Well, of course. A decade ago, she had been a formidable pirate. Queen of the Caribbean, if tales were to be believed and Grace, watching her, believed every one of them.
Ned also took the sailor’s route onto the ship and so did Delmore Lord, whose stony expression had not softened in the slightest. In fact, now that they were all aboard, he seemed even more out of sorts.
“Relax, Del,” she heard her uncle tell him.
Mr. Lord murmured something that Grace didn’t catch and went to the side, there to look broodingly out over the gray harbor. Out in the distance, bands of rain showed as vertical fans of slate stabbing down out of the clouds over the Channel. Behind her, Grace heard Captain Ponsonby issuing commands to sailors and decided to find an out-of-the-way spot where she could sit and watch him and savor her recent memories. The sight of him coming out of the coaching inn in his splendid uniform. The sound of his voice as they’d taken their lunch, his chivalrous attention to her, and the feeling she’d had in her chest every time he’d turned to her and spoken.
Such sweet memories! And surely, there were better ones yet to come.
But there was something about Mr. Lord that was troubling her, and every time she tried to lose herself in thoughts of Captain Ponsonby, she found herself wondering what ailed Mr. Lord.
Soon enough, those daydreams were replaced with concern for her sailing instructor. He had retreated away from everyone else and now stood leaning his elbows against the rail, his hands dangling over the gray and choppy water far below. One of them held his hat and now the wind moved through his hair, which looked very black in the day’s gloom, the dampness in the air causing it to curl in thick, tight tendrils that clung to his jaw. As though sensing her perusal, he raked a hand through it, smoothing it back, and turned to look at her.
She smiled, hoping to soften the reality that she’d been staring after him in concern.
“Lady Grace. Let us hope we have an agreeable passage up to Norfolk.”
She walked over to him. “Is something amiss, Mr. Lord?”
“I should hope not.”
“You seem troubled. Out of sorts. If it’s about the swans, I’m so sorry I embarrassed you in front of the others... you were a fine teacher and I learned so very much. And,” she added hopefully, “our plan worked, just as I’d hoped. Did you see that Captain Ponsonby himself escorted me to the waterfront?”
“I did.”
“If it weren’t for you, he’d never have even noticed me.”
“He’d have noticed you.”
Grace frowned. “What is wrong, Mr. Lord?”
“Nothing that can be fixed,” he said evasively. “But it is of no matter, and not worth discussing.”
She eyed him narrowly, cocking her head slightly to one side.
“Not worth discussing,” she repeated softly.
He glanced down at her briefly, and then away over the water as though it pained him to look at her. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and she remembered that jaw beneath her lips when she’d impulsively stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss upon it in gratitude for saving her life.
She remembered how it had felt. The hard muscle beneath, the faint harsh stubble of whisker against her lips. It was all she could do not to give in to impulse right now, to reach up and smooth the hardness away, to ease the pain in those clear gray eyes, but of course, gently-bred young ladies didn’t do those sorts of things and so, she didn’t.
Instead, she ventured, “Are you not looking forward to seeing your family in Norfolk?”
“I can’t wait,” he said honestly. “In fact—”
“Captain Lord! Captain Lord! Look! The mist is parting off to windward and you can see Orion!”
Grace glanced from Ned, running headlong toward them, and to her companion in confusion. “Captain Lord?”
The boy froze, open-mouthed, and began to redden. One small hand went to his mouth.
But Grace was staring at the man beside her.
“Did he just call you Captain Lord?”
Her companion’s smile grew more pained. “Yes. You heard the boy correctly.”
Grace stared at him. “You mean you’re not a... clerk for my uncle? Or one of his sailors? I thought you worked for Uncle Gray!”
“I do work for the admiral.”
“Your anonymity is up, Del,” said Sir Graham, grinning as he walked past. “Might as well face it.”
“Captain?”
The man beside her looked vastly uncomfortable, but Grace persisted.
