A Different Sort of Perfect (22 page)

The pounding dwindled and died, predatory instincts
fading to wooden disappointment.
Armide
was definitely a
frigate, with three masts and a spanker behind, and would look
totally different from that two-masted outline. Even at that
distance, there was no mistaking the lack of a mizzen. His hunt
didn't yet have its beast in view.

Dawn stretched its first fingers across the ocean's
surface and the gloom eased; details remained obscure but the
distant ship's brilliant sails took on edges and sharper
definition, standing out against the grey mass of clouds beyond.
Two masts, one deck, and a rakish cutter's hull — only one brig
still in service looked like that. The edge evaporated from his
let-down.

"Good eyes you've got, Taylor." Fleming snapped the
glass closed, grabbed the closest backstay, swung out into space,
and wrapped his calves around the line. Gravity took over and he
let himself down hand over hand. Within seconds he'd shot down more
than a hundred feet, controlling the descent with his legs'
pressure — remarkably easy, that seemed now, after all those nights
of pacing — and when he thumped onto the quarterdeck beside Lady
Clara's chair, it was with a bang indeed.

Rather like a Jovian thunderbolt, actually.

She jumped in her chair and whirled. Her wild eyes
met his, glanced down toward his open shirt, widened, then slid
aside, and a well-known, delightful hunger stirred within him,
something he didn't wish to consider too closely. Then she sat back
in her chair with a whooshing sigh and reproachful look.

"Captain Fleming." She pushed the well-thumbed
journal aside and dragged her lace-making from her canvas bag, the
white thread trailing sharp lines across her blue gown. "You do
like to catch a lady's attention, don't you?"

Did he? Perhaps he shouldn't consider that too much,
either.

"Forgive me, Lady Clara. Simply taking the quickest
route down." The sun had lifted farther, a rack of clouds now
stretched across the entire horizon, and its northern limit seemed
touched with a gauzy mist at the line where sea met sky. It had
been three days since they'd filled the water casks from their
first tropical ducking south of the Line; it seemed they'd receive
another ere long. He snapped open the lens and peered again. Only a
ghostly outline of the little brig was visible without the
assistance of the mainmast's height. But her every sail drew, full
and taut, hard brilliant white in that gauze; at the speed she'd be
traveling, she would be in plain view within a few hours. "That
looks like the
Flirt
."

"I
beg
your pardon?"

He grinned. No need to see her expression when she
used that governess-of-twenty-years tone of voice. "His Majesty's
brig by that name, my lady, commanded by an old, tried, and true
friend." That scintillating hunger unfurled, a risible warmth
stretching through his blood — originating from his right elbow.
Still he didn't need to look; some well-developed awareness of her
presence told him her precise location. He held out the lens, and
her hand slipped around its tube and raised it to her eye.
"Commander Francis Lamble. Do you see?"

She leaned against the taffrail, her elbow nudging a
belaying pin in its hole, then she swept the lens along the
horizon. "Yes. The
Flirt,
you say?"

Not a soul hovered nearby… nor seemed to be paying
any attention. Holystones growled for'ard on the quarterdeck, the
line of working sailors out of hearing by any practical stretch.
But the shipboard magic of a curious crew meant nothing was ever
safe from prying ears and eyes. Whatever Lady Clara and he said
would spread from stern to stem post within minutes. While there
was no impropriety in his history with Lamble, there had been
considerable mischief and some discretion would be best.

Fleming coughed. "We served together as mids aboard
the old
Druid,
during the last French war, and I must say we
were rather like Staunton and Chandler."

"Oh?" She returned the lens. One eyebrow curved up,
the other stayed level, and her lips twisted into a wry smile. "And
you both survived?"

Her lips…
No, he'd not consider them, either.
As a matter of fact, there had to be something on the blasted ship
he
could
consider other than her. Or her features. Her
nearness. Her curves. Her warmth…
What on earth am I
thinking?

