Scandal's Daughter (30 page)

“We took on fresh stores at Palermo, ma’am,” he said. “How’s about all the hot-cakes you can eat? And just for you, ma’am, I’ll open up the last of my private stock of gen-u-wine maple syrup, though there’s no more to be gotten this side of Vermont.”

Expressing proper gratitude for this sacrifice, Cordelia wondered what hot-cakes and maple syrup were. They sounded good, and she was ready to eat practically anything.

Captain Barlow was by no means so amicable. Tall, gaunt, and lantern-jawed, he scowled at Carmichael as the lieutenant explained the arrival on board the frigate of the two Britishers. Cordelia was sure he would send them back to the
Flor do Campo
, but he gave an indifferent grunt, waved a dismissive hand, and turned away to give the order to raise sail.

Then he swung back and looked James up and down. “I’ll see you in my cabin in five minutes, Mr. Preston,” he announced, ignoring Cordelia.

“I guess breakfast will have to wait,” Carmichael apologized, leading them to the captain’s cabin. Since he appeared to assume Barlow meant both of them, Cordelia did not suggest she might at least have something to drink while waiting for James.

The lieutenant ushered them into the small, austere cabin and went off. In contrast to Captain de Castilho’s comparative comfort, there was no easy chair, no carpet on the floor, and the narrow bedstead was of black iron. Tired after a restless night and an energetic, not to mention frightening morning, Cordelia sat down on one of the stiff wooden chairs at the table. James went over to the wood-cased barometer on the wall, tapped it, and contemplated its response.

“Set fair. One can only hope it’s not referring solely to the weather.”

It certainly did not seem to refer to Captain Barlow’s mood. He arrived promptly, frowned at Cordelia, then once again ignored her and studied James with what looked inexplicably like grim satisfaction.

“So you’re British.”

“Yes, Captain. We are homeward bound.”

“One of your ships impressed three of my men.”

“Then they must have been deserters from our navy.”

“And they refused to return two of my men who deserted to them.”

Perplexed, Cordelia wondered why sailors would desert in both directions. Perhaps it was a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence.

“The result,” said Captain Barlow heavily, “is that my crew is five men short, without considering those wounded in going to your rescue. I shall deliver your sister to Gibraltar, but to take the place of one of my lost seamen, I’m enlisting you.”

To her own mortification, James’s consternation, and the captain’s all too plain exasperation, Cordelia burst into tears.

Chapter 27

“But you never cry!” James exclaimed, dashing to Cordelia and thrusting his handkerchief into her hand. He stood protectively at her side, his hand on her shoulder.

“I’m s-sorry,” she wept, blotting her eyes. “I-it must be because I thought we were quite s-safe at last. You said the Americans are our c-cousins, and I know Americans are supposed to believe in l-liberty, like the French, even though they keep slaves. Yet he’s going to make you his prisoner and force you to be a common seaman!”

“He won’t be a slave,” growled Captain Barlow, determined though a trifle uncomfortable. “He’ll draw his pay like the rest of the men.”

“But he’s an English gentleman. You cannot simply abduct him,” Cordelia said passionately. “Besides, he gets dreadfully seasick, so he would be no manner of use to you.”

“He’ll be in good company. Believe me, these milksops soon stop feeling queasy when they’re whipped up into the top-mast shrouds.”

“No wonder they desert if you whip them for being ill!”

“I’ll thank you not to criticize the way I run my ship,” shouted the captain in a fury. “My mind is made up, he goes with us.”

The tears chased from her eyes by her anger flooded back. “Don’t take him! How can I travel all the way to England alone? You cannot be so cruel!”

“Hush, my lo...sister dear,” James soothed. “It won’t come to that. Captain, as my sister says, I am a gentleman, not a nobody. I have influential connections. Were you indeed to abduct me, your government would very quickly hear from mine. It could cause a nasty—”

“My mind is made up, I say!” bawled Captain Barlow, but he began to look distinctly uneasy.

“May I suggest that when you call at Gibraltar, you ask the Governor to—”

A sharp rap on the door cut him off.

“What is it?” snapped the captain.

Lieutenant Carmichael stuck his ingenuous head around the door and saluted. “Excuse me, sir, I thought you were finished with our guests.” A patent untruth as he must have heard Barlow’s quarterdeck bellow.