“If you’re a captain, then... which one is your ship?”
He turned his head in the direction of the wind. The mists continued to part and the ghostly forms of vessels out in the harbor took on shape. Small, single-masted sloops. Double-masted schooners and brigs. Frigates, like the one she found herself on, traders, ships of the line, an East Indiaman just weighing anchor, pilot boats and hoys, dinghies and a prison ship and there, far out in the water, the parting mists sharpening its outline as it was revealed, a massive vessel that dwarfed everything else in the harbor, a ship of many decks and row upon row of guns, with sides painted in a black and yellow checkerboard pattern and masts that reached all the way up to Heaven itself.
Delmore Lord smiled tightly and gave a little nod to the emerging leviathan.
“That one.”
18
That one.
Grace stared at it, for it was easily the largest, mightiest vessel in the emerging harbor, the tallest, the most commanding, the most impressive, the one to which any schoolboy would have proudly pointed when asked which ship he thought represented the mighty splendor of Britannia herself.
That one.
“Wait,” Grace said slowly. “Ned just called you captain. Captains command ships, and you just indicated that— that massive boat out there is your ship. Which leads me to conclude that you are the captain of that ship.”
“I am,” he said tightly.
“But—”
“Captain Lord didn’t want to tell you because he was trying to have a nice, quiet holiday in England without any fuss or fanfare,” Ned volunteered, trying to make amends for spoiling the secret in his excitement. “It’s why he’s not in uniform, but I can assure you he has one. He has several, in fact, but he chose to dress as a civilian so he could relax because everyone, Papa included, thinks he’s needed to do just that.” And then, in an aside, “Plus, my uncle Connor implied that he’s rigid, so I’m sure he was trying to allay that accusation, is that not so, Captain Lord?”
The expression of pain that Grace had noted earlier faded into something that looked to be a mixture of amusement, dismay, irritation and embarrassment.
“Ned,” he said slowly, “Why don’t you go and help your mother with little Anne and Mary. They’re wandering perilously close to the side.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Sir?” Grace said, the shock of this revelation fading, only to be replaced by the feeling that someone had just punched her in the stomach.
“The admiral’s son already fancies himself to be part of the Navy,” Mr.— no, make that Captain— Lord said. “Though it’ll be a few more years before he can think about being a midshipman and making his dreams a reality.”
Feeling was flooding in, overwhelming Grace.
“You didn’t tell me you were a captain.”
“Your uncle’s flag captain, if I must be honest.”
“You didn’t tell me you hold such rank!”
“I saw no reason to.”
“You didn’t tell me you commanded such a massive ship!”
“An admiral’s flagship is never an insignificant vessel in either size or firepower.”
“You let me believe you were a sailor, teaching me to sail a boat in a pond... oh, I am absolutely, positively mortified!”
“I am a sailor. And I do not regret the use of my time while at Ruscombe Hall.” His steady gray gaze caught hers, and he lifted a dark brow. “Do you?”
“Well no, but I f
eel like a fool!”
“Why?”
“If I’d known that you commanded that— that— ship out there, I would have died of humiliation, knowing someone of such importance and rank was showing me how to work a sailboat in a tiny pond. Oh!”
He shrugged. “The principles of sailing remain the same.”
“Oh!”
“From what direction, Lady Grace, is the wind coming from!”
“You are making sport of me!”
“No, merely ensuring that you remembered something of our lesson.”
“I don’t know, it’s coming from that way,” she snapped, emphasizing the that. “And because I can’t see the sun for all this mist, I can’t give you a better answer than that. I don’t want to give you a better answer than that. I can’t believe you allowed me to believe you were something you’re not!”
Captain Lord’s cool gray eyes glinted with affront. “I did nothing of the sort.”
Lady Falconer was approaching, a struggling toddler pulling at each hand. She was grinning widely. “Del, are you upsetting the lady?”
