom. Where was Georgana? He prayed not in the captain’s quarters, but where else could she be? She’d shut herself inside that cabin since yesterday.

  His chest tightened. If Jarvis discovered what she’d been hiding these three years . . .

  Before he could think, Dominic rammed his fist into the jaw of the man holding him. The marine swore and stumbled to the ground. Dominic spun back around to face the companion.

  A blur of wood slammed into his wounded side. He cried out as fire raged across his ribs. His breath caught in his throat, and he plunged to his knees.

  “Lieutenant Rimmer said to put him in irons first, you fool,” the second marine growled, pointing his musket in Dominic’s face.

  Hunched over, the edges of his vision blurred, and a moan escaped his lips. The marines ripped his hands away from his injured side. Cold metal clamped around his wrists.

  Dominic couldn’t straighten when they hauled him to his feet.

  They had to wait on the stairs as crew members carried furniture and trunks below. Then the marines dragged Dominic above.

  Georgana burst into the darkening captain’s quarters and found them empty, not just of people but of furnishings.

  “Captain?”

  Nothing moved. The privy doors on either side of the room hung open, empty. They must have taken him above. Georgana pivoted, but voices on the gun deck stopped her from fleeing the cabin. A sight of red on the ladder
made her stomach drop. Marines.

  She ran for the starboard privy and pulled the door most of the way closed, then flattened herself against the wall. Chains clinked, and gruff voices rumbled. She dared a peek through the crack between the door and its frame. Marines shoved several men into the cabin. One of the red-coated traitors shackled her father’s uninjured hand to his ankle, which was already chained to the other foot. The other men—the sailing master, the masters-at-arms, the chaplain, and the gun master—entered, shackled at the wrists and ankles. As they shuffled in, the gunner tripped and went down to his knees.

  Dominic wasn’t with them.

  “Where is the boy?” a marine demanded.

  “I sent him above,” her father said.

  The man muttered something, not sounding convinced. The marine questioned the other officers on her whereabouts and then walked out and closed the door. Lantern light cut off, leaving only the weakening evening light from the windows.

  She began to ease the privy door forward, but the main doors flew open once again. She pulled back as another man dropped to the floor. Her heart lurched to her throat. He didn’t try to get up. His manacled hands grabbed at his side.

  “The captain wants three guards at all times,” one of the marines said. “If someone should—” The click of the door closing cut off his words.

  Georgana waited for another moment. Then on hands and knees she scrambled from the privy.

  “George, what are you doing here?” her father hissed.

  “I came looking for you.” She reached Dominic. His face creased with pain, and he didn’t look up when she touched his arm. “Are you all right? Please say you’re all right.”

  Dominic slowly nodded, breathing hitched.

  The men sat on the floor, except for Mr. Adams, the gun master. He shuffled around one of the secured cannons, chains clinking. He pushed on one of the gun ports, but it had been nailed shut and didn’t budge.

  “What are we to do?” Mr. Jordan asked. “They wouldn’t set us afloat tonight, would they? There’s a gale to the south.”

  “I think that’s exactly what they intend to do,” the gunner said. “I saw them readying the boat.”

  The chains of Mr. Jordan’s shackles rattled as he rubbed his face. “They’d send us to our deaths?”

  “I don’t think Jarvis cares one way or the other,” Adams said. “Not a wit about the man, and he’s been at the last of his liquor stores tonight.”

  Georgana lowered her lips toward Dominic’s ear. “Can I help?” she whispered. He shook his head.

  Her father cleared his throat. “How far off is the Intelligence?”

  “Far enough they won’t be able to turn around in time to reach us before the storm, even if they see a call for help,” the sailing master said. “We have only sixty to ninety minutes of light left.”

  Dominic’s breathing deepened, but he didn’t release his hold on his injured side. Georgana knelt helplessly beside him. She let her hand fall to the floor, where his hair splayed out across the planks. Gently, she stroked his hair, the action hidden from the others.

  “You are certain the storm is heading north?” the captain asked. Georgana hadn’t seen this commanding side of her father in many weeks. Hearing his confident tone gave her a small spark of hope.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Our best option is to delay them as long as possible,” Papa said. “If they keep us aboard for the duration of the storm and set us adrift after, we have a chance. We’ll make for Ponta Delgada. Can you get us there, Mr. Jordan?”

  The gun master cut in. “I think they’ll cast us off as soon as they are able. What are we to do to dissuade them?”

  A shiver wriggled down Georgana’s back. The little boat wouldn’t stand a chance in a storm, no matter how experienced its sailors. Jarvis might as well sew them up in hammocks and drop them in the sea.

  The young chaplain, Mr. Doswell, huddled in the corner, eyes darting from one speaker to the next behind his spectacles. His already pale face took on a green hue.

  “Our only hope is to signal the Intelligence and pray the storm holds off,” the gunner said.

  “Impossible,” came Mr. Jordan’s response. “She’s too far ahead of us to see anything from the stern.”

