Violet

Chapter Twelve

“I DON'T KNOW THAT I CAN LET YOU HAVE THREE FOUR pounders, Captain Lattimer,” the ordnance master said with lugubrious satisfaction. “The Isolde took six yesterday.”

Captain Hugo Lattimer, R.N., controlled his irritation with difficulty. He ran a hand through his thick chestnut-brown hair and glanced around the ordnance wharf He'd been third in line that morning, and there were six other captains, as desperate as he to fit out their commands, waiting their turn to wheedle and cajole the ordnance master.

“If you could see your way to letting me have two, then I'll stand in your debt,” he said, smiling with what he hoped was sufficient obsequiousness. “How's Mrs. Huston? She was a bit under the weather last time I was in Lisbon.”

The other man's face softened slightly. “Oh, she's well enough, thank you, Captain. In an interesting condition.”

“Well, congratulations.” Captain Lattimer beamed as broadly as if it were his own lady about to present him with an heir. “Do give her my best regards.”

“Yes, yes indeed, I'll do that, thank you kindly. Now, it was three four-pounders you were wanting?”

“Exactly so,” Hugo said, allowing not a flicker of triumph to show in his green eyes. “And I'll be most grateful to you, sir.”

The ordnance master scribbled in his ledger, his face as pained as if he were losing blood, and handed over the precious requisition order. Hugo touched his gold-laced hat and left the ordnance wharf, exulting in his success.

The Lisbon morning was hot, but there was still a breath of spring in the air to soften the burning quality of a Portuguese summer that scorched even the coastal areas. The harbor seethed with life, feluccas, longboats, and fishing boats darting among the more ponderous merchant craft. Four British men-of-war lay in the outer roads, three ships of the line, and a dainty, thirty-six-gun frigate.

Captain Lattimer's eyes rested with pride on the Isaabelle's elegant lines as she swung at anchor. He raised his glass, examining his command. The Blue Peter was furled against her fore-top masthead, ready to be broken out when she sailed, and her decks were a bustle of activity. He nodded his satisfaction. Tomorrow morning they'd be under way, leaving the frustrating politics of harbor life behind.

“I beg your pardon, but do I have the honor of addressing Captain Lattimer?”

“You do, sir.” The captain turned and found himself facing a tall man of about his own age in the uniform of a cavalry colonel.

“Colonel St. Simon.” Julian extended his hand in greeting. “Admiral Moreton told me where I might find you.”

The harbor admiral was an infernal nuisance, always interfering in his captains' best-laid plans. “Indeed.” Hugo kept his expression impassive as he shook the colonel's hand. “How may I be of service, Colonel?”

“By giving me passage on your ship.” Julian came straight to the point. “I understand you're sailing for Portsmouth tomorrow.”

It was standard practice for a naval ship to carry diplomatic and army passengers. “I see no difficulty,” Hugo said, smiling with relief at this simple request.

Colonel St. Simon scratched his head a little uncomfortably and said, “Well, it's rather more. complicated than that, Captain. Do you have time to take a glass of wine with me, and I'll explain.”

“Tell me something,” Hugo said conversationally. “Am I going to have a choice, or do you have written orders for me from Admiral Moreton?”

“The admiral agreed to accommodate the wishes of the Duke of Wellington,” Julian said delicately. Traditionally, the navy was the senior service and even the commander in chief of the army would request rather than order a senior naval officer.

“I see. In that case perhaps you had better give me a glass of wine to soften the blow,” Hugo said wryly.

“I'm…” Julian cleared his throat. “We are putting up at the Rose. The taproom's pleasant enough.”

“By all means.” Hugo had not missed the change of pronoun.

They turned together away from the quay just as a figure came barrelling toward them in the broad-striped trousers and red waistcoat of a seaman, two hooped earrings swinging, a spotted handkerchief tied over his long tarred sailor's queue.

“Eh, Cap'n, sir. I've found us a brace of pigs, bonny as you please, and three nanny goats, burstin' with milk.” He beamed with pride.

“Good, Samuel. Listen, take this requisition and get it filled. Three four-pounders and as much round shot as you can squeeze out of ‘em.”

