An Unsuitable Occupation for a Lady by Jackie Walton
After the last injured sailor made for his hammock, she dropped her chin and headed for her own cabin. It was only then that she realized FitzHenry sported a bloody slash across his chest.
Finally clean, her own arm bandaged with Mr. Pearce’s assistance, and dressed once again like a lady, Chiara slowly made her way to the wardroom for dinner. Hammering, sawing, and unidentifiable scraping played an unscored symphony above her.
Harley handed her a glass of sherry as soon as she walked in. “I thought you could use this.” FitzHenry nodded to her, but his eyes held no welcome. She knew hers reflected it.
Mr. Pearce announced dinner, so she took her glass to the table. For awhile, the only sounds around the table came from outside the room. She felt a great gratitude for the lack of conversation.
Mr. Grenfell and the other junior officers, not at the table, were supervising repairs on the Swiftsure and the French Triomphe. As was the custom, freshly-shaved, bald men, the French prisoners who had given their parole not to try to revolt, worked on repairs under the watchful eye of marines.
Harley broke the relative silence, “As much as it pains me to think that a lady in my care had to defend herself against villains, I understand from several sources that you acquitted yourself most handsomely, Lady Chiara, and rounded up prisoners, to boot.”
Chiara glanced at FitzHenry glaring at his wine glass before she replied, “It would have been unconscionable of me to sit cowering in my cabin, Captain. Besides,” her wry grin peaked out, “I couldn’t let you men have all the fun.” As soon as she said it, the grin faded to a grimace, with the memory of how that “fun” was achieved.
“Indeed. Fun. In any event, the fun hasn’t ended. The Triomphe will go back as a prize ship. You’ll both be getting shares, by the bye. I need to man her and guard the prisoners.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll have to impress your two marines, Rafe.”
FitzHenry grimaced and glanced at Chiara, but he didn’t protest.
“We’ve got a lot of wounded, and I’ve a fair bit of repairs on both ships to deal with, plus I have to…”
“I understand, Tom, I’d do the same thing in your place. In fact, I anticipated it the moment we saw the sail.
Harley’s grin had a rueful cast. “Of course, you always know which way the wind blows.”
FitzHenry may have already worked through the implications, but Chiara hadn’t. She did so now. It would only be the two of them, with no escorts for a buffer. The next few weeks did not present themselves with equanimity.
After dinner, she took herself to the upper deck and found a spot on the leeward gunwale with relatively little repair going on near it. The sky had cleared to a crystalline clearness, with a waning moon hanging just above the horizon. She leaned her elbows on the gunwale, watching the whitecaps behind the ship as they played in the moonlight.
The absence of any chaperonage--for lack of a better word--had the potential for severely compromising the mission, given the inability of FitzHenry and herself to maintain civility for more than a moment or two in private. Mercy, the potential for chaos staggered the mind!
It might almost be easier, she thought, to accomplish the mission herself. Could she convince him they’d have a better chance of success if they tried to rescue the Pope independently? Perhaps she could convince him to make an attempt from the west coast after the ship dropped her off near Ravenna for her attempt from the east. Two sequential attempts might have a better chance of success.
Perhaps she could talk Captain Harley into simply clapping him in irons for s short while. “Might do him good.”
“Do whom good?”
She whirled. With the repair noise, she hadn’t heard him approach.
“I suspect that if you’re damning some poor sot to the deepest pits of hell, then you are probably referring to me.”
Taking a second to allow her heart to slow, she drawled, “Why Rafaelle, I didn’t think you capable of such perception.” After a level look, she turned back to study the waves.
“Ah, the direct cut on top of the subtle insult.” She angled her head to glower at him. The cur was grinning! “All while I’m groveling with an apology.”
She turned fully to stare at him, mouth open. She snapped her teeth closed. “You couldn’t grovel if someone knocked your knees out from under you!”