  Georgana wanted to curl up beside Dominic and bury her head in his shoulder. They had no chance.

  Once when she was small, she and her mother had received word of a mutiny in the navy. The crew of HMS Hermione had massacred the officers, including a few of the young midshipmen. Mama cried harder the next time Papa left. Georgana never dreamed at that time she’d find herself in the middle of a mutiny one day.

  Perhaps her final day.

  The deep, agonized furrows slowly cleared from Dominic’s face. She slid her thumb down to brush against his neck. She focused on the caress, trying to still her quavering heart. If today had to be her last, at least she could spend the remaining hours with the two men she loved more than all the world.

  “What about the boy? He isn’t chained.” Georgana shot the gun master a confused look. He nodded toward the windows. “I think you could fit through one of those.”

  Mr. Adams wanted her to climb out? She chewed the corner of her lip.

  “Out of the question,” Papa said. “The boy would fall to his death.”

  The gunner sat back against the wall. “If he doesn’t try, he’ll meet a watery death all the same.”

  “What am I to do?” she whispered.

  “Surely there are still some loyal men on this ship,” one of the masters-at-arms said. “Or some who are not loyal to Jarvis. We need only convince them to take a stand.”

  That didn’t sound so simple since most of the men opposing them were marines with muskets. The guards outside their door spoke loudly, but she still worried they’d hear the plans.

  “Who will side with us?” her father asked. “The surgeon? The carpenter and his crew? The only reason they aren’t here with us is because repairs and treatment are needed. I can think of few who owe me more loyalty than they do Jarvis.”

  “You’re their captain,” the master-at-arms said.

  “I have not been the captain they needed.” Papa lifted the stub of his arm. “This crew wanted leadership. Encouragement. Things I deprived them of. Jarvis gave them a source of strength through the aftermath of battle and disease.”

  Georgana winced at the truth in his words. “Mr. Fitz and Walter are loyal,” she said quietly. “And some of the ship’s boys.” Still, not many. If Jarvis had whipped three hundred men into anger, what could a handful of people do against them?

  “It’s the best chance we have, even if a small one.” The gunner raised his hands. “The longer we sit without acting, the less time we have.”

  “I will do it.” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

  Dominic’s eyes opened and caught hold of hers. How she’d missed looking at him the last two days.

  “I forbid it,” her father said. “She is not risking her life for the rest of ours.”

  Georgana stared, and Papa blanched when he realized what he’d said. The room went still. Everyone’s gaze turned on her.

  “She?” someone whispered.

  Her father sat paralyzed beneath the windows, breathing sharply. Three years at sea. Three years of watered-down spirits. Three years of hiding, scraping, lying. Three years—gone in a moment.

  Georgana let the air in her lungs dissipate slowly. Though her pulse beat and her face burned, her shoulders loosened as the mantle of secrecy slipped away. They would tackle her reputation when they got to shore. For now, she was their last hope.

  Only Dominic moved. He rolled his head to the side to face her father. “She can do this.”

  Georgana squeezed Dominic’s arm, then moved to her father, fueled by the warmth of his confidence. The light in the room was waning further. She needed to leave quickly.

  “Let me try, Papa.” With the secret out, she had nothing to hide. She kissed h
er father’s cheek, took one last glance at Peyton’s reassuring face, and pulled open one of the windows.

  Chapter 35

  Cold wind ruffled Georgana’s shirt as she clung to the embellishments on the stern. She’d left her coat, shoes, and stockings behind and kept the gunner’s cap pulled low over her eyes. Once on deck, she’d have to move quickly.

  Her toes barely fit on the decorative ledge below the larboard window. Had she not been standing on such a precarious perch, she might have blushed at the thought of all the men staring at her through the glass. She should have worn trousers instead of breeches, which left her lower legs exposed.

  But then, she hadn’t counted on a mutiny when she dressed that morning. Georgana forced her feet to inch along the ledge and her eyes to stay on the side of the ship. Water rose up just under her feet, and though the waves increased, they didn’t touch her.

  Breathe, Georgana, breathe.

  She reached out for the booms, horizontal boards that secured the shrouds to the side of the ship. Once she had a firm grip with her hands, she stretched her leg down to find footing. Her toes dug into a line that ran the length of the ship, but her hands held most of her weight. The gunner said to follow the booms around to the sick berth, where she would have fewer chances of getting caught.

  The sun nearly touched the horizon. In the distance, she could see the tiny schooner commanded by Lieutenant Moyle. Even if she could find a signal to hang from the gun ports, they might not see it in the dimming light.

  She moved her hand forward, then her foot, then brought the other hand and foot to meet them. Her arms already ached from the strain, and she hadn’t yet cleared the captain’s cabin gun ports.

  Halfway across the ship, the boom ended. She had to extend herself to catch hold of a square gun port cut through the hull. This position made her fingers visible to anyone on the upper deck looking down. She pulled herself from gun port to gun port, murmuring a prayer under her breath for stealth. She was nearing the next boom but not fast enough.