Page 4 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

I knew that better than this delicate bride did.

Even if she were a captain’s daughter, she couldn’t understand the hardships of most seamen and officers.

She must have sat in a comfortable home on land all her life, with servants to do her bidding and pin money to fund her fancies.

Most officers’ families did. I doubted she knew the horrors of being buried at sea and never seeing your loved ones again.

This voyage would open her eyes more than mine.

I only nodded. Despite it all, I wanted to experience this life that Charlie and Uncle Byam had shared. To feel closer to them than I had in more than a year. And to take control of my own future, not waiting on parents or kin to disappoint me.

“Very well.” She chewed the corner of her lip.

Then she clasped her hands behind her. “I will expect you aboard the morning of the twentieth with all your things. We sail with the early tide the following day. Shall we go over the contract?” She plucked a sheet from the desk and brought it to the table.

I stared. “I have the job?”

She extended the page, then hesitated. “Unless you need time to think it over.”

I fingered the flowers on Mama’s bonnet.

It had been too easy. My mind spun. Ever since I’d found the advertisement, I’d counted on getting this job, and I had planned the next steps of my life based on securing it as I’d watched Mama prepare to leave.

However, I hadn’t expected so short an interview to get me what I sought.

“You have no other candidates?” I’d prepared answers to questions about my skills and refutations to inquiries about my inexperience.

She hadn’t even asked for references, not that I could give them with my former employer dead.

Would she snatch the sheet away and laugh, the way Lewis had liked to tease me with sweets when we were children?

She shrugged. “I’ve made my choice.” She sat and pushed the paper toward me.

I leaned forward. My insides leaped in dizzying flips as I took the contract with shaking hands.

At last. I was going to sea like Charlie.

No thoughtless family members or judging chaplains would deter me.

My eyes smarted, and for a moment, it felt like Charlie was there with me, his smile chasing away the frustrations and worries.

I was taking the reins of my destiny, and life couldn’t stop me now.

Elias

I stood on the quarterdeck, leaning against the rail and trying not to lose the tea and biscuits Miriam and I had shared before boarding. Of all the humiliating situations to get myself into—accusing someone without knowing the facts of the matter.

“Doswell!” Captain Peyton bounded up the steps to the quarterdeck.

He carried himself with such agility and self-assurance as to make any man hate him if it weren’t for his contagious friendliness toward equal and inferior alike.

Though if he’d heard the carpenter’s crewmen discussing his wife, the friendliness would have vanished in an instant.

“I confess I was surprised to receive your letter, Doswell.” He joined me at the rail, folding his hands atop it. “The navy life didn’t agree with you when last we met.”

“Yes, I ...” How did I tell him I’d come all this way because of a broken heart? A lovesick puppy slinking away with his tail between his legs. “My situation, it ...” Think, Elias. Sound intelligent for once. “I needed a change. This seemed the best fit.”

“We’re glad to have you, of course. This will be a smaller party than we’re used to.” He put his back to the rail and observed the upper deck. “We’ve a few from the Deborah coming with us. You might have seen étienne below.”

I nodded. The French surgeon had greeted me in the gun room when Miriam and I had arrived.

“A few of the crew as well. Walter Fitz. Do you remember the lad?”

He’d had a way of drawing attention, first through beating others and then by getting beaten himself within an inch of his life. “But no Mr. Jarvis,” I said.

Peyton’s expression darkened. “Thank heaven for that.”

“I saw our friend in Town a few months ago,” I said. The backstabbing former lieutenant had pretended not to know me, crossing to the other side of the busy London street and losing himself in the crush.

A mirthless smile crept onto Peyton’s face.

Jarvis should have hung for his insubordination on the Deborah .

The navy didn’t usually let even their officers get away with serious crimes.

Politics had rewarded Jarvis a slap on the wrist with an ejection from the navy.

He likely didn’t see it as a light punishment, however.

“Oh, to have friends in high places,” the captain finally said.

Indeed. Some men were born with all the good fortune.

“I am glad you came, even if I don’t understand it,” he said. “It’s good to have friends aboard.”

“I can imagine, on your first voyage as captain.” My brother served as captain of HMS Lumière my single year as a ship’s boy, and he was the only reason I’d managed to pull myself away from my mother and sisters to board that first day. It hadn’t been enough to make me stay, however.

“It’s daunting,” he said quietly.

I nodded. That I could understand. What aspect of life didn’t daunt me?

But then, I made a fool of myself in every situation, regardless of how much I tried to do things the correct way.

Like with the young woman a moment ago. Her voice still drifted through the open stern windows.

Though I wished her no ill, I hoped she would find a situation better suited for her.

Elsewhere. I’d never be capable of looking her in the eye again and prayed I’d never be forced to.

“You’ll earn their respect in no time,” I said.

“I have no doubt.” Unlike me, Peyton had charm and charisma.

He didn’t spout nonsense when he didn’t know what to say or quake in his shoes when faced with awkward situations.

