A Different Sort of Perfect (16 page)

"If you can't keep your eyes open — then tell me why
Mr. Chandler is so rude to us." She slid a belaying pin from the
pinrail and hefted it. Twenty-one inches of hickory wood and shaped
like an Indian club, solid and weighty; a line of them protruded
from the pinrail, most of them securing the rigging lines to the
ship.

He doffed the hat again, fumbled with it, put it back
on, without ever raising his gaze. "Oh, you know—"

"If I don't understand the problem, then I've no
chance of solving it." When he finally glanced up from beneath
lowered, disbelieving eyebrows, she practiced her most wheedling
smile. "Please."

Staunton huffed and stared out into the Bay. They'd
been lucky in their crossing, Captain Fleming had told her; they
hadn't smashed bowsprit-first into one of the Bay's savage storms.
The rollers stretched long and even to the horizon, splashing
against the frigate's starboard side behind them, and plowed past
toward the distant Portuguese coastline. Not a single sleek back
remained in sight, nor a disturbed wave. It was as if the whale pod
had never been, and the thought left Clara feeling hollow, now that
her red-ink celebration had been concluded.

She returned the belaying pin to the pinrail.

"It's because he's poor and we're not." Staunton's
eyes flickered up again, returned to the uninspiring waves, and his
lips twisted in a grimace. "I mean, of course it's obvious you're a
lady of means, and while I might not look it—"

"You mean
act
it, surely."

"—I'm the youngest son of the Baronet of Cargins,
Galway."

That explained much. "The botanist?"

Staunton sighed. "His son, the orientalist." His
youthful buoyancy seemed to have deflated. "And while I don't know
for certain, it's rumored Chandler is the son of a pig farmer from
Captain Fleming's brother's estate."

And that explained even more. The rollers slid from
beneath the
Topaze
and reformed beyond, a never-ending
stream of waves. The rocks and sand would be warm on the invisible
Portuguese beaches. "Smelly animals, those."

One snigger, quickly suppressed. "And when Chandler
rebelled against tending them, the captain took him to sea. He'll
never be the best sailor, I mean, he started so late in life, not
going to sea until he was close on fifteen years old. Can't call
him a natural. He didn't even have a lot of mathematics, much less
sines and cosines."

"So he's had to fight for everything he could
learn."

"And he's got no influence within the Navy." The
rousing wind tossed Staunton's curls from behind, and he combed
them back with his fingers. "He'll have to fight for every
promotion and ship he'll ever receive." His sideways glance was
apologetic. "So he's an awkward lout and he blames us for not being
him. And for
him
being him, most likely."

Yes, Staunton's words made Chandler so much more
understandable. But that night in the hanging cot, when images of
massive, sleek grey creatures weren't swimming through her head,
Clara found herself considering, not the midshipmen, not the
relationship she'd have to establish with prickly Chandler, not
even her perfect Phillippe —
had he watched those rolling waves
today, as well?
— but Captain Fleming and the brilliant,
shining moment they'd shared on the quarterdeck, that one moment
when she'd understood him perfectly.

And that explained nothing at all.

The steady westerly wind swept
Topaze
, tack
upon tack, past the Bay of Biscay and the Portuguese coast, without
demonstrating any of those terrible storms for Clara's further
education. Dutifully she smiled when Staunton crowed about their
swift passage and excellent luck, keeping her disappointment
secret. Not that she wanted them to fail at their appointed
mission; that marauding French frigate had to be stopped, of
course. But she'd have liked to test herself on a storm-tossed
deck, nonetheless, just to feel what it was like.

Around Spain's corner, past the Mediterranean's
mouth, into the Atlantic proper, and never a glimpse of land did
she catch. Each day after the noontime ceremony, Captain Fleming
and Mr. Abbot pored over maps in the great cabin, marking the
ship's position on the chart, and each day the midshipmen puzzled
over the spherical trigonometry necessary to duplicate that feat.
And with the invisible coast of mysterious Africa now off their
port beam, the deeper they delved into tropical waters, the hotter
it became, until she welcomed the spanker's shade rather than wish
it didn't block her view.