“Aye, sir.” The sailor took the parchment, cast an incurious glance at the captain's companion, and rolled away with his swaying seaman's gait.

“Samuel could find a filled scuttlebutt in a desert,” Hugo Lattimer commented as they turned into the cool dimness of the Rose. “Invaluable man.”

“I know the type,” Julian said, indicating a table in the window, instructing the waiter, “Lad, bring a bottle of port.”

The captain sat down, sweeping aside the skirts of his blue coat to free his sword. A dusty bottle and two glasses appeared; the wine was poured. The captain downed his first glass almost without tasting it.

“First one fast, second one slow,” he said without apparent humor, refilling his glass. “So let's hear the worst, Colonel.”

“Four passengers, three horses, and a mountain of baggage,” Colonel St. Simon stated bluntly.

“Dear God!” Captain Lattimer stared at him. “How am I to find room in a frigate? The Isabelle is not a ship of the line, sir.”

Julian moved his hands in a gesture combining both comprehension and powerlessness. “The admiral seemed to think…”

“The admiral is an interfering old busybody who doesn't understand the first bloody thing about commanding a man-of-war. He's sailed a desk throughout his entire career,” Hugo said furiously. He refilled his glass and tossed the contents down his throat with a flick of his wrist.

Julian was accustomed to men who drank deeply, and refilled the captain's glass without giving it a second thought.

“Oh, there you are, I've been looking all over for you. You'll be pleased to know that we'll be two chests lighter… Oh, I beg your pardon?” Tamsyn stopped in midspeech and looked inquiringly at the gentleman in his white-Iapeled blue coat with its deep white cuffs and gold-buttoned sleeves.

“This is Captain Lattimer. And a taproom is no place for a lady.” Julian made no attempt to conceal his annoyance. He'd hoped to have everything settled with the captain before exposing him to the full effects of Tamsyn's presence.

“Well, I'm no lady, as you never tire of telling me,” Tamsyn said cheerfully, putting one booted foot on a spare chair, resting her arm on her knee. “Good morning, Captain. Are we to voyage in your ship?”

Hugo blinked at the diminutive figure with her vibrant violet eyes and the short shining cap of silvery hair. She was wearing a riding habit, the skirt hiked up by her inelegant stance to reveal leather britches. Not if I can avoid it, lass. It was a silent declaration as he thought of the havoc such an astonishingly unconventional creature could cause among the crew.

“In the name of grace, take your foot off there,” Julian said, sharply pulling the chair out from under her foot. “Sit down, if you must.”

Tamsyn put her bottom where her foot had been and smiled warmly at the captain. “Don't mind the colonel. He's as cross as two sticks this morning. I expect it's the heat. My name's Tamsyn.” She held out her hand in a friendly manner.

Bemused, Hugo took it. “Tamsyn what? Doesn't she have a surname? “Delighted, Miss Tamsyn, he murmured.

“I promise we won't be in the least a nuisance on your ship,” Tamsyn continued blithely. “Josefa and I can share a sleeping space. We're perfectly accustomed to discomfort and cramped spaces, you should know. And you'll find Gabriel a very useful person to have around… won't he, Colonel?”

“Quite possibly,” Julian snapped, se recovering from the implication that he was suffering from heat stroke. “Where is he?”

“Concluding the deals we made with the merchants,” she said. “I told you we'll be two chests lighter for the rest of the journey. We've sold all the bole of cloth and the smaller casket of jewels. That leaves just the gold and the two bigger caskets. You'll have room to store such things, Captain?”.

“Hell and the devil,” Hugo muttered, developing the unshakable conviction that he was as firmly caught as a fish on a hook. “You'd better show me what you've got.”

“Come upstairs, then.” Tamsyn pushed back her chair, getting energetically to her feet. “You can meet Josefa at the same time. She's standing guard at the moment.”

Hugo sent a glance of despairing incomprehension toward the colonel, who was looking grimmer than ever. “I had hoped to ease you into this more gentle,” he said. “But there's no such thing as gentle, with Violette around. She has about as much finesse as a stampeding herd of elephants.”

“Violette?” Captain Lattimer's bemusement was running amok. “I understood the lass to say her name was Tamsyn.”

