A Different Sort of Perfect

by Vivian Roycroft

  And Clara's heart died within her.

  Phillippe.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It wasn't possible, couldn't be true. Phillippe was dashing, brave, everything that was good and perfect. He'd never fire into a surrendered ship, never behave in such a callous, savage manner. There had to be a mistake, a reason, a misunderstanding. But his gaze crossed hers and his recognition — their mutual recognition — had already aroused mutters across the quarterdeck, mutters that flowed for'ard and aloft within seconds. The drumbeat of the floating village was spreading the gossip. Heat grew in her face; perhaps it was a good thing, being darkened with gunpowder soot.

  "Lady Clara?" Phillippe's bold voice cut through the whispers. "Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?" He mounted to the quarterdeck and seized her hand, folding it between his two in that possessive way she'd always relished. "I say it badly, as usual. Of course I am enchanted to see you, mademoiselle, delighted more than I can express. But this is very much a surprise."

  The touch of his hands burned her skin. It always had; she'd always felt the draw between them, an indescribable heat that scorched her from the inside out, whether they wore gloves or no. So did his commanding stare, his strong profile, those tousled auburn curls falling over his broad forehead. His every feature remained, just as she'd remembered them, just as she'd taught herself to recall them. But this time, they didn't meet in a ballroom or assembly hall. They didn't meet as friends nor even polite, distant acquaintances. They met as enemies. And everyone was watching. Covert discretion or blatant stares, it didn't matter — the concentrated attention burned more than his touch. Over Phillippe's shoulder, Mr. Abbot's smile had vanished. Beside her—

  Beside her, Captain Fleming made no sound. She couldn't turn to read his expression. She couldn't look away from Phillippe. But even without looking, she knew to the inch precisely where Captain Fleming stood. And doubtless he'd be watching their handclasp.

  She slid her hand free and wrapped it back around the book. "Captain Levasseur." Her voice wavered. She hauled in a deep breath and tried again. "I am surprised to see you, as well. I hope I find you—" No, they met on a battlefield; well-wishes did not comprise a suitable conversational gambit. There had to be something she could say without giving offense to either side, but what that topic might be, she had no idea.

  Either side. Well, that was the point, wasn't it? They were at war. There were two sides, her beloved on one, her village on the other. Even the gossipy mutters had fallen still and silent; a voice raised on the Flirt seemed obscenely loud.

  Where did she stand? No one knew. Least of all her. And unlike the gunpowder soot, this question of her belonging wouldn't come out in the wash.

  "Capitaine…?" Captain Fleming's voice. He must have stepped closer; his breath, his masculine heat, all but burned the back of her neck. If she didn't move, his flame would leap to her and set her afire. But her feet had taken root in the deck. Her sluggish mind refused to provide her any words at all. Invisible walls pressed around her, closer and closer, until she wanted to flee below decks to escape them all.

  "Levasseur," Phillippe said, half-bowing from the waist. His mannerisms were polite, but his eyes darkened and the skin over his cheekbones seemed taut and brittle.

  A horrid foreboding drove the walls so tightly around her, she couldn't breathe for the pressure on her breast. The two men had hated each other on sight, had grown to hate each other even before then. The battle overflowed its banks and swamped them all, drowning the captains' patriotic fervor in now purely personal enmity. She'd no idea if she could swim in such torrid waters. And she stood between them, certainly physically. But also… symbolically?

  For the first time, she wished she'd never left Plymouth.

  "I will have your sword." Captain Fleming's words hammered her, cold verbal nails delivered word by word, despite his blazing heat. Or was that merely the sun? Whatever it was, it was much worse than she'd feared.

  An ugly shade of brick rose from Phillippe's collar, clashing with its orange hue and sweeping across his taut, sculpted cheeks. His humiliation was finally too much to bear and she yanked her attention away. Beside her, a chunk had been torn from the capstan, raw aged wood showing against the brown paint; odd that she hadn't noticed it earlier, when she'd been elated over their victory. Atop the leather covering sat a forgotten hairpin. It might as well have been a mile away, for all the power she had to pick up the silly thing.

