Close to the Wind Read online

  Harry saw her examining it as he put his hands to the back of his collar and began to pull the wine-stained shirt over his head. ‘My mother was a seamstress and monogrammed all my handkerchiefs when I went to school.’ His voice was slightly muffled by the cloth. ‘I was teased unmercifully and hated them, but now she’s dead, I can’t bring myself to throw them out, threadbare as they are these days.’

  Georgiana scarcely heard his words. Unlike most young women her age, she was well acquainted with male bodies. Growing up in the circus, she was used to seeing the torsos of working men and acrobats. Practising gymnastics with Charles had brought her a clear understanding of the differences between men and women, especially when one day she’d accidentally kicked him between the legs. There were also the daily sluice-downs of the crew on deck.

  But this was different. As his shirt rose, she glimpsed his taut stomach, the broad lines of his chest, the bands of rib and sternum overlaid by lines of muscle. Then the captain’s head emerged and Georgiana, cheeks hot, looked hurriedly away and began mopping the wine.

  ‘What school were you at?’ she asked, fighting to keep her voice casual.

  ‘Harrow.’

  ‘But how on earth did—’ she broke off, realising it was not the place of the youngest crew member to question his captain. Harry, however, did not seem to mind.

  ‘—the son of a penniless seamstress go to such an illustrious school?’

  She nodded, as she continued to wipe, not trusting herself to speak. Her tongue had a worrying way of running ahead of prudence.

  ‘We are not so different, George, you and I,’ he continued. ‘We were both whisked out of one world and dropped into another.’

  Georgiana glanced up and for the briefest second their looks tangled. After so many years of being viewed as an oddity, the seduction of being understood was almost too strong to resist, and she immediately dropped her eyes. If she wasn’t very, very careful, she’d be blurting the whole truth before she knew it.

  Luckily, Harry seemed to take her silence for boyish reticence. As he balled his shirt and flung it into a corner, he changed the subject. ‘You’ve a long job there thanks to Eric, the clumsy oaf! I should use his hide to scrub the keel. I was up all hours last night doing this tedious stuff and was just putting the finishing touches to it when he ruined the lot.’

  He strolled over to rummage in a chest and Georgiana paused in her mopping to steal a look at the lean lines of his back, the long indentation of his spine as he pulled out a shirt and shrugged into it, tucking it into the waist of his trousers. He turned to her.

  ‘I can’t face doing it all again. Up to the task, brat?’

  He’d taken to sometimes calling her that, his teasing tone robbing it of all its previous sting. In fact, in some strange way, it had formed a bond between them.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said promptly, ‘but …’ and she stopped and grinned.

  Harry cocked a brow. ‘But?’

  ‘Alec told me to clean out the bilges when I finished the ropes.’

  Harry laughed. ‘Ah, the perfect job for Eric! Seems the boy has done you a favour. Now, here’s the pen, ink and paper,’ he said, putting them in front of her. ‘I’ll be back later to see how you are going.’

  For the next hour Georgiana recorded cargo deliveries and ship stores. It was not always easy to read the sodden pages. The wine had washed away some of the firm but flourishing handwriting. One page was particularly hard to make out so she took the paper over to the porthole to see it better. A shelf of books to the right, caught her eye. Virgil, Plato and Horace all had the look of well-read books. There was also a book of verse which included poems by Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley. She smiled. Was the captain a secret romantic? Then she noticed several Shakespeare – Much Ado about Nothing, Macbeth, Richard the Third, Twelfth Night. With a glad cry, she took the last from the shelf and began scanning it.

  At that moment Harry walked in and said with an edge in his voice, ‘I don’t remember including reading in my orders.’

  Georgiana jumped and dropped the book with a clatter.

  ‘Careless, too,’ Harry said as he bent to pick it up. He glanced at the title and was surprised. ‘Twelfth Night?’

  ‘Sorry, Captain. I shouldn’t have touched them, I know. I came over to the light to read that page,’ she indicated to the abandoned sheet, ‘but your books caught my attention.’

