Poetic Justice, a Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Escapades)

by Alicia Rasley

  Such speculations were likely to drive him mad, so instead he spent the last night huddled in a boat cloak against the damp, thinking about flogging. They punished at noon, when the sun was high and blazing, the marine had told him. After six lashes, the captain would call a temporary halt to give the flogged man a few gulps of water. Then it would begin again.

  In the utter darkness of the hold, he felt around on the floor for the battered tin jug that held his water ration. He plunged his hand into it, closing his fingers to catch the insects as the water ran through, then flinging them away into the darkness. He drank as much as he could swallow, choosing to blame the crawling sensation down his throat on the rancid taste.

  Flogging could be no worse than this.

  He had never been flogged, and never flogged either. But then, he'd never been in the Navy. Privateering crews were a practical lot, and sailed by choice, not conscription. To enforce appropriate behavior, the captain needed only to threaten to leave an unruly crewman at the next port of call without any prize money.

  It wouldn't be so bad, he told himself as the marines returned Tuesday morning to take him above. A dozen stripes, that's all, the marine assured him again, pushing John's head down so he wouldn't hit the hatchway. He spoke loudly over the singing of the sails, "It won't hurt so much after the sixth or seventh lash, that's what I hear."

  After days in the hold, the sun blazing off the water blinded John. Involuntarily his eyes closed to ward off the glare, and only the rough guidance of the marines got him across the deck to the gangway, where they unshackled his arms. Once the pain from his raw wrists faded, he forced open his eyes. The deck was crowded by both watches, ragged rows of his shipmates watching him with curiosity and sympathy and perhaps morbid enjoyment of his humiliation. The officers were there too, assembled behind the captain in his full-dress uniform: the sole lieutenant looking young and bored, the two little midshipmen each with a hand on his blade, just in case the marines couldn't handle the felon alone.

  Before him was a metal grating, beside it the burly boatswain's mate fondling a cat-o'-nine-tails. John focused on the leather whip, counting the tails as the mate stroked each one. It was true, there were nine of them, thin and sharp and coated with something that looked like tar.

  The boatswain's mate grinned at him, revealing two missing teeth. John narrowed his eyes against the light, focusing all his ill will on that mouth gaping in an insolent grin. The grin faltered, fell off, and the mate went back to combing his cat.

  The captain of the marines raised his hand. The Navy had a ceremony for everything, John was learning, even for flogging a man. The ship's corporal shaded his eyes and read aloud from a sheet gripped hard against the wind's grasp. "Desertion. Theft of a boat."

  "What say you to these charges, Mercer?"

  John rubbed his wrist and said wearily, "I am not Mercer. I am not of the Royal Navy, and thus I cannot be guilty of desertion."

  The captain ignored this, as John knew he would. "He is in your division, Mr. Polter. Have you anything to say for him?"

  The lieutenant, prodded by a midshipman's elbow, shook himself awake. "Sir, he's a good man at the wheel, notwithstanding his mental instability. Takes a good noon reckoning, and seems to know these waters well. I wouldn't want to lose him for long, what with the master left behind."

  The captain nodded judiciously. "Good point, Mr. Polter. Just a dozen lashes, then, Barrett. And do make it quick. The hands will want their dinner."

  John's personal marines seized him, one on each arm, and yanked his shirt off over his head. There was a roll of drums, the lonely whine of a pipe, as John's hands were bound to the grating with leather ropes. The marine shoved at his bared back, so that he was pressed face first against the hot metal. He closed his eyes, willing away the humiliation, the utter helplessness, the anticipation of worse. No, the pain didn't matter, it was the lack of control that agonized him. To be spread-eagled thus, his arms seized above him, his back naked, his shame plain to all his shipmates, while three hundred miles away his life was slipping away. It was too much to bear.

  "One." There was a moment of utter stillness, except for the shipsong, and John dragged in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut and descended into those familiar sounds: the rush of the water against the side, the creak of the old oak boards, the croon of the sails filled with wind. One, he could hear, was flapping loose, and he had almost located it on his mind's sail plan when the whip whistled and snapped against his back.

