Sea Scoundrel (5 page)

His eyes fil ed with merriment. “If there is a storm, make sure you sleep on the floor. You can’t fal off a floor.”
CHAPTER THREE

The Captain watched Shane speak with the weepy female passenger. Rose, she was cal ed, and she was beautiful.

But Grant mistrusted the way she looked at Shane, almost as much as he worried over the way his brother looked back.

Weepy Rose, spoiled Angel, rowdy Sophie, and mousy Grace. How had a vibrant woman like Lady Patience Kendal gathered such a raggle-taggle group of husband-hunters, when she herself was nothing but a new colt, herself, romping in the meadow? Unspoiled. Looking for adventure. Easy to ... the bit? He scoffed. Not her. She wanted gentling, that red-head, lots of it.

By him?

God forbid.

Never mind gentling, caging, more like. To keep everyone around her safe. To keep her away from him ... or to keep him away from her?

Grant ran his hand through his hair. This voyage spel ed trouble, and it began with a P.

Patience watched the Captain watch Rose and Shane.

The Captain left his shirt unbuttoned, almost to his waist.

She liked it that way and wondered what he would say if she told him so.

She guessed this wasn’t the time. Judging by his stiff-backed, narrow-eyed stance, he didn’t approve of the time Rose and Shane spent together, a displeasure that seemed to increase as each day passed.

Wel , she had the perfect excuse to stop the discourse for the moment. With two-fold purpose, she approached Shane to ask for water and soap for laundry, disappointed and relieved to see that when Shane left, the Captain turned to other matters.

Patience examined Rose’s red-rimmed eyes. “Aren’t you feeling any better?”

“I am,” Rose said. “Shane is very understanding. I never met anyone like him.”

“He is nice, I know, but, likely, he should have been working just now.”

Rose’s eyes fil ed, and Patience touched her arm to pul her from her grief. “Do you think you’re up to seeing if Grace needs a bit of fresh air? Even a kind-hearted soul like her can take only so much of Angel when she’s sea sick.” Rose’s attention turned outward, Patience had noticed, whenever someone needed her. “I’l go right down.”

“Lady Patience,” the Captain snapped. “I would like to speak with you.”

Patience tried to ignore his roar and presented him with her sweetest smile. “Yes, Captain, what is it?”

“I give the orders around here!”

She nodded. “Now, even the fish in the sea know it.”

“You have no right to give my men orders. If you want something—anything—you see me. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely. Now, may I ask why you are angry?”

“You asked Shane for a bucket of water and soap. That is out of the question. You and your girls have had your ration of water for today.”

“Captain, the few inches al otted us were used by five of us to bathe, and the last dregs are being used to cool Angel’s brow. We need a ful bucket of water with soap.” She took a breath to brace herself for his ire. “We wil need one each and every day.”

“Impossible.”

Patience cursed her il luck at having a fair complexion, and her worse luck at booking passage on
this
ship, with
this
man. “Captain, we are five
women
.”

“Nevertheless, you may reclaim your vanity when we reach land.”

Patience’s palms itched to wipe the arrogance from his face. “Vanity has nothing to do with it.”

“I don’t have time for parlor games. I have a ship to sail.

Good day, Lady Patience.”

Desperate to make him understand, Patience caught his sleeve, and tried not to tremble over her brass.

Her captive looked pointedly at her offending hand. When she clasped the fabric tighter, he looked up at her with narrowed eyes, and, if she didn’t miss her guess, a hint of grudging respect.

She dragged him away from the curious sailors. “Captain, women have certain needs,” she whispered.

He mocked her with a smile so wide, so knowing, she released his sleeve and stepped back. He crossed his arms, enjoying her discomfort, and let the silence stretch.

“When it comes to your ... ah ... needs, Lady Patience, I would be only too glad....”

Patience bal ed her hands into fists to keep her temper from getting the better of her. “We need to do our laundry.” He looked affronted, and this time,
his
face turned red.

“There’l be no crinolines or corsets hanging on the deck of the
Knave’s Secret
, and you can bet al your titled husbands on that!”