“Not intentionally.”
“He just told me he’s Uncle Gray’s flag captain! That he commands that massive ship out there in the harbor! Please Aunt Maeve, tell me that is not true, because I feel like the butt of a terrible joke!”
Her eyes danced with mischief. “’Twould be a lie if I told you it wasn’t true.”
“Did everyone know except me?”
“No, not everyone. In fact, most did not know, at least, not at the wedding. Those that did and said nothing were simply abiding by Captain Lord’s request to enjoy some anonymity while off the ship. You mustn’t be angry with him. My brother Connor accused him of being stuffy and unbending and worked so hard to get him to relax, to forget his cares and responsibilities for even a short time. Del tried to do just that during this trip.” She turned to him and smiled. “And were you successful, Del?”
“Aside from an unplanned swim in a pond that stank of mud and goose droppings, yes, Lady Falconer, I daresay I was.”
“So there you go,” Maeve said cheerfully. And then, leaning down so that only Grace could hear her, she whispered, “And he’s a far better catch than Captain Ponsonby will ever be. Mark me on that.”
* * *
Lieutenant James Akers was on the quarterdeck when Captain Ponsonby returned to his ship. He had guests with him. The Falconer family. Lady Grace Fairchild, who was rumored to be quite heavily dowered. And that stuffy prig, Delmore Lord.
The sight of the man made Akers crave a bottle.
They had known each other since Eton, had been together on the old Dancer. Even then, Delmore Lord had been insufferable. His mannerisms, his cultivated speech, his naval pedigree going back generations and his lofty, far-reaching aspirations— aspirations that were quite natural to him, aspirations he’d taken for granted— had been an affront to Akers, the only child of a wealthy printer who’d made his fortune selling salacious gossip about the ton and other self-important people.
Not exactly a noble pedigree to be sure, and the other young gentleman-officers— naval elite or British aristocrats, all of them— let him know it.
They had never accepted him, leaving him to his own devices and bitter loneliness which, in hindsight, had probably been a good thing. Easier to conceal his secrets that way, really. He knew it at the time, and he knew it now, but that didn’t erase the pain he’d felt then nor the resentment that he spent a good part of his free time trying to drown in a bottle, now. They’d looked down upon his family, his father’s occupation, even the money that had sent him to sea.
He was not their equal, he did not have birth and breeding to aid him, and Akers, a master at studying facial expressions and a self-proclaimed expert on reading them, knew, just knew, that Delmore Lord thought as highly of himself now as he did all those years ago aboard Dancer.
And he despised him for it.
But that was nothing compared to the hatred he felt for Lady Grace Fairchild.
Because at the moment, the young woman was gazing with unabashed infatuation at Captain Ponsonby.
Akers clenched his fists.
He’s mine, you simpering bitch. You’ll never have him if I have anything to say about it.
Yes, his history with Delmore Lord went back a long time, but so did his history with Sheldon Ponsonby. Both went all the way back to Eton, in fact. James had been a small, slight boy, pimpled and shy, and his diminutive physique along with a pedigree that his schoolmates considered lacking, had marked him for abuse from the moment he’d set foot on the school’s hallowed grounds.
He remembered the day as if it were yesterday. He, a new boy in a new school, an outsider who would never be accepted. On that particular afternoon, one of them had whipped an egg at him. It caught the back of his head, splattered, and dripped its sticky yellow mess down his neck and onto his shirt. Someone else had come up behind him and kicked him behind the knees, felling him, and as the jeering laughter of the mob had roared out around him, another boy had stepped in. He’d been tall, blond and confident, and instead of joining the others in their abuse, he’d pushed through them, walked up to Akers, and extended a hand down to help him up.
They had become friends, then, and that was the last time that Akers had ever suffered torment from his peers. Eventually, Ponsonby followed his family’s calling to the sea, and when he invited Akers to accompany him, there’d never been any question that he would go.