“Yes,” Julian said. “I'll explain the situation to you in full.” He turned to Tamsyn. “Would you make yourself scarce for half an hour… if it isn't too much to ask? When Gabriel returns, ask him to join us here.”

“Are you going to tell the captain everything? Because if so, I'm sure I ought to be here.” Tamsyn's brows drew together in a somewhat aggrieved frown. “It is my plan, after all, and I could surely explain better how-”

“No,” Julian said flatly. “I will apprise Captain Lattimer of the facts in my own words. He and I speak a language that you do not. Now, be off.”

Tamsyn, very put out, nibbled her lip. This was her enterprise; surely she should be present at strategy discussions. Then it occurred to her that while the cross-country journey had been conducted according to her wishes, from now on she would be a guest of His Majesty’s navy, under the escort of the army. She didn't know anything about such travel, and she certainly didn't have the right to make decisions or even offer an opinion. And Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon wasn't going to lose the opportunity to let her know it, however public the arena.

It was a galling thought. Without saying anything else, she turned and trailed forlornly from the taproom.

Julian watched her crestfallen departure. It was surprising that such a fiery individual could be cast down by a sharp snub. Well, she'd better get used to it. He turned back to his visibly confused companion. “Let me fill you in, Lattimer.”

Tamsyn lay listening to the rhythmic scrape of a holystone on the quarterdeck a few inches above her face. Judging by the heavy rasping, they were also using one of the massive lumps of granite studded with nails that they called bears. It was close to dawn, a faint graying light seeping through the small window in the captain's sleeping quarters.

She stretched and turned onto her side, the hanging box bed swinging with her movements. It was like being in a permanently rocking cradle, very soothing combined with the gentle motion of the frigate on the presently smooth Atlantic waters. Josefa, in her own box across the small space, muttered as she came out of sleep.

Then the peace of early morning was shattered by a loud shrilling of whistles as the bosuns woke the watch presently sleeping belowdecks. Feet pounded on the decks, voices bellowed down the companionways, “Tumble up… tumble up!” And the racing feet sounded like roll after roll of thunder as the men scrambled on deck with their rolled hammocks to stow them in the nets along the frigate's sides.

After three days at sea Tamsyn had become accustomed to the noise of this morning ritual. Josefa, however, continued to grumble at being awoken with such violence. Now she sat up, grabbing the wooden sides of her cradle as it swung wildly with her movements.

“Ay de mi,” she sighed as she did every morning, contemplating manoeuvring her ample frame out of the cot and onto the shifting timbers of the cabin floor.

“Buenos dias, Josefa.” Tamsyn sat up, her own slight body barely creating a stir in the supporting ropes.

There was a loud bang at the door, and the man Samuel's voice came through the oak. “Hot water, missus.”

“Gracias, senor.” Josefa shuffled to the door, drawing her shawls modestly around her. She opened it a crack met Samuel's grinning face, seized the copper jug, and dragged it inside. Josefa didn't hold with sea travel and she didn't trust sailors.

Tamsyn was sitting up, hugging her knees, a slight frown drawing her delicate arched eyebrows together. “It's Monday, isn't it, Josefa?”

“So I believe,” Josefa said, pouring water into a bowl.

“The last Monday in April.” A little sinking feeling settled in her belly. Cornichet's ambush had been on March 28. Her monthly bleeding had almost ended; she remembered how she'd sat huddled in his cabin with the rope around her neck ironically thanking heaven for small mercies.

But in that case it should have started again five days ago. She touched her breasts, feeling for telltale soreness. Nothing. It had been a risk, those three glorious encounters. The first occasion there'd been no time in the swirling conflagration of ecstasy to think of consequences. The other times she hadn't wanted to spoil the rhythm and spontaneity to consider practicalities. She'd never had that problem before, but Lord St. Simon was no ordinary lover.

She'd persuaded herself that the time in her cycle was relatively safe. The village women held to the lore that pregnancy tended to coincide with coupling in the middle of the woman's cycle. It sounded a haphazard lore to Tamsyn, but she'd chosen to believe it.

