“I am reading about Penelope,” Lord William said, ignoring the frequent crashes as the enemy shot hacked into the Pucelle. “She is a remarkable woman, is she not?”
“I have always thought as much,” Lady Grace said, opening her eyes.
“The quintessence, would you not say, of fidelity?” Lord William asked.
Grace looked into her husband’s face. He was sitting to her left, perched on the opposite side of the narrow space. He seemed amused. “Her fidelity is always praised,” she said.
“Have you ever wondered, my dear, why I took you to India?” Lord William asked, closing the book after carefully marking his place with what appeared to be a folded letter.
“I hoped it was because I could be of use to you,” she answered.
“And so you were,” Lord William said. “Our necessary visitors were entertained most properly and I have not one single complaint about the manner in which you organized our household.”
Grace said nothing. The rudder, so close behind them, creaked in its pintles. The enemy gunfire was a constant succession of dull thumps, sometimes rising to a thunderous crescendo, then lulling again into the steadier banging.
“But of course,” Lord William went on, “a good servant can run a household quite as well as a wife, if not better. No, my dear, I confess it was not for that reason that I wished you to accompany me, but rather, forgive me, because I feared you would find it hard to imitate Penelope if I were to leave you at home for such a long period.”
Grace, who had been watching the water well and spill from the seam, looked at her husband. “You are offensive,” she said coldly.
Lord William ignored her words. “Penelope, after all,” he went on, “stayed faithful to her husband through all the long years of his exile, but would a modern woman show the same forbearance?” Lord William pretended to mull over this question. “What do you think, my dear?”
“I think,” she said acidly, “that I would need to be married to Odysseus to answer such a question.”
Lord William laughed. “Would you like that, my dear? Would you like to be married to a warrior? Though is Odysseus such a great warrior? It always seems to me that he is a trickster before he is a soldier.”
“He is a hero,” Grace insisted.
“As, I am sure, all husbands are to their wives,” Lord William said placidly, then looked up at the deck beams as a double blow shook the ship. A wave heaved up the stern, making him reach out a hand to steady himself. Feet scraped on the deck above, where the ship’s first wounded were going under the surgeon’s knife. Then a particularly loud crash, sounding very close by, made Lady Grace cry aloud. There was the ominous sound of gushing water that stopped abruptly as the carpenter, finding the hole in the ship’s water line, hammered a shaped plug into the shot hole. Lady Grace wondered how far beneath the water line they were. Five feet? Captain Chase had been certain that no shot could penetrate the lady hole, explaining that the sea water slowed the cannon balls instantly, but the terrible sounds suggested that every part of the Pucelle could be wounded. The ship’s pumps clattered, though once the Pucelle opened fire the men would be too busy at the guns to bother with the pumps. The ship was full of noises: the creaking of the mast roots in the hold, the gurgle of water, the sucking gulps of the pump, the groan-ings of strained timbers, the shriek of the rudder on its metal hangings, the banging of the enemy guns and the tearing crashes of the shots striking home. Lady Grace, assaulted by the cacophony, had one hand at her mouth and the other clasped to her belly where she carried Sharpe’s child.
“We are entirely safe here,” Lord William calmed his wife. “Captain Chase assures me that no one dies beneath the water line. Though when I come to think of it, my dear, poor Braithwaite did just that.” Lord William put his hands together in mock piety. “He was killed beneath the water line,” he intoned.