Sea Scoundrel (15 page)

Angel braved the rigging with Dickie, and the way the Captain shouted angry orders made her thankful to be out of range.

“We’re almost to London,” Dickon said, as they stood on the ratlines, high above the deck, weaving and knotting the oiled hemp into new rigging.

“We are? Oh. I’m going to miss you.”

He looked incredulous. “No, you’re not. You’re going to marry me.”

“I am?”

“Why else do you think I took ship as a sailor?”

“To see that I had a safe journey?”

“Angel, a bloody paragon couldn’t have insured a safe journey for you and your friends. There must have been a bloomin’ bunch of guardian angels aboard. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why we didn’t burn down or sink with the help you girls were.”

“Dickon!” She stamped her foot shaking them so much the ropes swayed precariously and threatened to topple them.

Embracing each other, with the coarse hemp between them, they rode out the hazard.

“That was a damn stupid thing to do,” Dickon said when he let her go.

Angel set her jaw, pouted prettily, and narrowed her eyes in a way that always worked with Papa, and sometimes even with Mama.

“I’d like to kiss that pout away, but cute as you are when you do it, there’l be none of that nonsense when we’re married.”

Angel beamed. She loved the authority in his voice. She loved the word marriage. She guessed she loved Dickon, especial y for coming after her. “Yes, Dickon.” He nodded approvingly. “I’l need to find out where you’re staying in London.”

“You can fol ow us from the ship.”

He shook his head. “Have to unload and swab the decks, or the Cap’n’l string me up.”

Angel bit her lip. “I’l send you a note.”

“Too risky.”

“I’l come and tel you.”

“Angel, if sending a note’s too risky, coming yourself, surely is.” He shook his head. “You don’t know one thing about London and the danger on the streets, especial y near the docks. Don’t leave the house alone. I mean it. Be serious.

How am I going to find you?”

“Wel , what’s wrong with a note? Patience won’t mind if I send one of the servants out.”

“She can’t know.”

“Why ever not? I’ve thought it quite sil y, since you rescued Wel ington, to pretend I didn’t know you.”

“Sweetheart, your mother is paying Patience to find you a titled husband. She won’t earn any money if you run away with me.”

“Are we going to run away?” Angel turned the romantic notion about in her head for a while, enjoying the possibility of a romantic adventure.

“I must be besotted,” Dickon said. “But you’re worth the price I’l undoubtedly pay when I face your mother’s wrath.” Angel laughed at the look on his face, pleased that her laugh charmed him.

He smiled as if reading her and shook his head. “How about Gresham’s Lending Library on Lombard Street?

When I’m finished duty—that should be in about three days after we make port—I’l go there every afternoon at two. I’l wait an hour perusing Mr. Shakespeare. A lending library’s a perfectly respectable place. Surely Lady Patience won’t object to your going. You can tel her you heard about it and wish to visit.”

“It sounds like a perfect idea,” Angel said. “I do love penny novels. How do you know about Gresham’s?”

“Won’t be the first time I’ve been to London. Came with my father ten years ago. We spent two years visiting the world’s ports. You just don’t sit right down and build a ship, you know. You study them, sail them.”

God she loved him. She was proud of him, too. “Gresham’s Lending Library, Lombard Street, two in the afternoon. I’l be there.”

“See that you are. I don’t want to wait forever to make you m’wife.”

The way he looked at her, she thought he might kiss her right there. “Oh Dickie.”

“Who the bloody hel told you rats to take a rest?” Angel looked down. “Is he talking to us?”

“’Fraid so.”

“He cal ed us rats!”

“Sweetheart, we’re standing on the ratlines. That makes us rats.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s work faster. We’re almost finished and I don’t want the old salt to scrape my barnacles.”

“Right.” Angel understood nothing of what he said.

The Captain paced the storm-ravaged deck surveying his domain. The tempest had crippled the
Knave
and before she could continue her journey, she must be repaired. He couldn’t get Patience to London fast enough; she was a woman a man could drown in, and he had a long-standing fear of drowning.

As he lay sleepless in his bunk the night before, he’d come to a decision. There’d be no more lessons for his greedy little student. Her education was becoming downright dangerous to his sanity and his future. He found himself satisfied with the decision, but disappointed at the same time, and annoyed as hel over his frustration.

