Page 33 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

Rung after rung, I descended toward the mess deck, the sun’s encompassing light giving way to scattered lantern light broken by trenches of deep shadow.

My narrow view of the past was marred by so many shadows, where the light of my understanding could not reach.

Darkened by prejudice and grief, I hadn’t cared to hold a light up to examine what might lay beyond the edges of my perception when I’d first boarded.

Mr. Doswell had made me reconsider. In the light of his goodness, I’d been forced to examine my first impression of him and had found someone tender and lovely and accepting. The longer I stood in his light, the more I realized the world was different from my limited understanding.

I stood at the bottom of the ladder, observing the deck as I gave the Peytons a little time alone.

Sailors sat on sea chests, mending clothing and writing or dictating letters while they waited for their next watch.

No one knew our captain was above, suffering for something that wasn’t his fault.

How many people had I forced to suffer or had wanted to suffer for something that wasn’t their fault either? The Peytons, Mama, Elias ...

I drifted toward my cabin. Elias. I had always thought of him as Mr. Doswell, as was right and proper, but the moment his Christian name popped into my head, I loved the feel of it.

There was something warm and familiar about his name that fit this man who made me want to be so much better than I was.

Dared I hope that someday I could be a woman deserving of a man such as he? I wanted so very much to try.

May

I brushed the sand-colored stone wall with my fingers as I walked along a gently curving street. The residents and visitors to Valletta, Malta’s bustling port city, passed by, speaking loudly in a variety of languages. My head buzzed with all the sounds.

I glanced behind me. A young lieutenant had stopped Mr. Doswell, and I’d begged leave to walk ahead.

The chaplain might not care about my standing, but I did not wish to make him have to bear the scrutiny of a potentially less-forgiving member of the gentry.

If things progressed between us, we could decide how to manage that later.

A little smile crept to my mouth. I wouldn’t mind taking a moment to think on the possibility of our relationship progressing.

I’d walk to the little alleyway up ahead and then turn back around.

That should give him plenty of time to speak with his acquaintance, and I didn’t fancy getting lost in this unfamiliar place, fascinating as it was.

With my head in the clouds, getting lost was too real a threat.

The Mediterranean sun warmed me through my makeshift bonnet as I wandered.

Mr. Doswell had offered to replace it with a proper one when we’d passed a milliner’s shop, but I wouldn’t hear of it.

I fingered the ribbon that trimmed the brim.

It wouldn’t pass for an elegant lady’s bonnet.

It was good, then, that I cared little for that and more for the sacrifice he’d put into making it over for me.

I paused at the alley and looked back at him speaking to the lieutenant.

He’d offered to buy several things for me on this outing.

I couldn’t help but feel flattered, even if I’d refused each one.

Though he had gone against my wishes only once in procuring a little lantern for my cabin and candles to fill it.

This was a different sort of flattered than I felt with Frank.

Frank’s flattery had always bordered on ridiculous.

Or scandalous. I could never tell if he were making me into a joke or if he truly meant what he said.

With Mr. Doswell, it was almost as though he didn’t know how to express his feelings in any other way than to give whatever he could—time, attention, gifts, praise.

I fought against a grin as a little beam of the afternoon sun swelled inside me.

I cocked my head, suddenly wishing I hadn’t gone so far and I could see his face more clearly. He glanced toward me with increasing frequency, as if he wished he could pull himself away from the conversation. Perhaps I could come to his aid. For once.

As I started back, a hand clamped around my arm and whipped me into the shadows of the alleyway.

I screamed, but the man muffled it under grimy fingers and pushed me against the wall.

Elias. I had to get to Elias. I blinked, unable to see in the sudden dimness, and tried to wrench out of my captor’s grasp.

Ice shot through my limbs. Elias wasn’t far away.

If I could just get his attention, he’d come.

I tried to fill my lungs to scream again, drawing in the attacker’s foul stench. I gagged.

“Don’t scream, you ninny,” he growled.

At the familiar voice, I froze. That Pompey accent. For a moment, images of Frank filled my mind. But the voice was too nasally to be Frank’s.

The chuckle gave him away. He loosened his grip.

With a snarl, I shoved his hand from my mouth, a mix of fury and elation welling inside.

“Lewis, you idiot!” I wiped at my mouth with a sleeve.

