Chapter Ten
Dig Day 768: progress impeded by an unexpected
obstacle...
The last thing Effie expected to see was Lord Rivenhall waist deep in her trench making impressively short work of the wall she had been battling for hours. He’d dispensed with his coat, which gave her an unencumbered view of his broad back and shoulders as he swung the pickaxe with brutal precision. Each time he bent over to toss her more rocks, she was rewarded with the ever-so-slightly scandalous sight of his breeches pulled taut over his muscular thighs and bottom. And he had quite the bottom. She had been surreptitiously admiring it over the top of the wheelbarrow for a good twenty minutes already and was still not the least bit over it.
‘Did they teach you how to use a pickaxe in the navy?’
‘There is not much call for digging on board a ship.’
‘I suppose, as a captain, you mostly stood around giving orders?’
‘You have never been on board a ship, have you, Miss Not-a-clue? Because if you had, you would realise what an entirely stupid thing that was to say. The term “all hands on deck” came about for a reason—because there are not enough hands on board to do all of the things that are needed. There are few idle hours. Even when one is the Captain.’
‘I read there were eight hundred and twenty crew members aboard theVictoryat Trafalgar. Eight hundred and twenty-one if you include Nelson himself. Whichever way you look at it, that is a lot of hands. One thousand, six hundred and forty-two of them.’
He smiled and rolled his eyes. ‘Well, that was theVictoryand that was at Trafalgar. If we are going to talk statistics, I should tell you theVictoryis a first-rate, one-hundred-and-four-gun warship and needs significantly more crew than my humble fifth-class thirty-eight-gun frigate could hold just to fire them.’
‘You did not have a crew of eight hundred, then?’
‘If only...’ He swung the axe back again, the soft linen of his shirt straining most intriguingly against his biceps. ‘TheArtemiswas crewed by two hundred and eighty-three. Which only gave me a paltry five hundred and sixty-five individual hands to do all the work.’
‘Surely you mean five hundred and sixty-six?’ Why had she corrected him, when correcting people always rubbed them up the wrong way.
‘No. Imeantfive hundred and sixty-five, because Plumstead, the bosun, lost an arm at the Battle of the Nile and had a hook which he used with impressive precision.’ He slanted her an amused glance. ‘Which takes the total tally up to two hundred and sixty-seven hands if you include me...standing around and giving orders.’
‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’
‘Immensely.’
‘Do you miss it?’
His eyes clouded and he nodded. ‘Every single day. Or at least I miss the sea rather than the navy. The freedom of sailing into that vast expanse of sky and sea to far-flung places.’
‘I’ve read that sailors—’ She clamped her jaws shut, realising in the nick of time what she was curious about was probably inappropriate even though he had paused and was clearly waiting for her to finish. ‘Never mind.’
‘Ask your question. You know you want to.’
‘It’s not the sort of question a lady is supposed to ask a gentleman.’
He made a great show of looking every which way before he turned to her, those dark eyes alight with mirth for once rather than annoyance. ‘As there is nobody here to hear it, ask it anyway.’
‘I was wondering if you had a girl in every port?’
He paused, his mouth opened as if to speak then he clamped it shut again. ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that... You say the damnedest things.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘My fault. I did encourage you to ask it.’ She thought he would leave it at that, but he surprised her. ‘I suppose the honest answer is noteveryport.’ She could tell by his expression he was recalling one of two of them now and that made her even more curious about him. And those girls. Except she knew that really would be wrong to ask, so instead changed tack.
‘Your ship was called theArtemis? Goddess of the hunt.’
‘I always thought it was a fitting name.’ He sighed, remembering, then swung the pickaxe again. ‘She was fast, manoeuvred swiftly and was more than a match for any other vessel foolish enough to take her on or try to outrun her.’
‘Was?’
He paused and shook his head wistfully, his dark eyes sad for a moment before he turned away. ‘She was dismantled after we returned from America. They told me the fire damage was too great to repair. Better to start afresh.’ Then the pickaxe came down with such force he sent rocks flying everywhere as she realised she had inadvertently struck a raw nerve.