“We don’t have to wash our clothes every day. We need,” she cast her eyes down, leaned closer and lowered her voice, “to wash our ... our ... personal....” The vixen’s bent head and humble demeanor was so opposite the usual character of the Lady Patience, Grant’s attention was ful and truly caught. When she fumbled over the word personal, there came a dawning light. With a finger, he lifted her chin to see her face clearly. A rosy hue tinged her cheeks in bold relief, and he ignored the slight skip of his heart that said he’d been too hard on her.

“Personal needs for your time of month.” Patience looked away, and nodded.

Patience looked away, and nodded.

Final y, she looked at him.

Ignoring a strong urge to loosen a nonexistent noose from around his neck, the Captain broke eye contact first. “Five
women
. I apologize for taking so long to understand. You’l have your water with soap every morning. We’l set out extra rain barrels and hope our supply lasts. I’l string some rope on one of the lower decks. When you go down, bring a sailor with you. It’s dangerous to wander those parts of the ship alone.”

Panicked eyes begged for mercy. “Don’t make me bring a sailor. I’l be careful.”

She’d conquered her embarrassment with him, but she was ready to bolt at the thought of facing another sailor with so personal a task. Somehow, the notion pleased him. “I’l go with you, then.”

“No! Please.”

He needed to calm her; he liked the thought of an easy association between them. “Patience, we have already discussed the monthlies and you haven’t perished. Surely we can spend a few minutes while you hang your ... laundry

... without making an issue of it.”

She sighed, examined his face, mistrust on her own, then final y, she nodded. “I’l need to go down as soon as we may.”

“Fine. I’l send Shane to you with the soap and water then I’l string the rope and come back for you.

Less than an hour later, Patience fol owed the Captain into plummeting darkness. He held a lantern in one hand and her bucket of clean, wet laundry in his other. The lower into the ship they traveled, the more warm and pungent the air.

The huge vessel creaked in an extended, sinister manner, and each step deeper into the black pitch reminded her of a childhood story that scared her witless. As she felt her way along the wooden beams, lantern oil and smoke wafted back, fil ing her nostrils to the point she feared she might choke. “Ouch!”

“Don’t run your hands along the planks, you’l get splinters.” Patience grimaced. “That warning could have come sooner.”

“Sorry. I’l take them out for you later.” She didn’t like that idea. “I’l go see Doc.”

“I said I’l take care of it. Damn, but you’re a stubborn one.”
And you’re not?
“Thank you, Captain.”

“How’s this?” He indicated a clearing with a strong hemp line, as he’d promised, strung in several neat rows.

Patience didn’t think stringing rope was an accomplishment to merit such pride. Stil , he’d done it for her girls and she was grateful. “I couldn’t ask for more.

Thank you.” She set to work hanging the bedding as a barrier, then their more personal items out of sight.

As she hung each item, Patience could see the Captain out of the corner of her eye, his back against a thick wooden rib of his vessel, a strong, able-bodied seaman watching her hang clothes as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. But he made her jittery. She swiped the hair from her face and smoothed her apron, wishing he’d look somewhere else.

The Captain was aware that he made the Lady Patience Kendal nervous. So aware, he wanted to smile. A vixen, she was, sleek and vibrant. That glorious hair hanging down her back, along with those big emerald eyes, were beginning to haunt his dreams. Damned if he didn’t admire her for her spirit. Arriving in America to find that her intended was dead couldn’t have been easy. Then taking on those girls—not that she should be charging them al for the same things. But sometimes people are forced to act.

No one knew that better than him. He wondered how badly she’d been hurt by her intended’s death. “Did you love him?”

She straightened, obviously surprised by his question.

“Who?”

“Van Barten.”

“How did you know about him?”

“Shane.”

She nodded. “Rose.”

Yes, Rose, he thought frowning. “Of course, Rose.”

“He died before my ship ever arrived.”

“You don’t sound upset by your intended’s death.” He was strangely disturbed by her indifference.

“I didn’t know him.”

“Why were you going to marry him, then?”

“I needed—” She considered her answer. “A place to go,” she said. “He had money and needed a wife to save the estate for his mother—though I didn’t know
that
at the time.

My father and Conrad’s planned the match years ago.

They’re both dead now. My father’s memory was ...

tarnished; I thought keeping Papa’s word might improve it.