“You scared me half to death.” And yet, there was something about the sight of him, the finding of a face I knew so well, in a city I knew very little, that made me want to grin.

“That’s the greeting you give the brother you haven’t seen in years?” Lewis spread his arms as though to embrace me.

“Yes, when you try to snatch me off the streets like a murderous fiend.” I shied away.

“When was the last time you bathed?” As my eyes adjusted, I took in his rumpled and dirty shirt, his lopsided neck cloth, his sock fallen around his ankle, and the ribbon wrapping his short queue coming undone.

The navy prided itself on cleanliness, and Lewis was far from tidy.

What was he doing in Valletta seemingly without an assignment?

“I bathed aboard the Caligula . Before they left me.” He shrugged as though getting left behind by his commanding officers was a common occurrence.

“Lewis,” I hissed, leaning closer. My nose instantly regretted it. “You ... deserted?” He was a carpenter’s mate. They wouldn’t have just abandoned a skilled member of the crew, not in these days of scarcity.

“No more than you clearly deserted our mother.” He didn’t sound as furious as his words suggested.

I didn’t react to his jab. I rubbed my brow, not sorry for my original greeting at all. Did he have an ounce of sense left in his brain? Desertion could lead to a court-martial and death sentence at the worst. Flogging at the best.

“It really was not my fault I was too sick to crawl back to the Caligula ,” he said. “Stop giving me that look, May.”

Too sick? Most likely from an overabundance of drinking. I didn’t lift my eyebrows or untwist my mouth. He’d never held true to his promises to help support Mama. Why should I have expected him to honor his word in the navy?

“In any case, I am supposed to be in the Mediterranean,” he said. “You, on the other hand, should be back in Old Pompey helping Mother.”

I bristled. “Mama was forced to take a job at a manor in Fareham. We couldn’t afford to stay in Portsmouth.”

He didn’t have the decency to put on a contrite expression, even under my glare.

“What about that widow lady who made you her companion?” Lewis wiped his hands on his loose trousers. “Did you come with her?”

“Mrs. Richardson died before I departed. I’m now employed by a captain’s wife as her lady’s maid.”

“Huh. Waiting on someone hand and foot never seemed your type of work.” Lewis smirked as if the thought were amusing.

I nearly defended myself and the Peytons, but I remembered similar conversations with Frank. They were trying to make me fight back. Engaging them in their games only made the situation worse.

“Who is your captain, then?” Lewis asked.

I straightened my posture. “Captain Peyton of the Marianne .”

“Captain Dominic Peyton?” Lewis let out a low whistle. “How did you get all the luck?”

I hadn’t considered myself lucky at the start of our voyage, but he was right. I had been greatly blessed, as Elias would say.

Elias. I swallowed. Using his Christian name, even in my thoughts, felt so intimate. Yet it suited him much more than Mr. Doswell. It was easier to imagine Mr. Doswell as a stuffy, self-important clergyman than Elias.

Lewis’s eyes shifted. “May, you don’t think Captain Peyton would let me sign on with the Marianne , do you?”

“If you deserted, heavens no.” The calculating look in his eye made my stomach twist, and I guessed his thoughts before he said them.

“We wouldn’t have to tell him I deserted.”

I rested my hands on my hips. “I will not lie for you, Lewis.” How dare he even ask. I wouldn’t lie for anyone, let alone a brother who had practically ignored my mother and me since Papa had been sent to New Holland and then gotten himself into a terrible mess by his own stupidity.

“You wouldn’t have to lie,” he said quickly. “I’ll do all the talking. Just don’t rat me out for anything.”

My hands went clammy despite the balminess of the day. I couldn’t let him lie to Captain Peyton. To the crew. That was as bad as lying myself.

“Come now, May,” he drawled, giving me a shamelessly pleading look to rival the best of begging dogs.

“You wouldn’t leave your own brother out in the cold.

” Never mind he was on a sunny Mediterranean island.

“I’ve no funds. Nowhere to go.” He grabbed my hands with his filthy ones.

“Surely there’s a space for someone with my talents.

I’d even take work beneath my rank on the carpenter’s crew. ”

I swallowed. There was a place for him. One the Marianne needed filled. “We don’t have a carpenter’s mate,” I hesitantly admitted.

He squeezed my hands so hard my knuckles cracked painfully. “Then, you need me. You know I’m skilled at what I do. Don’t deny it.”