* * * *

The anchor splashed into the water and disappeared,
and
Topaze
crept to a halt off the northern coast of La
Palma. The sail-trimmers hauled the clewlines and buntlines while
others eased the sheets, and the bosun called out one last order in
a sort of whispered shout that hopefully wouldn't carry to the
shore. Clara let the now-accustomed sounds drift past. Nothing was
going to distract her from her first sight of a foreign
country.

A foreign
enemy
country.

A bold headland, scalloped into a half-circle of
small bays, fell vertically from a commanding height into narrow,
rocky beaches, in some places straight into the line of creaming
surf. The deeper water, beyond the surf, glittered the most
incredible shade of blue — almost the same indigo as her sweet
little sailor dress. In the midst of the bay, some untidy giant had
dropped a massive boulder, almost an island in itself, and its
dark, streaming layers cut the waves rolling past into choppy
crosscurrents and little whirlpools.

It looked remarkably dangerous, and a chill hovered
near her spine, just out of reach.

She should have advised Staunton to be careful. But
his pint-sized scraper had already disappeared below the ship's
side, and a muffled thump announced he'd at least landed in the
small boat rather than in the drink.

"Give way, Ackers." His soprano piped above the
booming, sucking surf. A splash, another, and then the large blue
cutter shot past, the banks of rowers pulling together toward
shore. A moment later the small red cutter followed, slicing the
wake, the purser's paunch weighting its stern. Both boats were
piled with barrels.

Left of the massive boulder, several smaller ones
clustered, waves churning between them. Beyond that, a tiny beach
anchored the headland's layered cliff. A ravine above dripped a
slender thread of clear water into the maelstrom.

Clara held her breath as
Topaze
rocked like a
cradle outside the coastline's influence. Surely even Staunton
would treat that brooding devil's cauldron with respect. Surely
Ackers, that sensible, experienced coxswain, wouldn't let him do
otherwise.

The two boats swept nearer and nearer the shore,
edging toward the boulder with every flash of the oars. Her head
began to swim in sympathy. The purser's red cutter angled away. But
Staunton and Ackers held their course, sliding past the boulders,
dipping through the crosscurrents, and swooping out the far side
with a roar of crashing waves. The rowers paused, oars raised, and
the blue cutter shot up onto the beach, quivering to a halt below
the cliffs. The sailors piled out and Clara exhaled with a
whoosh.

She waited for the shiver that tickled her spine. But
it never came, instead fading away, and a taut intensity within her
shoulders replaced it. What a thrilling ride that must have been.
The dark horror of the boulder looming overhead, ever closer, the
booming of the surf, and the coxswain's steady hand on the tiller
guiding them through. It required no imagination for the bottom to
drop beneath her in the maelstrom's heart, then for the thrust of
the waves to hurl her toward shore, up and forward, like a bounding
stallion.

She was envious.

Envious because Staunton, a mere boy, was allowed to
risk his life on that menacing little voyage, while she had no
option but to remain aboard
Topaze
.

Safe and secure.

And ever-so-slightly bored.

Oh, she'd love to go ashore, even if she couldn't
meet any of the local population. Just to ride the small boat, feel
its interaction with the forces of nature, touch that alien
rockface while the waves crashed and roared. But Captain Fleming
had seemed so severe, she hadn't dared to ask. His orders, it
seemed, forbade taking any chances, and she'd overheard him lecture
Staunton like the strictest headmaster before entrusting him with
the mission of filling their empty water casks.

A good sailor, a contributing member of the crew,
would not have asked.

And so there she sat, sheltered beneath an awning,
not the tiniest bit thrilled.

As much as she loved
Topaze,
as much as she
reveled in her life aboard, perhaps she'd fallen onto the wrong
ship for finding Phillippe, after all.

Phillippe. No matter how little she'd thought of him
during the voyage, she missed him so. Those modern auburn curls
covering the nape of his neck and brushing across his creamy
forehead. His eyes, so dark and commanding, boring into her soul
through the depths of her memory.

The fit of his gorgeous uniform about his graceful,
muscular body.