“Damnation!” she muttered under her breath. Grimly, she swung herself out of the box and disappeared into the quarter-gallery opening off the sleeping cabin, in the faint hope that a visit to the privy would reveal what she knew hadn't happened.

It was a forlorn hope, as she'd known it would be, and she returned to the cabin, pulling her nightgown over her head. Maybe it would start today. She wasn't always reliably regular, and five days wasn't that late. She sponged her body vigorously, as if she could bully it into behaving properly, then dressed in the britches and ridding habit that allowed her some freedom of movement without breaking the colonel's sartorial rules.

She could hear Captain Lattimer talking with St. Simon next door, in the captain's day cabin in the stern of the ship. Lattimer had given up his sleeping quarters to the women and had slung two hammocks in his day cabin that he now shared with the colonel. Gabriel had placidly slung his own hammock in the gun room and spent much of his time in the company of the master gunner and Samuel, with whom he'd developed an easy rapport.

The smell of breakfast took Tamsyn into the cabin. It was filled with early sunshine coming from the sweep of handsomely mounted inward-sloping windows in the stern. Cushioned lockers stretched beneath them to provide seating, and the panelled bulwarks were lined with bookshelves. The captain and his passenger were seated at a laden table in the middle of the room. If it weren't for the two guns mounted at either end of the stern windows, it could have been a pleasant breakfast parlor in a country house.

“Good morning, Miss Tamsyn.” Captain Lattimer greeted her arrival with a wave to a chair. He had a tankard of grog in his hand and was addressing a mutton chop and fried eggs.

The colonel looked up from his own breakfast and accorded her a brief nod-a curt acknowledgment suitable for a slight and not very well-liked acquaintance. He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “I'll take a turn around the deck. If you'll excuse me.”

Tamsyn frowned. He always found something else to do the moment she appeared. Except at dinner, when they both dined with the captain… and then he barely addressed two words to her. She sat down at the table, and Samuel put a boiled egg in front of her.

“I'll take a tray into your woman now, miss, if'n she's ready.”

“Yes, thank you, Samuel.” Tamsyn gave him a quick smile. Josefa insisted on taking her meals apart in their sleeping quarters. Gabriel took his in the gun room with the warrant officers.

“How soon before we cross the Bay of Biscay, Capitan? She sliced the top off her egg and to his amusement dipped a slice of toast into the yolk.

“This evening, with any luck. How are you in a rough sea, lass?”

“Lord, I don't know,” Tamsyn said, dipping another slice of toast into her egg. “I've never sailed before, but I'm not an invalidish sort of person.”

“No, I should imagine you're not.” Hugo grinned. St. Simon had given him a brief description of the girl's antecedents, but he'd filled in the details for himself with little difficulty. He understood the colonel was escorting her to her mother's family in Cornwall, but he had the sense that there was more to it than that. Colonel St. Simon clearly wasn't happy with his mission, but Hugo was convinced the tension between the colonel and the girl had its roots in something much deeper.

“Well, if we're in for a Biscay widowmaker, you'll discover what kind of a sailor you are,” he said cheerfully, pushing back his chair. “The bay's notoriously rough even without a full-blown storm.”

“I stand warned, Captain.” She smiled and drank her coffee with relish. Pregnancy was supposed to put one off one's food… or at least in the morning. So far, she was as hungry as ever.

The captain left the cabin, returning to his quarterdeck, and Tamsyn finished her own breakfast while Samuel cleared up around her. “Do you know where Gabriel is this morning, Samuel?”

“Watchin' 'is treasure, like as not,” Samuel opined, sweeping crumbs into the palm of his hand. “Doesn't like to let it out of his sight, though it's stowed right and tight in the ‘old.”

“Perhaps he's afraid someone might make off with a ducat or two,” Tamsyn said laughingly, although she knew that was exactly what Gabriel was afraid of.

“Not on this ship, they won't,” Samuel declared, a touch of passion enlivening his customarily stolid countenance. “There's no thieves in Cap'n Lattimer's ship. Every man jack of 'em knows the cap'n turns thieves over to their shipmates, powerful ‘ard on a man is own mates are. Damn sight 'arder than the cap'n.”

Tamsyn had already decided that life before the et on one of His Majesty's men-of-war was about as grim as life could be, so she merely nodded her comprehension, finished her coffee, and went up to the quarterdeck.