“I know it was calculated,” she added after a minute. “And perhaps insensitive, but I wanted to get away from my aunt, and she wanted to be rid of me. I thought even America might be better than spending the rest of my life in that stuffy old cottage. And Van Barten was rich. Money always makes a match easier, don’t you think?” Grant couldn’t help his scowl and knew she’d seen it.

“Now you know what kind of a woman I am, Captain.

Contriving, and a fraud, just as you say.”
What was she hiding?
“So if you had wed, you’d be a rich married lady and the family would stil have the estate.”

“Widowed, most likely.” She wiped her hands on her apron.

“It seems Conrad was dying. They both, he and his mother, knew that. What they needed was an heir. I was to have ...

to be—”

“The mother of the heir?”

“Thank you.” She bristled despite her gratitude. “Yes.” Why, he wondered, become disconcerted by the facts, if she were the heartless, schemer he’d imagined? It drove him daft, that innocence peeking through the indifferent shel she kept erected about herself—the shel he wanted both to tear down and fortify at the same time. “It doesn’t seem fair you didn’t realize the need for an heir ahead of time.”

“He was as fair as I. He required a wife; I needed to get away from my Aunt. I would have served his purpose just as I used him to serve mine. I would be settled in America now, had everything worked out.”

“You’re very practical.”

“I am that.”

“A widow expecting a child doesn’t sound practical.”

“There are worse things,” Patience said. “But I was unaware of the absolute necessity for an heir until I arrived. I might have decided differently had I known.” She tilted her head, and gazed at some faraway dream. “Stil , to have a child would seem ...” She colored. “Lovely, I guess.” She turned to hang the next item and hide her embarrassment.

“What about emotion, Patience? Don’t you want to fal in love, marry, and live happily ever after?” Hel , he sounded like a fairy tale. And, despite his resolve, he was starting to like her. Damn. When had that happened? He’d best keep up his guard and remember, no matter how vulnerable she appeared, she was stil the haughty aristocrat who promised to introduce those hoydens to the Marquess of Andover ... and scheming and dishonest in the bargain, if her arrangement with those girls’ parents was any indication.

“Emotion, Captain, is an expensive commodity, one I can il afford. I’m afraid I shal have to make do with practicality. It is something I have in plentiful supply.”

“You’re as emotional as the next woman. Look at what you’re taking on, trying to find husbands for those four, looking out for their best interests—”

“What?”

“You’re helping them. Having husbands wil be good for them. Make them happy.”

He wanted to wipe the confusion from her face, and several pleasurable ways came readily to mind. “You know.

Happiness?” he snapped. “It’s an emotion. You do understand emotion?”

As she was about to straighten an item on the line, Patience hands stil ed and she laughed, then she went on with her chore. “Not a bit of it.” She shook the next item out and reached up. “I don’t think marriage is good for a woman. Marriage is only good for the man.” He’d like to explore that further, in several directions.

“I never heard of a married woman who is happy, or the man, for that matter,” Patience said.

He certainly agreed with her on that score except it was the man who suffered in a marriage. “If you don’t think the girls wil be happy, why find them husbands?”

“They want me to.”

“Their mothers want you to.”

“True,” she said, as if pondering a new concept. “But they seem to want it, too.”

“Have you actual y asked them if they do?”

“It’s obvious by their excitement, they want husbands.”

“Suppose one of them wants freedom from marriage as much as you seem to. Would you find her a husband, anyway?”

“I never considered the possibility, but I won’t force any of them into a life they don’t wish. Believe it or not, I’ve become very fond of them. In these few days at sea, they’ve become special friends, despite a few annoying habits.”

“Of which you have none.”

Hers was a beautiful smile, one that would bring a poor benighted male to his knees one day. “Of which I have many, I know. Do you?” she asked. “Know it of yourself, that is?”

“I? Annoying habits?”

The Lady Patience laughed—not like an aristocrat, but free and easy. Grant was charmed despite himself, and laughed with her. “If you don’t want to marry, Lady Patience, what do you want from life?” He folded his hands behind his head, enjoying their chat prodigiously and found he real y wanted to know her dreams.