  Where is that sail? he thought, clenching his fists above as he felt the drip of blood down his spine. The forestaysail, that was the one.

  "Two."

  Mentally he caught the errant sail, fixed the corner back on its hank, surrendered to the familiar work and the blaze of the sun on his back. It didn't hurt so bad, a sunburn—

  "Three." Another crack like a sail ripping, then the scrape like nails down his back. The old planks of the sloop were groaning, shivering beneath his bare feet. The rush of the water came more fervent, more resonant somehow. Something was wrong. He opened his eyes, raised his head, blinked to clear the sweat away, and stared enough through the grating at the sea ahead.

  He knew this stretch of water. Dogger Bank. The shallowest part of the shallow North Sea, pale with the shifting of sand underneath. Sandbanks came and went, but there was usually one along this natural channel. "Captain," he said, in the normalest voice he could manage, "if you don't alter course three points to starboard, you'll ground her for certain."

  "Four." But the boatswain's mate said this automatically, and no crack followed the doleful number.

  The captain sprang to the rail beside John, staring wildly ahead. John clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, adding conversationally, "Rip the spine out of her, I wager, as swiftly as she's running."

  "Helm!" cried the captain. "Starboard three points. All hands!"

  The deck came to life, and John relaxed against the grating, imagining what he couldn't see, the men squirming up the ropes, grabbing the yards, stretching out for the sails. The sloop lurched hard to the right, the hull groaning in protest, and John was forced into the hot metal. He had a moment to imagine the ship foundering, him still lashed to the grating, before the marine appeared at his side. "Right good show, mate. Not a peep out of you. Captain said to take you down now."

  Once freed, John leaned over the rail, fiercely ignoring the stinging on his back, rubbing at his wrist and assessing the color of the water. There were no other landmarks, so far out to sea, but the water was so clear he thought he could make out the individual shells pocking the white sand. "Get the lead going!" the captain called and a midshipman appeared at the rail to test the depth of the sea.

  "By the deep seventeen, sir," came the call—plenty of room, but then the sloop lurched, and with a screech the spine scraped bottom.

  "Let fall!" screamed the captain, and the last sails fell, and as they filled with wind the sloop was yanked off the bank, rocking hard and then settling safely into the deeper channel.

  There was a collective exhale of relief, and the marine relaxed his tense posture and plucked John's shirt from the deck. "Captain wants to speak with you."

  John pulled the shirt over his head, and when the rough linen stuck to his back he let himself feel for the first time the burning of salt on raw flesh. He could hardly force himself to approach the captain, who was directing operations from near the helm and greeted him happily. "Quick thinking there, Mercer. You know these waters?"

  "Some."

  "Well, you know your navigation, I'll give you that. Tell you what. I'll name you acting master. If you work out, I'll make it official in Riga. Now go see the surgeon about those stripes. Wouldn't want to lose another master to fever."

  John managed to walk away before he gave way to weak laughter. He leaned against the mast, naming himself ten types of fool. He could have let the sloop run aground, and wait for a passing ship to tow them to the nearest shore. Then he could h
ave deserted and gotten back to England in a few days. But no. He had to play the conscientious sailor and save the sloop's hull. Stupid. And now he was master, and instead of doing the sensible thing and heading southwest, assuring the captain all the way that the sun had reversed its path through the sky, he would probably find himself doing a capable job.

  The ship's surgeon had ordered him to rest for two days. But by Thursday morning, even on the lower deck—John had refused, through some confused sense of principle, to move into the master's cabin—he could feel the heaviness in the air that presaged a major gale. After the surgeon changed the dressings on his back, John went up on deck. Absently answering the greetings of his shipmates, he went to the helm and checked the log. Then he went to the stern, watching the storm approach from the south across the strangely flat sea.

  Even two hours after dawn, he couldn't find the sun in the sullen sky or trace the source of the weird silver light. The air was moist with heat, so still that the sails hung limply from their yards. The sky behind was an iron gray, black along the horizon, with a wavering sheen in between that meant a torrential rain a few leagues away. The storm approached like a panther, smooth and slow and coiled to leap.

