Free The Lady and the Captain by Beverly Adam

deceased with a proper burial service.
    Other ships of the line had been known to undergo mutinies by unceremoniously dumping the dead into the sea. Without so much as a whisper of prayer to God for the soul of the departed, cold-hearted officers had thoughtlessly disposed of the deceased’s body. Outraged by such callousness, ordinary seamen had been known to take arms on behalf of their departed shipmates.
    Aye, he wanted to find the poisoning traitor as quickly as possible. He had to, before someone else became sick, or worse, dead.
    “Mister Litton, I expect you to notify Master O’ Grady’s wife that I shall have need of her services as chaperone for my betrothed,” he said. “Please, also inform the master carpenter and the other officers that I will wish to meet with them for an update of the ship’s condition at the next bell.”
    “Aye, sir,” the second mate replied.
    He bowed slightly to Sarah and left on his errand.
    She learned that there were two other ladies already living aboard The Brunswick. They were both standing officers’ wives—the master gunner’s and the master carpenter’s. Only in peacetime were the captains of the Royal Navy permitted to bring their ladies aboard.
    The lower ranking officers, the master gunner, boatswain, and carpenter received warrants from the navy. They were permanently attached to the same warship from the time she was first built until she fell apart or wrecked. It was not unusual, therefore, for their wives to come and live aboard with their husbands.
    This was not however true of the superior officers, the captain and his lieutenants. They were assigned by commissions from the Royal Admiralty for a particular period of time. Their time of duty serving aboard a ship of the line could be anywhere from a matter of a few months to several years. Sometimes unassigned ranking officers waited around on tenterhooks on dry land, idly passing time in port gambling and wenching, not knowing when their next commission might be.
    To a small degree, Sarah’s presence aboard was setting a precedent. But as the frigate did not expect to see any fighting in friendly waters and currently was on its way back to their home port of Portsmouth, none of the other officers questioned it. It made sense that the first mate would wish to bring his pretty Irish bride back to England on his own vessel, rather than entrust her care to someone else.
    Presenting his arm, Robert escorted her off the main, top deck up to the next level, the quarter deck. This part of the ship was considered to be the exclusive territory of the frigate’s superior officers. No noncommissioned member of the crew touched a foot on this part of the ship, except when invited by a superior officer.
    Looking around, she admired the beautiful lines of the sloop. She’d never been aboard a royal naval warship before. It was a new and exciting experience for a young woman who had been brought up on a small island.
    She’d noted upon first seeing the frigate, the long white stripes which ran along the gun decks and under the painted black gun ports. Other white stripes ran up and down on each of the three tall sailing masts. The hull was painted black.
    “Why are there white markings on the masts, Lieutenant?” she asked, curiously wondering at the decoration.
    “They mark our frigate as fighting on the side of the British. That way none of our own warships will mistake us for the enemy and try to blow us out of the water.”
    “Oh,” she said, much impressed.
    She tried to imagine what it would be like to be in the middle of such a battle on this small vessel. “I can see how that might indeed be undesirable. But do tell me more about The Brunswick . . . are there many like her in the Royal Navy?”
    “Aye, there are. And much has been made about the design of these frigates. The Royal Navy is busy having their top designers build an entire fleet of them,” he said proudly.
    “The speed and the agility of this