Page 14 of A Sea Captain and A Stowaway (Gentleman Scholars #7)
T he night air was crisp, carrying the scent of salt and distant rain. The day had been relatively uneventful.
Exhaustion nipped at her. She ought to take to her bed. The days of hard work were taking their toll. But she wasn’t ready to return to the small, closet-like cabin she had been assigned. She appreciated having a secure place to lay her head but it could be stuffy.
The crisp air of the evening was a pleasure in contrast.
Docila had escaped to the deck after an especially trying dinner, where several of the sailors had gotten into a heated argument about whether a woman aboard would affect their chances of encountering a storm.
She had excused herself when Jenks began loudly proclaiming that any misfortune that befell the Seraphim could be laid directly at her feet.
Now, alone with the endless sky and the rhythmic creak of the ship, she found a measure of peace.
The moon hung low over the horizon, casting a silver path across the dark water.
The stars twinkled their light for her pleasure, more brilliant than any she had ever seen on land.
Out here, they seemed close enough to touch.
Docila hummed softly to herself as she worked, another old sea chanty her father had taught her.
The familiar melody was comforting, a reminder of happier days when she had sailed at his side, learning the ways of wind and wave.
Back then, she had never imagined she would one day find herself on a different ship, alone and unwelcome, fighting for her place among a crew who viewed her with suspicion or worse.
The ropes were heavy, rough against her palms despite the calluses she had developed over the past week.
But there was satisfaction in the work, in seeing order emerge from chaos as she carefully coiled each length according to thickness and purpose.
It was a skill her father had insisted she master, explaining that properly stored rope could mean the difference between life and death in a storm.
Docila nearly leapt out of her own skin when she heard the voice behind her.
“Those are impressive coils,” Captain Peters said.
He had approached so quietly she hadn’t heard his footsteps over the constant sounds of the ship and sea.
Now he stood just a few feet away, his tall figure silhouetted against the starlit sky.
The moonlight caught the edges of his profile, highlighting the strong line of his jaw and the slight furrow between his brows as he studied her work.
Docila appreciated his words but did not appreciate the fact that he sounded so begrudging in his admiration.
No matter how much she had defended her innocence, Captain Peters did not trust her, and it rankled.
She couldn’t really blame him, considering there was no arguing with the fact that she had snuck onto his ship, but she had proven to be useful.
Of course, she couldn’t tell him her full story, or he’d feed her to the fish for certain — or hold her to ransom, she added as an afterthought.
But she didn’t think the man who held such high standards would stoop so low.
Who could really tell when there was so much money at stake?
Just look at Uncle Hugo, she added to herself.
There was more to her story than she had shared, details she had carefully omitted in her account to the captain.
Not lies, precisely, but omissions that she feared would change his already tenuous tolerance of her presence into something far more dangerous.
She had learned caution the hard way, under Uncle Hugo’s cruel tutelage.
The thought of her uncle sent a familiar chill down her spine.
How long before he discovered her absence?
How thoroughly would he search? The questions had plagued her since her discovery aboard the Seraphim, growing more urgent with each passing day.
She tried to push them aside, focusing instead on the task at hand.
Not bothering to look at the captain any longer, she refocused her attention on her task.
It was long after sunset; she really should be sleeping, since the work began at sunrise on the busy ship, not that it ever really ended.
There always had to be someone on watch, but they never trusted her with the night watches.
The nighttime was far quieter, though, as most of the men were below deck, either gaming, eating, or sleeping.
She enjoyed having the open space to herself and loved being able to get ahead in her tasks.
Besides, enjoying the wide-open sky and the glistening stars soothed her with their bright light that rivalled that of the moon.
It was something she always missed when she was on shore, and it was one of her and her father’s favourite hobbies — to stare at the stars and identify the constellations.
She found herself searching for the familiar patterns: Orion’s belt glinting low on the horizon, the Pleiades clustered like a handful of scattered jewels, the steady light of Polaris guiding sailors home since time immemorial.