The lens, yes. He took another look. The distant sea
wavered, then there was the
Flirt
— and indeed it was she —
centered within the lens' little circle and already visibly closer.
But the distraction, while welcome, made no impact upon his body's
attention. Not even the looming storm drew him out. He needed room.
"She'll be up with us before noon. Perhaps Lamble can stop and
lunch with us." Fleming closed the lens, nodded to Lady Clara, and
left her standing.

And he didn't need to look to know that she stared at
his back as he walked away, until his feet clattered down the aft
ladder and the deck closed above him.

Safely enclosed within the great cabin, Fleming
leaned over the dining table's polished mahogany and released his
pent-up awareness. When had he become so smitten, so physically
enamored of her? When had his body learned to recognize her without
his conscious mind's assistance? He'd realized his — yes, his lust
for her, from their first breakfast together; but this had gone far
beyond simple lust. This jealous sensitivity encompassed his body
and emotions, driving out all else and refusing any
distraction.

Including
Topaze
.

Meaning with Lady Clara around, he was no longer fit
to command.

This was a disaster, a flaming disaster. And he was
supposed to help her find the man she loved? Without flattening the
brute or firing into his ship? Fleming's arm muscles spasmed
beneath his weight. Impossible.

He straightened, wiping damp palms on his breeches.
Handprints marred the mahogany's polish. Hennessy would have a fit.
Let him.

Even though it would cast an ugly stain over his
honor, he'd have to rescind his word. Hopefully they wouldn't
overtake
Armide
before they reached the Cape. Then he could
put Lady Clara ashore for her return trip to England while they
took on stores. No matter how loudly she fussed. Then he could
concentrate on his command and the fight to come. No matter what
his rebellious body thought of the matter. And then he could—

—he could—

Sleep in his own blasted hanging cot and get rid of
this nagging backache.

The sheets would smell of her. That clean, fresh,
female scent. And the satin would stroke across his skin in the
night, soft as innocent kisses. His entire body would rock with the
cot and the ship's swaying, hungry, yearning.

Alone.

He might never sleep again.

A flaming, outrageous disaster.

* * * *

Captain Fleming had taken his excellent glass below
when he'd inexplicably vanished. But Staunton cheerfully lent her
his battered one, and with its assistance Clara examined the
onrushing
Flirt:
her perfect cloud of white sails, her
low-slung hull, the officer peering back with his own spyglass from
the quarterdeck, and the swarm of multi-colored signal flags
snapping before the wind.

"It's a sort of code," Lieutenant Rosslyn explained.
His sandy queue, clubbed at the end, swung behind his neck as he
glanced down at her, then swung again like a pendulum when he
jerked back toward the railing. He always seemed so self-conscious
around her, eyes darting from side to side, up then down, unwilling
to hold her gaze nor look in her direction for long. "There's
fourteen of those flags in different patterns and colors, and
Admiral Popham, he's a serious, scientific sailor, a surveyor and
such, he arranged them so's various combinations of two or three
flags mean a certain word. All the midshipmen must do is memorize
that code book, and then a ship can transmit messages as far as a
spyglass can see."

The kindest thing to do to ease his squirming was
continue looking through Staunton's glass. But the
Flirt
was
now so close, even a grateful man wouldn't be fooled. She closed
the glass and set it aside. "And what is this combination of signal
flags telling us, Lieutenant Rosslyn?"

Pink crept up his cheeks, up his high forehead, and
he turned away again. Clara sighed. He never seemed embarrassed
around the men. But ever since dinner with the wardroom— And his
glance had never yet strayed below her neck. If it even went that
far.

"Up top's her number, and the flags on her fore and
mizzen backstays are the private signal, to let us identify her
properly. The rest of it says, 'I am carrying dispatches,' Lady
Clara." He shook out a line from the rigging and faked its end down
on the deck in a neat spiral, around and around, from the outside
in, until the line's end tucked into a tiny clear spot in the
center of a perfect circle. "Meaning the captain's friend won't be
able to stop for lunch." Awkward again, Lieutenant Rosslyn touched
his scraper and strode away, stumbling one step when
Topaze
bucked gently.

