Chapter Fifteen
Georgie had been in an odd mood all evening. Unsettled and distracted. While she knew that a great deal of that was as a result of the unexpected but enlightening sight of the captain in his bath, she also felt bad for what had happened. She hadn’t seen him since the frog had sought refuge in his bathwater and Felix and Marianne rolled around the floor, hysterical, as if the whole debacle was the funniest thing they had ever seen.
She knew an apology was in order.
“What time will Captain Kincaid be back?” If the memory of his naked torso was destined to make sleep impossible, she might as well wait up until he got home to get it over and done with. “I need to speak to him.”
“Those fancy balls tend to go on way past midnight,” said Mrs. Rigsby, stirring her customary pot of bedtime cocoa for all the servants to enjoy before they turned in for the night. “So I don’t suppose he’ll be home till one.”
“He won’t be back till morning,” said Simpkins over the top of his newspaper. Then, with a saucy wink, added, “He’s on shore leave tonight, Georgie, for the first time in forever, so he might not even turn up till the afternoon if he’s lucky.”
“How can he be on shore leave when he hasn’t gone away to sea?”
At Georgie’s baffled response and the butler’s subsequent chuckle, Mrs. Rigsby gave him a clip around the ear and a glare so potent it made Simpkins laugh all the harder behind his well-thumbed copy of the London Gazette. “He’s… um… indisposed, Georgie, that’s what Simpkins means.” The cook’s cheeks reddened as she tried to answer and then reddened some more at Georgie’s still-baffled face. “Doing the sort of things that sailors are infamous for doing when they get to port.”
“Oh,” said Georgie, none the wiser until Simpkins threw his head back and roared at her naivety and Mrs. Rigsby’s entire face blushed scarlet and suddenly it all made sense. “Oh! Well…” Her own cheeks burned hot, but not as hot as the instant flash of outrage and jealousy. “I suppose I shall have to speak to him tomorrow, then.” Although how she was supposed to look him in the eye when she’d likely spend the rest of tonight picturing him entwined with a horrid, light-skirted but doubtless stunning temptress, she did not know.
Blushing herself, Georgie raced out of the kitchen and slammed straight into the captain’s chest. Instinctively, her flattened palms braced against that solid wall of maleness and felt those intriguing muscles over his ribcage. Felt the heat emanating from his skin even through his clothes. Even felt the drum of his heartbeat beneath, which seemed to speed up and race at the same unnerving canter as hers did.
She risked glancing up and lost herself in his stormy gaze. She was so entranced, she would have likely remained staring doltishly into his dark eyes for all eternity but, to her utter horror, he held her out at arm’s length with a startled frown. Then every bit of her pale and insipid redhead’s skin instantly combusted, and she burned so pink she knew that she would put a beetroot to shame. “My apologies, Captain Kincaid. I wasn’t expecting you to be here… um… so early.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be here myself either, but alas, here I am.” He attempted a smile, which quickly wavered as his eyes drifted to her horrid hair, and then gave up to address Simpkins over her shoulder as if she wasn’t there anymore. Which was just as well because it gave Georgie a well-needed moment to return her scrambled wits to some order. “Sorry to disturb you at the end of your day, Simpkins, but I’m afraid I need a quick word… in my study.”
Everything from the tone of that statement to its delivery suggested that the quick word wasn’t going to be good. The way he stalked off afterward confirmed it.
“Of course.” With an odd glance at Mrs. Rigsby, Simpkins followed his master down the hallway, leaving a still-blushing Georgie all alone with Mrs. Rigsby and a maelstrom of improper thoughts and sensations that did nothing to calm her racing heart.
“It appears his shore leave was either curtailed or canceled.” And she wasn’t entirely sure what she felt about that beyond relieved. “Poor Captain Kincaid.”
“Poor Captain Kincaid, indeed.” Oblivious to her sarcasm, and thankfully Georgie’s seething but irrational jealousy, Mrs. Rigsby stared down the empty hallway, thoughtful. “Did he just seem off to you?”
“As he’s always off with me, it’s hard to tell.” Although she sincerely doubted his paramour shared that problem. He wouldn’t be off with her. He’d be on. “I am naught but a disappointment to that man.” By the disgusted expression on his face as he had peeled her off him, he would certainly never be caught dead even contemplating some shore leave with her. Not that she wanted that, of course.