  Metal clicked and clattered. Phillippe extended his arm, casting a foreshortened shadow across the deckboards. Another shadow, one from behind her, met it halfway and then jerked back. Phillippe straightened, the tautness and redness over his cheekbones spreading to his broad, creamy forehead.

  The shadow behind her moved away. Footsteps crossed the deck, descended the starboard quarterdeck ladder, and dwindled away for'ard, taking the worst of the tension with them. Clara hauled in a deep breath and glanced up.

  The smile had returned to Mr. Abbot's face. He gestured toward the port ladder. "Captain Levasseur, this way, if you please."

  Phillippe's lips curved in a savagely polite smile. "Le capitaine, s'il vous plaît."

  "Indeed, Captain?" Mr. Abbot gestured again, less politely.

  Phillippe's jaw withdrew into his stand-up collar like an insulted turtle. He disentangled her hand from the book and inkhorn, bowing over it without raising his eyes to hers, then released her and turned to follow.

  But the remaining tension didn't accompany him below. It stayed huddled on the quarterdeck, inhabiting the six clear feet that surrounded her, an empty space no one seemed anxious to fill. A lump grew in Clara's throat.

  For the first time since she'd come aboard Topaze, she was truly alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  He knew. The entire outrageous situation had been defined by her rigid shoulders and frozen, expressionless mask. Without asking, Fleming knew.

  "A foot of water in the well, sir," said the carpenter. "No shot holes below the waterline."

  "Very good." His thoughts ranged over his ship's condition, but a quivering corner of himself could not forget what he'd just seen. "Our masts?"

  "All sound, sir, although I won't answer for the mizzen topmast. It lost a fair bit around the middle to one of them French cannonballs and it could go during the next blow."

  "Let it be for now. Our first order of business is seeing to the Flirt. Captain Lamble will need to fish a mizzenmast and perhaps a main topmast. Ask him if he needs assistance and if he does, take a boat."

  The carpenter saluted and hurried aft. Fleming returned to the bosun's list of cut rigging. But the growling undercurrent of his thoughts would not be halted.

  When Lady Clara had spotted the French captain her walls of propriety had slammed down, thrusting everyone from her emotional sphere and locking them out. It was as if she'd turned her flesh into a cold marble statue of herself and set that statue on a pedestal within a glass case, unreachable and distant. In that moment, he'd known.

  The French captain, Levasseur, was her quarry, the beast her seahunt had in view.

  But it's not right.

  A little voice spoke from somewhere deep and hidden within Fleming's soul. Different from the tactical instincts that guided him in his war against the sea and enemy ships, this little voice didn't sound like any part of his soul he'd ever listened to before. But its clamorous insistence could not be ignored.

  It's not right.

  Whatever her faults — and even her closest friends had to admit she had a few — whatever her faults, Lady Clara was an honorable creature, honest, punctilious, proper. Captain Levasseur's behavior during his battle with the Flirt proved he didn't share her sentiments. He'd shown himself to have no honor whatsoever. They could not possibly make an amicable couple. They didn't belong together and never could.

  He's not right.

  Across the water, Lamble waved cheerfully from the Flirt's wrecked quarterdeck. Acknowledgement or even gratitude under
lay the gesture, and Fleming noticed his carpenter aboard the jolly boat, en route to the battered brig. Even if Lamble's own carpenter wasn't injured or worse, an extra set of trained hands wouldn't be turned away. Fleming waved back and found the surgeon waiting at his elbow. "What's the butcher's bill?"

  Dr. Eckhart seemed tired but buoyant, as if lifted from within. The hair he normally kept combed across his shining dome had fallen to his shirt collar and it stuck there with a black, hardened crust. "Nine dead, a baker's dozen injured, mostly splinter wounds and only one of those serious. Mr. Chandler's arm's broken, and that's the lot."

  If the circumstances were otherwise, Fleming would have heaved a sigh of relief; the battle could have ended very differently. But there was no room in him now for such an emotion. "Then once you've seen to them, ascertain if the Flirt's or Armide's surgeons need a hand. The Flirt's crew lay down upon the deck and sheltered during the worst of Armide's bombardment, but they'll doubtless have casualties, and we shan't hold the French crew responsible for the dishonorable behavior of their officers."