Perhaps he'd do better in another line of work. Clara
settled her lace-making on her lap, the rows of little flowers
still no better formed and the sheet of lace no longer than when
she'd left Plymouth, and sighed. So perhaps might she.

The sun hadn't yet reached its noontime height when
Flirt
tore up on
Topaze
's windward side, splashing
closer and closer, a terrier ranging up on a pointer's heels. By
Topaze
's wheel, Lieutenant Rosslyn scowled and Chandler, the
midshipman of the watch, muttered short, angry words beneath his
breath. Clara peered more closely at
Flirt
. Granted, the
round-seeming officer midships laughed while they grumbled, as if
he deliberately sought and delighted in their ire; but she could
see no reason for such censure.

Then
Flirt
's shadow crept up over the poop
deck, the two ships within hailing distance, and
Topaze
's
lower sails flapped. Air spilled from them, her way came off, and
they slowed in the water as
Flirt
, no longer challenged by
their speed, swept even closer.

Clara gasped. "They're blocking the breeze. The
nerve!"

Beside her, Fleming's laugh seemed abrupt, not its
normal easy-going self at all. He clasped his hands behind his
back, beneath his coattails. "Stealing our wind, it's called. And
that, Lady Clara, is Lamble all over." He strode to the rail.

Meaning Commander Lamble had been the Staunton-like
mischief-maker in their midshipman days. Oh, she'd love to give him
a piece of her mind for this prank. The slope fell from
Topaze
's deck, the mizzen and mains'l billowing with
rustling cracks, and the rush of water alongside dulled to a
whisper. Since leaving the doldrums they'd had a splendid run of
sailing large, with the wind less than a point off the stern, sails
and stu'nsails set to the royals like massive white thunderclouds
chained to the masts. As captain's clerk, she'd written each day's
run in the log, and the southeast trades had driven them one
hundred and fifty miles each day between noon and noon, with never
a need to shift the sails nor touch a rope. Now along came this
gimcrack showing away. If they logged less than one hundred and
fifty miles this day, the oceans wouldn't be large enough for them
both.

Granted, that nasty-looking storm might slow them a
bit, as well.

The round-looking officer laughed and waved his
scraper, a gesture between a greeting, a challenge, and a salute.
The drum-taut stays'l above
Flirt
's sloping deck framed him
like a picture. He wasn't overweight, but several of his various
members seemed spherical or curved: a round face on a round head,
round ears tight within his short brown hair, while his rounded
shoulders reflected a larger inverse of his wide, mischievous
smile.

"Wish you could come aboard for lunch, Lamble, but
I'd have to smack you around for your disrespect." Fleming's
powerful bellow easily covered the yards separating the two
ships.

"Carrying dispatches, Fleming,
old man,
and
can't stop." Lamble's chin lifted. His roving, professional eye
skimmed
Topaze
's sails and masts, then lowered and stopped
on Clara. "Although I'd love to."

She might have to smack him herself.

"Save the story for me," Lamble yelled as
Flirt
began drawing away. "Oh, are congratulations in
order?" For a moment his laugh lingered as he clapped his hat on
fore-and-aft, then the southeast trades whipped the sound away and
Flirt
was gone.

Leaving her behind, mortified.

Numbness crept up her hands to her wrists, up her
neck to her cheeks. She couldn't look away from the pinrail, where
the heavy belaying pins creaked beneath the rigging's lines. Was
that what it looked like? As if she'd married Captain Fleming and
sailed as his wife? The certainty grew in her like some morbid
worm. Of course that was what it looked like. She'd hardly be the
gunner's daughter, would she?

Captain Fleming shook his head and turned. But his
pleased smile faded as he stared at her. "Lamble's rather like
Staunton in some ways. It's more than likely he said that merely to
stick a needle in your side."

"He succeeded."
Topaze
was picking up speed
again with the interloper tearing ahead, but the beautiful day
seemed ruined. The massive line of clouds loomed behind as if
chasing them across the South Atlantic, and
Topaze
's
brilliant tropical sails flashed blinding white against their grey
and darkening wall. Clara gathered her crochet kit and went
below.