“That’s the spirit, Captain!” Simpkins quickly gathered the small sail on the creaky boat the Kincaid family had used to cross the Sound for at least forty years. For reasons best known to herself, blasted Flora had had it painted bright red and yellow and dotted the sails with childish daisies. Therefore, despite its diminutive size, the little boat stood out against the dark, sensible colors of the navy fleet—much like the beguiling Miss Rowe did in a crowd—drawing every eye to its inauspicious arrival.
With the perfect timing of a seasoned sailor that negated any need for Harry to lift a finger from the canary yellow rudder, his right-hand was up and ready to toss the line to the waiting man on the dock. “Captain Kincaid reporting for duty on the HMSBoadicea.” An instruction that had the shore team hopping and saluting as if he were visiting royalty, no doubt thanks to Admiral Nugent, who would have warned them to expect hellfire to rain down on whoever stood in Harry’s way.
With his embarrassing boat tethered, Harry saluted back, then waved away all offers of an escort to take him first to his new office and then his ship. He knew this place like the back of his hand thanks to regular visits here throughout his boyhood with his grandfather. He also needed a few silent minutes to bury all his tumultuous emotions before he had to be the no-nonsense Royal Navy fixer that was Captain Henry Augustus Kincaid.
Plymouth Dockyard was its usual noisy flurry of seemingly chaotic business, which wasn’t actually chaotic at all when you understood its necessary rhythm. Along the quay, an endless plethora of naval vessels of all shapes and sizes were tied tight to the giant iron bollards while being either loaded for a voyage or unloaded after one. Their many naked masts resembled reeds swaying gently against thehorizon. Tall, spindly cranes whose size belied their strength—much like Miss Rowe—swung enormous loads wrapped in tarpaulin or rope, giant parcels of supplies holding everything from spare rigging to the sailors’ rum rations.
As he watched the familiar scene, Harry realized that after just a week, he did not miss his procurement job at the Admiralty at all. If anything, he was relieved to be done with that logistical nightmare. He wouldn’t do that job again if they paid him quadruple. A welcome realization which buoyed him slightly.
Maybe some distance from that suffocating role was all he had needed to be able to see the wood for the trees? He had been so busy in Whitehall that he never had the time to allow his true feelings for that thankless promotion to properly manifest. Yet now, he could see why he had been so dissatisfied with it all with crystal clarity. It had been a means to an end and not what he wanted to do. Which all rather suggested that this massive change of direction in his career was for the best too. That epiphany gave him renewed hope that he would find the enthusiasm for his career that had been sorely missing this last year as well and…
“There she is, Captain!” Simpkins was beside himself with joy as he pointed out theBoadiceabetween the piers at the very front of the building yard. “Blimey, she’s a beauty! Look at the size of her!”
If a person’s first reaction was the most honest one, then Harry’s wasn’t half as effusive as Simpkins’s. Yes, there was no denying that theBoadiceawas indeed a handsome vessel—even swaddled in scaffold and with workmen’s cradles filled with paint pots dangling from her rail. She was also impressive; enough to take his breath away. At least fifty cannons already poked out of the gunports of the triple decks on the starboard side. Three chunky masts stabbed the sky above, naked and still awaiting their sails. So vast that shedwarfed all the other ships around her and so regal she demanded everyone’s respect. Yet as he craned his neck upward to take it all in, Harry still did not feel that surge of pride he had expected as her captain, nor any sense of connection to the vessel at all, for that matter. Only irritation that it existed and a sense of… flatness.
His boot had barely touched the gangplank than he was piped aboard with all the misplaced ceremonial formality that only His Majesty’s Royal Navy could properly pull off at a moment’s notice.
Word had clearly already made it to the few men on board that the new captain had turned up early to surprise them, as the shipwrights still working on the bow were doing their best impressions of busy men on a mission. That it was barely two on a Thursday afternoon and he could only count five of the supposed fifty workers also explained why the bloodyBoadiceawas so far behind schedule. Whoever was in charge was very lax indeed. While he made a mental note to find out who their useless supervisor was and have him replaced quick sharp, the motley crew of just three sailors up on the main deck had started to gather, ready to be inspected.
A very tall, very thin, very young lieutenant met him and saluted with all the stiffness of one who wanted to make the very best first impression. “Captain Kincaid, I am Lieutenant Ashley Gregson.” The clipped, aristocratic accent was a dead giveaway that Gregson was either some titled gent’s heir or his spare. “It’s an honor to be serving under you, sir.” Although he was at least six and twenty—by which age Harry had already taken his first command—Gregson appeared too wet behind the ears to be given such a position of authority on a ship this big. However, as Harry had been an early bloomer too, he decided not to judge a book by its cover and to give the lad a chance, as he knew how it felt to be judged unfairly for the unforgivable crime of youthfulness. “Stand at ease, Gregson. When did you get here?”
