My Saving Grace

by Harmon, Danelle

  The ship had its admiral back.

  And the moment for talking to its flag captain was lost.

  40

  As Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Falconer stepped back aboard his flagship, his sigh of relief was enough to fill the sails and speed the ship out of England.

  Or so it felt to him.

  The sea was his element and the last fortnight had felt like a prison sentence. Social mores and silly sisters. Adulation from country-folk. The sorrow he’d felt, the pain of reflection as he sat all alone in the still, quiet church where his late great friend, the beloved Nelson, had been baptized and spent the earliest years of his life. Maeve, a fish out of water. Ned, surly and remote. The children, any fascination they had for England quickly replaced by pleas to go back home to Barbados.

  And this crisis with Del.

  He had purposely sent Grace ahead in hopes that she’d come to her senses once she saw his flag captain again. That she’d find a few minutes to speak with him and try for a last chance at resolution. Or whatever was needed to stop this insane marriage planned between her and Sheldon Ponsonby.

  Maeve, a lady second and a mariner first, scorned the bosun’s chair as Polly made her way into it, and came through the entry port as nimbly as any seasoned tar. Which, Sir Graham mused, was exactly what she was.

  “Good to see you smiling again, my love,” she said, leaning in and playfully letting her lips touch his ear. “What are you going to do about them?”

  He followed her gaze, though both of them knew what she meant by them. There was Grace standing alone at the rail looking lost and diminutive as she gazed down at the gray waters below. Wind ruffled her bonnet, played with the hem of her skirts. Forty feet away stood Del, back rigid, his normal buttoned-up facade back in place, deep in conversation with one of his lieutenants. Everything about him indicated displeasure. Tension.

  Maybe even fury.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Gray said.

  “I propose that you host a meal in your cabin tonight,” his wife said. “Invite them all. Ponsonby and his first lieutenant. Del and his lieutenants. Grace, of course. You can call it a farewell-to-England dinner, or a good-riddance-to-England dinner, hell, call it whatever you like, but the finality of it all, the realization this is the last chance they’ll have to set things right, might be just what’s needed to bring this whole stubborn nonsense to an end.”

  “Do or die, eh?”

  She grinned. “Do or die.”

  Ned had scuttled up behind her, his color high from the climb up the ship’s massive tumblehome.

  “Ned,” his father said, “Why don’t you go report to the sailing master, tell him you’re available to resume your lessons in navigation, and we’ll see you at dinner tonight in my cabin.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “That’s yes, sir.”

  Ned, who’d looked too preoccupied of late for either of his parents’ liking, managed a smile and disappeared but not before casting a quick glance at Grace, still staring wistfully down into the harbor.

  Ned wasn’t the only one stealing a look at her.

  Del, try as he might to hide it, was also standing such that he only had to cut his gaze to one side to see her, and as Sir Graham quietly observed him, he saw his flag captain do just that.

  “Going to be a long evening, I think,” said his wife.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “This is our last chance to get them together. There’s no reason for her to stay on this ship once we sail. They’ll likely never see each other again.”

  “I know.”

  “This is it, Gray.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you direct Ponsonby to come with us? That frigate of his would be handy as a scout.”

  “I will indeed.”

  She nodded, her eyes thoughtful, and made to move off.

  Sir Graham caught her wrist. Her hand. A hand that had once saved his own life from a vicious pirate. “Aren’t you afraid there’ll be fireworks at the dinner table tonight, my dear?”

  Her mysterious tiger-eyes gleamed. “I would be bloody disappointed,” she said softly, “if there were not.”

  * * *

  “A dinner?!” Del stared at his admiral, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. “For what reason, sir?”

  “To celebrate our getting the hell out of England, of course.”

  “And—” Del took a deep breath, for it would not do to question his admiral’s order, challenge it, or complain about it, and he quietly put his fists behind his back where he could clench them without their being noticed. “Who is to be invited?”

