Page 12 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

Elias

I placed my veilleuse-théière on the gun room table and lit its tiny candle.

Supper had finished some time ago, and sleeping hour for the mess deck had nearly arrived.

Officers either readied for bed in their cabins or stood watch above, leaving the gun room quiet and still.

I set the veilleuse-théière’s small teapot over its chimney-like stand.

The cylinder concentrated the candle’s heat to bring the water in the teapot, which was just enough for two cups of tea, back to a simmer.

The flame swayed inside the chimney, sometimes following the movement of the Marianne and sometimes snapping its own direction.

Unpredictable. Mesmerizing. Soothing. The tension of the day loosened and dissolved from my shoulders as I watched, and I steadied the veilleuse-théière against its base to keep it from plunging off the table.

A week at sea, and things had begun to settle into a familiar routine.

I instructed the young gentlemen in mathematics and the classics in the morning, then taught the regular ship’s boys to read in the afternoon.

I dined with the officers in the evening or sometimes Captain Peyton when his wife had a brief respite from her lingering seasickness.

And all day, I passed Miss Byam, wondering which version of her I would meet.

Some moments, she wouldn’t glance at me, even if we brushed shoulders.

Other times, she gave me a stiffly polite greeting, as though the apology hadn’t quite made up for my offense.

Like the candle before me, I couldn’t guess which direction she would lean—toward or away from me.

I arranged the jars of jasmine buds, mint, and dried peaches with one hand. My stock of peaches had nearly vanished. I didn’t know if they’d have them in Malta, but I could hope.

A feminine laugh skipped through the partition between the gun room and the rest of the mess deck.

Miss Byam seemed to enjoy spending her evenings with the mates.

It made sense, as Lieutenant Roddam hadn’t invited her to dine with the officers, and who wouldn’t want to pass her time with the charismatic and flirtatious Mr. Walcott?

“Are you well, Mr. Doswell?”

I straightened in my chair. étienne stood on the opposite side of the table. I hadn’t noticed his entrance. “Yes! Yes, of course.”

“You looked as though you had eaten something foul.”

I blinked. “Oh, no. I’m right as rain. To be sure.

” Blast it. I’d never mastered keeping a tight rein on my emotions, but to have someone sneak up on me when my guard was down did not help.

I hadn’t realized I harbored such disgruntlement over Miss Byam’s friendship with Mr. Walcott, something I had nothing to do with and no reason to care about one way or another.

He only nodded and continued toward his cabin, as he did every night, to sit alone until morning came. Just as I did.

“Would you care for tea?” I asked as he opened his cabin door, surprising myself as much as him.

“I think I ...” He gave me a thoughtful look. “Yes, thank you.”

The Frenchman and I had exchanged pleasantries, and I wondered if he’d found comfort in the sight of a familiar face among a largely unknown crew, as I had in our conversations.

Perhaps he preferred to not get more familiar than passing acquaintances, surrounded as he was by his country’s enemies after being pressed into service, but every man needed a friend.

Few on this ship wished to befriend me—clearly, Miss Byam had found her friendships in a rowdier crowd—but I could be a friend to those no one else wished to talk to.

If étienne was willing, I might even have an opportunity to practice my French.

Or would that be too awkward a favor to ask of him?

“Have you ever been to the Mediterranean?” I asked. This wouldn’t be the relaxing evening I’d anticipated, not with the task of thinking of what to say, but there was always tomorrow night.

He sat in the chair opposite mine and draped his arm across its back. “A few times.”

Did I ask where he was from, or was that too personal?

Miss Byam laughed again, further jumbling my thoughts. What was she laughing at? One of Mr. Walcott’s questionable jokes?

“I have not seen many of these outside of France,” étienne said, motioning to the veilleuse-théière.

“Nor have I. I brought it back from Paris while traveling with my father. During the peace time.” England and France had fought all but a few years of my lifetime. If only the journey with my father could have been as peaceful.

“I have never been to Paris.” étienne’s accent was pronounced, though he had a solid grasp on the English language. “I have heard it is stunning.”

Overwhelming was more accurate, especially with my father directing us to and fro from sunup to sundown.

“It was quite an experience.” I carefully pulled the lid off the teapot, whose water had begun to bubble.

