Page 25 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)
Elias
I pushed my book closer to the gun room table’s lantern to better make out the lines forming Europe on its pages, then I glanced at my drawing on the two pasted-together sheets.
I’d made Norway a little too close to Denmark.
It wasn’t as though the boys would notice, but I rubbed at the pencil line anyway, smearing it.
Going over it with ink in the final version would mostly mask the mistake.
Nudging my spectacles back into place, I leaned forward to try forming the outline of Norway once more.
Around me, the quiet of the ship drifting to sleep formed a bubble of calm.
The Marianne rocked peacefully in the shelter of the Maltese harbor’s waters, and seamen slept soundly, knowing they wouldn’t be attacked by storm or foe tonight.
I turned the pencil to use the sharper point on the other side of the lead.
Employing my hands had proven helpful in my attempts to banish the sinking despair that had holed up inside me since the battle.
I thought that making land in Malta would have restored my mind to its previous state—more controlled, less spontaneous in the memories it chose to bring before me—but the fear and guilt still lodged in my heart.
Constant companions I’d dealt with all my life but had learned to ignore in most situations.
A cabin door creaked open, and a head popped out. My heart flipped.
“What are you doing so late?” Miss Byam asked, slipping out and closing the door. She wore a cap over her hair and held a coat wrapped around her like a sultana.
“I thought I heard you go to bed,” I said, setting down the pencil.
Excellent. Now she knows you listen to her getting ready each night. How awful that sounded. It wasn’t as if anyone in this gun room could help but hear his neighbors in adjacent cabins. I opened my mouth to explain, then snapped it shut. Speaking would only make it worse.
Miss Byam shuffled to the table and sat in a chair across from me. “You have been nearly impossible to find the last week. One would think we resided on opposite ends of the ship.”
I’d done it on purpose. I didn’t want to witness her anger at me for trying to help when she’d already refused. “Coming into port is a busy time for everyone.”
She planted her elbows on the table. “Not for the chaplain.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, not meeting her gaze. “I still have duties to attend to. Of a clerical sort.” I worked my pencil along Norway’s coast, heading northeast.
Miss Byam placed her hand on the map, stopping my pencil’s progression. “I wanted to thank you. For the bonnet. You didn’t have to do that.”
And yet catching glimpses of her wearing it the last three days had given me greater pleasure than wearing the hat myself.
She could walk about freely without waiting for the awning or running from shadow to shadow.
She did not seem the type to take well to being caged, and I did not want to see her caged.
“It was nothing,” I said with a shrug. I wanted to lose myself in the safety of drawing again, but she hadn’t moved her hand.
“It meant the world to me.”
I couldn’t help the grin that sprang to my face, though I instantly attempted to reel it back in. Her smile in return made that difficult to do. My body warmed despite the coolness of the lower deck.
“What is keeping you awake so late?” she asked, pulling her hand back and nodding to the sheets of paper on the gun room table.
“Part of my lessons with the midshipmen.” I moved my arm to show her the half-finished map.
She came partway out of her chair to examine it. “What are these numbered circles?”
I traced my finger along the map. “You spin a teetotum to advance to important cities around the world, and the first to arrive back in London wins. I played an old version of this game with my grandfather as a boy, and I thought the mids would appreciate the change of routine.”
She put her finger on the map and followed mine in the trek across Europe. “It sounds more exciting than just reading the names of places in books.”
“I can’t say I mind the reading, but I have a feeling the young gentlemen would agree with you.”
She paused, then set her finger on Portsmouth. Slowly, she moved through the English Channel, along the Bay of Biscay, around Spain and Portugal, and past the Strait of Gibraltar, following the path of our voyage. “Where is Malta?”
I moved my finger to the little island off the coast of Sicily. “We are here.”
She brought her finger through the Mediterranean Sea to tap against mine. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”
I nodded. In so many ways. The Marianne had taken us around Europe, but she had also taken Miss Byam and me from misunderstanding strangers to trusting neighbors.
Trusting? I studied her face as she contemplated the map and our position.