  “Oh, we’ll have a merry band, to be sure. What do you prefer? Chicken or lamb?”

  “What?”

  “For the main course.”

  “Sir, I do believe that you—”

  “Chicken or lamb, Captain Lord?”

  Del ground his knuckles into his palm in the effort to preserve his facade of unruffled aplomb. “Chicken.”

  “Chicken it will be, then. Rather what I fancy, myself. And will you have us ready to get underway tomorrow?”

  “Just need to bring aboard a few more casks of beef, sir.”

  “So be it.”

  Del nodded crisply and watched his admiral move off. Something was gnawing at his gut and he wasn’t sure what it was. Unease, certainly. Suspicion, possibly. But over what, he couldn’t know.

  He just knew he didn’t like it.

  He heard the bell chime in the forecastle belfry, saw the purser coming to report on the beef. Or so he hoped. Now that Sir Graham was happy and relaxed again at the prospect of leaving for home, it would not do to keep the admiral waiting to get underway. Damn the rotted beef and the merchant who’d supplied them. If it caused a delay, Sir Graham’s good mood would quickly dissipate.

  No, it was best to keep an admiral happy.

  Always best to keep an admiral happy.

  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Lady Grace with Ned. He quickly averted his gaze and moved away, keeping his back to her, feeling her stare upon his shoulder blades. He was a disciplined man, extremely so, and the fact that he could not put her out of his mind, could not direct his thoughts to seek and remain upon other matters angered him.

  And there was Ponsonby setting off from his frigate, his men rowing him toward the flagship for this blasted dinner with which Sir Graham seemed intent on torturing him.

  Del’s line of sight to the other man happened to be straight out along the breech of a twelve-pounder some distance forward.

  I’d like to aim that gun right at your smirking face and fire it. I’d like to see a sea monster rise up from the deep and devour you. I’d like to see you find a hundred hairs in your damned soup and I’d like to see you sail off to the end of the bloody world.

  Fuming, Del glanced at Grace to gauge her reaction to her betrothed’s impending arrival and in her place, saw Gráinne.

  She stood with arms crossed over her chest, her hair— as black, wild and curly as his own— blowing around her strong face.

  “Ponsonby hates lamb,” she said offhandedly, and then grinned.

  Del blinked and his great-something-grandmother was gone and Lady Grace stood once again in her place. She was looking at him in confusion and wistfulness and a hundred other emotions he could not identify.

  Looking at him and not Ponsonby, whose boat was steadily approaching.

  He flushed and turned away and saw the side party mustering to welcome the enemy captain— because how else could he think of the man?— and headed aft, sparing a word for poor Jellicoe as he ducked into his cabin.

  “Sir Graham is hosting a dinner in his cabin tonight,” he said sharply. “As the menu choice has been left up to me, we’ll do fresh produce as it’s the last we’ll see of it for a while, and get out that fine wine from Portugal that’s in my cupboard, if you will. Spare nothing.”

  “And the main course, sir?”

 
Del felt an involuntary twitch at the side of his mouth. A tic that thrummed along with his angry, pounding heartbeat.

  Ponsonby hates lamb.

  He gave a perfectly benign smile.

  “Lamb.”

  * * *

  The sun had set an hour earlier, and its glow still softened the western sky as though inviting HMS Orion to follow its descent into the sea. The stars were coming out, the 600-man crew was fed, and on the forecastle, a sailor with a fiddle was playing a jig to the raucous revelry of the hands.

  The captain was popular tonight. He was not only back aboard, but had relaxed his normally tight discipline and allowed several boatloads of women to be rowed out to the ship to provide entertainment to the crew on their last night in England. Feminine laughter added to the atmosphere, and the deck thumped to the dancing of many feet.

  Aft was the domain of the ship’s officers and there, things were much quieter. Three great stern-galleries climbed above the rudder post, stacked one upon another beneath the vice-admiral’s flag that rolled from the mizzen masthead in what was left of the day’s breeze. One of those cabins glowed with candlelight from within, reflecting upon water that winked it back into the night.

