“Well, if we're in for a Biscay widowmaker, you'll discover what kind of a sailor you are,” he said cheerfully, pushing back his chair. “The bay's notoriously rough even without a full-blown storm.”
“I stand warned, Captain.” She smiled and drank her coffee with relish. Pregnancy was supposed to put one off one's food… or at least in the morning. So far, she was as hungry as ever.
The captain left the cabin, returning to his quarterdeck, and Tamsyn finished her own breakfast while Samuel cleared up around her. “Do you know where Gabriel is this morning, Samuel?”
“Watchin' 'is treasure, like as not,” Samuel opined, sweeping crumbs into the palm of his hand. “Doesn't like to let it out of his sight, though it's stowed right and tight in the ‘old.”
“Perhaps he's afraid someone might make off with a ducat or two,” Tamsyn said laughingly, although she knew that was exactly what Gabriel was afraid of.
“Not on this ship, they won't,” Samuel declared, a touch of passion enlivening his customarily stolid countenance. “There's no thieves in Cap'n Lattimer's ship. Every man jack of 'em knows the cap'n turns thieves over to their shipmates, powerful ‘ard on a man is own mates are. Damn sight 'arder than the cap'n.”
Tamsyn had already decided that life before the et on one of His Majesty's men-of-war was about as grim as life could be, so she merely nodded her comprehension, finished her coffee, and went up to the quarterdeck.
She'd learned in her first hour that the starboard side of the quarterdeck was holy ground, the captain's preserve, to be entered only on invitation. Lord St. Simon, however, seemed to have a standing invitation. In the orderly quiet of midmorning at sea, the two men were talking together at the starboard rail; the marine sentry turned the hourglass at the half hour and struck three bells to signal the third half-hour of the watch. A bosun's whistle thrilled, and a trio of midshipmen jumped for the rigging, scrambling up into the shrouds and racing each other along the ratlines to the masthead some hundred feet above.
Tamsyn's toes curled in her boots as she craned her neck to watch them enviously. The view must be spectacular from the top, and it didn't look that hard. If she took off her skirt…
“Don't even consider it.”
“Oh!” She spun round to find Julian regarding her, his heavy-lidded eyes shrewd and for once amused. It wasn't the first time he'd second-guessed her. “How could you possibly know what I was thinking?”
He gave her a lazy smile. “Believe me, buttercup, there are times when I can read you like a book.”
“Oh, don't call me that,” she said crossly.
He laughed. There was something about the beauty of the morning that for the moment eroded his bitterness. He didn't attempt to examine whether Tamsyn's own brand of beauty on this gorgeous day could have contributed to his general sense of well-being. “It's hard to resist when the sun's shining on your hair.” He ran a flat palm over the top of her head. “When I was a boy, the village girls used to hold buttercups under their chins on May Day. And if the golden glow was reflected, it was said they'd find a lover before the day was out.”
Tamsyn wondered why he had so suddenly lost his stiffness. He leaned on the port rail beside her, gazing out to sea, his demeanor relaxed and friendly. Tamsyn continued to watch the boys in the rigging, swinging like monkeys from shroud to shroud, but her mind was on her uncooperative body. She didn't feel any different, but that didn't mean anything. And what in the name of grace was she going to do if she was pregnant?
Julian glanced sideways at her, feeling the tension in the slight frame. “What's troubling you?” He told himself he couldn't care less, but he asked the question anyway.
Tamsyn met his eye for a second before turning back to watch the game in the rigging. “I'm just tired of twiddling my thumbs when I could be up there, or doing something useful.”
The fib convinced him, as she'd expected it would. It was only half a fib, anyway. “You put one little toe on that rigging, my friend, and our contract is broken… finished, permanently. Understand?”
“You are, as always, perfectly lucid,” she said, for once glad that they were quarrelling.
“I do my best,” he said acidly. He was about to return to the captain's side when a voice bellowed from the masthead.
“Sail ahead, sir. Three points on the starboard bow.” Hugo raised his glass, gazing across the flat expanse of ocean. He could just make out her royals on the horizon. “Send the signal midshipman up to the topmast, Mr. Connaught.” His voice was quiet and without a hint of the exhilaration ripping through him. “I want an identification.”
“Aye, sir.”
The ferment on the ship was palpable, and yet it evinced itself in no sudden sounds or movements, only in a watchful silence. The hands on deck had moved to the rails, the bosuns stood with their pipes ready, every eye was on the horizon, every ear waiting for the midshipman to identify the ship's flags.
The lad's voice drifted down, shaky with nervous excitement. “It's flying the Frenchie flag sir. I'll lay odds.”
“I don't want a wager, Mr. Grantly, I want facts.” The captain’s voice cut like a diamond through glass.
“Crowd sail, Mr. Connaught. Let's see if we can help the young gentleman by getting closer.”
The bosuns' pipes shrilled and the ship was abruptly galvanized. Tamsyn watched, fascinated, as men swarmed like flies over the rigging, and sail after sail was unfurled until the Isabelle surged forward under full canvas.
“It is, sir. It's flying French colors,” the young gentleman at the topmast yelled, almost falling off his perch in his excitement.
“Good. Break out the American flag, Mr. Connaught. We'll confuse 'em a bit.” He turned to Julian, standing discreetly at his side. “Fancy the prospect of a fight, St. Simon?”
Julian's smile was answer enough. He watched as they pulled down the English flag and ran up the American colors in its place. It was a standard deception; only the distress flag was sacrosanct. They would break out their true colors at the last possible minute as a declaration of battle.
“Beat to quarters, Mr. Harris.”
The bosun's pipe shrilled and the call resounded, “All hands on deck.”
Tamsyn's blood stirred with excitement as the watch below came thundering on deck, rubbing sleep from their eyes in some cases. The mass of men-too many, it sometimes seemed, for such a small space-surged in a tidal wave of what to an observer looked like confusion but which quickly came clear as an orderly swoop to their fixed places. Then a great silence fell over the ship, every man at his place, only the creak of the rigging as the Isabelle sped across the water.
Gabriel appeared beside Tamsyn, his face grim.
“Those Froggies take one look at that treasure, little girl, and that's the last we'll see of it.”
“They'd have to win first, Gabriel, and somehow I don't think Captain Lattimer intends to lose this battle prize,” Tamsyn said, unable to hide her own thrill.
Gabriel grunted and drew his broadsword, holding it up to the light. He spat on the blade and polished it with his kerchief before thrusting it back into its sheath.
“Clear for action, Mr. Connaught.” Captain Lattimer’s voice was as quiet and controlled as ever, but there was a gleeful light in the bright-green eyes, a light reflected in the colonel's equally bright-blue orbs. “But keep the marines out of sight for the time being. Their scarlet coats are a giveaway.” He glanced sideways at the colonel, who with a grin shrugged out of his own scarlet tunic.
The decks were swabbed and scattered thick with sand. The guns were run out in a silence as smooth as silk. Cannon balls, chain shot, and canister shot were assembled. The six-man gun crews stood to their guns, the surgeon and his mates retreated to the cockpit, setting out their instruments on the midshipmen's trunks that served as a makeshift operating table.