She'd learned in her first hour that the starboard side of the quarterdeck was holy ground, the captain's preserve, to be entered only on invitation. Lord St. Simon, however, seemed to have a standing invitation. In the orderly quiet of midmorning at sea, the two men were talking together at the starboard rail; the marine sentry turned the hourglass at the half hour and struck three bells to signal the third half-hour of the watch. A bosun's whistle thrilled, and a trio of midshipmen jumped for the rigging, scrambling up into the shrouds and racing each other along the ratlines to the masthead some hundred feet above.

Tamsyn's toes curled in her boots as she craned her neck to watch them enviously. The view must be spectacular from the top, and it didn't look that hard. If she took off her skirt…

“Don't even consider it.”

“Oh!” She spun round to find Julian regarding her, his heavy-lidded eyes shrewd and for once amused. It wasn't the first time he'd second-guessed her. “How could you possibly know what I was thinking?”

He gave her a lazy smile. “Believe me, buttercup, there are times when I can read you like a book.”

“Oh, don't call me that,” she said crossly.

He laughed. There was something about the beauty of the morning that for the moment eroded his bitterness. He didn't attempt to examine whether Tamsyn's own brand of beauty on this gorgeous day could have contributed to his general sense of well-being. “It's hard to resist when the sun's shining on your hair.” He ran a flat palm over the top of her head. “When I was a boy, the village girls used to hold buttercups under their chins on May Day. And if the golden glow was reflected, it was said they'd find a lover before the day was out.”

Tamsyn wondered why he had so suddenly lost his stiffness. He leaned on the port rail beside her, gazing out to sea, his demeanor relaxed and friendly. Tamsyn continued to watch the boys in the rigging, swinging like monkeys from shroud to shroud, but her mind was on her uncooperative body. She didn't feel any different, but that didn't mean anything. And what in the name of grace was she going to do if she was pregnant?

Julian glanced sideways at her, feeling the tension in the slight frame. “What's troubling you?” He told himself he couldn't care less, but he asked the question anyway.

Tamsyn met his eye for a second before turning back to watch the game in the rigging. “I'm just tired of twiddling my thumbs when I could be up there, or doing something useful.”

The fib convinced him, as she'd expected it would. It was only half a fib, anyway. “You put one little toe on that rigging, my friend, and our contract is broken… finished, permanently. Understand?”

“You are, as always, perfectly lucid,” she said, for once glad that they were quarrelling.

“I do my best,” he said acidly. He was about to return to the captain's side when a voice bellowed from the masthead.

“Sail ahead, sir. Three points on the starboard bow.” Hugo raised his glass, gazing across the flat expanse of ocean. He could just make out her royals on the horizon. “Send the signal midshipman up to the topmast, Mr. Connaught.” His voice was quiet and without a hint of the exhilaration ripping through him. “I want an identification.”

“Aye, sir.”

The ferment on the ship was palpable, and yet it evinced itself in no sudden sounds or movements, only in a watchful silence. The hands on deck had moved to the rails, the bosuns stood with their pipes ready, every eye was on the horizon, every ear waiting for the midshipman to identify the ship's flags.

The lad's voice drifted down, shaky with nervous excitement. “It's flying the Frenchie flag sir. I'll lay odds.”

“I don't want a wager, Mr. Grantly, I want facts.” The captain’s voice cut like a diamond through glass.

“Crowd sail, Mr. Connaught. Let's see if we can help the young gentleman by getting closer.”

The bosuns' pipes shrilled and the ship was abruptly galvanized. Tamsyn watched, fascinated, as men swarmed like flies over the rigging, and sail after sail was unfurled until the Isabelle surged forward under full canvas.

“It is, sir. It's flying French colors,” the young gentleman at the topmast yelled, almost falling off his perch in his excitement.

“Good. Break out the American flag, Mr. Connaught. We'll confuse 'em a bit.” He turned to Julian, standing discreetly at his side. “Fancy the prospect of a fight, St. Simon?”

Julian's smile was answer enough. He watched as they pulled down the English flag and ran up the American colors in its place. It was a standard deception; only the distress flag was sacrosanct. They would break out their true colors at the last possible minute as a declaration of battle.