Not rationally, at least. Because why on earth would she harbor romantic thoughts for a man like the colonel?
Except the captain wasn’t like the colonel in the slightest. He might be a bit stiff and pompous and a dreadful stickler, but he was also kind and charming, noble and so handsome he made her all aquiver, so irrationally, she had started to harbor them anyway. Pathetic, shallow fool that she was.
“By off, I mean… bothered.” The cook removed the steaming cocoa from the range and poured some into three cups. “Not himself. Upset, even.”
As Georgie took the proffered cup, annoyed at herself for her ridiculous reaction and futile attraction, she shrugged. “Again, as I have a habit of upsetting him, I really couldn’t say.” Except she also sensed he wasn’t himself for some reason—and that bothered her. “He always seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, but they did look a bit more… burdened perhaps than usual, yes.” Had she become so enamored of the man—or his dratted shoulders—that she now misguidedly thought that she could read him too? What fanciful nonsense was that?
A lost cause, that was what. Because she was clearly an idiot. The biggest, daftest, and most masochistic ninny to ever live if she was seriously harboring a tender for him! Captain Kincaid. A man who wore a uniform! A man who lived for his uniform! And a man who hated her horrid hair so much he could barely stand to look at it for longer than he had to!
Georgie was so staggered by her own stupidity it was a wonder she wasn’t currently spitting actual feathers! While she completely understood why he disliked her hair, because nobody could dislike it more than she did, he didn’t have to be quite so obvious about it. That was just plain rude. And he liked to go on shore leave with a seductress who likely had compliant and elegant hair of an acceptable and attractive shade. And that was all crowned by the inescapable and inexcusable fact that the wretch wore a uniform and she could tolerate that least of all!
“He’s not usually so easily unsettled.” Mrs. Rigsby sipped her cocoa. “I wonder what’s happened?”
“Nothing good, that’s for certain.” How Georgie knew that when she barely knew him, she wasn’t sure, but it set her on edge regardless. A very different sort of edge than the news of his shore leave had.
Whatever it was, it obviously put Mrs. Rigsby on edge, too, as she was uncharacteristically quiet while they both waited for Simpkins to return. When he did, though, he was smiling. “The captain has been promoted and it’s a hefty one, to boot. They’ve given him a flagship, although it’s still being built, and they’ve also dangled the commodore’s carrot, so he’ll shortly be receiving all the bells and whistles that go with that lofty rank. I’m chuffed for him.” Simpkins grabbed his mug of cocoa and toasted the air with it. “He deserves it.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Mrs. Rigsby clutched her ample bosom, laughing. “His return was so subdued I was sure he had received bad news!”
“Thankfully, it was the exact opposite.” Simpkins’s smile stretched even wider. “He’s just a bit overwhelmed by it, that’s all. He’s also got a lot to do before he leaves, so I dare say he doesn’t know quite where to start with it yet either.”
“He’s leaving?” Against her better judgment, Georgie found little to celebrate in that. “Why, when the ship isn’t even finished?”
“Somebody has to oversee the finishing of it and who better than the man who will take the helm?” Simpkins settled into his chair to drink his beverage. “He has to report to Plymouth next week.”
“For how long?”
“For the foreseeable. He might venture back to town on the odd occasion while he recruits the right crew, as he’ll need a good eight hundred of the best sailors, but he’s been stationed to the Plymouth dock until August when the Boadicea has got to be finished. Who knows where they’ll send him after? That all depends on where the worst trouble is.”
“What do you mean by trouble?” The more Georgie heard, the more her horrid, unappealing orange hair stood on end.
“Well, war, obviously,” said Simpkins, as if she were daft. “A first-rate ship has over a hundred guns for only one reason, Georgie, and that’s to blow the enemy out of the water.”
“Oh dear.” Images of the tragic death of Nelson skittered through her mind. “That isn’t good.”
“It isn’t good.” Simpkins beamed. “It’s bloody marvelous! They only entrust those that are first-rate with a first-rate ship of the line. Warships are cumbersome and temperamental brutes who need a steady hand and a quick mind to keep them afloat. But the captain has both those things in spades, so he’ll do fine. Especially with the right crew behind him, and I’ll be one of them. He asked me to be his sailing master again. I’ll reenlist as soon as we get to Plymouth.” Simpkins sighed with satisfaction as he sipped his cocoa. “It’ll be good to get back out to sea. I’ve missed it.”
