A King's Commander Read Free Page A

fingers everywhere she turns. Titled aristocrat— slam. Marryin’ Charles de Crillart? Slam, he was killed when we took Jester. Now she’s off the ship for a strange house in a strange new country. Catholic convent girl. Slam, slam, slam. Have to pretend to be—or learn to pretend to be—the same as any country-raised English girl. Go for Church of England in a year’r two . . . if she has any sense at all.
    God save her; in my house? Part o’ my family? He shuddered suddenly. Poor little mort! Nigh a daughter, to the likes o’ me?
    â€œGood-bye!” he called down, once Caroline was safely settled on a thwart amidships of the sturdy buoy-tender. “Write often, as will I! All of you! You mind what I say, Sewallis?” he cried, meaning to offer the lad a crumb at the last, to atone. “I wish to hear all about your progress. And your puppies! They should be good hunters, by the time I’m back, hey?”
    â€œUhm, excuse me, sir, but . . .” Lieutenant Knolles interrupted with a sorrowful cough into his fist. “There’s a veer to the wind, and . . .”
    â€œI saw, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie replied from the corner of his mouth, still posed at the bulwarks with a gay grin plastered on his phyz for his family. “Hands to stations, then. Heave us in to short stays.”
    A Marine drummer began a roll. A fiddle screeched as one of the idlers tried his tuning and sought the proper key. Spithead nightingales began to peep, as newly warranted Boatswain Porter and his Bosun’s Mate Will Cony, both off that ill-starred Cockerel frigate, piped the commands for stations for leaving harbor, and up-anchor.
    A precious, breathless moment more, as the buoy-tender’s oars-men stroked the boat away, clear of Jester ’s side. “Give way, together!” her midshipman called from the stern sheets and tiller-bar. One moment more to lift his cocked hat in salute to kith and kin, then put it firmly back upon his head and turn, dismissing them, as he  must, and stride purposefully to the center of the quarterdeck.
    His quarterdeck!
    He let out a heavy, lip-puffing sigh that bespoke both his impatience, and his relief. Swung his arms and clapped his hands before him unconsciously, to release a scintilla of how tautly he’d forced himself to pose, this last day in harbor.
    Relief, that he’d not blown the gaff. Relief, that, no matter how dear he cherished them all, he was off to sea, and they were no longer the center of his universe. Not when a greater, wider world awaited.
    Impatience, of a certainty, to be off and doing in that greater world, which was now filled with strife and the stink of gunpowder; in a proper ship, well-armed and able. A ship he’d already proved on the passage home, which could take the worst of the Bay of Biscay gales and swim as proud as any 5th-Rate frigate. Fast, sleek, with a clean entry and forefoot; not so fine as to bury under opposing waves, but cleave them and ride up and over. Deep enough in draught to grip the seas, resist slippage to leeward; long enough on her waterline to tear across the seas like a racehorse. Wide enough in beam to carry her artillery and stores safely, to be sea-kindly as well as fast . . .
    And for himself—for the first time in his career, he would command a real warship, not a gun ketch converted from a bomb vessel, nor a hostilities-only, hired armed brig or dispatch schooner. This marvelous Sloop of War was three hundred-eighty tons, eighteen-gunned, a French corvette—a swanlike and lovely three-masted miniature frigate!
    And he was a step closer to post-captain’s rank, when he could be eligible for command of a true frigate, a rated ship. Crews called the commander appointed over them in any warship their captain. Now, as an Admiralty-confirmed commander, he was uniformed almost like a true post-captain, and was a post-captain in all but name.
    White breeches and