Ponsonby, of course, had advanced faster than Akers, but even now his friend and captain protected him, encouraged him, and at some point, he would support Akers’s own quest for a command of his own.
And Akers wasn’t so sure he wanted to leave.
If he had his own way, he’d follow Ponsonby to the ends of the earth, and clear every forest, move every rock, part every sea for this man who had reached a hand down to help him up on that long ago day... literally and figuratively.
Now, he watched Ponsonby conversing with Sir Graham and for not the first time, Akers damned the admiral for choosing the wrong man to be his flag captain. He should have picked Ponsonby, who was brave and dashing, not cautious and dull like Lord. No, no one could fault his loyalty to his commanding officer. And if Lady Grace ever won him, Ponsonby feared that the great friendship he had with his captain would be no more.
He would have a new best friend in a wife.
His attention would belong to her.
The handsome Sheldon Ponsonby would never belong to James Akers. That was an impossibility.
But if Akers had anything to say about it, he’d never belong to Lady Grace Fairchild, either.
19
“We should be getting underway shortly,” Lady Falconer said, helping little Anne to climb up on one of the frigate’s big guns. The child, her hair already as red as her mother’s, broke into a huge grin and jumped clumsily up and down on the expanse of iron, her balance quite steady despite her mother’s support.
“Gun go boom, Mama!”
Mary, frowning as she stared enviously at her twin, crowded close, her little face already starting to redden with the approach of a coming tantrum. Seeing it, Ned picked her up and set her atop a neighboring gun where her frown instantly transformed itself into an adorable smile of baby teeth and joy.
“Boom!” she echoed.
“Will Papa command Captain Ponsonby to fire the guns for them once we get underway?” Ned asked his mother. “Because if he doesn’t, it’s going to be a long voyage, to say the least.”
Their mother sighed. “That is up to the captain.”
Grace looked at the cannon on which each child stood, great, long-nosed instruments of death and destruction. They looked quite harmless at the moment, sitting in their trucks with their muzzles pointed out over the harbor as if searching for an invisible enemy.
“Why such a fascination for cannon?” she asked Lady Falconer.
“Guns,” Ned corrected, with a grin. “A cannon abo
ard a ship is called a gun.”
“Oh,” said Grace. “Right. Guns.”
Grace wondered how many guns Captain Lord’s ship had, and her gaze inadvertently swung to the huge warship that continued to reveal itself as the day brightened and the fog thinned. Still, no end to its masts despite the parting of the mist.
Just how big was the thing, anyhow?
“But to answer your question,” Ned put in, “Captain Lord had his crew fire Orion’s guns a few times on the Atlantic crossing expressly for the entertainment of my sisters. I’m afraid they’ve developed a taste for the noise, the reverberation, the smoke and the excitement.”
“Smells good,” said little Anne.
Gracie put a tiny fist to her chest and thumped it. “Feels good in here,” she added.
Privately, Grace wondered if the Falconers practiced pretend swordfights instead of the activities most normal families used as entertainment, such as charades. Card games. Singing. The learning of an instrument.
She wouldn’t doubt it.
And speaking of Orion, where had its captain gone to?
She wanted to remain angry with him. And perhaps she could have maintained her fury if he or the Falconers had found amusement at the joke that they had all been in on, and which had caused her such surprise and mortification. But they hadn’t seen it as a joke. And neither, apparently, did Captain Lord. It wasn’t as if any of them had intentionally set out to make her look foolish for not knowing. And what did Captain Lord owe her, anyhow? Maybe, just maybe, the man really had just wanted to lay low and be absolved of all the responsibilities that went with his identity for even a short time. Certainly, looking at how busy Captain Ponsonby had become since they’d all boarded the ship, it was not hard to imagine how exhaustive command must be, and since Captain Lord’s ship was countless times bigger than the one on which she found herself, it was reasonable to assume that commanding it carried many times the responsibility as well.
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