“It’s beautiful,” Eddie croaked.
Her smile looked broken. “You are a wonderful husband, to say that. But you can barely speak the words. I know the expectations of fashion, Eddie. And here you see the truth at last: I have straight, plain hair. No tumbling curls, not even a tiny ripple of a wave. Plain, straight hair.”
He reached out and touched it. “Hair like fire and gold spun into silk,” he breathed. “And in my time, that kind of hair was very much in fashion. Hell, I didn’t think hair like this was ever out of fashion.”
She blinked. “So—you like it? You like my hair this way?”
Eddie gulped. “Oh, yes. I like it. Very much. Very, very much.” He roused himself out of his pre-carnal stupor. “But know this, Anne Cathrine, the hair is not important to me. What’s under it is.” He touched her cheek. “As important as the wide world.”
Anne Cathrine’s smile—shockingly white teeth—was sudden and wide. She caught his hand on her cheek and held it there. “Truly,” she said, “I am the luckiest woman in the world.”
“And a princess, to boot,” Eddie added with a grin.
“A king’s daughter,” she corrected, and moved toward him again—
“Sail, sail on the port bow! Rounding the rocks, sirs. She’s running before the wind!”
St. Kilda archipelago, North Atlantic
Eddie transferred Anne Cathrine’s hands from him to the rail—“Hold on, Anne Cathrine, and be ready to take the ladies below”—and made for the stairs to the observation deck atop the pilot house. “Orderly?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Glasses topside, please. And call Mr. Bjelke back on deck. Smartly.”
“Yes, sir!” The response was already dwindling aft.
As Eddie made his way up the stairs—damnit, can’t this leg go any faster?—he heard Gjedde’s voice behind him. “No point in breaking your neck, Commander. Things do not happen quite so quickly in this century.”
As Eddie thumped his prosthetic down upon the observation deck—another change from the Hartford—he turned to offer a smile to the older captain, whose mouth looked a little less rigid than usual. It might have even had a faint upward curl at one side. If he hadn’t spent so much time with Simpson, he might have completely missed that hint of a smile. So, Gjedde doesn’t hate me. Either that, or he’s hoping I’ll get offed in the next hour or so . . .
Eddie went straight to the speaking tubes, popped back the covers, and toggled the telegraphic command circuit. “Circuit test,” he shouted.
“Tests clear,” came the muffled shout from under his feet where the intraship telegrapher was stationed.
The orderly bounded up the stairs, passing a new-pattern spyglass to Gjedde, and holding a case out toward Eddie, who snapped it open and lifted out the precious up-time binoculars. The signalman hustled past with a hastily muttered “Verlot!” and was immediately ready, pad to his right, left index finger poised on the telegrapher’s key. “Comms manned, Captain Gjedde.”
Gjedde shook his head. “You will make your reports to, and take your orders from, Commander Cantrell. He will direct this ship through her first combat.”
Eddie turned, stunned, “What?”
Gjedde bowed. “Your command, Mr. Cantrell. Compliments of your father-in-law, Christian IV.”
Why that old son of a— “Then Captain Gjedde, I say three times: I have the bridge. What’s the word from the foretop crow’s nest? What manner of ship, flying what colors?”
After a pause, the report came back. “A carrack sir. Old design. Spanish colors.”
Spanish colors? Up here? What the hell were they—?
Apparently, telepathy was a strong trait in the Danish; now it was Gjedde who seemed to read his mind. “Not so unusual. They supply the Irish with guns and powder, from time to time. Sometimes the Scots, too. There is no shortage of rebels against English occupiers up here, and Spain is only too happy to provide them with assistance.”
Eddie nodded. “I understand, but why ever they happen to be here, it seems that they’ve seen us. They ran between Crown of Waves and Courser like they were waiting for that opening. I suspect they saw our smoke, peeked around the northwestern point of Hirta—at Gob a Ghaill—saw our flotilla, measured the breeze, and realized their only way to avoid us was to run before the wind after our advance picket had passed them, but before our main van drew too close.”
Gjedde nodded, the visible slivers of his eyes sharp. “Ja, that is how I see it, also.”