“Yesterday, sir,” said the lieutenant, not standing any easier. “I was transferred from theKingfisher.” A big enough boat that suggested young Gregson might well know his poop deck from his mizzenmast after all. Although by the assessing expression on Simpkins’s face, his right-hand was unconvinced. But such was the usual wariness between the commissioned sailors and the enlisted. The navy, in their narrow-minded wisdom, refused to promote fine mariners like Simpkins, who had clawed their way up the hard way, into the officer class. That was still reserved for gentlemen only, irrespective of how competent the gentlemen actually were at sea—and so many weren’t. It would be one of the first archaic things Harry abolished if he ever became admiral of the fleet.
He decided not to overthink why he had put anifin that casual thought in case it meant something significant, when up until now it had always been a definitivewhen I am admiral of the fleet. It was just a random thought, after all, on the back of a busy and fraught week; there was no need for his mind to single that random one out and imbue it with unnecessary gravitas. Although it did anyway.
“Then seeing as you have a day’s head start on us, why don’t you give us the tour, Lieutenant?”
“Your supper is stone cold,” said Ada unapologetically as she waved her wooden spoon at Harry seven hours later. “In this house, supper is served at seven on the dot and always has been in the fifty years I’ve worked here. Them’s the rules, Harry, and a man who wears two watches should do a better job of arriving on time.”
“Sorry, Ada.” He did his best impression of a man contrite. It came easily tonight because he was contrite. Despite trying his hardest to focus all day on the bloodyBoadiceaand its myriad problemsthat he needed to fix in just a month, his mind had wandered too frequently back to Miss Rowe and how he had upset her instead. “At least I am back in time for the children’s bedtime.” Although judging by the silence in the house beyond this kitchen, he might be too late for that too. “Where are they?”
“Gone for their baths.” The spoon jabbed at the ceiling. “If you shake a leg, you might see them before Georgie tucks them in for the night.” Clearly everyone on the planet had the right to call the siren by her given name except him, and that galled, even though he knew he needed that formal barrier between them. “Where’s Simpkins?” She tilted to look behind him with an expression that said she knew full well why his right-hand wasn’t there. “Don’t tell me. He’s gone for a jar at the Ship tavern.”
There was no point denying it. Cawsand was small and the community as thick as thieves. “As he’s ceased being my butler, his evenings are now his own—but he did say he was only going for the one.”
“Well, when he finally gets home after the five or six that he’s really gone for, let him know that his food is cold too.” She gave him a light thwack on his arm with her spoon. “You’ll both be home by seven tomorrow, young man, or I’ll make you wear your dinner like a hat.”
“Yes, Ada.” Harry had known her too many years not to believe she meant it. “I really am sorry.” That was bound to be his easiest apology tonight. He still didn’t quite know how to tackle the next one and decided he would play it by ear when the time came.
And talking of time…
He checked one of his pocket watches for Ada’s benefit. “I’d best shake a leg, as you said, to catch the children.” After which, he needed to have a more difficult conversation with their governess thanthis morning’s. Except this one would be based on truth and not the pathetic and handy lies he had unintentionally hurt her with.
Harry took the stairs two at a time in his haste to get to her and get it over with, then paused in the half-open doorway to watch her in action.
She was curled up on the bed with Grace, reading the children a story. Her vibrant hair was gloriously unruly after a day herding his nieces and nephew and had long escaped its pins. Norbert had made a pillow of her feet and was snoring upside down and spread-eagled across the bottom of the mattress while Felix was listening intently from his cross-legged position on the rug. Marianne was lounging on her belly next to him, her chin propped in her hands.
As Miss Rowe read something about a pumpkin at midnight and a woman running away from a handsome prince who was left bereft with just her shoe, both Harry’s nieces inhaled. “How is he ever going to find her again?” asked Grace, so engrossed in the tale she thought it was true.
“He’s not,” replied Felix, matter-of-fact. “She’s a maid and he’s a prince and they move in very different circles. He’d be marrying below himself and princes don’t do that in real life.”
“If there’s no happy ending then I do not wish to hear the rest!” Marianne yanked off the paper crown she was wearing, and before she threw it in disgust, Harry could not resist intervening.
“I am sure it will end happily if you give your poor governess some peace and quiet to finish the story.”
Miss Rowe jumped at that, took one look at him, and blushed. Then she snapped the book closed at the same time as she surged to her feet. “You shall have to wait until tomorrow night to see how it ends. I shall leave you all to say your good nights to your uncle.”
She could not even bring herself to look at him as she scurriedpast. Proof, if proof were needed, she now thoroughly hated him, although whether that was as a result of him taking gross advantage of her person last night or thanks to his clumsy, cowardly words of this morning, he had no clue. The masochistic little devil within was rooting for the latter, as that was the only option which could be fixed to end happily for them like the prince and the pumpkin lady—and to hell with the navy. That devil wanted him to ignore all the sound and pressing reasons that made her and him impossible, simply to have an excuse to kiss her again. Preferably as soon as possible.