As the sailors fitted spare sails, Rose mended the ones torn in the storm. Though Grant chafed at the delay, he would not sail without spares. For al he wanted to shout for Rose to hurry, he couldn’t bring himself to give her the backside of his tongue. How she ended up in this nest of vipers, he didn’t know, but he stifled his anger as he approached her. “I’d like to hoist sail tomorrow, Rose.

Need the sheets mended and stored first. Think you can get it done?”

“Yes, sir,” Rose said, smiling up at him.

Females. God drown the lot of them. He sighed. He didn’t mean that, of course. Women had their uses. Patience had been hot as a flame in his arms on deck last night. She’d kissed him, opened to him, tangled her tongue with his, purring al the while.

He nearly tripped on the capstan, and ran a hand through his hair. Stop torturing yourself, he told himself. He wanted to be furious, needed to be. Bloody hel , he was furious. He headed for the rigging and didn’t stop climbing ‘til he got to a slack-jawed jack-tar making slip-shod repairs, and took great satisfaction in snapping at his tail.

“What’s stuck in his craw, ya s’pose?” The Captain heard Jasper’s question clear as day, certain the tar didn’t note the wind’s direction when he posed it.

“Had it with the females, I’l wager,” Izzy said.

Jasper nodded. “I could understand before the storm and the ghost ship. But those females have been a mighty hand lately and no mistake.”

“If you ask me, it’s the one scrubbin’ paint over there. Slid right under his skin. Makes him madder’n’a hornet.”

“You’re right. Fine kettle of fish for a scoundrel, fal in’ for a woman.” Izzy shook his head. “Nasty business.” The Captain wavered between anger and respect for such perception. “Mangy sea-dogs,” he spat, starting down.

“Best shorten sail,” Jasper warned. “Here he comes and he’l clap a stopper on us faster’n you can whistle for the wind.” They turned their attention, and their muscles, to a splintered spar.

The Captain hit the deck with a thud, his feet planted wide, his stance sure. Hands behind his back, he ambled by Jasper and Izzy whistling a funeral dirge in slow, subtle warning, calming himself in the process, until he found Patience on her knees.

She scrubbed the deck in furious concentration, bedraggled, exhausted. Her hard work aggravated him the more, not a surprise, he supposed. It seemed everything aggravated him today. Hel , she didn’t need to work like that. She paid her way across—wel , someone paid it, at any rate. He’d given her this task
after
she spent two hours on the deck pump.

He’d been harder on her than the rest, he supposed, because if she hated him, he’d be less likely to give into his need to teach her every blasted thing he knew of passion and pleasure. That he was nothing less than a bloody bastard hit him like a blow. That he was ashamed of it hit him harder.

“Lady Patience.”

She ignored him and scrubbed faster.

“You’ve put in a hard day. Go rest now.” Guilt nipped his gut. No one had gone as long without a break. But, Lord, she was stubborn. “Patience. Stop.” She wouldn’t look up.

He bent on his haunches to get her attention. “Patience,” he said gently.

“Go to hel !”

He stifled a chuckle. “Stop amusing me. I’m trying to stay mad enough to keep my hands off you.”

“Put your hands on me, I’l cut them off.”

“That’s bloody grisly, but it’s probably the only thing that’l stop me. Drop that rag and let me help you up.” She stopped scrubbing, sagged, and lowered her head, but she didn’t drop the rag.

He grabbed one of her hands to tug her with him as he stood.

Patience cried out and took her hand from his, cupping it in the other.

“What the?” He took her hand to examine it, red, raw, cuts and blisters exacerbating the damage.

Pain shot through him at the sight. “Who the hel put lye in this water?”

“Stop shouting! You told me to do this miserable job.” She lowered her voice. “When I asked Doc what I needed, he gave me water. I didn’t think it was enough so he threw something in to help. How was I to know it removes skin?”

“The sand is supposed to make the scrubbing easier.”

“I used sand too.”

“Yes, I can see that, and the sand got into the gashes and blisters with the lye, irritating your hands the more.” Patience held her roiling emotions in check. If the bastard continued to be kind, she’d cry. She would not let him see how tired, sore and upset she was. “Leave me alone. I’m finished and I’d like to retire.” She rose ignoring his extended hand. Her back ached and her knees wobbled and despite her wet, torn, stained clothes, she departed with al the dignity she could muster.