  Dr. Eckhart's expression turned haughty, as if he didn't agree with Fleming's assessment. But he saluted and vanished among the swirling sailors on the fo'c'sle.

  If he, Fleming, had Lady Clara's delicate sense of honor, he'd remind her that a captain could perform a binding marriage ceremony while aboard his ship. He could marry them and give her her heart's desire, the prize she'd sought so desperately.

  But he's not right for her.

  At first he thought his imagination had conjured her from his thoughts. But no, she stood at his elbow, book and inkhorn ready, pen in hand. She'd washed away the worst of the gunpowder soot and tidied her hair. If she'd been crying, he could see no trace.

  Why should he assume she'd been crying? She'd found the man she'd hunted. She demonstrated her good breeding by not dancing a delighted hornpipe amidst their repair efforts.

  "Orders, Captain Fleming?" Her voice was level and controlled. Too controlled.

  A band tightened around his chest and fast as that, anger surged through him. She should have been crying. She should have hung her head with shame that such a man had ever caught her attention, much less her heart. She shouldn't have the nerve to approach him at all.

  Of course, that was hardly fair. Fleming hauled in a deep breath and battened down the anger. "Copy out your notes and then update the log. I'll sign it as soon as we're underway."

  She nodded. The rigidity in her neck and shoulders made her movements jerky, a puppet with poorly managed strings. "We'll be going on to the Cape, then?"

  "There's no point now. Captain Lamble threw his dispatches overboard when he was attacked and our mission's accomplished, the Armide stopped before she reached the Indian Ocean. We'll head for home."

  Another nod, somewhat less jerky. So the thought of going home relieved some of her tension. She thought she couldn't marry Captain Levasseur until they reached shore, and so the news of an early return heartened her. The band around his chest tightened further and an ugly mist blurred his sight.

  She started to turn away. Before she finished the movement, he blurted out, "He's it, isn't he?"

  She froze.

  "He's the French officer you sought. That murdering, dishonorable—"

  "Must we discuss this now?" She didn't turn back around. All color drained from her face, leaving her white as death. Her tension returned, redoubled. The barest tremor rippled through her. She looked both hunted and haunted.

  He'd known without asking. But he'd asked anyway, although he also knew that once spoken, there were no secrets on a frigate, and his indiscreet words would travel through Topaze like a jungle drumbeat. He'd humiliated her at the least. And her mien made it clear she was well aware of how despicable her lover's behavior had been.

  Fleming shifted, uneasy. She seemed ready to faint and he'd contributed to her distress. And really, why should he interest himself with her affairs at all? She wasn't his concern, not really a member of his crew. Not his responsibility.

  That inner voice spoke again. But she should be.

  The world canted around him, as if Topaze heeled to a gust, as the deeper meaning of those words penetrated. He grabbed a halyard and held on. "No, of course not. I beg your pardon, Lady Clara."

  She vanished, fleeing down the gangway as if chased by a bear. In the jibboom rigging, Jeremiah Wake worked steadily away, never glancing back, giving no sign he'd heard the conversation. But the disapproving scowl, just visible beyond his waist-length queue, made it clear he had.

  Chapter Thirty

  The nerve of that man.

  Beyond the bank of stern windows in the great cabin, Armide rocked, gentle as a cradle. Sailors swarmed over her hull and through her rigging like a horde of ants, knotting and splicing, replacing her shot-away main topmast spar, hammering away at her battered stern. A glint of yellow caught Clara's eye and she looked again. David Mayne unraveled the end of a line above the spanker boom. Those were their sailors at work over there; the French crew would be below decks, locked in the hold, their own grape-loaded cannons aimed at them, as Staunton's journal had described after the Spanish snow-brig's capture last cruise. And there was Mr. Abbot, stepping from Armide's mizzenmast rigging, grabbing a backstay, and shooting down two hundred feet in seconds, as unconcerned as Uncle David descending the stairs at home.

  But her thoughts were elsewhere.

  Impertinent. Prying. Forward and shameless.