“But not so good to always be sailing toward trouble, Mr. Simpkins.” Georgie’s vivid imagination had decided to abandon all its scandalous musings of her as the captain’s willing distraction in favor of more macabre prophecies of potential doom. “You could both be killed.”
He shrugged at Georgie’s comment. “Such is a sailor’s life. Sailing toward trouble is what we do, and we all have to die of something. At least the hot kiss of a musket ball or the punch from a cannon is a quick and clean way to go.” He shrugged those grisly ends off as if he was completely at peace with the risks. “And we’d likely have our names chiseled in perpetuity onto a monument somewhere, so that will be nice too.”
“Nice?” Were all military men this mad? “But what about the children?” If the threat of death wasn’t enough to make the captain think twice about going, then maybe reminding him of his responsibilities on land might. “They were entrusted into his care by his sister! Surely he can’t just abandon them at the drop of a hat?” Especially if sailing away from them involved him being blown to smithereens!
“Of course he can. This is the biggest promotion of his career and his sister will understand that. Not that he needs her understanding when she didn’t even have the decency to ask him if she could leave the blighters here. And they’ve still got you, haven’t they?” Simpkins seemed shocked by her outrage. “It’s not as if the little buggers are his.”
As that cavalier response only served to annoy her, and because she was suddenly so unsettled by the bombshell that had just been dropped on her from on high, Georgie decided to try and reason with the captain instead.
As she stalked to his study, irrationally more furious at him for getting promoted than she was with his shore leave she didn’t hold out much hope he would listen. Military men only ever put themselves first, last, and always—even if that also meant they got themselves killed in the process. However, she had to say something. When something was wrong, it was wrong, and not saying so was wrong too. Him going—leaving—now felt wrong. So wrong someone had to fight against it.
She went to hammer on his half-open door, ready to give him what for, but paused when she saw him staring out of his window at the night. His posture told her that while Simpkins was celebrating his master’s elevation, the master wasn’t. She had never seen anyone look quite as lost as the captain did at this precise moment and, once again against her better judgment, she instantly pitied him.
“Might I have a word, Captain?”
He spun around at her question and forced a weak smile. “Of course.” He swept a reluctant hand toward the chair in front of his desk. Then slowly lowered himself into his own seat with a wince as he stared briefly at her awful hair again. As much as her inner Joan of Arc had plenty to say, now that she knew he was troubled, she would start gently. Try to be a diplomat for once, despite it not being her forte.
“I hear congratulations are in order—Commodore.” She had never seen him in uniform before and was unprepared for how good he looked in it. He wore it well. Or perhaps, in this moment, he bore it well, although she had no clue why she thought that beyond the fact that it seemed to be one of the things currently weighing him down. “That is quite an impressive leap, even for someone like you, who is no stranger to early promotions.”
He waved that compliment away, his brow furrowed. “I am not a commodore yet, Miss Rowe, but yes, I suppose it is quite a leap to be given a ship of such gravitas so early in one’s career.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed—hard—and his expression became so grave he looked ten years older than the version of himself she had witnessed sitting in his bathwater not four hours ago.
“I hear things will be quite rushed if you are to get to Plymouth by next week.”
“Yes.” Perhaps she was imagining it, but his eyes were more bothered than thrilled. “There is a lot to organize.” Out of habit, his fingers fiddled with one of the pocket watches strung across his pale cream, brass-buttoned waistcoat, as if that would help slow time in the interim. “I am yet to know how to find enough hours in the next thirty-six hours to do it all.”
“Just a day and a half? So soon?”
He shrugged. Even that seemed to take all his effort. “The interminable journey to Plymouth alone takes a week.” His shoulders slumped some more. “Plymouth has never been the easiest of places to get to. By land, at least.” He forced his frown into blandness again, unconsciously touching the other pocket watch and formalizing his posture as if he were suddenly eager to be rid of her to get on with things. “But you wanted a word?” His eyes fixed on the pile of letters on his desk rather than look at her, and he quickly selected one to slice open and read. An unconscious, or perhaps entirely conscious, gesture designed to let her know that the contents of his missive were more important than anything she might have to say. Yet while that made her inner St. Joan bristle, it set alarm bells ringing in that peculiar, intuitive part of her that was convinced it saw into his soul. Something was very wrong here, but she did not know what.
