Alfred had regretted this job even before he'd officially accepted it. Even just the premise was tedious; teaching wealthy girls, who had no particular interest anything but clothes and men, how to sail. Presumably they wanted to seem more accomplished, and adding the talent to their repertoire of things to be listed off in conversation appealed to them. Certainly, they had no innate talent for the sport and no particular desire to learn how to actually handle a boat.

The job was partly an appeasement to his brother, who wanted him to find some sort of work that kept him home in England (although he would never actually admit that to Evander) and partly a portion of his scheme to put away as much money as possible over the course of the summer so that he could maybe, eventually, someday have a chance of winning Brannon Fisk's approval to court his daughter. The family who had organized this event was paying a frankly absurd amount for him to come and facilitate it, and they had provided the sailboat and the dock from which to launch it, so he supposed he really shouldn't complain about the experience — but at times it was difficult to keep that in mind. Particularly at the beginning of the session, when he'd taken time to explain what all of the lines and sails were called, how to use them, and which bollards they were associated with, then asked for questions — only to have one of the bolder young ladies inquire whether he really did have tattoos over his whole torso.

He'd gritted his teeth and gotten through it, though, and had managed to launch the boat with some minimal help from the ladies. Now they were underway, and he was trying to take more of a backseat so that they could actually get some experience steering and working the lines — which was going rather miserably.

"Take in the spinnaker," he told one of the girls, who was practically sitting on the relevant line. "See how slack it is?"