“Well, what’s the matter?”

“It’s Petty Officer Potter, sir.” With a brief glance at Cordelia’s tear-stained face, Carmichael fixed his earnest gaze on his commanding officer and gabbled, “Seaman Bailly just told him he saw Miss Courtenay save his life—Potter’s that is—at risk of her own, and I thought you’d want to know, sir, besides which he’s so keen to thank the lady he’s waiting right here for her to come out so as to be sure to catch her before she goes to breakfast.” Running out of breath, he stopped.

Captain Barlow glowered at him, then turned to Cordelia and asked sarcastically, “And how, pray, ma’am, did you contrive to save Potter’s life in the middle of a fierce hand-to-hand battle without receiving a single scratch?”

“I hit a pirate on the head with a pikestaff when he was about to slice off your man’s head with his scimitar. I’m very happy to have had the chance to save Mr. Potter’s life. Dare I hope that, since I preserved for you a sailor you would otherwise have lost, you will reconsider taking my brother from me?”

“Take her brother?” Through the open cabin door a rising mutter of indignation came from the passage outside. “Take the young lady’s brother?”

Over Carmichael’s shoulder, Cordelia saw the friendly black seaman and several unknown faces. Of course the captain also saw and heard. His face turned red. He clenched his fists and took a stride forward, opening his mouth.

“Sorry, sir.” The lieutenant hastily shut the door behind him. “Petty Officer Potter’s popular with the men and they got up a sort of delegation to present their thanks to Miss Courtenay. There’s a lot of admiration for her in the ranks, sir. They know she was the one I saw signalling, too, that made me figure there was something wrong aboard the Portuguee.”

“The window was too small for me to squeeze out,” James explained. “My sister is an amazingly brave girl, but to expect her to travel alone to England is too much.”

“Alone!” Carmichael’s astonishment was so overacted as to confirm Cordelia’s suspicion of his having set up the whole scene. “A respectable young lady travel alone? Unthinkable! Folks back home would be mighty shocked to hear such a thing.”

“Unthinkable,” Captain Barlow agreed sourly. Whether persuaded by the threat of rumour flying, and doubtless growing, “back home” in Boston, or by the prospect of unrest amongst his crew, he tacitly backed down. “You’ll be wanting your breakfast and I’ve work to do,” he growled, sitting down at the table and reaching for pen, paper, and inkstand.

Cordelia hurriedly abandoned her seat and preceded James and the lieutenant out of the cabin. Somewhat to her relief, the group of vociferous sailors had discreetly vanished.

“Thank you,” she said to Carmichael in low but heartfelt tones.

“He’s an excellent officer in the main, ma’am, if a bit of a Puritan, which doesn’t endear him to the men. But he tends to take odd notions into his head. I figured something was up by the way he acted when you came aboard. All it takes is a little coaxing to make him see straight.”

“Masterly!” said James. “You are a fast and effective intriguer, Lieutenant. I expect to read one of these days of your being elected to your Congress.”

Carmichael grinned. “My uncle hopes I shall step into his shoes. He’s there in the Senate already,” he went on seriously, “doing his best to muzzle Clay and Calhoun and prevent a war with England which will do no one any good.”

“I’ve an uncle who...”

Cordelia heard no more as they turned a corner and encountered her admirers. Though respectful, they were clamorous, each determined to get his word in until Lieutenant Carmichael said laughingly, “Enough, fellows! Let Miss Courtenay proceed to her breakfast.”

Even before taking a desperately needed drink, Cordelia asked him, “Is Seaman Bailly a slave?” She had some vague notion of buying the man’s freedom, small return for his part in preserving James.

“No, ma’am, that he is not,” said Carmichael emphatically. “Slavery was banned in Massachusetts thirty years ago. Coffee?”

“Yes, please. James says it is no use asking a Bostonian for tea.”

The lieutenant laughed heartily.

In the days that followed, Cordelia could not appear on deck without being saluted by every sailor in sight. She did not, however, venture from her cabin—actually Carmichael’s, vacated for her use—during the captain’s watch. They were not invited to dine at the captain’s table, but, as Carmichael assured them, the officers’ mess was a darn sight merrier.

Fortunately he was on duty when the Rock of Gibraltar came into view, for that was a sight not to be missed.

