“Of course.” He adjusted his pressure on her hips, turning her just a little to the left. “Do you see that?” he asked, nodding toward a hole in the decking ahead of them.
“See what?” She turned her head to peer up at him, and he motioned again, this time making sure she could follow his gaze.
“That round opening, right there,” he said. “It’s a privy.”
“What? ”
“Well, we call it the head,” he clarified. “I told you we had our own language on board.”
She jerked a little, although not enough to dislodge her from his grasp. “Right here? A privy? Out in the open?”
“There’s one on the other side too.”
She gasped, and Andrew was brought back to all the times he’d tortured his sister with things creepy, crawly, and repulsive.
It was just as good now as it had been then.
He brought his lips a little closer to Poppy’s ear. “You didn’t think we all have lovely and wonderful chamber pots in our cabins, did you?”
He was very glad that he’d tilted to the side so he could see her face, because her lips bent and stretched in a marvelous expression of hygienic horror before she finally said, “You’re telling me you just squat down and situate yourself over—”
“I don’t,” he interrupted, “but the men do. It’s an ingenious design, really. The hull of the ship curves inward, of course, so the waste just drops straight down into the ocean. Well, unless there’s a particularly strong wind, but even then—”
“Stop!” she squealed. “It’s disgusting.”
“But you’re always so full of questions,” he said with all innocence. “I thought you wanted to know how the ship worked.”
“I do, but—”
“I assure you, such matters are most critical to the successful running of a ship. No one ever wants to talk about the unglamorous. It’s a common downfall of would-be architects and engineers, I tell you. It’s all very well and good to design the elegant bits, but it’s the things you can’t see in a structure that make it truly great.”
“I can see that ,” she muttered with a nod toward the head.
He fought a chuckle. “A compromise, if you will. In this case, the men trade a bit of their dignity for a far cleaner ship. Believe me, it gets rank enough on board during a long voyage.”
She made a little frown—the kind that was accompanied by a tilt of the head when people decided they approved of something. Still, she said, “I can’t believe I am having this conversation.”
“Likewise.”
“You brought it up.”
“So I did.” He frowned, trying to remember why. “Oh, right. It was because you had commented on the delicate manners of my men.”
“This was your way of refuting my claim?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
She frowned. “But you said you —”
“I used to,” he admitted. “Not on the Infinity , but on other ships, when I wasn’t in command.”
She gave a little shudder.
“The King of France sits on the chamber pot in front of his entire court,” Andrew said cheerfully.
“He does not!”
“He does, I swear. Or at least the last one did.”
She shook her head. “The French .”
Andrew burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are, as you know.”
She tried to scowl, but it didn’t work. She was clearly too proud of herself. Andrew thought she looked delightful.
“I suppose you’ve been to France,” she said.
“I have,” he confirmed.
“All over, or just to Paris?”
“And the ports.”
“Of course.” Her eyes flicked sheepishly to the side. “You can’t sail a ship of this size all the way to Paris.”
“Not generally, no. We can go as far as Rouen. Sometimes we do, sometimes we dock at the coast. In Le Havre, usually.”
Poppy was quiet for a moment, long enough for the wind to pull a wispy lock of her hair from behind her ear. It tickled Andrew’s skin, almost made him sneeze.
“What will you do when you’ve done everything?” she finally asked. Her voice was more serious now, thoughtful and curious.
He thought that a most interesting question, one he could not imagine anyone else asking of him. “Is that possible?” he wondered. “To do everything?”
Her brow drew down as she thought about that, and even though Andrew knew the lines that formed were due to thought and not worry, he had the hardest time keeping his fingers from smoothing them out.
“I think it might be possible to do enough ,” she finally said.
“Enough?” he murmured.
“So that nothing feels new anymore.”
Her words echoed his own recent thoughts so closely it nearly pulled his breath from his body. It wasn’t that his work was no longer exciting, or that he never got to do anything new. It was more that he was starting to feel ready to go home. To be with the people he loved.
With the people who loved him.
“I don’t know,” he said, because her question deserved honesty, even if he didn’t have a proper answer. “I don’t think I’ve reached that point yet,” he said. “Although . . .”
“Although?”
He might be getting close.
But he didn’t say that. He let himself lean forward, just far enough so that he could imagine setting his chin on the top of her head. He fought the urge to move his hands forward, to wrap them around her and pull her against him. He wanted to hold her in place, just the two of them against the wind.
“I should like to go to Ethiopia,” she said suddenly.
“Really?”
Poppy Bridgerton was more adventurous than most, but this surprised him.
“No,” she admitted. “But I like to think that I’d like to go there.”
“You’d like to . . .” He blinked. “What?”
“I’ve had a great deal of time to myself lately,” she said. “There is little else to do besides imagine things.”
Andrew generally thought himself an intelligent man, but he was having the damnedest time following her. “So you imagine going to Ethiopia?”
“Not really. I don’t know enough to imagine it properly. I can’t imagine what little I’ve heard is accurate. In England people speak of Africa as if it’s one big happy place—”
“Happy?” It wasn’t the word he’d have used.
“You know what I mean. People speak of it as if it’s one place, like France or Spain, when in actuality it’s huge .”
He thought of the dissected map, of how much fun she’d had while putting it together. “So says the map,” he murmured.
She nodded her agreement, then befuddled him completely when she said, “I imagine being the sort of person who would want to go to Ethiopia.”
“There’s a difference?”
“I think so. Perhaps what I mean is that I’d like to be the type of person who wants to do such things. I think someone like that would be brilliant at parties, don’t you?”
Andrew was dubious. “So you’re saying your goal is to be brilliant at parties.”
“No, of course not. My current goal is to avoid such gatherings at all costs. That’s why I was in Charmouth, if you must know.”
“I suppose I must,” he murmured, mostly because there didn’t seem any other appropriate response.
She gave him a look that was half peeved and half indulgent before carrying on. “What I’m trying to say is that if I went to a ball and met someone who had been to Ethiopia on purpose—”
“On purpose? ”
“I don’t think it counts if one goes under duress .”
Andrew turned her around. He needed to see her face. It was far too difficult to follow the conversation otherwise.
He studied her, looking for what, he did not know. Signs of mischief? Of madness? “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about,” he finally admitted.