  Spirits flowed. Rum and wine for the men (and Lady Falconer), fruit punch for Lady Grace. A hearty spiced carrot soup had started the meal and now the main course was being served.

  It was, per order of Captain Delmore Lord himself, lamb.

  Sheldon Ponsonby looked down at the still-bloody slab of meat that was placed in front of him and nausea flared in his belly.

  Across from him and seated at the right hand of the admiral, Captain Lord raised a brow and picked up his glass. “Not to your liking, Ponsonby?”

  “It will do,” Sheldon bit out.

  He glanced at James Akers, already further into his cups than Ponsonby wanted to see and hopefully not careering toward another disaster, given present company. On his other side was the admiral, one elbow leaning on his polished table as he turned to address his cabin servant. Several lieutenants were also present, and Lady Falconer sat at the foot of the table. She was a calculating woman, Sheldon Ponsonby had long since concluded, and a dangerous one. In his opinion, her presence at the table tonight was quite unnecessary.

  Shouldn’t she be with her children?

  And speaking of which, why was Ned Falconer in their midst, a boy who hadn’t even seen his ninth year?

  Lady Grace sat across from him, mouse-quiet, eyes downcast.

  “My dear,” he said loudly, pointedly, and was gratified to see Delmore Lord all but flinch. “Are you feeling quite well?”

  “I am fine,” she said, glancing up for the briefest of moments before picking up her fork and toying with her food.

  “I hope the hour is not too late for you. You’ve had a trying time of it, unnecessarily trekking the length of England these past few days.”

  Again, her blue, blue eyes raised to him, this time with a hint of defiance. “I would hardly call it unnecessary,” she said, meeting his gaze before returning her attention to her food.

  Ponsonby felt something move uneasily in his gut, a feeling that was amplified by the fact that the tension in Sir Graham’s resplendent dining cabins was suddenly drum-tight.

  “Of course,” he said tightly.

  Akers, listening keenly, chose that moment to comment.

  “Goes without saying, sir,” he muttered, holding out his glass for a refill, “that she wouldn’t have been trekking the length of England—” a smile in Ponsonby’s direction that made the captain feel pointedly uncomfortable—“if she were not chasing after certain”—the smile grew, became a sneer, “pursuits.”

  “That is enough,” Ponsonby said under his breath.

  “Actually,” said Delmore Lord with flat calm, “It is not.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Stop it, all of you,” snapped the admiral. “I’ll not have our last night in England marred by tension and bad feelings.”

  “Whyever not?” asked Akers. “It’s been marred by tension and bad feelings for days now, thanks to your niece’s failure to honor the commitment she made to my captain in favor of checking on the health of her... friend.”

  Delmore Lord’s palm came down hard upon his admiral’s polished table. “I’ll not tolerate such insults aboard my ship, Akers, or in this company. Apologize, by God, or I’ll make you regret it.”

  “Like you regretted the day you challenged me to a duel, Captain?”

  Silence.

  “Oh, my,” said Maeve Falconer, and her eyes began to gleam with delight. “You really aren’t going to let him get away with that now, are you, Del?”

  Del was putting down his napkin and getting to his feet. Grace saw the look on his face and paled, and Sir Graham put a restraining hand on his flag captain’s wrist.

  “Enough,” he said quietly.

  “Will you apologize, Akers?”

  “I think not.”

  “And will you, Ponsonby, not defend the honor of the woman you plan to marry?”

  “What? I—”

  “Right. You what?”

  “This is getting out of hand. Sir Graham is correct. Akers here, he’s in his cups, we’ve all had some... tension, there’s no need for violence.”

  “So you won’t defend her honor.”

  Sir Graham was no longer smiling. “Del. Belay. And that is an order.”

  Akers pretended to study his wine. “With all due respect, Captain Lord, the defense of her honor is not any of your concern—” a tight smile—“but Captain Ponsonby’s.”