Heat, unrelated to the tropical sun strengthening
overhead, surged up her neck and scorched her face. Male bodies
weren't something she normally noticed. Of course, everyone was
aware of them. Everyone knew they existed. But Diana and Harmony
had been the ones to flash their smiles at the owners of broad
shoulders and rounded, limned calves. How many times had Harmony
elbowed her, and Diana rolled her eyes in mannered disgust?

Perhaps she hadn't paid sufficient attention even to
Phillippe. Her memory of his frame seemed vague, beyond the flush
it created within her. Perhaps her mind's image of him had merely
been produced by her imagination for the occasion. It was an
unsettling thought. Whatever Phillippe's anatomy entailed, surely
it was as perfect as the rest of him.

Overhead, male voices laughed. Captain Fleming and
Chandler stood together on the mizzentop, their hands tangled in
the standing rigging, looking out toward the rocky coast. Captain
Fleming dropped one heel over the platform's edge, as if stretching
the back of his leg. Drawing the muscles taut and lengthening
them.

Giving her an almost indecent view of a nicely
rounded, limned calf indeed.

Did Phillippe's calf look so sharply delineated, so
strong and capable of walking and climbing and working all day?
Embarrassing, how little of his form she truly remembered.
Did
Phillippe walk, climb, work on his ship, wherever he
sailed, as Captain Fleming labored over
Topaze
? Surely he
did; surely the nautical education she was receiving translated
easily from one navy to another, from one captain to the other.
Surely Phillippe thought of her, hopefully more often than she
thought of him.

And perhaps she was starting to notice male bodies.
The wrong male bodies. More than she ought. Captain Fleming's leg
was not a subject she needed to consider.

Not like she needed to remember Phillippe, her true
love.

A gun carriage rumbled below, interrupting her
immodest thoughts. The main hatch had been stripped away, flooding
tropical brilliance into the gun deck. It highlighted Mr. Abbot and
a crew around number twelve,
Biting Bruiser
, which had been
cast loose from among its pack mates. But no, that wasn't any of
the established gun crews; it was a motley collection of the most
awkward, hesitant landmen, the ones who had to be yanked out of the
recoil's path and pushed into position to perform their duties.

As she watched, Mr. Abbot clapped onto the tackle
rope and helped them haul the gun in. He guided the sail-trimmer
through yanking out the tompion, grabbing it himself at the order
with what appeared to be words of explanation, then replacing it
and pushing the landman forward. They repeated the single, simple
exercise several times, until the sail-trimmer didn't even glance
at the first lieutenant before obeying the order. Mr. Abbot nodded
as if pleased, said something else, and the landman set the tompion
aside, his broad face cracking with a slow smile.

Mr. Abbot took the landmen through the motions of
firing. Clara braced for the cannon's report, but it never
followed. The impromptu crew merely ran the gun in and out with the
tackle ropes, going through the motions of firing and reloading in
a sort of dumb show. Again and again the truck rumbled across the
deck, Mr. Abbot's voice a gentle, indecipherable murmur beneath it
as he coached them on their duties.

In and out, back and forth, rumble and roll. She
tried timing her crocheted chain stitches to its background rhythm,
but as the landmen picked up coordination and speed, her fumbling
fingers were left behind and the poor little flowers sprawled
across their lace framework, more shapeless than ever. On the
distant shore, little figures thrust empty barrels beneath the
trickling finger of water, then rolled full ones down the beach to
the waiting cutters.

No, the landmen were learning their lessons more
quickly than she, and all she'd gotten from the impromptu
competition was a bit more practice. Clara set her hook aside and
yanked out the ugly stitches. She'd learn this. Late or soon, she
would indeed.

Boot heels thumped on the deckboards and a shadow
crossed her work. Mr. Abbot paused in the shade beside her. He
squinted toward the beach, then glanced down at her disassembly
with raised eyebrows and a blank expression, as if he'd expected to
find her doing something useful. She'd been so distracted, she
hadn't even realized the noise had stopped.

"Good morning, Lady Clara." If he truly was annoyed
at her lack of industry, his unruffled voice belied it.