I tipped a little of the jasmine and mint into the pot, followed by the last of the peach slices.

My father had questioned my desire to bring home one of these sets.

Even then, I’d been too obsessed with my herbal concoctions and infusions for his taste.

He didn’t know, and I reckoned he didn’t care, that these nightly rituals had saved me.

I returned the lids to the jars and teapot, then blew out the candle below to let everything steep in the hot water.

“Perhaps it is not my business, but you seem rather more”—-étienne waved his hand as though searching for a word—“ burdened this voyage.”

It was all I could do not to duck my head. Had it been so obvious? “I suppose things did not go as I had hoped during my time on land.”

The Frenchman twirled the gold ring on his little finger. “Life has a way of throwing such things in our path, does she not?”

A few more minutes and the herbs would be properly infused. “Sometimes I wish, for once, life could go as planned.” I’d take even a single day.

I excused myself to fetch another teacup and couldn’t help a glance out one of the gun room doors. Miss Byam sat at the end of the table in close quarters with Mr. Walcott.

Why does it bother you so much? You wanted to avoid her the rest of the voyage.

I didn’t have an answer to that. Walcott and Catterick’s discussion of Miriam, Mrs. Peyton, and Miss Byam did nothing to help.

That first exchange with Walcott and my defense of the women they’d ogled repeated in my head nearly as much as the following encounter with Miss Byam.

Would I ever learn how to prevent myself from sounding like a dunce?

Someday, it would be nice not to relive every conversation in painful detail for years to come.

The teacup lay toward the bottom of my trunk, wrapped carefully to prevent breakage. I pulled it out and unwound the cloth. I fingered the diamond pattern along the porcelain. Another gift from Miriam from before I’d left on the Deborah .

Hearing the things they said about Miriam had made me suspicious of Walcott’s and Catterick’s intentions.

Miss Byam could decide for herself who she wanted as friends, but I couldn’t help feeling that Mr. Walcott had concealed some of his true nature in his attempt to win her attention.

Not all of it, however, as evidenced by the joke he’d tried to play on her.

I rose and shut the trunk. The tea would be done.

I deliberately kept my eyes on the gun room table as I returned.

It wasn’t as though I could tell her what a cad Mr. Walcott was.

Any ground I’d made up in our brief conversation Sunday evening would be lost threefold.

It wasn’t as though I’d find the courage to do it either.

She didn’t need any more reasons to hate me.

“It isn’t a true tea,” I said as I retook my seat. I lifted the teapot from the base and poured the steaming and fragrant liquid into the cups. The delicate jasmine hit my nose, but it did not send the comforting warmth through my body as it usually did. Discomfort and worry remained.

“It smells wonderful.” étienne took the cup from me.

We sipped our drinks in silence, and I tried to banish my misgivings.

I had no place judging whom Miss Byam chose to spend time with.

It should not affect me in the slightest. And yet I could not lose myself in the details of my tea or distract myself in conversation with my fellow idler.

My ears strained for any snippet of her conversation, any note of her laugh.

It was almost as though my weary brain and aching heart wanted nothing more than to set off once again down a path that ended at another impassable cliff, just like it had with Miss Somer and the other women I’d fallen for.

I had to close the gate before that path even became a possibility.

My soul could not take it one more time.

May

I tried to laugh at Mr. Shelby’s jokes, but as the night wore on, it became more of a struggle. I did not find him amusing in the slightest. At least Walcott was funny, even if his teasing rankled me.

“I’m afraid we aren’t your high society, Miss Byam,” Shelby said, taking a swig from his cup.

The thick, spicy aroma of grog mixed with the heavy air of the mess deck.

A couple of days ago, it would have soured my churning stomach.

At least I hadn’t had seasickness as terribly as Mrs. Peyton.

She still could hardly look at a drink without gagging.

“I haven’t any worry about high society.

” I wasn’t high society either, though Papa had put us in position to slide between social classes with ease.

If my father hadn’t been caught swindling, would I feel right sitting here among these young men, or would I prefer the stilted company of Mr. Doswell and the officers?

I glanced toward the ladder. Mrs. Hallyburton would not take pleasure in seeing me here. That fact made me more determined to stay, despite the dismal humor.