‘Here is a lady for your captain,’ he said with a smirk that plainly showed what purpose he believed she’d come to serve.
She did not seek to change his mind—her own was set so fixedly she did not care what others thought. She landed steady on her feet upon the creaking deck, and bore the crewman’s leering scrutiny with patience, only seeking to remind him when it seemed he had forgotten that the captain would be waiting for her.
She felt the stares as they passed by, and heard the voices of the other men call out and laugh and speak in rude suggestive language, but she took no more notice of them than she did of the ship itself, of the great rising masts and the knots of the rigging and wet canvas scent of the slumbering sails. She had wondered for so long just how it would feel to set foot on a ship and to walk on its decks, and now here she was walking upon one and none of her senses took note of the fact. She might have been walking the road of a town, and the steps to the door of the captain’s cabin might have been but the steps to a house. All that mattered to Sophia was the man inside, and what she’d come to say to him.
The cabin had a bay of casement windows curving round its farther end, through which the afternoon’s strong light poured in to warm the paneled walls and spill across the smooth edge of the desk at which the captain sat.
He had not looked up at the crewman’s knock, he’d only said a curt ‘Come in’， and gone on looking at the spread of papers that so held his interest.
‘Your visitor, sir,’ said the crewman, and coughed, and discreetly withdrew.
And the captain raised his head then, faintly frowning, and seeing Sophia he stopped short as though he’d been struck.
‘Captain Gordon,’ she greeted him levelly.
Recovering himself, he rose and came across to take her hand and raise it to his lips, too much the gentleman to cast aside formalities in even such an unexpected circumstance. But clearly her appearance had surprised him, and he did not try to hide it. ‘How the devil came you here?’
‘It was not difficult,’ she lied. She did not tell him the excuses she had made to Mrs Malcolm and to Kirsty of her need to come to town, nor of the earliness with which she had set out by hired coach, nor of the trouble it had caused her to negotiate her way around the busy port. ‘I asked which ship was yours, and found a boatman who would carry me.’
‘I meant how came you here to Leith? Why are you not at Slains?’
She drew her hand away from his. ‘The countess thought a change of air might do me good. I have been staying some few weeks with friends of hers, not far from here.’
‘Oh, aye? What friends would those be?’
Once Sophia might have told him, but not now. ‘I do not think that you would know them.’
Captain Gordon fixed his gaze upon her face, and took her measure. Then he said, ‘Come, let us sit.’
The cabin was a man’s space, but was not without its luxuries. The chairs had been upholstered in a rich red fabric, and a silver tray upon a table gleamed beneath its strange assortment of small porcelain cups and dishes ringed around a central covered pot. ‘You have good timing,’ said the captain. ‘Yesterday there’d not have been much I could offer you by way of a refreshment, but my cook today has done a bit of trading with a Dutch ship lately come from the East Indies that is forced to wait in harbor here, and chief among his prizes was a box of china tea, to the drinking of which he is trying to convert me.’ Picking up the porcelain pot, he poured a clear brown liquid into one of the cups. ‘I must confess I do prefer my whisky still, but I am told that drinking tea will be the coming fashion. Here,’ he said, and handed her the cup. ‘It is still hot, I think.’
She held the cup and looked toward the windows, through whose glass panes she could see the battered French ship framed as though it were a painting done in honor of the victory of the battle that had stained this same sea red with blood just days before. The drink was bitter on her tongue.
She said, ‘I am surprised to find you on a new ship.’
‘Aye, the Edinburgh did not survive the strain of my last voyage. You’ll recall I had my doubts about its worthiness,’ he said, and smiled in the manner of a man who means to share a private joke.
She felt a surge of anger at that smile, and could not keep it in. ‘I do recall a great deal, Captain. Tell me, do you think King James will yet make you an admiral when he comes?’ She flung the question at him, challenging, and pointed to the windows and the French ship. ‘Do you think that he will honor you for that?’