  How dare he speak of her private business on the open deck, where anyone could — and presumably did hear? As captain, he'd the right to issue orders, but none whatsoever to question her regarding her personal affairs. No more than Chandler, who hopefully would not draw conclusions from the captain's behavior toward a lady. And why was she so furious with him, when Phillippe's transgression was so much worse, so much more devastating? Captain Fleming described himself as her friend, and she couldn't ignore the way her heart warmed in her chest at the remembrance. But Phillippe…

  The light from the windows fell across her book, the facing page half-covered with her neatest handwriting. She'd reached the narrative point where she'd set aside her prescribed duties and grabbed the rammer, and it seemed she'd set her memory beneath the aft hatchway ladder, as well, for after that moment she'd no clear conception of the chain of events. The world had narrowed to Biting Bruiser's smoking muzzle, the clumsy rammer, the French gunners beyond Armide's ripped-open hull. She'd helped keep the gun firing; nothing else had penetrated her concentration.

  She'd helped defeat Armide. She'd assisted the gun crews, and they'd done their best to kill the enemy.

  To kill Phillippe.

  That thought bothered her. But not as much as she'd expected. If she hadn't helped, it was more than possible the French gun crews would have killed her. He hadn't known it at the time, but Phillippe had ordered his gunners to try to kill her, as well as Chandler, Staunton, Mr. Abbot, Mayne, Jeremiah Wake.

  And Captain Fleming. Aggravating, infuriating man.

  She sighed and flattened the pages with one hand, stroking down the paper's inner fold. When she'd fled below after the battle, she'd checked the repeater and found it to be ten minutes before nine o'clock. Allow a few minutes for her floundering at the match tub, drinking the water, coming on deck, and retwisting her hair, and it seemed the entire battle, from first gunfire to last, had taken less than twenty minutes. She found herself unable to accurately describe the battle itself, but she could note down the timeline and piece together the rest, perhaps with input from Staunton or Mr. Abbot. Asking Captain Fleming was out of the question; the less they spoke for a while, the more peaceful the frigate would be. She loaded the pen.

  The door opened. Only one person would barge into the great cabin without knocking and she didn't wish to speak with that one. She leaned over the book and wrote, forming each letter and number carefully. Best if she didn't look up.

  "Lady Clara."

  Not captain's clerk. She
closed her eyes for a moment. "Yes, Captain Fleming?"

  But he didn't speak. If he awaited her glance up, he'd be waiting until the tropics required woolen innerwear. Finally he cleared his throat. "Might I trouble you for the muster roll?"

  Of course; he'd need to detail part of the crew to sail the prize home, and perhaps to assist Captain Lamble with the Flirt. "Certainly." Setting her pen in its stand, she rummaged for the muster in the desk drawer.

  When she handed it to him, unfortunately she forgot her anger and glanced up. A brief, polite smile touched his unusually narrow lips. Perhaps his face was pale; perhaps it was the strong midmorning sunlight, blazing through the stern windows. He accepted the papers, bowed, and left.

  Their poor little friendship might never have been.

  * * * *

  She managed to avoid him the rest of the day, eating a sandwich at the desk and brushing crumbs from the book after the ink had dried. Through the stern windows, Armide slowly resumed the appearance of a frigate ready to sail, although a closer look showed more twice-laid stuff and Irish pennants than was attractive. At Armide's stern, Lamble and the two carpenters replaced the Flirt's shattered foremast with Topaze's spare mains'l yard, and re-rigged the brig without a main topmast. It would reduce the brig's ripping turn of speed, but likely Flirt could give Topaze and Armide the advantage and still match them.

  Not that she'd ever admit Topaze wasn't the Royal Navy's most superior vessel in all possible ways.

  But when orange and gold painted the western sky Topaze moved, swinging from Armide and Flirt and beginning her susurrating whisper to the waves. For an uneasy minute the stern windows overlooked only the empty sea, then Armide tacked into the frame, a cable's length astern, and beyond her the Flirt, sliding into position with only her maincourse and fore tops'l. They were underway with the blazing sunset to larboard; they sailed north-northwest, for England.