“Beat to quarters, Mr. Harris.”

The bosun's pipe shrilled and the call resounded, “All hands on deck.”

Tamsyn's blood stirred with excitement as the watch below came thundering on deck, rubbing sleep from their eyes in some cases. The mass of men-too many, it sometimes seemed, for such a small space-surged in a tidal wave of what to an observer looked like confusion but which quickly came clear as an orderly swoop to their fixed places. Then a great silence fell over the ship, every man at his place, only the creak of the rigging as the Isabelle sped across the water.

Gabriel appeared beside Tamsyn, his face grim.

“Those Froggies take one look at that treasure, little girl, and that's the last we'll see of it.”

“They'd have to win first, Gabriel, and somehow I don't think Captain Lattimer intends to lose this battle prize,” Tamsyn said, unable to hide her own thrill.

Gabriel grunted and drew his broadsword, holding it up to the light. He spat on the blade and polished it with his kerchief before thrusting it back into its sheath.

“Clear for action, Mr. Connaught.” Captain Lattimer’s voice was as quiet and controlled as ever, but there was a gleeful light in the bright-green eyes, a light reflected in the colonel's equally bright-blue orbs. “But keep the marines out of sight for the time being. Their scarlet coats are a giveaway.” He glanced sideways at the colonel, who with a grin shrugged out of his own scarlet tunic.

The decks were swabbed and scattered thick with sand. The guns were run out in a silence as smooth as silk. Cannon balls, chain shot, and canister shot were assembled. The six-man gun crews stood to their guns, the surgeon and his mates retreated to the cockpit, setting out their instruments on the midshipmen's trunks that served as a makeshift operating table.

“The lass had better go below,” Hugo said to the colonel, indicating Tamsyn, still standing rapt at the port rail.

“I'll leave you to give the order, then,” Julian said with a dour smile. “She's a warrior; she won't go easily.”

Hugo frowned, staring at the figure standing against the far rail, her feet apart, braced comfortably against the pitch of the deck, her head held high, the wind lifting her short hair. Currents of energy seemed to flow from her.

Tamsyn felt his eyes upon her and boldly crossed the small space. “You wanted to speak to me, Captain.”

“I was contemplating sending you below. The deck of a frigate in the midst of battle is no place for a lass.”

“Maybe not, sir.” She returned his gaze steadily, knowing that the captain's word was law on this ship. If he ordered her below, she'd have no choice but to obey. At least initially. Once the action began, she'd be able to return and no one would notice.

“But I doubt you'd stay there,” he said pensively, and then laughed at the shock in her eyes. “That was what you were thinking?”

“Yes,” she agreed in chagrin.

“I suppose I could have you battened down in the hold for the duration,” he mused. “What's you opinion, Colonel?”

“It's your command, Captain,” Julian said formally. “I wouldn't presume to offer an opinion.”

Tamsyn had the unmistakable feeling that the two men were making game of her, yet they both looked as solemn as deacons.

“Well, on your own head be it,” Captain Lattimer said. “But if you get in the way, lass, I'll have you carried below bodily by a marine.”

“You don't have to worry about that,” Tamsyn said with as much dignity as she could muster, and returned to her post.

The French ship grew on the horizon, taking shape as a square-rigged frigate. Hugo knew the Isabelle would be under scrutiny from the French quarterdeck. They'd see the American colors, which would confuse them for a while. America was on the verge of declaring war with England and was no enemy of the French. But they'd also see she was cleared for action. It would puzzle them, but for how long? Long enough to allow the Isabelle to draw close enough to fire the first broadside?

They were about a mile apart now. “Bring her round six points to starboard, Mr. Harris,” he instructed the master navigator at the helm, his voice sounding loud in the expectant silence. The Isabelle swung round slowly so that her starboard side faced the French ship.

And then the French seemed to understand. Wild activity erupted on her decks as she cleared for action, the snub-nosed guns appearing in the gunports.

“All right, Mr. Connaught,” Hugo said softly.

The English flag broke out at the Isabelle's masthead. “Fire, Mr. Connaught.”