  And even after two decades at sea, the prospect sent liquid energy coursing through his veins.

  Sending the helmsman below to rouse the captain, John took over the wheel, adjusting to the still unfamiliar starboard buck of the sloop's bow when it met a wave. The Araminta was old and set in her ways, with none of the sleek responsiveness he expected from his own vessels. Still, she could be handled, with the right touch at her helm.

  The captain, still in his nightshirt, came up to check John's chart entries. He peered out at the coiled clouds and loudly proclaimed himself unworried. But he told the boatswain's mate to pipe the hands to breakfast early, so that they would be fed and full to fight the storm. "Won't be a bad one. Might even give us a bit of running room."

  The captain's professed serenity was belied when he refused to go below to change and breakfast. Instead he haunted the deck, pacing back and forth and annoying John with his repeated and contradictory directions. John ignored most of them, letting the tension of the wheel in his hands guide his steering.

  The approaching storm was sucking all the life from the air, so the sloop seemed to be skating forward just ahead of a vacuum. The air was so empty that John could clearly hear the uneasy mutters of his shipmates as they emerged onto the deck behind him.

  The captain heard it too. "Belay that chatter!"

  He didn't ask for advice, but John gave it anyway, in a low voice in case the captain didn't want to acknowledge it. "I'd shorten sail and put her about, take the force on the beam."

  The captain gave him a disgusted look. "My orders are for Riga, not Ramsgate. We're already three days overdue, and this doesn't look to be much of a blow. It'll drive itself out in an hour or so, so we'll just take advantage of it to cover more sea. Should make up some time that way."

  It was more daring a maneuver than John would have expected of this captain, more daring, in fact, than John himself would have attempted. Trying to outrun the storm could work for a faster ship. But the old, slow Araminta risked losing the race, and getting swamped by the high seas the storm brought along.

  "She's not far enough ahead of the wind to do it safely." An ominous roll of thunder underlined John's protest. "The timbers won't stand for an hour's direct battering. She'll come apart."

  The lieutenant, swinging down from the maintop with his spyglass under his arm, proved an unlikely ally. "He's right, sir, it's a moderate-sized blow, and gaining on us."

  As the officers fell to arguing how much sail should be shortened, the first blast of wind caught the captain's nightshirt, lifting it above his waist. But John was too occupied keeping the wheel controlled to find the picture amusing. The howling that followed drowned out the shouts of the lieutenant and the stubborn replies of the captain. Just as well, for the crew, up in the rigging taking in the sails, shouldn't have to hear their disagreement.

  Suddenly the storm snuffed out the weak silver light, and the blow cast up a wall of waves that blocked John's view of the distant horizon, where safety lay. Strangely, there was no rain, only the spray kicked up by the force of the sloop hitting the storm.

  For God's sake, put her about, John thought, putting all his weight into holding the wheel on course. But he didn't say it aloud. Too ingrained was the teaching of decades, that the captain had to prevail or discipline would be lost. They might be able to ride it out, if the timbers held and the masts didn't carry them over.

  Like a shadow in the eerie .darkness, the captain came up behind him, grabbing one of the wheel's oak spokes to test the resistance. The lieutenant was right alongside, his mouth working soundlessly as the wind ripped away his words. John kept his hands hard on the wheel, his gaze locked on the battering ram of a wave that had just curled up above them from starboard.

  When it struck, the captain turned away with an almost comical expression of dismay. As the water swept over them, he reached out to grasp at John's shirt. Closing his mouth and eyes against the torrent, clinging to the wheel, John felt the fingernails scrape across his chest, the fist grip his lapel, the water close around him, dragging him down. Then the fabric gave way, and the pressure was gone, and the wheel was still solid and slick in his hands. The wave curled back into the sea, and the captain was gone.

  In the momentary calm, the deck looked oddly peaceful, almost barren, washed clean of cordage and debris. John held tight to the bucking wheel and looked around for the other officers. The lieutenant had also vanished. The two little midshipmen were clinging to the mast and to each other, too frightened to stand unassisted.