“I wanted two, actually.” He might want to speed this conversation up, but she needed to do the opposite if she was going to convince him to reconsider leaving straightaway as that niggling voice in her head told her she needed to.
“Firstly, I wanted to apologize for the unfortunate incident with the frog earlier. Had I known Norbert had brought a friend home from the park, I never would have allowed him near the house. Had I also known that you were home, I never would have interrupted your bath as I did, and then inadvertently dragged in the whole household behind me. At the very least, I should have knocked before I attempted to relieve Norbert of his contraband.”
He waved that away. “What? And deny everyone such splendid entertainment?” His eyes danced briefly as if he also saw the funny side of the debacle. “That young lady you brought in with you could barely contain her delight at my predicament. I believe she even snorted at one point.”
Her friend had done more than snort. Lottie had snorted, ogled, and then waxed lyrical for ten minutes after the incident on what a truly fine specimen of manhood the captain was. Then, in front of Mrs. Rigsby, her incorrigible friend had reiterated her opinion that Georgie should absolutely use her wiles on him at her earliest possible convenience before somebody else pipped her to the post! “I absolutely must apologize for Lottie. She grew up in a houseful of men and struggles with ladylike behavior.”
“If anyone should apologize for earlier, Miss Rowe, it is that mad dog. Although I suspect he is also entirely unrepentant for either the havoc he wreaked with the frog or the mud he smeared over all my bedsheets.” He forgot to suppress his half smile momentarily, and her silly heart sighed. “How is said frog?”
“Delighted to be back in the Serpentine where he belongs. Felix and I took him without Norbert, who was less than delighted to be left behind.”
“His howling suggested as much.” That amused him too, she could tell, but he pushed it away fast. No sooner had his smile melted than his eyes returned to a missive on his desk, suddenly looking again every inch the single-minded military man who had more important things to do with his time than waste it on a conversation with a governess. “However, I daresay the dog would not have had the chance to kidnap the poor frog in the first place if you hadn’t gone back to wasting almost every hour of the children’s valuable lesson time outside again when you have a perfectly serviceable and well-stocked classroom here in the house.”
“Wasn’t it Wellington who said being born in a stable does not make one a horse?”
“And what has that to do with frogs and your aversion to classrooms, Miss Rowe?”
“That your particular area of expertise is commanding men to do precisely what the navy expects of them and mine is to encourage children to learn in the best possible way. Therefore, I fear that we shall have to agree to disagree on the benefits of confining education to the classroom.”
“If you know enough Wellington to be able to quote him, then you will also know that discipline is the soul of an army—” Now he wasn’t simply misquoting, he was ill-quoting too.
“I am surprised a proud English militarian who fought in the War of 1812 against America would stoop to quoting George Washington to prove a point.”
He went to counter, then frowned. “Are you sure that was Washington?”
“Sure enough to wager a hundred guineas on it, Captain, as he also said that military arrangements and movements, in consequence, like the mechanism of a clock, will be imperfect and disordered by the want of a part.” Georgie could not help reaching across the table and flicking one of his two pocket watches as she practically sung that. “And that always reminds me of you.”
What had possessed her to say that? Do that? And with a wry smile on her face that let him know that she thought his obsession with time was funny.
“Right, then…” He glanced down at his still-swaying watch, unimpressed, obviously back to being the hard-boiled Captain Kincaid who was easier to dislike than the soft-boiled one she had made hot chocolate for ten days ago, because his whole demeanor was formal again. Her fault. She had insulted a clock and that was clearly a cardinal sin. “What was the second thing you wished to discuss?” He then clicked open one of his dratted watches to let her know that she’d already had all her allotted time, and that forced Georgie to give her wayward tongue a warning.
Be diplomatic!
“I wanted to talk to you about the children.” His eyes narrowed, expecting the worst. “They need you and it isn’t fair for you to leave them.”
She thought he was going to tell her off for her impertinence as she fully expected—but he didn’t. He held her gaze for several moments, irritated, before his shoulders slumped again.
“It isn’t fair.” He sighed as he nodded his agreement, surprising her yet again that he occasionally possessed the ability to be reasonable and… human.