His laugh sounded harsh and forced. Then he sobered. “I am trying to apologize. What I said was impermissible, under any circumstances. I wish I could take the words back.”
She stared back out at the ocean while her teeth worried her lip.
“If we’re going to work together with any chance of…”
“That’s just it! I don’t think we can work together. We’re both too hard-headed to work together.”
“Of course…”
“You can’t get past the fact that I am a fully capable soldier who happens to be a woman, and I can’t get past your…your insufferable arrogance!”
“Well, that puts the cards on the table. However, we have our orders…”
“Orders be damned!”
“And I intend to obey them as delivered because I believe that we are stronger if we pool our strengths, and weaknesses, then if we work separately.” He offered his hand. “Truce?”
She stared at it, thinking that, like a snake, it would bite her if she reached for it. Every ounce of self-preservation recoiled. The problem was that he was right, damn him.
Slowly, she reached for his hand. It was warm and firm and a little calloused. Turning his hand so that hers lay in his palm, he started to lift it then stopped.
She held her breath, but he merely bowed.
Releasing her hand, he turned to study the ocean.
The silence in their small corner of the world grew.
Chapter 6
Chiara felt loathed to break the silence and didn’t know what she would say if she were to do so.
“I should thank you for coming to my assistance today. I had my hands full, and another sword at my back may have been too much.”
“You’re welcome. I’d have done the same for anyone.”
His smile looked a little crooked, “I’m sure you would do it for anyone, but in this case, the ‘anyone’ was me. And, knowing the deep level of affection you have for me, I can most sincerely say ‘thank you.’”
She turned back to the uncaring sea and nodded.
“Having said that, I still don’t like it. You shouldn’t be wielding a sword. You can’t possibly handle it. You’re a woman. You wouldn’t last two minutes against someone like their captain.”
“I take it that’s who took you on?” He nodded. “Well, I’m aware that I am a woman. I can, and did, handle several opponents. Obviously, they weren’t experts like the captain, but they, or you, or most any competent man would be able to take me down faster than a Whig voting for land reform. I can’t hope to compete with a man on equal terms, so I compete on my terms. I try to end it in less than two minutes and not to get embroiled in a cock fight like you did. I know that I can’t handle that kind of thing. The techniques I use are more…unorthodox… but effective for me.”
“That’s delightful! What happens when they don’t work?”
She turned and gave him a level stare. “I compete to win, liking to remain alive as much as you do. But to answer your question, the same thing happens to me that happens to you when your techniques don’t work.”
Glaring, he relented, “That sort of thing’s not supposed to happen to ladies, you know.”
“And it’s supposed to happen to men? I’m fighting for the same reasons you are, Lord FitzHenry, plus one more. One of those men who are ‘supposed’ to be killed in this war was my father.”
Startled, he reached out as if to comfort her.
Striking like an angry cat, she slapped his hand away. “You’ve played that particular card before, my lord. Keep your hands to yourself!”
His hand clenched. Thinking he might be tempted to strike
The battle and its aftermath cost them three days, but at noon of the fourth day,, the Triomphe’s repairs were generally finished. She took longer than the Swiftsure, having taken significantly more damage. The French gunners couldn’t hold a candle to the well-drilled British. The prisoners were stowed safely, and the prize crew transferred.
The last duty before the ships parted had to be the hardest, the sea burial of several British and quite a number of French men. The chaplain read the burial service, translated for the French, who bowed their heads and crossed themselves at the appropriate times during the Anglican service. The dead men’s possessions, ceremoniously sold before the mast, provided a last benefit to the dead men’s families.
Sam Goode, unable to use the line between the ships as so many of his comrades had, headed for the jolly boat. He approached Chiara as she stood with Captain Harley. He dropped the pitifully small sack containing all his personal possessions so that he could tug at his forelock. “Sir,” he nodded nervously at the captain, “M’um, I jus’ wanted to thank ye again for everythin’ ye’ve done.”
“It was the least I could do, Mr. Goode. I’m just sorry you were hurt.”
“’Tis a cost o’taking the king’s shilling.”
“All departing hands to the jolly boat!” came from the side.
“God save ye, m’um and thanks.”
“Good bye and God’s speed.”
He picked up his sack, nodded, and turned to the boat.
Inspiration struck Chiara, “Captain, with his injured arm, wouldn’t it be better…?”
“No, I’m sorry,” he cut her off. “Even with one good arm, I’m so short-handed that I still need him there.”
Chiara grimaced and nodded, “It was worth a try.”
FitzHenry appeared on deck and strode over to Mr. Grenfell waiting next to the jolly boat’s moorings. The new captain of the Triomphe accepted the oil-skin wrapped packet and put it into his jacket pocket. He spoke to FitzHenry, but Chiara couldn’t hear the words.
She strolled over to the bulwark to watch the boat transfer the last of the crew. She waved at Sam Goode and watched him awkwardly climb the ropes onto the Triomphe. Once on board, he hailed someone. Jerry McEowan joined him at the side. They waved briefly before the bos’n called them away to their duties.
FitzHenry joined her but kept a tolerable distance. Silently, they watched the Triomphe set her sails and begin the ponderous turn that would head her back towards Gibraltar and her new master’s home. Captain Harley gave orders to his new first officer, a short, pimply-faced young man. “Let’s get this good, old girl moving, Lt. Topp.” Chiara blinked when the lieutenant bellowed, “Away aloft.” The bos’n’s echo sent bare-footed sailors scrambling up the rigging and out onto the yard arms. As soon as they were in place, the lieutenant ordered, “Let full sails.” Beginning with the main mast at the bottom, they loosened the lines at the ends of the yard arms, followed by successive lines. The unfurling sail looked for all the world like a giant choirboy’s sleeves, snapping and billowing as the wind filled them.
FitzHenry leaned against the rail and turned, looking up at the main mast, where the topsail underwent the same procedure. The sail undulated until the wind filled it.
Chiara watched his expression. It seemed almost...wistful to her. “Do you miss the sea?”
“Truthfully, yes. There’s something about standing on the deck of a ship, with her and her crew working like a well-oiled watch. It’s your watch, and you’ve honed it and refined it until it can do anything you ask of it. The feeling is indescribable. It’s almost godlike.”
“Why did you give it up?”
“The usual reasons. My brother died shortly before Trafalgar and my father a couple of months after.” He shrugged. “I resigned by commission to look after family matters…and your uncle’s.”
Yesterday she’d slept from sheer exhaustion. Tonight, that was a luxury denied her.
She stared out over the serene water, not daring to close her eyes, for every time she more than blinked, the horrors of the past few days rose up before her. The feel of a sword piercing flesh, the eye-burning gunpowder, and the contortions of death all played out again on the insides of her eyelids. Sleep had degenerated into terror; something to be avoided. She’d gotten dressed again and come out on deck.
She’d been through this preview of hell before. After having to kill a man on a previous mission, she spent weeks talking to her uncle and ex-soldiers about the chaos in her mind. Almost to a man, they told her in one way or another that there was no magical cure. Duty, faith, and trust in the rightness of their cause were what they all recommended.
The crew had their own way of dealing with the aftermath. The joke about using the severed hand someone found as a back scratcher rated guffaws all around. When first told, even she found it funny. Now…
She knew all the rationales. They helped during waking hours. For her, time proved the only thing to banish the nightmares and silence the screams of the dying.
Eventually, she knew, she’d be able to close her eyes and dream of friends, family, and her yet-to-come true love…why did Rafaelle’s face pop into her mind? She laughed. The arm joke wasn’t half as bad as that one.
The Swiftsure gave the boot of Italy a decidedly wide berth. Fair weather and a lack of French ships made for well-filled sails.