He fol owed, she knew, and wished he’d go away. She stopped before reaching the hatch—she simply hadn’t the strength to go down, nor did she know how, without using her hands.

The Captain stopped beside her and lifted her hands to examine them. “They must burn like fire.”

“Yes.” She didn’t look up; she couldn’t face the kindness she heard in his voice.

“Wait here.” He disappeared down the hatch.

She lowered herself to a coil of rope surprised at how comfortable she was.

“He returned with a smal , cobalt jar of salve. “Let me put this on your hands. It’s thick; it’l protect as wel as heal.” She refused to remember how caring he’d been when he took out her splinters, kissing and soothing each one, how gently he’d held her after the Phantom ship. “No, thank you.

I don’t need anything from you. I’l just sit here and rest a bit then I’l go to my cabin and take care of myself.” When Grant saw Patience’s eyelids droop, he decided to wait her out. “Fine.” He stepped from her line of vision, watching her snuggle her bottom more comfortably in the rope coil and reacted instantly, dammit.

She tucked her legs up and leaned against a rain barrel, hands palms up, eyes closed, and fel deeply asleep.

Grant studied her for some time, softened by each freckle and wayward copper curl. He admired the determined set of her shoulders, even in sleep. Shaking his head at his daft musings, he stooped before her, covering each raw hand with a slab of salve.

She never woke, though she sighed, likely in relief.

He cursed himself for a heartless bastard seeing her tiny sore hand nestled in his big brutal one. With his anger, he’d hurt her physical y, and if he didn’t miss his guess, he’d hurt her in the region of her heart as wel . And Grant was surprised to discover this bothered a conscience he’d assumed long-dead.

Since the activity on deck centered away from them, he carried her to his cabin and put her on his bunk leaving her to sleep. Later, he brought a large copper tub in, and when it slipped from his hand and hit the floor like a thunderclap, Patience slept on. After several buckets of steaming water, the tub sat fil ed, and on she slept.

He stood over her. “You little witch,” he whispered. “You haunt my dreams and I beg to be haunted.” He touched a curl at her cheek. Her hair, wind-tossed, matted, and salt-water sprayed, stil looked beautiful. Her hands, red and raw with jagged nails, were smal and delicate. Actual y, Patience was tiny al over. Funny, she didn’t give the impression of being smal , but larger than life. Waist, breasts and hips were al miniature, and he wondered, with a note of alarm, if she could bear children safely. Then he cursed the disquieting thought and tossed it aside.

Less than five feet tal , the green-eyed sprite had found places in his big, old, ugly heart that were soft and vulnerable. Who would have thought?

“Patience, Sweetheart, wake up.”

Her eyelids fluttered and she looked at him, her easy smile incredibly sweet.

Grant knew life would be easier if that smile did not make him so happy. “C’mon lazybones, time to get up.”

“Lazybones?” She sat up scowling. “What a nasty— Is that a bath? A real bath? In a real tub? I haven’t had a bath in—” She shuddered. “Never mind, it doesn’t bear thinking of. A bath.” She knelt to dip her hands in the warm water and stopped when she noticed the salve.

“Patience, the bath isn’t for you. It’s for me. I thought you’d scrub my back. You owe me more time since you didn’t finish the deck.”

If she were a cat, her back would be up. Her narrow-eyed stare foretold a need for retribution. She searched, likely for a weapon.

“No, Patience, don’t touch my books with salve on your hands. You’l ruin—”

The book just missed him and he laughed, which of course, provoked another try. He’d known it would. She aimed better the second time and hit him in the shoulder. “Ouch.” She smiled with a nod of satisfaction and searched out another missile. He’d have to scrape salve off everything, but he enjoyed the diversion. Especial y after the storm’s fury, and what had come after, with her.

“You’re wrecking al my books with— Not the sextant!” His denial was al the enticement she needed. She raised it.

“By al that’s holy, Patience, don’t throw it. It belonged to my grandfather. Patience!”

She tossed it, her aim steady.

He caught the prized instrument with ease—as he believed she intended—and cradled it against his chest for several grateful heartbeats. “God’s truth, that was close. For a minute there, you had me worried.”

She opened the cabinet and reached for the decanter of brandy, with a sidelong look toward his reaction. Hard for him not to smile. “No, wait, love. Throw the port. It’s lousy.