8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Tristan stood on the quarterdeck and watched the harbor.
The tide had begun to turn. He felt it in the subtle change beneath the soles of his boots, in the faint new pull through the hull, in the anchor cable’s answering strain.
Men shifted with that restless, expectant irritation common among crews kept waiting.
Tristan’s fingers tightened on the rail. Where was she?
A yawn sounded at his side. Lorenzo lounged beside him, still reeking of wine and women.
“What a fine morning,” Lorenzo said, stretching, “to wait for our bellissima passeggera.”
Tristan looked at him slowly. “I hope you gave Miss d’Ailes an innocent compliment.”
“Of course, fratello.” Lorenzo’s expression opened into wounded virtue, which suited him as poorly as silence. “What do you take me for? A wolf in sheep’s trousers? I called her our beautiful passenger, which defines her completely, does it not?”
“She is indeed a passenger,” Tristan said. “Only that.”
She was not theirs. And she was indeed bellissima, blast Lorenzo’s accuracy, but the thought of other men arriving at this conclusion made something hot and mean move beneath Tristan’s ribs.
“Solamente la passeggera,” Lorenzo said solemnly. “Only a passenger. That is why we are not waiting for her while gripping the rail so hard the wood will soon break under our fingers.”
Tristan released the rail. “Do you not have some duty to attend to?”
Lorenzo smiled. “What duty is more important than teaching my brother Italian? You will soon need it.”
“I will need charts, orders, money, intelligence, and silence.”
“Silence,” Lorenzo said, considering. “Silenzio. Good. You have already mastered the blunt form. But let’s try something more suited for the court. For instance, sprezzatura is a very important word, especially for an Englishman.”
“I did not ask.”
“Sprezzatura is the art of appearing indifferent when one is in fact boiling inside.”
Tristan scanned the docks again. “I am not boiling.”
“No? Then perhaps simmering. Englishmen do not boil properly. They don’t have the right stomach for it.”
Tristan shook his head. Sprezzatura. Absurd word.
Italian frippery dressed as wisdom. He had no need to appear indifferent because he was indifferent.
The woman would come or not come. If she came, she would be carried to Naples.
If she did not, he would weigh anchor, put to sea, and cut off a complication before it acquired depth.
His gaze cut again to the quay. No pale bonnet. No lifted face. No gloved hand clutching at a boat rail.
Master Vale came to his elbow, crossing himself before he lowered his gaze to the water.
The slash across his cheek pulled white against his weathered Portuguese skin, a souvenir from the boarding of the Moreno, and his hooked nose gave every warning the look of prophecy.
“If we mean to clear the Roads cleanly, sir, we should weigh within the half hour.”
“I know,” Tristan said through his teeth.
The ship had begun to lean toward departure like a hound held too long by the collar, and the delay cost speed, angle, temper, discipline.
First Lieutenant Hardy waited a pace behind the master, straight-backed and solemn as only a boy who had cut away family, land, and every softer inheritance for the Navy could be.
Bright red hair burned beneath his hat, and freckles covered him more thickly than sand on a beach.
“Hands are ready to weigh, sir. Boat’s crew not yet returned. ”
The boat’s crew not yet returned meant no longboat. No Marguerite. No maid. No trunks. No passenger with a bargain that made sprezzatura only possible because he was grinding his teeth very hard.
Lorenzo nodded to the lieutenant. “He knows that too, Hardy.”
Hardy’s gaze flicked once toward Tristan’s hands, then wisely elsewhere. “Aye, sir.”
Both men withdrew.
The deck noise filled the space they left behind. The quarter hour shrank by the second.
“There is an expression in Italian that I do not think exists in English. Not truly. While the English miss things like entries in an account book, the Italian suffers them.” Lorenzo leaned against the rail, his gaze tender.
“We say mi manca. It is different from I miss something. It means something is lacking to me, and the body knows the absence. For a person, one says, tu mi manchi. You are missing from me.”
Tristan did not miss women. He wanted them, took them, left them, remembered them when memory suited appetite.
His hand had found the bracelet again, though he had not given it leave to move.
His thumb worked over the stones, counting them by touch.
His eyes searched the harbor between one thought and the next, catching on every pale bonnet, every flutter of ribbon, every female figure stepping into or out of shadow.
His lungs felt too narrow for the morning air.
He had just drawn breath to dismiss Lorenzo’s nonsense when the shout came from aft. Tristan’s head snapped toward the water.
The longboat came clear of the brig’s shadow. A pale ribbon snapped in the wind. A gloved hand gripped the gunwale. Marguerite. Then her face turned upward toward the frigate, chin lifted against the glare, and the empty place beneath his ribs closed with such force that it felt like being struck.
She had come. She was there, in his boat, being brought to his ship.
Tristan turned from the rail and strode to the break of the quarterdeck, his coat snapping behind him in the wind.
“Rig the accommodation ladder properly,” he barked.
“Two hands at the foot. Two at the entry port. The lady’s trunks go up through the sling. No one jostles that boat. No one touches the lady unless she asks or loses her footing.”
Men moved faster. Good.
“If any man laughs, he spends the afternoon holystoning until he can see his damned conscience in the planks.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Blankets ready. And someone tell the boat crew if they bring her alongside like cargo, I will make cargo of them.”
This time, she would arrive properly. No swaying rope ladder. No risky ascent. No cold spray touching her stockings. If Marguerite d’Ailes were to be wet aboard his ship, he would have the privilege, not the sea.
The longboat was very close. She looked up. Their gazes met across the moving water. Tristan went still. There was no tide, no crew, no Naples, no Lorenzo beside him. Only Marguerite d’Ailes in the longboat, pale bonnet ribbons whipping at her cheek, eyes lifted to his.
“Respira, fratello,” Lorenzo said. “It means breathe. I mention it because you have misplaced the habit.”
Indeed, Tristan could not breathe. His lungs had forgotten how. He watched as she stood on the boat and placed her feet on the accommodation ladder.
Lorenzo whistled. “Only a passenger indeed,” he murmured. “But what a lovely one.”
Tristan did not look away from her. “If you call her lovely again, I will throw you overboard.”