Her father had taught her to navigate by these stars, showing her how to use the sextant to determine their position when no land was in sight.
It was one of many skills she had acquired at his side, skills that now marked her as unusual in the captain’s eyes.
Captain Peters moved closer, his footsteps quiet on the wooden deck. He stopped beside her, his gaze following hers to the star-strewn sky. For a moment, they stood in silence, the tension between them momentarily suspended by the shared contemplation of the heavens.
“One of my friends is an astronomer,” Captain Peters commented, much to her surprise.
Docila lost her place as she was coiling the ropes, so shocked that he had actually volunteered any piece of information.
The captain kept to himself so much, merely spending time with his first mate unless he was directly reprimanding her or demanding explanations from her. He normally spoke very little to her.
This unexpected offering — a small personal detail freely given — caught her off guard. It was the first time he had spoken to her as one might to a companion rather than an interloper or subordinate. The shift, however slight, was disorienting.
“An astronomer?” she echoed, attempting to recover her composure. “That sounds fascinating. Does he sail with you often?”
Captain Peters shook his head, his eyes still on the stars above.
“No, Pierce prefers solid ground beneath his feet. He gets dreadfully seasick.” A hint of amusement coloured his voice, softening his normally stern countenance.
“But he’s mapped the heavens more thoroughly than most sailors map the seas.
He showed me how to read the stars when I was just starting out as a midshipman. ”
Docila tried to picture Captain Peters as a young midshipman, learning his craft under the tutelage of others. It was difficult to imagine him as anything other than the commanding presence he now was, his authority so intrinsic to his bearing that it seemed he must have been born to it.
“My father taught me,” she said, the words slipping out before she could consider their wisdom. “We would stand on deck on clear nights, and he would point out the constellations, telling me the stories behind them.”
She tensed, waiting for the captain’s scepticism, his familiar doubt of her claims about her father. But instead, he simply nodded, his expression thoughtful.
“William Archer,” he said, the name a statement rather than a question. “I crossed paths with his ship once, near Barbados. The Minerva, wasn’t it? A fine vessel.”
Docila’s heart clenched at the mention of her father’s ship. “Yes,” she managed, her voice steadier than she felt. “She was beautiful.”
It was funny that she was already considering things “normal.”
She had been on this ship for more than a week.
Uncle Hugo might have already discovered where she had gone, although how could he possibly, considering they had not encountered another ship in order to be able to exchange information at this point?
So, unless someone had seen her sneaking onto the ship and told him, there was no way that Uncle Hugo could have set up a pursuit of her yet — except if he guessed.
Docila couldn’t be certain if the wretched man was intelligent enough to be able to surmise what she would have done.
Once he figured it out, would the records be sufficiently accurate at the port for him to know which ship she was most likely to have boarded?
Certainly, he would have to consider multiple options.
The thought of Uncle Hugo’s potential pursuit had been growing more insistent in her mind, a shadow that threatened to eclipse the small measure of security she had found aboard the Seraphim.
Despite the captain’s suspicion and the crew’s initial hostility, she had begun to carve out a place for herself here.
The routine of shipboard life, the predictable rhythm of watches and meals and tasks, provided a structure that had been lacking in the chaotic months following her father’s death.
But how long would it last? How far would her uncle’s reach extend? The unanswered questions circled like hungry sharks, always present beneath the surface of her thoughts.
“Do you know how many ships were leaving the day we set sail?” Docila asked the captain, trying for an innocent tone so he would not pursue asking her for more details as to why she would ask.
“There were at least three, including us,” the captain replied. “Why do you ask?”
Docila smiled. She should have known she couldn’t get away with it. She kept her focus on her task and lifted a shoulder as though to dismiss his question, but finally, she said, “I’m wondering how chance involved herself in where I might end up.”
“What do you mean?” the captain asked her.