Page 1 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

Portsmouth, England

May Byam

S ix years marked as the daughter of a convict had taught me one thing: I couldn’t trust even the people closest to me. Watching Mama pack her trunk to leave only confirmed that. I buried my nose in Papa’s old copy of Cowper’s poetry to hide the unfathomable scene.

“Would you like this?” Mama asked, holding up a poke bonnet with a short brim trimmed in little white silk flowers. “I think my other will better suit my position.”

She’d loved that bonnet when Papa had bought it for her. Before his arrest. She’d hardly worn it since.

A pang rippled through my heart as I peeked over my book. “If you do not wish to take it, I will not refuse. My bonnet is in tatters.” We hadn’t had funds to replace mine.

I turned a page, though I wasn’t really reading.

The one chair we had in our borrowed room dug into my back, but I couldn’t give up my seat.

In a moment, Mama would go to post her letter to my older sister, Agnes, in London, and then I’d make my escape.

If I acted absorbed in my reading, there would be less opportunity for conversation, and she’d leave sooner.

I just hoped I wouldn’t keep my potential employer waiting.

My previous employer had demanded punctuality.

I swallowed back the little ache that tried to form in my chest at the thought of poor Mrs. Richardson.

“I’ll put it on your trunk,” Mama said.

My tiny book didn’t hide the room well enough to block out her movements. As she returned to collecting her belongings, her eyes caught mine. I quickly looked away, but a moment later, her hand touched my knee.

Oh no. Not this again.

“May, I know you are angry with me for accepting this work.” She sighed. “I felt I had no choice.”

No choice but to leave her daughter to fend for herself.

Ever since Papa’s deportation, we’d had only each other.

My brother, Lewis, had never sent funds home.

Agnes and James had a house full of children and couldn’t afford two more mouths to feed.

Mama and I had scrounged for work despite the few options we had, given our connection to my father.

The last six months, we hadn’t had more than this ten-foot room to call our home. We’d survived. Together.

“I know.” I didn’t have much more to say than that. I’d already shouted my frustrations when she’d come in a few nights ago to announce Aunt Byam had found her a job as an abigail in a town several miles from Portsmouth. They were to work at the same estate for a mother and daughter.

“I understand the sorrow over Mrs. Richardson is still very fresh,” Mama said, squeezing my knee in a way I’m sure she meant to be comforting. “But have you considered your aunt’s suggestion of taking the scullery maid position? We’d be together.”

I bit my lip to keep from shouting again and tried to breathe out the mounting rage. Mama cared enough to worry. It was more than anyone else in this world cared. “We employed a scullery maid once.”

“That was a different life, May.” Mama released me and straightened. “Mrs. Richardson took pity on you, even though she knew our story. Most of Portsmouth will not be that sympathetic. We have seen it over and over.”

My eyes stung, and I willed myself not to cry.

Mrs. Richardson, old and independent, thanks to her late husband’s fortune accrued as an admiral, had not minded my connections.

As long as I arrived to act as her companion precisely at eight in the morning and let her talk all day without reprieve, she did not care that my father had stolen a small fortune from the rope yard.

Arriving on her doorstep yesterday morning to be informed by her unfeeling son that his mother had died in the night had not only deprived me of work but also of my legitimate excuse to reject my aunt’s suggestion.

“I will not wear my fingers to the bone for someone who could not care if I lived or died,” I said.

Mama shook her head and turned her back on me. She closed the trunk with a sharp click. “I’m off to post this letter. Please consider it. We’d be together, and that is all I want.” Her voice sounded tired, resigned. It was a tone I’d heard so many times the last few years.

I wanted to remind her that we would be together in theory, but she would inhabit a servants’ circle far above mine.

While she pinned up hair and mended hems, I’d scrub pans and empty chamber pots.

If she wanted us to stay together so badly, she should have discussed it with me instead of surprising me with the information after signing a contract.

Mama donned her drab bonnet and made for the door. I pushed my nose closer to the pages of my book as I held my breath for her to leave.

“I love you, May,” she said quietly.

A lump formed in my throat as the door closed.

I didn’t want to believe it. She’d chosen this with little thought for my situation.