  Harry eyed her as he propped against the table. ‘Are you a reader, George?’

  She felt uncomfortable under his gaze and decided honesty was the best policy. Little escaped Harry. ‘I enjoy it, yes. Particularly plays.’

  ‘Even Shakespeare?’

  ‘Especially Shakespeare.’

  ‘Hm.’ He regarded her for a minute. ‘Unusual choice for a schoolboy.’

  She felt her cheeks flame. ‘Poetry is unusual for a captain.’

  He lifted a brow. ‘Why? Do you think captains care only for seas and sails?’

  There it was again, that autocratic hauteur, despite his shabby clothes and lines of humour in his face. Georgiana, ever alert as an actress, couldn’t identify what it was. The set of the shoulders? The timbre in his deep voice? No, she thought, it was something more profound. It was as though the ability to lead and command were ingrained in him.

  ‘I can understand the pleasure the Odyssey might have for you,’ she said, ‘but I confess I was surprised to see the sonnets. I hadn’t pegged you as a romantic, Captain.’

  This made Harry smile. ‘No, I would certainly not describe myself as one, either. I don’t read them often but my father gave them to my mother.’ His fingers touched the anthology as he spoke. ‘She told me to always keep them safe.’

  ‘Oh, I thought perhaps you might …’

  ‘What? Have a love in my life that I sigh over when reading the poems? Not a chance of it. I have nothing to offer a wife. I’m a captain and a woman has no place on a ship.’

  Georgiana forced a laugh. ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘Absolutely not! This is a working ship. Having a woman around would be courting trouble in all sorts of ways. For a start, the crew believes women bring bad luck to a ship.’ Georgiana winced but Harry didn’t notice as he tapped his chest in light self-mockery, ‘Sally has complete possession of my heart, you know, and she won’t surrender her sovereignty easily. Besides, no woman with proper sensibilities would enjoy a life at sea.’

  Proper sensibilities? She should just get over her infatuation right now, for as her aunt would no doubt have been happy to point out, Georgiana had never had a proper sensibility in her whole life.

  ‘Some might find it a wonderful adventure.’

  She herself could think of nothing more splendid.

  Harry shook his head as he rose from the table and crossed to the bookshelf, replacing the play. ‘No lady could, nor should be asked to tolerate the discomforts and dangers of ship life. Only a man lacking every bit of consideration would expect his wife to traipse around the world with him. Keep that in mind when you begin growing face hair, George. Women are a softer sex and need looking after.’

  He was right next to her and she didn’t know whether to step back or obey her desire to get even closer. Harry smelt of the sea and the wind. ‘Surely not all of them.’

  ‘All of them!’ Harry said with finality as he propped a shoulder against the panelled wall of the cabin. Then he looked at her more closely and changed the subject. ‘So why do you like plays?’

  Georgiana hesitated. It was dangerous, she knew, but the urge was strong to share with the captain that which was dearest to her heart. ‘I love acting. I used to sneak out of my aunt’s house at night to act in a neighbouring town.’

  ‘George! You were obviously a trial to your aunt. Couldn’t you just tell this hapless relative of yours what you were up to?�
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  She shook her head, resisting the urge to smile back into his blue eyes where laughter lurked. ‘You have no idea how impossible it would have been for her to accept the notion of her nie-ephew acting in a town hall for farmers.’

  ‘Shakespeare for farmers?’

  ‘No, alas. I read those plays for pleasure and would dearly love to try them. The plays I was in were all rollicking adventures. Pirates of the Main, Dick the Highwayman that sort of thing – plays with plenty of action. I was usually the hero,’ she concluded, casting her eyes down modestly.

  Harry gave a shout of laughter. ‘Yes, I can just see you swinging from the rafters, George. But how on earth did you come to be an actor in the first place?’

  ‘Chance. I was out riding on the far end of the woods near my aunt’s house and came upon a small town.’ Deliberately Georgiana left out the name. ‘I happened to see a notice cancelling the afternoon’s performance due to an actor’s illness so offered my services. They were desperate and I fitted the bill. I learn lines fast and I’m quick on cues.’