Did I trust her? In some ways. I trusted that she respected me, but I wasn’t so desperate that I’d open the door to someone and give them free rein to examine every corner of my heart.
“Where will we go from here, do you think?” She kept her finger pressed against mine.
“Northeast to the Adriatic, Southeast to the Nile, North to Provence. There are many places they could send us.”
“It’s a bit exciting, isn’t it? Not knowing what adventures await us.”
I pulled my finger away. “Storms and battle await us.” I’d finish the map tomorrow night. Fatigue was getting the better of me. I had only so much strength to keep the fear and worthlessness at bay. I pocketed the pencil and let the book I copied from fall closed.
“You can tell me,” she said softly.
“Why would I do that?” I murmured, not looking at her. Hearing the explanation as to why the battle so much affected me would not strengthen my standing in her eyes. I laid my ruler atop the book.
“Because we’ve hardly spoken the last week, and I’ve missed our conversations.”
She had? I halted before I could sweep the map out from under her hand. I had missed our chatting too. It was difficult to want to talk to someone when thoughts and memories overwhelmed me. Not to mention the embarrassment.
“I’ve been worried about you,” she said. Lantern light caressed the side of her face, catching in tiny stars on the tips of her eyelashes.
I cleared my throat. Confound this stirring inside me.
My lungs refused to expand as her pleading tone rang in my ears.
Hadn’t I learned from Miss Durant and Miss Starle and Miss Page and Miss Somer?
I’d tried to let them in, and each instance had ended in heartache.
None of them had asked though. Even Miss Somer, kind as she was, had never looked at me with so much concern.
Pity, perhaps, but not genuine worry. “Why would you worry about me?” I finally said.
“How could I not worry about a friend?”
The corners of my mouth turned upward. A friend. My heart, still stubbornly clinging to na?veté despite its experience, thudded rapidly.
Miss Byam stood, and for a moment, I feared she’d retire to her cabin. She rounded the table and pushed a chair closer until it tapped mine. Then she sat. “Tell me. Please?” she said in a near whisper.
I glanced around the gun room. Most of the officers’ cabins were dark.
“Why was it so difficult?” She clasped her hands together on her knees, eyes trained on me.
I wanted to push away. It would be easier than the pain women caused that was certain to follow. Why could I not resist? Like the first hint of jasmine drifting from a cup of tea, she’d captured me with her guileless care.
Don’t do it, Elias. Don’t give in. Though my head screamed I’d regret this, my heart would not be swayed. “I went to sea at twelve aboard the same ship my brother served in, HMS Lumière . Ship’s boy, first class.”
She inclined her head. “You meant to be an officer?”
“My father meant for me to be an officer.” I blew out long and slow. “I hardly made it past the first battle.”
“Did you want to be an officer?”
“I wanted nothing more than for him to esteem me as much as he did my older brother, who’d already made a name for himself in the navy.
” Why was I admitting this to her? I ran a hand through my hair.
“I did love the sea. And ships. I thought I wanted this life.” It had proven too harsh for a boy sheltered by four older sisters, who barely knew his brother at sea.
She nodded as though it made sense, but I couldn’t understand why she thought so. “Even when we are born into the same family, that does not make us the same,” she said.
Truer words had never been spoken. More than one of my sisters would have fared better at sea than I had. I could easily see Ruth or Anna getting promoted to post-captain faster than Isaac.
“My sister takes more after my mother and my brother after my father,” she said with a little laugh, a twinge of something melancholy in her tone. Regret? “I thought I took after my father as well until a few years ago.”
“What made you change your mind?”
She ducked her chin. “He did something so dishonorable I nearly wished there were a way to sever all ties with him.” Even in the orange light, I could see her face reddening.
I leaned forward, stomach sinking as a dozen scenarios passed through my mind. I wanted to ask but did not wish to pry.
She smiled as though reading my thoughts. “He was a clerk at the rope yards and swindled money for years.”
I closed my eyes, imagining the repercussions such actions would have on a family.
“We lived rather grandly for our station, not knowing it was all a lie.” She brushed at the skirt of her coat. “Now he is in New Holland paying for his crimes.” She sighed. “While we pay for his crimes in England.”