Another man walked behind them. “Ye and yer lady be blessed with strong stomachs. Maybe the sea be in yer blood? Most folks hang over the rails retching their first week.”
Bauer punched the man in the shoulder. “Like yer first week, Cotton.”
“And yer first two,” Cotton retorted, hanging behind to continue insulting his crew mate.
Fitzwilliam cast her such an apologetic look, Elizabeth sucked in her cheeks to stifle a giggle. She could not fail to appreciate how these rough men treated him, with a sense of camaraderie and respect.
Another man joined them on the upper deck, an opened bottle in his hand. Fitzwilliamintroduced the wine-wielding man as the ship’s cook, Jean-Christophe.
“You two, shoo! Adieu!” he barked at the sailors. Gesturing openly at the endless sky, he said, “There are few clouds; the sea is as smooth as glass. Can you not see it is a night for lovers?”
Bauer scurried down the steps to the main deck, but Cotton stayed where he was.
Turning to Elizabeth, Jean-Christophe added, “Mr. Darcy is not so bad in the kitchen, is he, mademoiselle? I will say this in his favor: he learns very fast.”
She smiled at the Frenchman. “Thanks, without a doubt, to his teacher, I should think.”
Fitzwilliam looked as though he wished the sea would swallow him whole. While Elizabeth wished to spare him embarrassment, his inability to hide his vulnerability made him ever more dear to her.
Jean-Christophe laughed heartily, nudging Fitzwilliam with his elbow. “I like this one. You do too, eh?” Wiggling his eyebrows, he then turned to Elizabeth. Taking her hand, he bowed over it. “Good food makes the heart happy, but the love of a good woman … ah … now, that makes for a happy life.”
“Females be trouble. Ye can keep ‘em so long as ye keep the weevils out of me biscuits,” Cotton grumbled.
Jean-Christophe waved his bottle at Cotton’s head, and the two of them continued arguing while Mr. Darcy steered her away.
Looking up at the tall pole, Mr. Darcy examined the ladder stretching up to a platform at the top.
Elizabeth knew what he was thinking, and she delighted in his surprise when she placed her hands on the wooden rungs and began to climb. It was no worse than the trees she had climbed as a child at Longbourn, only much easier without her skirts wrapping around her feet. Or so she thought until she was part-way to the platform and made the mistake of looking down. The trees she had climbed were half this pole’s height, and they did not swing about.
Clinging to the rungs, bolstering her resolve to gain the platform, she yelped when a sliver pierced through her palm.
Fitzwilliam climbed behind her faster than she could turn her palm for a look, then replaced it when she decided her grip on the rung was more important than removing the wooden fragment. His body was warm and solid and had they not been hanging perilously high, she would have been more tempted than she presently was to lean against him.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, pressing against her, lending her his strength and addling her thoroughly.
“It is only a sliver.” Her voice sounded breathy in her own ears.
“Let us get to the foretop, and we shall have a look.”
Slowly, quietly, they inched their way upward, every shift of her weight brushing against Fitzwilliam and sending tingles bursting throughher limbs.
The pole they climbed was called the foremast, Fitzwilliam explained to her, pointing out and naming the different parts of the ship and its sails until they reached the platform and Elizabeth forgot her brief bout of fear. She had almost forgotten her sliver, too, until he reached for her hand and plucked it out. It amazed Elizabeth that Fitzwilliam’s large, calloused hands could turn her palm so gently. And when he tenderly blew against her skin, her heart flipped in her chest. “Is that better?” he asked.
She nodded. So much better.
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. There was much to say, but neither of them were in a hurry to speak. They watched the golden red sun dip into the ocean’s horizon and observed the first stars twinkle.
A sailor played the flute below, and several others shuffled, stomped, and clapped. The more agile of the motley bunch did all three. It was getting darker, and Elizabeth only saw the outlines of their forms. “Why do they not light candles?” she asked.
“Candles are not allowed after dark. It is one way they avoid discovery, and it prevents the men from setting the ship on fire when they are in their cups.”
She tilted her chin to see him better. “Jean-Christophe was right. You have learned a great deal in the short time you have been aboard this ship.”
“Elizabeth,” he whispered her name softly, hisbreath caressing her cheek. “I am sorry I expressed myself so poorly at Hunsford.”
She had been prepared to relay every detail she could remember of his and her family’s efforts to find him, of the colonel’s exertions on his behalf to see Lydia and Wickham married, to tell him that his sister would soon arrive at London. She had not expected another apology. This must be the night for them, and she would rather get them out of the way. “I spoke in ignorance.”
“I insulted your family.”