  What George couldn’t tell Harry was that the manager had first laughed uproariously at the young lady’s suggestion, but when she cajoled him into letting her say a few lines for him, he’d been convinced. She was the best actor he’d ever seen and her height and athleticism allowed her to play male roles far more convincingly than the wooden young man he had been using. He agreed to keep her identity secret and was quick to shake hands on the arrangement. It was only later that she realised she hadn’t even thought to discuss payment.

  He had, however, provided her with several disreputable caps to cover her hair, and dressed in Charlie’s cast-off shirts and trousers she had been able to attend rehearsals with no one suspecting her true identity.

  For six joyous months Georgiana went to rehearsals under the pretence of going for long rides and on the weekends she went to bed early so she could sneak out, down the oak tree by her bedroom window. Dressed as a boy, she would ride to the theatre where she played to cheering audiences and it had all been a grand adventure right up until that fateful night when she’d overheard Jasper talking to Walsingham …

  ‘Well, that explains the mimicry and your quick thinking in the tavern when you picked up my cards,’ said Harry. Then he looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘And yet there is still something about you, George, that I can’t make out.’

  She felt the colour rise in her cheeks and suddenly the light from the porthole seemed too bright, the cabin walls too close. The floor tipped and tilted under her feet with the motion of the ship. Too late she regretted her impulse to confide. Striving to sound offhand, she replied, ‘I’m just a boy who likes acting, nothing more. Now, I’ve finished all the papers save for that one there, and I should probably go to the galley – Alec told me he has a sack of potatoes reserved for my attention.’

  Harry’s blue eyes held hers and she tried to be guileless as she returned his look. He wasn’t fooled.

  ‘Secrets, George,’ he warned her, ‘have a way of coming out at the most inconvenient time.’ She remained silent so, with a wave of his hand, he dismissed her. ‘Go on. Cut along to Alec.’

  As the door closed behind George, Harry looked down at the papers the boy had handed him. He wrote well, though his writing was a trifle careless as could be expected of a schoolboy. Yet when the lad had spoken of acting it had not been with a child’s enthusiasm but with the passion of someone more mature. He thought about the way George’s eyes had lit up, his face glowing.

  Such a curious mix of parts, this child. He could climb to the outer reaches of the rigging without curling a hair yet also loved Shakespeare. And though he answered all Harry’s questions readily enough, he always seemed to be keeping something back. Again Harry wondered what the youth was really up to. Clearly he had no regrets for the life he’d left behind and Harry smiled, shaking his head, as he imagined the aunt trying in vain to instil gentlemanly behaviour into a couple of circus brats.

  The affinity he felt for the boy surprised him. The sense of protectiveness which had begun in the tavern had re-emerged forcibly in the hold when he’d been a whisker away from laying Mack out cold for threatening the boy.

  Harry was not a fool. He’d noted the way George watched him covertly and ascribed it to the hero-worship he’d inspired in the younger boys at Harrow. Then he’d played up to it, enjoying the admiration of boys for his prowess in sports, his easy success at his studies. The young Harry had used this adulation to shield himself from his own fears of being one day found out to be the imposter he really was: the son of a penniless widow – or worse, illegitimate.

  As he crossed the cabin to put Twelfth Night back onto the shelf, Harry paused, looking out of the porthole. He thought again of George’s unequivocal loyalty to his brother and experienced a sudden, sharp pang of envy. How lucky both boys were, to be tied by such fierce bonds.

  Since his mother’s death and his decision that day to quit Cambridge and walk away from everything he knew and loved, Harry had always felt he had nothing left to lose. This he had seen as his source of freedom, the willing price. But now he was not so sure. George’s love for his brother, far from being the anchor holding him at bay, was his rudder, steering him into new waters. Perhaps there was a lot to be said for that. He smiled to himself, thinking of the adventures the boys would have together in New Zealand. Harry always travelled alone.

