face reddened in the half-light. “You are quite safe with me, madam,” he said, looking everywhere but at her.
“Am I?”
Leander dropped his arms at his side and his eyes widened.
“Right, then,” Emily whispered with a jaunty smile. “I will take my chances.” She limped past his desk and headed towards the ladder up.
“What about your walking stick?” Leander asked when he had recovered.
“Perhaps you will lend me your arm instead,” she said, disappearing through the hatch.
A slow grin took hold of his features as he hurried to his clothing cupboard, next to the sleeping Magpie, to retrieve his two reliable raincoats. As he headed towards the ladder with the coats draped over his arm, Mr. Crump lifted his head from his pillow.
“No mischief now, Doc.”
5:30 a.m.
(Morning Watch, Three Bells)
BISCUIT HANDED OCTAVIUS LINDSAY and Gus Walby each a steaming mug of coffee as they stood shivering by the bowsprit on morning watch. “Drink up, Mr. Lindsay. Drink up, Mr. Walby,” he said cheerfully, trying to shield the remaining mugs on his tray from the driving rain.“Here’s thee only warm sustenance ya’ll be gettin’ fer a while. Can’t fire up me galley stove in this storm. And thee Doc says he ain’t got no time nor hospital room for anyone comin’ down with thee fever.”
“Well, he would if he rid himself of that woman,” said Octavius, wrapping his lips around his coffee cup.
Biscuit sneered, his bad eye rotating in his orange head. “And he ain’t about to do that now, is he, Mr. Lindsay?” He continued on his way, struggling against the ship’s pitching to keep his tray and himself aloft as he sought out other waterlogged seamen in need of some warmth.
Octavius grunted out a garbled reply and rounded on Gus who was still clad in Captain Moreland’s coat. “Mr. Walby, your watch ended long ago. Why is it you are still above deck?”
Gus squinted up at the first lieutenant through the rain. “You don’t mind, do you, sir? I can’t sleep.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Might I ask, sir … why you don’t like Em?”
Octavius gave a throaty laugh. “Em? You’re on a first-name basis with her?”
Gus nodded. “I read to her.”
“Can she not read herself?”
“Of course! Mr. Austen gave me the volumes of his sister’s book, Sense and Sensibility, to read to her to pass the time while she lay recovering in her cot.”
“Such rubbish! Your time and hers would be better spent, Mr. Walby, reading books on navigation and signalling, and teaching her how to use a sextant.”
Gus said no more, turning his eyes away to peer into the fierce blackness before him. He shivered in his coat, thankful he wasn’t one of those phantom figures who worked the sails, some of them at more than one hundred feet above sea level, standing in their bare toes on nothing more than an inch of rope. Yet another large wave leapt onto the fo’c’sle deck, soaking Mr. Lindsay, who scowled beside him.
“Damn and hell,” Octavius cursed, his coffee mug overflowing with saltwater. He tossed the mug and its contents over the side of the ship, and in a voice suddenly stripped of its earlier sarcasm said, “Two battles and I haven’t received a scratch. If I am so lucky to survive this war, Mr. Walby, I shall leave the navy. I detest being ruled by the Articles of War. Surely I deserve far better than cold, diluted coffee and weather such as this.”
Gus, shocked to hear such words from a senior officer, set down his mug to seize hold of a lifeline. “What would you do, sir?”
Octavius studied the young boy for a moment. “Beg my father to pay my way through law school.”
“With respect, sir, why didn’t you choose law in the first place?”
“Because, Mr. Walby, I am my father’s eighth son. He chose my career for me. I did not have a say in it.”
“Did your mother have no sympathy for you, sir?”
Octavius’s eyes grew distant. “My mother is a senseless, self-absorbed woman who cares nothing for me. She certainly did not come to my defence when I pleaded for a career in law. Why, she did not even bother to come out of the house to see me off when I left for sea. I was told she was having her hair dressed at the time.” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “Such foolish talk, Mr. Walby. Pay me no heed. I must do my rounds.”
As Octavius fought his way through the gusty winds, he brushed the saltwater from his face. Looking after him, Gus whispered, “At least you have a mother.”
* * *
“THIS IS NOT AT ALL SAFE,” cried Leander into the wind, gripping Emily’s arm as they made their way to a sheltered spot near the small boats and cutters that had once again been secured to the Isabelle’s waist.
“It’s exhilarating,” she shouted back happily, clutching the collar of her borrowed coat.
“Most of the men become seasick in this weather. You, on the other hand, seem to delight in it.”
“I loved being on a ship when I was a young girl. I was never seasick a day, Doctor.”
“Hmm! Yes, you have already mentioned something about being on ships when you were a girl, and wandering freely about on weather decks.”
Emily gave him a mysterious smile and hobbled ahead of him to sit upon a low wooden bench that was nailed to the deck beneath the protective shelter of the smaller boats. Leander sat down beside her and quietly watched her as she looked out upon the frothy waves. The wind had loosened strands of her pale hair, which she’d tied back with her red scarf. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes shone in the duskiness of early morning. She had thrust her hands into the large pockets of his borrowed coat, her small frame all but disappearing in the folds of the sturdy material, save for her blue silk shoes. Again he wondered who she was.
“Why, Doctor, if the winds would stop blowing so wildly, I’d race you up to the main topgallant.”
Leander stared at her. “Are you trifling with me? Could you … I mean … have you actually ever climbed to the main topgallant?”
Emily relaxed her shoulders, and gave him an admissive nod.
Leander could only gaze upon her in wonder. He wanted to tell her that Captain Moreland would be most interested in this bit of information, but, fearing she would cease speaking so freely, he merely said, “That’s incredible!”
“The truth is, Doctor, I was a climber almost from the time I left the womb.”
“A climber? How so?”
“As a child, I would climb anything that stood before me: a fence, a tree, a balustrade, a barn roof, even though – in doing so – I caused my poor nurses such
