Page 32 of The English Duke
Martha decided it was best to put aside her father’s letters for now. Perhaps she would revisit them later when her emotions were more stable and she didn’t feel like weeping.
“How did you become interested in torpedo ships, Your Grace?” she asked.
“The same way your father did, I think,” he said. “The Crimean War.”
“My father didn’t speak of the war with much fondness, Your Grace. I know he was appalled at the loss of life. Especially in the hospitals.”
“And because of the mines,” he said. “My first captain had been aboard a ship approaching Sevastopol, sailing directly into one of those mines. He considered them an abomination.”
She tilted her head a little and regarded him.
“I thought of them as a challenge,” he continued. “How could we defend against them? We had to have something more effective than men stationed in the bow as lookouts. Then, I became interested in the idea of a mobile mine we could develop. My first idea was for a type of weapon that could lower and raise itself, depending on whether the approaching vessel was friend or foe.”
She smiled in admiration. “What an excellent idea. Have you done anything with it?”
“No,” he said. “I proposed it to someone in the War Office. He told me about your father’s idea, to make a moving mine. A torpedo ship.”
“And that’s when your correspondence began,” she said, smiling. “I remember my father’s reaction to your first letter. He was quite impressed. He came to me and waved it in front of me and said, ‘Martha, here is a young man who wishes to learn. A naval man. He wants to know my thoughts, can you believe it?’”
“He was a great inspiration, Miss York. I found myself wanting to impress him, just to see him write, ‘Hamilton, you have it!’” He shook himself a little as if to dismiss his reverie. “I don’t think we’ll see his like again.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Your Grace,” she said, studying him. “Perhaps you’re more like him than you know.”
It wasn’t a specious compliment she gave him. Jordan Hamilton asked questions few people asked. He saw the world as a curiosity, something offering up endless possibilities for change, adaptation, and even invention.
Her father had the same openness. He’d once told her,Tolive with wonder, Martha, is to be given a great gift. To wake each morning and want to find out why—now there’s a life’s full pursuit.
She’d felt that wonder working beside him. His excitement and enthusiasm had been infectious. She, too, wanted to know why something wouldn’t work or, conversely, why it did. The idea that two minds could work independently on a problem to find a solution had always fascinated her. So, too, the easy sharing of ideas, like the letters between her father and Jordan.
“Did you like your time in the navy?”
She was curious about every aspect of his life, something she probably should hide.
He glanced at her and hesitated. Did he wonder why she wished to know? Or was he trying to find a way to keep information about himself private? Was he going to tell her to restrain her interest, that he had no attention of divulging details about his life to a woman who was little more than a stranger?
Except that he didn’t feel like a stranger to her. She’d read his letters to her father until it felt as if she knew him like a dear friend. Not a comment she was going to make.
“I did, yes,” he said, surprising her with his answer. “I liked the order, the symmetry of it. You knew what was going to happen from one day to the next, as far as routines and drills and duties. Granted, the world around you could change, but you knew a certain watch had to begin on time. Each man had his duties and everyone knew the rules and the punishment for not obeying them.”
“Do you like rules, then?”
Before he could answer, she spoke again.
“I hate rules, myself. They seem to constrain thinking. At least creative thinking.”
He studied her in the dim light.
“What rules do you find constraining?” he asked.
“Those doled out by society,” she said instantly. “What sort of clothes and hats you have to wear. Who can speak to whom. What you have to say. I’m afraid society and I don’t often agree.”
“That’s not altogether a bad thing,” he said. “It leaves you better able to think great thoughts.”
She smiled at him, delighted at his comment. “I doubt my thoughts are great,” she said. “But I would rather think of anything but clothes and hats.”
“Your sister is a fashionable woman.”
“Yes, she is,” she said, feeling a disappointment at his comment.