  Grace, watching this escalating tension in alarm, reached a shaking hand for her own glass. And if ever things were destined to go wrong, fate chose that moment for it to happen. She reached for her punch. The heel of her hand caught the rim of the crystal vessel and upended it. A flood of red liquid rushed across the table, roared past Captain Ponsonby’s plate, and ended up in his lap. He shot to his feet, aghast, his formerly white breeches now stained crimson, and before he even had the chance to respond Lieutenant Akers turned his full fury on Grace.

  “You irresponsible, clumsy chit! Look what you’ve done to my captain!”

  “Akers!” roared Ponsonby, but it was too late; Del’s rigid control let go like a stay parting in a gale, and he went at Akers so quickly that the man’s chair went over and both fell to the deck, fists flying, even as the door to the outside burst open and two marines came charging in, muskets drawn.

  “Sir, we heard the yelling!”

  “Are you harmed, sir?”

  Sir Graham just raised a hand, staying them, and shook his head as the fight raged on.

  Akers was getting the worst of it.

  “I never knew our Del was such a brawler,” Maeve Falconer said lightly, and reached for her rum.

  “Father, he has a knife!”

  Sir Graham grabbed his son just as Ned tried to launch himself into the fray to save Captain Lord. But the flag captain needed no saving. As the two men gained their feet, he grabbed Akers by his neckcloth, slammed him up against the bulkhead, and caught the man’s hand before he could bring the blade into play, pinning it helplessly against the hard wooden paneling behind him.

  “You will get your sorry carcass off my ship right now, and God help you if I ever see your sniveling face again!”

  Up went Akers chin in blazing defiance, and a sparkling hatred shone in his eyes.

  “I will go where my captain commands me.”

  With a snarl of fury, Del ripped the other man away from the bulkhead and in that moment, which would be caught forever in Grace’s memory, Akers struck like a cobra.

  He caught his balance, whirled, and slammed the knife straight toward Captain Lord’s torso.

  41

  The blade plunged into his uniform coat.

  And would have killed him if Lady Falconer’s own pistol hadn’t appeared as if by magic, the shot ringing out like a thunderclap in the close confines of the cabin
. The ball caught Akers in the arm. The knife bit into the fine blue cloth of Captain Lord’s uniform coat, through his shirt, through his skin, but before it could find the space between his ribs and slide into his lung, Akers had already dropped the knife and fallen to her knees, clutching his bleeding wrist.

  “Leave it to you, my dear, to save the day,” said Sir Graham, as his wife tucked the pistol back into the half-boot from which she’d produced it and reached for her rum.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ponsonby roared, going red in the face. “By God I’ll have an explanation from you, James!”

  “I had to stop it! She’ll make you miserable and she doesn’t deserve you! She doesn’t love you!” Akers slashed angrily at tears that were now spilling down his cheeks and turned his fury on Grace. “And you don’t deserve him! He only wants you for your dowry, your connections, the fact that Sir Graham here is your uncle! He’s too good for you!”

  “Cease your prattle,” snapped one of the marines, and hauled Akers to his feet. “Sir Graham? How should we handle this?”

  “That’s a matter for the ship’s captain, not me.” He reached for more run. “Captain Lord?”

  “Take him to the surgeon and then confine him below with a guard outside the door. I will deal with this matter after I’ve had my damned supper.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Akers, eyes blazing, was led out. In the silence, Ponsonby looked as if someone had struck him across the face and obliterated his senses. He stood there blinking.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he murmured. “I long suspected he had an odd loyalty to me, but I never thought his feelings were quite so... strong. I am shocked. Horrified, actually.”

  “Never could stand the fellow,” Captain Lord snapped, and as he straightened his torn coat, Grace let out a little cry and went to him.

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “I am fine, Lady Grace.”

  Ponsonby shook his head. Clarity was returning to his sea-green eyes, and something that looked like anguish.

  Realization.