  John transferred his gaze to the rigging, where half a hundred men clung, waiting for an order. As another wave crashed into the stern, the little sloop trembled under his hands. The blood surged through his body as he felt her slide back, trying to escape the pounding. She would escape it, that much he could promise. He was hers; he was himself again.

  He raised his voice to carry to the most distant of his shipmates. "All hands to shorten sail! Strike down the topgallantmasts!"

  He released one hand from the wheel to rub at the scratches on his chest, and called out the order to put the sloop about and head her into the storm.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  If thou remember'st not the slightest folly

  That ever did love make thee run into,

  Thou hast not lov'd.

  As You Like It, II, iv

  Terra firma was all too firm under John's feet, after four days on a tiny sloop through two major gales. But it was English terra, at least, and so he tried to put a spring into his step as he shoved through the crowds at the dockyard. Finally his luck was in. It was morning, he was safe, and London, once a distant dream, was a mere thirty miles away—and Jessica's birthday was still to come.

  "Dryden!"

  Hearing his own name for the first time in a fortnight, John stopped short on the wooden path along the dock. It was his old colleague, Tressilian. They'd shared a berth on a Channel vessel when they were wild boys. But Tressilian had veered off course at some point and joined the Navy. Now the sun was glinting off his gold epaulettes, and even as John shook his hand he was thinking he hoped never to see another naval uniform again.

  Tressilian was eying John's own apparel. "You're off the Araminta?"

  John yanked off the hat with its betraying ribbon. "It was something of an accident."

  "Well, man, why didn't you tell me you were going Navy? You could have joined my company, and I'd've rated you master straightaway."

  "I didn't join. I was pressed."

  "Pressed?" Tressilian took the hat and peered inside, frowning at the "Jem Mercer" inscribed on the innerband. "We gave that up years ago, when the war was done. Don't have shiproom for all the seamen we've got."

  "Well, I don't think it was the Navy that pressed me. What day is it, a
nyway?"

  "Monday. Twentieth of July."

  "Christ. Two weeks on that benighted brig. Tressilian, could you do me a service?"

  Tressilian held out an open hand. "Anything, lad."

  "I need to get to London immediately. I need—clothes. A horse." He knew Tressilian, one of the wealthiest men in the Navy, would keep a stable here. "Funds."

  Without demur Tressilian started off down the dock towards a frigate whose mast was just being fitted with yards for a voyage. "Come on with me. My Defiant's right here. I shouldn't help you, you know, seeing as how you've cost me a pony."

  John shook the wool out of his head and trailed along, too tired to do more than ask, "How?"

  "There was a bet in town on whether that heiress ran off with you or the poet." Tressilian climbed the steps to the gangplank and looked back ruefully at John. "Naturally, I laid down my bet on you, as a fellow sailor. Reckon I should have gone with poetry after all."

  "Wait a minute!" John crossed over right behind Tressilian, instinctively adjusting to the sway of the gangplank. They almost collided as Tressilian stopped to salute the officer of the watch. The assembled company began one of those ridiculous naval welcoming ceremonies. Over the clash of the marines' weapons, John shouted, "What do you mean, she ran off with him?"

  Tressilian gave a nod of dismissal to the line of officers and marines on the deck and led the way down the steps to his day cabin. With a light flooding in from the stern windows, this was as bright as on deck, and John sank gratefully down onto a settee warm from the sun. But he didn't let his head fall back onto the cushions, for if he relaxed his muscles, he knew he'd lose consciousness. And he hadn't time for that.

  After a few instructions to his steward, Tressilian flung open a trunk. "Civilian clothes, you need, I make no doubt. We're of a size, I think." He pulled out an expensive shirt and a pair of breeches, added a riding coat and a cravat, and laid them out on the settee as precisely as any valet. Then he returned to the trunk. "You'll want riding boots, too, I expect." He tossed one back over his shoulder, muttering, "I know there's another one in here somewhere."