For five years, we’d made all our decisions—to leave our home, to live with my aunt and uncle, to find work well beneath our previous standing—together.

But Aunt Byam had always been such a friend to Mama.

And I could not convince myself that Mama hadn’t chosen my aunt over me.

Mama’s footsteps softened as she walked away, down the hall and down the steps of the tavern one of my uncle’s former shipmates owned. I lifted the bonnet and fingered its little flowers, remembering Papa’s pride-filled grin and Mama’s pleasure at the gift.

A sweet memory turned bitter by the lies that would soon be revealed. The pang of sorrow I’d never been allowed to express pulsed within me. Byams didn’t wilt under life’s misfortunes. My aunt had enforced that the last six years, each time she’d scolded me for my tears.

I slipped to the window and watched Mama pick her way through the street until she vanished, then I drew in a fortifying breath and slid from my apron pocket the scrap of newsprint I’d torn out of an abandoned paper yesterday on my way home from Mrs. Richardson’s.

I set the worn apron on the chair and pulled on my spencer and the bonnet.

It wouldn’t do to look unpolished when interviewing to be a lady’s maid.

I held up the piece of newspaper to check the ship’s name again.

HMS Marianne . I hoped I’d find it quickly.

With how soon she’d set sail, the seamen milling about the dockyards should have directions for me.

I raced down the stairs and into the street, my gaze automatically falling on the low wall where my cousin Charlie and I would sit and watch for his father’s ship.

I wanted to find the Marianne as quickly as possible, but surely I had a moment for Charlie.

The September sun shone brightly on our spot, warming me through my jacket as I leaned against the rough stone wall.

The ocean breeze ruffled the scrap of paper in my hand.

Jolly boats and longboats wove between sloops and frigates in the harbor, some carrying supplies and some transporting smartly dressed officers.

Farther away sat the first-, second-, and third-rates, their hulking forms crawling with ant-sized seamen.

My cousin Charlie used to tell me all about the different ships and how he’d wanted to work on one of the great ships of the line.

He hadn’t made it higher than frigates.

“I’m doing it, Charlie,” I whispered to the wind. “I’m going to sail, just like you. I only have to convince her to take me.” My throat tightened, and my eyes smarted. I gritted my teeth. Now was not the time for grief to surface. I couldn’t arrive with red eyes and a running nose.

Gulls called as they looked for perches among the forest of masts. Sails filled as ships crept out of the harbor. I breathed in the moment. If I convinced this captain’s wife to take me on, this could be one of my last days in Old Pompey. I hadn’t considered that.

Before the sense of loss could overwhelm me, I turned and hurried away. I could mourn the changes in my life later. In all my nineteen years, nothing had both thrilled and terrified me quite like today. Everything hinged on this captain’s wife’s seeing my worth.

I glanced once more at the scrap. HMS Marianne .

And the captain’s wife’s name was Georgana Peyton.

Most likely some middle-aged woman with grown children, so she could run off to heaven knew where with her husband.

I’d have to charm her and hope for a bit of luck.

Luck had never favored me, but I had to believe it would now, or it was the scullery for me.

Elias Doswell

I forced the best smile I could under my sister’s probing stare. She stood inside the cramped cabin that would be my home for months, if not years, her arms folded. Her red hair, nearly the same shade as my own, had a brassy sheen in the light of the lantern that swung gently from its hook.

“I know you better than that, Elias. You cannot keep your feelings from me.”

I gulped. “I am not keeping—”

“A man of the church lying to his own kin?” She clicked her tongue. “Papa will be mortified when I tell him.”

My face heated. “Miriam, this is what I want. I promise you.” I needed an escape. This voyage was the best way. “I will have a place here. A living. I won’t get in the way of Isaac’s family. Surely you can see that.”

Her raised brow told me she saw straight through my words. Older sisters always did. “And you won’t get your heart broken again.”

I winced as scenes of vibrant gardens swirled across my mind.

Lilacs and rosebushes and greenery laid out in welcoming perfection.

A blue-sky day and warm breeze. And Eliza Somer walking toward me with the effortless grace for which she was admired by all.

Her calm expression, solemn even for her, should have warned me.