Page 42 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

“I’m very sorry, Elias,” she said. “I’ve mistreated everyone and for the stupidest reasons.

I don’t know what came over me.” She paused, throat bobbing.

“No, I do know what came over me—pride and misplaced indignation. Hurt and anger I didn’t want to rein in.

” She sniffed and blinked. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I fear I could cause greater harm if we continue down this path. You deserve much better.”

“May, please.”

“I’m needed above.” Her eyes glistened in the light coming from the gun room lanterns. “I’ve been the worst sort of lady’s maid, and I have a long way to go to make amends for the trust I’ve broken.”

I could only nod as I struggled to draw in the dank air. She was leaving and not just physically. “Can we discuss this further before you make up your mind?” I asked.

Here it comes again. What a simpleton. You thought it would be different this time. How very wrong you were.

She shook her head. “I’ve already made up my mind.” She loosened her stiff posture and took my hand, raising it to her cheek. She breathed in, closing her eyes, then removed it and kissed the back of my hand softly. “Thank you, Mr. Doswell. You truly are one of the best of men.”

May slipped out of the cabin like a specter in the night, stealing with her every tiny ray of hope I’d cultivated that someone could finally love me enough to stay.

May

With shaking hand, I rapped lightly on Mrs. Peyton’s bedroom door. She’d gone to bed an hour ago with a mumbled good night and no request to help her change. I hadn’t heard anything from her room since, but a faint light flickered under the door.

I wrapped my arms around myself in the dark, narrow corridor as I waited for a sound to signal her coming. To my right, a rickety flight of stairs led up to my new room, one of the two rooms in the narrow house Captain Peyton had let for us. Shadows edged every lonely, unfamiliar step.

The door half opened, revealing Mrs. Peyton still in her day clothes. Her blank gaze suggested fatigue, but I knew it was a defense as much as anything.

“Yes?”

“Shall I help you dress for bed, ma’am?” It was not what I’d come for, but perhaps that would make it easier to speak.

She shook her head. “I can manage.”

I picked at the sleeve of my gown. “Would you like me to stoke the fire?”

“No. Thank you.” Her stiff words seemed a valiant attempt at civility. A part of me wished she would scream at me instead of this gut-wrenching quiet.

“Can I bring you tea?”

She gave a single shake of her head. She didn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t have wanted to see me either.

I simply had to forge ahead, difficult as it was. “I don’t know how I can ever make amends for what I did, but I am sorry. I had no right to tell him.” My shoulders had drawn in of their own accord. How I wanted to shrink until nothing remained of my loathsome being.

“No, you didn’t.”

Especially not in the horrific manner I had. My face burned. Now what did I say? How did one go about making amends when there was no way to take back words?

“I’m surprised he didn’t guess it before,” she continued unexpectedly.

“His duties as captain have weighed him down heavily of late. And it isn’t as though he has spent very much time with women in his life.

” The faintest whisper of a smile flitted across her lips and vanished.

“But that is not what pained me the most about your outburst.”

I waited in silence. Whatever she wished to say to me, I would listen.

She gripped the doorframe with one hand, arm protectively across her as though I might inflict more hurt. Her voice lowered, full of warning. “My father is not who you think he is.”

Aunt Byam’s curses thundered in my mind. None of us had ever met this man we hated so much. He’d always been some grand gentleman in my head, cold and calculating and far superior to anyone he met. Mrs. Peyton was right. I had little founding for my opinion of him.

“When my mother died, he lost one of the only things he cared about in this world.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes, focusing instead on something behind the door.

“I know your family was upset that my father refused your uncle’s request to bring your aunt.

She told Dominic as much when he brought her the news about Mr. Byam.

But my father was only trying to protect me. I was all he had left.”

The image of the haughty captain shattered in my mind, replaced by a fearful, grief-stricken father shielding his little girl from the world.

I dug my fingers into my sleeves as the understanding I’d tried to cultivate in the last weeks extended toward Captain Woodall, this man whose very name had incited the worst in my family.

“Sometimes our love pushes us to do unwise things,” Mrs. Peyton said.

Though said softly, the remark slapped me across the face.

Love did make it difficult to be wise. It blinded you to faults and danger and reality.

Love for Lewis had turned me into an imbecile far worse than I’d imagined Elias to be on our first meeting.

Papa’s love and desire to provide for us had turned him into a criminal.

Elias’s love for me ... I couldn’t think on that.

“It does. I know that now. I had no right to judge him.” How could I blame Captain Woodall for his refusal when it had simply been out of fear for his daughter’s safety?

