Page 34 of A Sea Captain and A Stowaway (Gentleman Scholars #7)
The use of his given name, so new between them, caught at something in his chest. In her mouth, it sounded different — not a title or a formality, but the name of a man who could be vulnerable, who could feel grief and doubt without betraying his duty.
“I know that,” he said, more sharply than he had intended. “Intellectually, I know it. But still...” He trailed off, unable to articulate the complex tangle of emotions — guilt, sorrow, self-recrimination — that had knotted inside him.
“Still, you feel responsible,” she finished for him.
“Because that’s the kind of man you are.
The kind of captain.” There was no judgment in her voice, only understanding.
“My father was the same. After we lost men in a storm off Bermuda, he didn’t sleep for days.
He checked and rechecked the ship, drove the crew half-mad with his attention to every detail, as if perfect preparation could somehow undo what had already happened. ”
“And did it?” Sidney asked, genuinely curious despite himself. “Did it bring him peace?”
Docila smiled, a small, sad expression that spoke of old grief long accepted. “Not entirely. But time did, eventually. And the knowledge that he had done everything in his power, before and during the storm, to protect his ship and his men. As you did.”
Sidney looked away, uncomfortable with her steady gaze that seemed to see too much. “I nearly lost you too,” he said, the words escaping before he could consider them. “When that wave hit, and you were clinging to the rail...” He stopped, the memory still too vivid, too frightening.
“But you didn’t,” she reminded him gently. “You came for me. You saved me.”
“I should never have allowed you on deck in the first place,” Sidney countered, the familiar territory of self-blame offering a strange comfort. “If I had insisted —”
“Then I would have found another way to make myself useful, and likely ended in the same predicament,” Docila interrupted with a frankness that bordered on impropriety but somehow seemed appropriate between them now. “I am, as you have noted on several occasions, remarkably stubborn.”
The unexpected touch of humour in her voice drew a reluctant smile from Sidney. “That’s one word for it,” he agreed, feeling some of the tension ease from his shoulders. “Obstinate might be another. Wilful. Defiant.”
“All true,” she acknowledged with a hint of her usual spirit. “But also alive, thanks to you. And determined to help in whatever way I can, now that we face these new challenges.”
Sidney studied her for a moment, struck anew by the contradictions she embodied — the refined young lady with the practical skills of a seasoned sailor, the stowaway who had become an integral part of his crew, the woman whose presence had complicated his mission in ways he could never have anticipated yet now seemed indispensable.
“The men will talk,” he said quietly, changing course. “About your presence aboard, about the storm. Some will say there’s a connection, that you brought bad luck.”
Docila nodded, unsurprised. “I know. It’s the nature of sailors to seek patterns, explanations. A woman aboard is an easy target for their fears, just as it was with the becalming.”
“And that doesn’t trouble you?” Sidney asked, curious despite himself.
She considered the question seriously, her gaze returning to the sea.
“It troubles me that they might use me to avoid facing the random cruelty of nature,” she said finally.
“That they might blame me instead of accepting that sometimes the sea takes without reason or justice. But their opinion of me?” She shrugged lightly. “I’ve lived with worse judgments.”
The simple dignity of her response touched something in Sidney, a recognition of the quiet strength that had allowed her to survive her uncle’s betrayal, to flee across an ocean alone, to face the countless challenges of life aboard a ship where she was initially unwelcome.
She was, he realized, one of the most courageous people he had ever met, though nothing in her appearance or manner advertised that fact.
“I won’t allow it,” he said firmly. “The talk. The superstition. Not after how you’ve conducted yourself during this crisis.”
Docila smiled, genuine warmth lighting her features despite the exhaustion evident in the shadows beneath her eyes. “Thank you. But perhaps the best way to counter such beliefs is simply to continue being useful. Actions speak louder than words, especially aboard ship.”
She was right, of course. The crew would judge her by what she did, not by what he ordered them to believe. It was a practical approach, pragmatic and straightforward — much like the woman herself.
“You should rest,” Sidney said, echoing her earlier advice to him. “You’ve been tending the injured all night.”
“As you’ve been securing the ship,” she countered. “Neither of us has slept.”
It was true, and the admission of their shared exhaustion created a strange intimacy between them, a recognition of common experience that transcended the usual boundaries of captain and passenger.
“An hour, then,” Sidney conceded. “For both of us. Fletcher can oversee the immediate repairs.”
Docila nodded, accepting the compromise. As she turned to go, she hesitated, then reached out to touch his hand lightly, a brief contact that was both reassurance and connection. “They were good men, Sidney. Williams and Tom. They would be proud of how you brought the ship through.”
The simple words, spoken with such quiet certainty, found their way past Sidney’s carefully maintained defences.
He felt something loosen in his chest, a knot of tension beginning to unravel.
Not completely — the grief and guilt would take longer to process — but enough that he could breathe a little easier, could face the remainder of the day’s challenges with renewed purpose.
“Thank you,” he said simply, the words inadequate for what she had given him but all he could offer in the moment.
Docila nodded, understanding in her eyes, then moved away toward the hatch that would lead her to the crew quarters assigned to her.
Sidney watched her go, struck by the realization that somehow, in the midst of tragedy and loss, something had shifted between them — a deepening of trust, a recognition of mutual resilience that went beyond their previous cautious alliance.
The sea around them was calm now, deceptively peaceful after the night’s fury. The men moved about the deck with purpose, beginning the long process of repair and recovery. Life aboard the Seraphim would continue, changed but unbroken by the storm’s passage.
And Sidney, standing alone at the rail while the morning sun climbed higher in the sky, found himself facing the day’s challenges with a steadier heart, bolstered by the quiet strength of a woman who had come into his life as an unwelcome intruder and somehow became an essential presence.
The guilt remained, as did the grief for the men lost to the sea’s hunger. Those burdens would not — should not — be easily set aside. But alongside them now was something else, something unexpected and warming: the knowledge that he did not bear those burdens entirely alone.