  Then he braced his hands on either side of the porthole. The waters behind them were empty. Just as they were whenever he checked – which was considerably more often than usual.

  A fortune beyond his wildest dreams was suddenly possible. But at what cost? Could he bear living with the consequences? And could he ever reconcile himself with the man it would turn him into?

  Chapter Seven

  That evening some of the crew were up on deck, smoking and playing cards after dinner. Georgiana showed herself to be a dangerous opponent in poker, Bert being her first victim.

  ‘There you are with that innocent boy’s face and the soul of a gambler, and I bought it!’

  ‘More fool you,’ she retorted as she scooped up her winnings. ‘I grew up learning card tricks at the maestro’s knee. He could pull four aces out of any pack you gave him and with one hand behind his back.’

  ‘Goin’ to fleece all the miners there in Noo Zeeland are you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘if you don’t warn them off. How long will it take to get there?’

  Pete blew out his lips. ‘A few months, depending on the winds, but rest assured, the captain’s powerful interested in getting there as quick as can be.’

  ‘I’d give a monkey to know what happened at that Lord Iver’s house to put him in such a hurry,’ Bert said.

  At the name, Georgiana started in shock and dropped some cards. Surprised, Bert looked at her. ‘What’s the matter with you, boy? Looks like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

  Georgiana gave a shaky laugh as she retrieved her hand. ‘Alec’s stew is not agreeing with me. Lord Iver, did you say?’

  ‘Yup. Why? You know him?’

  ‘I think I – I may have heard the name.’

  It was engraved into her memory, as everything else was from that unreal conversation she’d overheard. But surely it couldn’t be the same Iver that Walsingham’s man was going to deal with? There was no way that Harry could be involved with a dangerous snake like Walsingham.

  ‘Very likely. A famous man is Iver. The cap’n delivered this box to him just a few days ago from his dying son. Got well paid for it too, but Alec didn’t like it from the word go. Warned the cap’n against shady businesses, but he’s stubborn once he’s set his mind to something and said it was a dying man’s wish and he’d honour that.’

  ‘What was in the box?’

  It was hard for Georgiana to speak, for her mouth had gone dry.

&n
bsp; Bert shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Just some papers this young cove was sending to his father.’

  ‘To Lord Iver?’

  ‘Yup, Iver, that’s right.’

  She assumed casual interest. ‘So how did the captain come to get the job?’

  ‘Well, that’s the funny thing, it was when we was in Shanghai. One evening we walked into a Chinese dive and the captain was greeted by this young gent like a long-lost friend. Cries out, “Phillip! Haven’t seen you for years. Did my father send you to check up on me?” But the cove was away on opium and when he got up close, he saw his mistake, apologised saying the cap’n was a dead ringer for his neighbour. Still, he insisted on buying the captain a drink. Draped his arm round the captain’s shoulders, and asked him to deliver this box.’

  ‘To the young man’s father? Lord Iver?’ She had to make sure she understood properly.

  ‘That’s what I said didn’t I?’ Bert was impatient now. ‘Anyway, course, we all knew the name – Iver and Walsingham are the bigwigs of the tea trade, y’know. The captain asked why the cove needed him when he had his father’s ships there in the dock. He got all wild-eyed and said there were spies everywhere and he didn’t trust no one. Then he named his price.’

  Pete laughed softly. ‘We knew then that he was barking mad. It was more money than we’d earned in the last year. The captain’s always one to take a gamble. When he went round to pick up the box, he found the man was del— what was that word?’

  ‘Delusional,’ Bert supplied, taking up the story again. ‘Too much opium. Dying of consumption as well. So the captain took him to a hospital, but the doctors said he wouldn’t see the next day. That settled things. Dying man’s wish, see, plus the cap’n felt it was – what’d he say? – incumbent on him to tell Iver how his son died.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Georgiana’s nails bit into the palms of her hands though her voice remained light.

  Bert shrugged. ‘We got to England. The captain left in the morning in good spirits, box on his shoulder. Came back late that night, three sheets to the wind and in a powerful ugly temper—’