Tinted pink by the rays of the rising sun, the limestone cliffs towered against the blue sky. “Fourteen hundred feet,” the lieutenant told her, “and pretty much sheer from the sea at the north end.”

“Are you not glad we did not have to climb that?” James teased.

“I would still be sitting on the beach,” Cordelia said with conviction.

“So would your brother,” Carmichael assured her. “The Rock is unclimbable on this side. It’s riddled with caves, though, and you British have been digging tunnels through it since the great siege of thirty years ago. I’ve been into one of the caves, big as a cathedral and full of natural pillars. You must see it while you are here.”

Cordelia shuddered. “Not me. I have had enough of caves to last a lifetime.”

“No Greek brigands in this one, I promise,” he said with a smile, “though you might find smugglers.”

They had told the amiable American something of their adventures. He and James had become great friends. They held long political discussions which Cordelia was too ignorant to understand.

She had not known James was interested in the international situation, except as it affected their journey. Some day when they were alone, she resolved, she would ask him to explain his opinions to her. In Carmichael’s presence, she was too ashamed of her ignorance to display it, though she had a sneaking suspicion he would be less shocked by that than by her desire for enlightenment.

In many ways he seemed a rather conventional young man. While complimenting her courage and spirit, he treated her like a delicate hot-house bloom. His admiring solicitude was prodigious flattering, of course. Yet it made her rather uncomfortable, accustomed as she was to James’s matter-of-factness—when he was not tempting her to lose her virtue.

In fact, unlike the scapegrace James, the lieutenant was a true gentleman, thoroughly respectable. What a pity, then, that though she liked Carmichael very well, she found James so much more attractive!

They stood on either side of her at the quarterdeck rail as the
Columbia
drew level with the southern tip of the great Rock. The fortifications appeared, then the new mole protecting the harbour. Despite British and French trade embargoes, a crowd of ships rode at anchor. Behind massive stone walls, the town straggled along the shore at the base of the gentler western slopes.

“Look,” said James, pointing up to the southern peak of the ridge. “That patch of red must be sentries’ coats, I imagine.”

“That’s right, Redcoats,” Carmichael confirmed, smiling, “even less popular with us Bostonians than tea. I guess you will be able to drink tea to your heart’s content here, ma’am. You will be glad to set foot on British soil.” He turned away to give orders for changing course and lowering sails.

British soil! Cordelia recalled the thrill of seeing the Union Jack flying at Syracuse, which was merely occupied by British troops at its monarch’s pleasure. Gibraltar belonged to Britain.

Before she could savour the prospect to the full, Captain Barlow came up to supervise his ship’s sailing into port. Seeing that all was in order, he addressed his unwanted British guests.

“We stay only to deliver my despatches to the American consul and to take on a few supplies,” he announced tersely. “I trust you are ready to go ashore.”

“Not quite,” Cordelia admitted, and sped to her cabin to pack.

Since the captain went ashore with them, Lieutenant Carmichael had to stay on board. They were forced to snatch a hurried farewell under Barlow’s impatient eye.

“Don’t forget, now, any time your travels take you to America there’ll be a welcome waiting.”

“I have your direction,” James assured him, “and you have mine. If you are ever in London, I expect to be the first person you call upon, or I shall be vastly offended.”

Carmichael’s round face turned expectantly to Cordelia.

Did he want her to say she hoped to see him soon in England? She could not, for the moment he arrived he would find out she was not really James’s sister. Yet she did not want to hurt him.

“The pinnace is waiting,” Captain Barlow pointed out.

“Thank you for all your kindnesses, Mr. Carmichael,” she blurted out. “I wish you every success in your career.”

Though a look of mild disappointment crossed his face, he was not exactly heartbroken, to her relief. He was not so stricken by her charms as she had feared. Aware of a mild disappointment of her own, she held out her hand and he gallantly raised it to his lips, bowing.

From the pinnace she glanced back at the
Columbia
and saw him watching. She waved. At once a dozen hands besides his shot up to wave back, making her laugh. Bailly, who was one of the oarsmen, grinned at her, teeth white in his dark face.

“What’s the joke?” James asked.

With the captain sitting there scowling at her, she just smiled and said vaguely, “Oh, nothing. What a great number of ships are here! Surely we shall soon find one to take us home.”