“Can’t you postpone leaving for just a few weeks? At least give them a bit more time with their favorite uncle, while they are already missing their parents so much, before you abandon them. They are your responsibility, after all.” Of its own accord, her schoolmistress’s finger began to wag. “Entrusted to you specifically by your sister, and such disruption in their young lives again so soon after—”
He caught her finger mid-wag. “Before you lecture me on my responsibilities—which I can assure you I need no reminders of—” There was anger swirling in those dark eyes now. Anger and guilt and, she could have sworn, briefly a hint of despair in them too, although she couldn’t be sure when his skin was touching hers and hers seemed to have come alive as a result. As that was most distracting indeed, she tugged her finger from his grasp and clasped it on her lap. “I had already decided I would drag the children along with me to Plymouth rather than simply abandon them.”
“What?” She hadn’t expected him to say that.
“I shall task Polly with packing all their things tomorrow, so they are ready to leave with the lark the following morning as I must be in Plymouth by the first.” He fiddled with the paper on his desk again rather than look at her in a way that made her wonder if he was about to inform her that her services were no longer required. Tasking Polly with the packing certainly suggested that. As the lack of “us” did in the telling “leave with the lark” comment, which did not in any way seem to include her. “As inconvenient as taking them with me is, it feels like the most prudent thing to do as it will be impossible to watch over them as I have specifically been entrusted otherwise.”
“How selfish!” That retort exploded angry enough that even the captain was taken aback.
So much for diplomacy and tact!
But in her defense, his affronted and patronizing tone had brought St. Joan to the fore, and once she was out, she was out. As, it seemed, was Georgie—at least as far as this temporary position was concerned. Which all rather made the need for diplomacy moot anyway. “And how irresponsible!” The renegade finger wagged again. “You cannot drag them all the way to Plymouth!”
His dark brows furrowed in the same arrogant manner as the colonel’s always had when one of his superior decisions was questioned. “Whyever not? When not a moment ago you argued that my abandoning them again was too disruptive and wasn’t fair, so how is taking them with me worse?”
“Because forcing children to up sticks and move to a strange place simply at the whim of the navy will be even more disruptive and unsettling for the poor dears when they have only just settled here!” That was a travesty that Georgie—and not St. Joan—felt passionate about. “As one who was constantly dragged around at the whim of the army until I was sixteen, I know that whatever barracks you incarcerate them in will not help them thrive.” That, she had bitter experience of. “Children are considered a nuisance to the military, Captain Kincaid. They are expected to stay shut indoors and be kept well out of everyone’s way.” Her schoolmistress’s finger wagged wildly now, and because she was incensed and apparently had nothing to lose, she let it do so with impunity.
“They endure unrelenting boredom, make no friends, have no respite from the regimented monotony and it crushes their spirits until there is nothing left of them to crush! Such a life, no matter how short, leaves scars, and those children…” The wagging stopped when Joan of Arc’s righteous finger suddenly pointed to the ceiling above, where those children were currently sleeping in blissful innocence of the travesty about to be inflicted upon them. “Your nieces and nephew—who adore you for some inexplicable reason—deserve better!”
For a moment, he appeared more amused by her outburst than outraged before he masked that with more matter-of-fact blandness. “Which is precisely why I am taking them home, Miss Rowe. My sister’s house in Cawsand is seven miles as the crow flies from the Plymouth Dockyard. I shall be staying with them there.”
Then, rather than enjoy her shocked expression as much as he seemed to want to, he returned his attention to the papers on his desk. After he frowned some more, he huffed but still did not look up.
“Despite my continued reservations about your somewhat untraditional methods of educating my sister’s feral children outside rather than in the classroom where they belong, or your incessantly and unnecessary wagging finger—” He glared at it because it was still poised, forcing her to lower it in contrition. “—the children seem to like you—though heaven only knows why—so I was going to ask you if you would like to come with us?”
There was the faintest glimmer of amusement and mischief in his dark eyes as he stared levelly. “Help mitigate against all that disruption that you are so incensed about that prevents the little monsters from thriving until my flighty sister returns. But if the thought of upping sticks and being dragged to Devon at the Royal Navy’s whim for just a month doesn’t appeal, I quite understand. You signed on expecting Mayfair, not the distant hell of Plymouth, and as I am about to breach the terms of our original contract, I shall of course pay you until the end of it if you choose to jump ship early. Kindly let me know your decision in the morning, Miss Rowe, and we shall go from there.”
He picked up his quill and offered her a dismissive nod. “I bid you and your finger good night.”