“Thank you, Doswell.” He looked as though he wished to say something else but then thought better of it. He straightened his coat. “Well, I’m off to the victualing office on a tiresome matter. If you have need of anything, seek out Mr. Howard in the galley or my steward.”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced back when he’d cleared the quarterdeck. “Dine with me and Georgana tonight, won’t you?”

I nodded, and he disappeared down the hatchway.

I’d have at least one friend aboard. It eased the tension inside me.

Though we’d hardly been more than acquaintances on the Deborah , if the Peytons were glad of my presence, perhaps I could find some sense of belonging.

More so than I’d found at my brother’s house in Kent.

The sun’s brightness reflected on the murky harbor.

I rubbed a hand over my face. If you do not wear your hat, you shall be red and even more freckled.

Never forget your hat. Miriam’s words oft repeated through our younger years played through my mind, as they did every time I ventured outside without a topper.

If nothing else, I’d regret it when my skin stung from too much sunlight.

I turned to follow Peyton. When I passed the helm, I brushed the wheel’s handles with my fingers.

As a ship’s boy, I’d learned to steer at the elbow of the oldest seamen on the Lumière .

I’d loved feeling the strength of the ocean as it had passed the rudder, tugging at the wheel, and the power I’d felt guiding the ship against the waves.

Despite its strict laws, the life at sea had been freedom itself.

Until our first battle had turned it into a prison.

Perhaps I could rekindle that spark. This life would never again hold the magic it had those first weeks as a twelve-year-old boy.

I’d experienced too much of its terror since.

If I could set my sights on the beauties and simplicities, maybe this new chapter would not be purgatory.

Perhaps I could enjoy myself at sea again.

Something slammed into my head, sending me staggering backward. Ratty fibers swept across my eyes as the thing dropped to the deck. I blinked rapidly and pressed the heels of my hands against my burning eyes.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Chaplain.” Walcott’s voice drifted from somewhere up the mast. “Didn’t see you there.”

Highly unlikely. I forced my eyes open and tried to make them focus.

A piece of chafing gear, little more than a mat made from old rope to protect the sails and lines from wear, lay at my feet.

Just in front of the sun, a figure stood on the platform at the top of the first length of the mizzenmast.

“Perhaps you’ll think before harassing harmless women next time,” he muttered.

Most certainly not an accident. I ducked my head, grateful for the excuse of injured eyes to not look at him for long. Praise the heavens I hadn’t been wearing my spectacles. They’d have shattered.

“Walcott!”

The blast of a screeching voice farther up the deck made me flinch. I straightened, even though the woman’s shout hadn’t been directed at me.

“Captain won’t tolerate the least insubordination, you slobbering mutt.” The boatswain’s wife, though tall and thin, stormed aft like a winter squall, her apron flapping.

“My dear Mrs. Hallyburton, you are looking lovely this afternoon,” the carpenter’s mate crooned.

She hardly glanced at me as she snatched up the chafing gear and shook it at Walcott. “How dare you insult your superior, the church, and the crown itself with your blasted tomfoolery.”

I felt the crew’s attention settling on us. Not again. If only I could melt through the deck.

“A simple mistake, madam.” He oozed politeness.

“Mistakes by idiots get good men killed. Mr. Hallyburton has a cat begging to meet your lazy skin, and I’m not keeping it stowed a moment longer than I have to.”

A cat o’ nine tails, the whip boatswains used for flogging, inspired fear in the most hardened of seamen.

The young man snapped to attention with a salute, never mind the woman wasn’t an officer. I couldn’t tell if he did it to mock her or out of fear. I certainly wouldn’t cross this woman.

“I’ve had enough from you, Walcott, you pickthank son of an eighteen-pounder,” she said, throwing the chafing gear back down. “Now, get back to work, or I’ll see to it Mr. Jackson needs a new mate before you’ve had time to fish a splinter from your pretty little palm.”

She finally rounded on me. “There, Mr. Doswell. You aren’t hurt, are you?” The vicious she-wolf had turned to a docile mother ewe with terrifying swiftness. “These boys hardly know what’s best for them. Mr. Hallyburton and Mr. Jackson will whip some respect into them.”

I laughed uneasily. “Thank you, but I’m certain it isn’t—”

“Shall I fetch something for you, sir? A chair? A pint of grog? You look positively red in the face.”

A mixture of exposure to the sun and blinking fibers from my eyes. “That is very kind of you, but I believe I will—”

She went on as though she hadn’t heard me. “Perhaps some tea? Mr. Howard put the kettle on for Mrs. Peyton not long ago.”

After the events of the last hour, I couldn’t say no to that. I sighed. “If you would bring a little water to my cabin for tea, that would be just the thing.”

The boatswain’s wife beamed. “With pleasure, sir. And you will inform me if there is anything else.” She didn’t wait for an answer but grabbed the sleeve of my coat and proceeded to the hatchway.

Walcott’s snickering sounded above us. I let her lead me. Whatever got me to the safety of my cabin the fastest.

This day had lasted long enough.