I’d let our grief, our yearning for someone to blame, villainize a man I’d never met and his family.

My already-broken spirit sank lower. “Is there anything I can do, ma’am?

” I asked. I didn’t just mean to help her tonight.

“No. Thank you, Byam.”

I made my way slowly up the stairs. The weight of the last two days seemed as though I’d carry it for the rest of my life. There wasn’t a way to recover from what I’d done.

I didn’t light my lantern when I got to the unfamiliar attic room. I’d grown used to getting ready in the dark on this journey. Besides, the lantern just reminded me of Elias.

It was a good-sized room with a larger bed than I’d ever had to myself and two windows, but in the empty night, it felt cavernous. I was too accustomed to a narrow cabin with a cracked partition and the sweetest neighbor a girl could ask for.

My fingers bumped against my trunk, and I knelt on the creaky floor. I winced at the sound that shattered the stillness. Mrs. Peyton’s room was right below, and I didn’t want to disturb her any more than I already had.

Instead of opening my trunk, I rested my head atop it. The grains of the old wood pressed into my cheek. I’d ruined everything. The path ahead looked impossibly bleak. I’d pushed away all friends, all family. For once, I couldn’t blame my misfortunes on Papa’s crimes. I alone carried the fault.

Trees rustled just outside one of the windows.

A dog barked somewhere in the distance, then went silent.

I never thought I’d miss the quiet mutterings of seamen settling in for the night, the Marianne ’s beams groaning as she lulled them to sleep with her rocking.

But I did—desperately. I even missed the sound of footsteps on the ladders as the watch changed in the middle of the night.

Frank telling jokes over cards. Mrs. Hallyburton scolding her husband in their canvas-sided cabin, where she thought no one else could hear.

The Carden boys humming little Scottish tunes as they went about their work.

étienne’s contagious laugh. Elias talking to himself as he prepared his sermons.

I pressed my fist to my chest, trying to lessen the sting at the last memory.

Now my solitary breathing filled every corner of the nearly empty room.

I needed sleep. I wanted nothing more than to throw my blanket over my head and pretend I was back in my hammock replenishing my energy for another day of navy life.

What awaited me tomorrow, next week, next month?

It didn’t seem as though they’d punish me.

The Peytons were far from the sort of employers who would beat their servants, and they’d had plenty of time in the last twenty-four hours to terminate my employment but hadn’t.

Would I remain here, living a silent life without the man I loved, until the navy called us home?

I opened the lid and dug into my belongings, searching for my brush.

Everything in this trunk would remind me of him and what I did to him.

He’d just told me of the young ladies who had rejected him.

I’d pridefully thought I was better than they were, that I truly appreciated him for who he was.

Perhaps I did appreciate him, but I’d wounded him as deeply as any of them.

If only I could have been the woman he needed.

My hand closed around a little book amid the gowns and shifts at the bottom of my trunk. Papa’s book of Cowper. I pulled it out. I hadn’t read it since the beginning of our journey, huddled by the sliver of light from Elias’s lantern.

I smoothed my thumb over the worn cover.

I’d hidden the book in my apron pocket when authorities had come to take everything after Papa’s conviction.

That was not long before they’d set him on a ship bound for Port Jackson in New Holland.

He’d cried that day as they’d led him and the other convicts past us in chains.

I’d never seen him cry before. It hadn’t affected me then.

I’d been too numb to do more than hold Mama’s hand and watch.

I flipped the pages one by one, even though I couldn’t see them.

Papa got the punishment he deserved, according to the law, but I’d also punished him daily in my heart.

I hadn’t been able to forgive him. In fact, at one point, I’d vowed I never would.

I’d carried the pain and anger with me every day since, and it had eaten me from the inside, coming out in bursts of emotion when I thought myself wronged by others.

The only times I could remember letting the weight of it go were the moments with Elias.

Forgiveness didn’t seem so impossible with him.

I reached for my lantern, locating it to the side of my trunk. With shaking hands, I lit it and sat with my back against the wall, much like I had the night I’d taken advantage of Elias’s lantern light. I opened the book to the poem I’d been reading that night.

For thee I panted, thee I priz’d,

For thee I gladly sacrific’d

Whate’er I lov’d before,

And shall I see thee start away,

And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say—

Farewell! we meet no more?

It was as if Elias were speaking to me from the page. A tear trickled down my cheek. What I wouldn’t give to see the smiling face of Mama or Elias just now or read a loving message from Papa. I had no one to help ease this despair, and I only had myself to blame.