Ah, Christmas gifts. He had hoped to escape that by the simple expedient of not flirting with any of the little peahens, but it was obviously not working. ‘Black,’ he drawled, producing what he hoped was a sinister smile.
‘Ooh!’ She retreated to her sister’s side, a frown giving her face more expression than it usually bore. Apparently whatever she was making would not work well in mourning tones.
He glanced across and saw Dita’s head bent over a book. Now, it would be amusing to surprise her with a Christmas gift. What a pity he had no mistletoe to accompany it.
Or, perhaps he could improvise; he certainly had the berries. Smiling to himself as he plotted, Alistair strolled along the main deck to where the Chatterton twins and a few of the other young men had gathered. With the captain’s permission they were going to climb the rigging. After a few days out most of them were already feeling the lack of exercise and it seemed an interesting way of stretching muscles without overly shocking the ladies. Wrestling, sparring or singlestick bouts would have to be indulged in only when a female audience could be avoided.
Daniel and Callum had already taken off their coats and were eyeing the network of ropes as they soared up the main mast. ‘It looks easy enough,’ Daniel said. ‘Climb up on the outside and you are leaning into the rigging the whole way.’
‘Until you get to the crow’s nest,’ his brother pointed out. ‘Then you have to swing round to the inside and climb up the hole next to the mast.’
‘Bare feet,’ Alistair said. Like the other younger men he was wearing loose cotton trousers. He heeled off his shoes as he looked up. ‘I tried this on the way out.’ He squinted up at the height and added, ‘Smaller ship, though!’
‘We cannot all get up there at once, not with a sailor already in the crow’s nest,’ Callum pointed out, and the others moved off to stand at the foot of the smaller foremast, leaving the Chattertons and Alistair in possession of the main mast.
‘We three can if we move out along those ropes the sailors stand on to bundle up the sails,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘And don’t snort at me, Cal, I don’t know the name of them and neither do you, I wager.’
‘Sounds as though that will work.’ Alistair took a yard in his hand and swung up to stand on the rail. ‘Let’s try it.’
The tarred rope was rough under the softer skin of his arches, but it gave a good grip and his hands were toughened by long hours of riding without gloves. It felt good to reach and stretch and use his muscles to pull himself up and to counteract the roll of the ship, one minute dropping him against the rigging, the next forcing him to hang on with stretched arms and braced legs over the sea.
The newly healed wound in his thigh reminded him of its presence with every contraction of the muscle, but it was the ache of under-use and weakness, not the pain of the wound tearing open. His right hand was not fully right either, he noticed with clinical detachment, and compensated by taking more care with the grip.
The wind blew his hair off his face and ripped through his thin shirt and Alistair found he was grinning as he climbed. Daniel appeared beside him, panting with effort as he overtook. From below Callum called, ‘It isn’t a race, you idiot!’
But Daniel was already twisting around the edge of the rigging to hang downwards for the few perilous feet up into the crow’s nest. Alistair heard the look-out greeting Chatterton as he reached the top spar of the mainsail himself and eyed the thin rope swinging beneath it. It was a tricky transfer, but if sailors could do it in a storm, he told himself, so could he. There was an interesting moment as the sail flapped and the foot rope swayed and then he was standing with his body thrown over the spar, looking down at the belly of the sail.
Callum appeared beside him. ‘I wouldn’t want to do this in a gale at night!’ he shouted.
‘No. Damn good reason not to get press-ganged,’ Alistair agreed as he twisted to look back over his shoulder. The young women had stopped all pretence of ignoring the men and were standing staring up at them. Dita, hatless, was easy to pick out, her face smoothed into a perfect oval by the distance.
‘We have an audience,’ he remarked.
‘Then let’s get down before Daniel and make the most of the admiration,’ Callum said with a grin.
Going down was no easier, as Alistair remembered. As he glanced down at the ladies, and to set his feet right on the rigging, the scene below seemed to corkscrew wildly, as though the top of the mast was fixed and the ship moved beneath it.
‘Urgh,’ Callum remarked, and climbed down beside him. ‘Remind me why this is a good idea.’
‘Exercise and impressing the ladies, if that appeals.’ Alistair kept pace with him as the rigging widened out. His leg was burning now with the strain, but it would hold him. He’d be glad to relax his hand, though. ‘It is Daniel who is betrothed, is it not?’
‘Yes,’ Callum agreed, somewhat shortly. ‘A childhood friend,’ he added after another rung down. ‘I’m not looking for a wife myself, not yet while I don’t know whether the Company wants me to come back out or work in London.’ After another two steps down he seemed to unbend a trifle. ‘What about you?’
‘I certainly require a wife,’ Alistair agreed. ‘There’s the inheritance to think of. I shall no doubt be braving the Marriage Mart this Season in pursuit of a well-bred virgin with the requisite dowry and connections, not a thought in her brain and good child-bearing hips.’
Callum snorted. ‘Is there no one below us right this minute with those qualifications? What about Lady P—?’
He broke off, obviously recalling that Dita fell scandalously short of one of Alistair’s stated requirements. ‘Er, that is—’
‘That is, Lady Perdita has enough thoughts in her brain to keep any man in a state of perpetual bemusement,’ Alistair said, taking pity on him. ‘I have had my fill of troublesome women, I want a placid little English rose.’
And besides, he thought as he jumped down on to the deck and held out a hand to steady Callum, she certainly hasn’t got child-bearing hips. She’s still the beanpole she always was.
A beanpole, he was startled to realise, who stood regarding him with wide-eyed interest. So, she was not above getting in a flutter over displays of male prowess. How unexpected. How stimulating. She came up to him as he shrugged back into his coat and he braced himself for gushing admiration.
‘That looks wonderful!’ Dita exclaimed, her eyes fixed on the crow’s nest and not on him, or any of the men. ‘I would love to do that.’
‘No! Of course you can’t, you’re a girl!’ It was the response that had become automatic through years of her tagging along behind him. ‘A lady,’ he corrected himself as the wide green eyes focused on his face, and he was conscious of an odd feeling of disappointment.
‘That’s what you always said,’ she retorted. ‘You always snubbed me, and I always got my way. I climbed the same trees, I learned to swim in the lake—I even rode a cow backwards when you did. Do you remember?’
‘Vividly,’ Alistair said. ‘I got a beating for that. But what you did when you were eight has nothing to do with this. Besides anything else, you couldn’t climb rigging in skirts.’
‘That is a very good point,’ she said, bestowing a smile on him that left him breathless. Before he could think of a response she turned away.
Dita Brooke had obviously been taking lessons in witchcraft, he concluded, wondering whether he was foolishly suspicious to read a promise of trouble into that radiant smile.
‘Ooh! Lord Lyndon, you must be ever so strong to do that!’ One of the merchants’ daughters, he had no idea which, gazed at him in wide-eyed adoration.
‘Not at all,’ he said, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial