As Grace dutifully did as she was asked, Georgie tried to count her blessings. At least she had a job—her first, thank goodness! And with a decent employer, to boot, with the prospect of good references. She also had the soothing sounds of the ocean and the sun on her face. Two things she had never really experienced before. They might have all had a fractious day, but the children were happy now too. The girls were exploring the shallow rock pools that hugged the granite framing this tiny beach, while the limping Felix and Norbert paddled in the gentle waves rippling up the sand. The setting was idyllic, even if some of the circumstances left a lot to be desired.
“Uncle Harry!”
Felix suddenly began waving at a dot of a sailboat in the distance. He was soon joined by the others at the shoreline, and they all waved at his impending arrival while Georgie tried to quell her quickened heart. It had been inevitable that they would have to collide at some point after last night’s inconceivable conversation, yet she still had no earthly idea how she was supposed to behave around him now.
As the sloop came closer, it was clear he was alone. His impressive naval regalia did not fit with the jolly yellow-and-red-striped boat at all, and yet somehow, the incongruity seemed to suit the man. Suited his contrasting personality which at one extreme was the staid stickler who got things done, and the other, the generous, thoroughlysoft-boiled egg who didn’t take himself too seriously. He certainly did not look less manly on the scarlet sloop, even with the big hand-painted daisies blooming on the sails.
He waved at the children as he maneuvered the vessel to the sea wall and secured it to one of the rings, and by the time that was all done, they had all hurried across the sand to greet him.
He swung each child in the air, then petted Norbert before he looked her way. Even with a hundred yards of distance, the potency when their gazes locked was so tangible it made her heart ache. Beside her, even Cuthbert seemed to sense the change in the atmosphere, and for the first time in an hour, ventured a few feet from Georgie. His little tail wagged as the captain hoisted Grace to sit upon his shoulders before he made his way across the beach toward Georgie.
“Not in the classroom again, I see.” His smile was winsome, as, she suspected, was hers.
“There is no classroom at Guillemot House, thank the Lord, so your customary complaint is moot.” Were they now supposed to behave as if nothing seismic had shifted between them? “How was your first official day as the captain of a half-finished flagship?”
Thanks to all of Ada’s incessant prying last night, she now knew that the Admiralty had given him a veritable mountain to climb in a near-impossible time frame, and the strain of that showed on his face. There were slight shadows under his eyes and his whole body sagged with over-burdened weariness.
He lowered Grace to the ground and sent her and her siblings back to the rock pools to play before he answered. “As awful and trying as I expected it to be. I had to dismiss the shipwright in charge along with six of his most troublesome laborers.”
“Why?”
He gingerly seated himself on the sand, close enough for them to have a polite conversation, but not so close that they could accidentally touch. Cuthbert instantly arranged himself between his legs so that he could gaze up adoringly while his already favorite human idly stroked his fur.
“Because it became apparent he had purposefully sabotaged the build. The navy pays them all a day rate rather than a job rate, so to maximize their earnings, once the shell of the bloodyBoadiceawas finished and all the work went inside and conveniently out of sight, those lazy layabouts were only working four hours a day. If that.” Although he didn’t look particularly surprised by that outrage. “I’ve also had to put the naval officer who supposedly oversees all of them on a charge, as he’s little better than a drunkard marking time until he can claim his pension. He’s so disinterested in the bloodyBoadicea, he couldn’t even be bothered to get his flabby backside out of his chair to come and visit me on my first day. I had to go find him. In a disgrace of an office that stunk of rum.”
Clearly, they were going to behave as if nothing seismic had happened at all—but at least they were conversing as friends, for once, rather than an employer and an employee who never quite knew on which level to talk to one another. Apt, she supposed, to scrap those formalities when they had, as he’d quite rightly pointed out, been seconds away from making mad, passionate love.
“But on the one positive note, it does appear that somebody, somewhere, has had some forethought and has ordered most of the equipment the ship needs to make it seaworthy, so that is one less headache. Until we can find a suitably experienced and reliable master shipwright to supervise the rest of the build, Simpkins has stepped into the breach. I left him reading the riot act to the remaining laborers, who are now in no doubt that he expects their day tostart at eight sharp and to finish nine hours later. Five minutes shy either way and he’s warned them their pay will be docked by half a day. Hence, I am here alone as he’s decided to spend tonight on the bloodyBoadiceato make sure they all arrive on time.”
“The bloodyBoadicea?”
He winced. “My apologies for the coarse language. It has been one of those days.”
“My ears aren’t that tender and that wasn’t my point. It was more that you’ve unconsciously said it three times. Is that really what you think of your ship?”
“As that ship has been the bane of my life for the last few months, I suppose calling it that has become habit.” He pulled a face, unaware that he had called it “that ship” rather than “my ship”—which was interesting. “It is difficult to think positively about something which has been nothing but trouble.”
“Then, I suppose, at least we will all know when things have improved, as you’ll have dropped the instinctive ‘bloody’ before theBoadicea, Captain.”
“From your lips to God’s ears, Georgie.” He stared out at the ocean for several moments, frowning. “Is it so hard for you to call me Harry?” When his gaze turned back to hers, all the longing was there again. “Only last night, when I confessed my deepest, darkest secret, I never did get to hear what you thought about it.”
What did he expect her to say to that, exactly, when he had already nipped in the bud any deeper relationship between them in favor of his “bloody” ship? “At this stage, I daresay that doesn’t really matter.”
“It matters to me.” He raked a hand through his hair, staring out to sea again, his expression bleak. “But I suppose you are right… Under the circumstances, it is probably a topic best avoided.” His accepting smile did not touch his eyes. “How was your day?”
“As awful and trying as I expected it to be.” She had intended the mirroring of his words to sound ironic, not wistful. “The children and I are still finding our routine here in Cawsand. They are used to doing things here a certain way and we have fallen out about it repeatedly today.”
“Ah…” he said, gazing at them. “My sympathies. My sister is not one for rules and routines and this place”—he threw his palms out to encompass the village as well as the beach—“has always been synonymous with chaos. At least to my mind.”
“Is that why it makes you twitchy?”
He laughed at that. “Twitchy? Now there is an interesting adjective, but apt, I suppose.” Unconsciously, he flexed his fingers and arms as if releasing the tension from them. “My parents, alas, had more in common with Flora’s approach to life than mine.” As if he had shocked himself by admitting that aloud, he was quick to counter. “They were not bad people, of course. Far from it, in fact. But lived their entire lives without restraint, or often much sense of responsibility, and that can have its challenges.”
A fascinating window into the way he was. “How so?”
“They lived from moment to moment, often in the moment, and gave little or no thought to tomorrow. Or to money. As a result, they had no contingency plans for things like bills and the many calamities that the lack of those things tends to create.”
“But you did.” It wasn’t a question because she knew enough about him to know that Captain Henry Kincaid liked everything to be just so. If his childhood had lacked any order, it made sense that he would value it disproportionately.