Chiara finished her sewing the day before, and there was little to do besides raid Captain Harley’s small library. She searched through title after depressingly naval title until she spied a copy of Scott’s Lady of the Lake. “Hum,” she muttered, “not the sort of think you’d think to find in a dashing ship’s captain’s library, but, hey de ho, it beats Lever’s The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor.”
She wandered up to her shaded area, a place of solitary splendor now that the sew-sew boys had finished their work. She eyed her throne with some small distaste when a wooden clatter on the main deck caught her attention.
Lt. Topp and the other junior officers were practicing swordplay with wooden swords.
“Hopefully they won’t give themselves splinters,” she observed to no one in particular. She took the last step to her chair and whirled, “Yes!” Scampering down the ladder, the only thing preventing her from undoing the tapes of her dress was the seaman tugging his forelock to her just before she reached her cabin. Moments later she strode back on deck in her “fighting clothes.”
“Mr. Topp, may I join you?”
One of the youngest midshipmen goggled at her and blurted, “Blimy! She does dress like a bleeding man!”
“Mr. Wingate, Lady Chiara is a gallant lady who I am proud to serve beside,” Topp bowed to her, and she returned a nod. “You will address her with every, and I repeat, every respect. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir” could hardly be heard.
“To help you remember, you will surrender your sword to Lady Chiara and then you will proceed down to the head and clean it. I will inspect it at four bells.”
Little Mr. Wingate grimaced, and his peers snickered, but he did as he was told and trudged off to complete his task. The remaining twitters brought Mr. Topp’s glance. “Anyone wish to join him?” Silence. “Good.” He turned his back on them, as much to talk to Chiara as to hide the twinkle in his eyes. “To answer your question, my lady, we would be delighted. How would you like to proceed?”
She looked at the young men trying gallantly not to stare. “Perhaps I could borrow your prize pupil for a little sparring practice?”
“Mr. Meadows, oblige the lady, if you please.”
Meadows stood big and brawny, but he took on the cast of a hunted animal at Topp’s order. “Mr. Topp, please, I can’t strike a lady. M’grandmother’d have m’ears! And the captain, the captain’d have me flogged and rightly so. Mr. Topp, please!”
“Mr. Meadows,” Chiara stood before him in the b
“I could have killed you, Mr. Meadows, even with this.” She lifted the sword slightly. “The fact that I’m a woman should not have prevented you from defending yourself.” Meadow’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. That was the only part of him that did move; the rest of him might have been carved from wood.
Chiara shouldered her sword and considered him. Heaving a sigh, she looked at Mr. Topp. “Would you be so kind as to oblige me, sir?”
“It will be my honor and my pleasure to do so, my lady.” Without looking, he extended his hand to Meadows, who slapped his practice sword into it with a look of pathetic gratitude and relief.
Topp flashed an engaging grin, and they lifted their swords vertically in salute.
“Mr. Topp, a moment if you please.”
FitzHenry’s voice sounded behind her. She lowered her sword, sighing. That dratted man!
“I find myself in need of some practice. Mr. Topp, will you allow me the opportunity to spar with Lady Chiara?”
Topp grimaced, but FitzHenry didn’t see it. He watched Chiara’s reaction. She kept her face carefully blank as she waited for Mr. Topp’s response. She knew he couldn’t refuse with any grace.
“Of course, my lord, it would be my pleasure.”
FitzHenry removed his coat and laid it aside.
“Mr. Meadows,” he looked at Meadows with the air of expert to neophyte, “in life, you must learn that a lady’s ‘request’ is to be treated with all the consequence that you would treat a ‘request’ from the King.”
A thought struck Chiara. He took off his coat without the assistance of a valet. Most gentlemen’s coats required a valet to squeeze the wearer in and peel them off again. FitzHenry’s fit so perfectly, the difference wasn’t noticeable. Yet, he’d brought his valet. She noticed his cravat had a simple knot in it and his boots, while clean, lacked a certain shine. Where was his valet?