Page 5 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)

May

M y throat tightened as we ambled through the streets of Old Pompey.

The wagon Mama, Aunt Byam, and I rode in clattered against the cobblestones.

In the front of the wagon, the old man who’d taken pity on three women trying to haul trunks down the street whistled through the din of voices, carts, and gulls.

It wasn’t the peace of a country town, but it was home.

Mama’s arm stayed around my shoulders, which didn’t help me keep back the tears.

When I’d told her about signing on with Mrs. Peyton, she’d, of course, tried to dissuade me.

It hadn’t lasted long, however. We could both hear the same arguments I’d used when she’d taken the job with Aunt Byam.

We were going our separate ways, and while a few days ago I’d welcomed it, now the regret mounted inside so powerfully I thought I’d choke.

“You’ll have quite the adventure,” Aunt Byam said.

“I never got to go to sea.” She wore a plain blue dress and a draconian knot in her hair.

I’d blame it on her servitude, but she’d started this when we’d found out about Charlie’s death and was only reinforced when we got the news of Uncle.

It was as though because her life had changed forever, she did not want at all to resemble the even-tempered and unaffected person she’d been before.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. Uncle had requested permission to bring his wife along on the voyage, as many boatswains did to help with their work, but the unreasonable Captain Woodall had refused.

No one had known it would be Uncle Byam’s and Charlie’s last. Aunt should have been there with them.

Would that have changed Woodall’s mind? She doubted it.

There had been whispers in Portsmouth of his obscure orders, ambiguous reasoning, and secretiveness.

Very few of his former crew members respected him and had no qualms voicing it.

He didn’t care whether he had their respect or not, from the sound of it.

We passed the Church of St. Thomas, vibrant morning light catching its tan stone and red roof.

Papa had taken me there on summer evenings to catch the sunset through its windows.

Tomorrow I’d be far from this place that held so many memories of him.

Memories tainted by the revelation that our comfortable life had been a sham.

Through it all, I wished in the deep recesses of my heart that I could tell him about my position and see the pride in his eyes.

He was always so proud of any accomplishment.

“You said the ship was the Marianne ?” Aunt Byam asked.

“Yes,” I said, sweeping away thoughts of Papa. “She’s a new frigate.” Uncle Byam would not have known her.

“Who knows how far you’ll be from us?” Mama said, voice wavering.

“May was born for the sea,” Aunt Byam said, turning her face toward the harbor. A distant look touched her eyes. “No need to worry for her. She’ll come home with acquaintances from every quarter of the earth, songs from every land, and tales from every city. She won’t be our little May anymore.”

The corners of my lips pulled upward. At least my aunt supported my choice.

She’d watched her life crumble when the men in it had been taken, but she’d determined to pull herself up hand over hand.

And she meant to drag Mama up with her. With Aunt Byam around, Mama hardly needed me anymore. My smile dissolved again.

A pair of sailors stumbled by with a raggedly dressed woman between them, nearly knocking into the side of the wagon.

They laughed and continued on toward the public house we’d just passed.

The snooty chaplain had thought me someone like that.

My stomach soured, and I groaned inside.

I’d have to see that ginger-haired moralist every day.

It was fortunate officers didn’t mingle with servants and seamen.

I’d have to console myself with that and find ways to avoid him at all costs.

“Who is the Marianne ’s captain?” my aunt asked.

“Peyton is his name.”

“You cannot be serious,” Aunt Byam hissed as though I’d said I was to work for Bonaparte himself.

I sat up ramrod straight under her fiery glare. “What is it?”

She clutched the side of the wagon. “Dominic Peyton?”

I lifted my shoulders. “I didn’t hear his Christian name.” A chill swept over me. Why did it feel as though I’d committed a heinous act?

“What was the wife’s name?” Aunt demanded.

“Georgana.” I looked to Mama’s worried face. Understanding seemed to dawn, and her mouth fell open.

Mercy. What had I done?

The blaze in my aunt’s eyes flared. “Of course you would plow headfirst into something like this without thinking. You always act before you consider.”

“Margaret,” Mama said, pulling her arm from around me and reaching toward my aunt.

In that moment, I wished I hadn’t been named for this woman who looked at me with such fury.

She’d transformed from a supportive aunt to a raging harpy.

“She couldn’t have remembered. I did not even recall the connection. ”

Aunt Byam sat back, clapping a hand to her face. The driver glanced at us over his shoulder.

“What did I not remember?” I asked, shrinking.

“Captain Peyton was the lieutenant who brought word when the Deborah docked,” my aunt said darkly.

The one who had told her about Uncle’s death. I gulped. Neither Mama nor I had been home for the terrible visit. I would have remembered a man such as Captain Peyton. She couldn’t fault me for not recalling the name of a man I’d never met. “But you said he was all compassion and gentility.”

“He married Captain Woodall’s daughter. He is in league with that villain.”

My stomach sank like an anchor plunging into the deep. I covered my mouth, bile rising.

“The captain hid her on the Deborah that voyage, despite his own orders of no women aboard.”

Orders he’d cited when he’d told Uncle my aunt couldn’t join them.

I tried to breathe. That little slip of a girl had not only been to sea before, which I struggled to reconcile after what I’d seen of her in our meeting, but had also been the reason my aunt hadn’t been there with Charlie or Uncle in their final moments. Now she was my employer.

“What will you do?” Mama asked, face pale.

“What can I do?” I said through my fingers.

My aunt had cursed the Woodalls so many times in the last year, her cries echoed in my head in moments of stillness.

“I’ve given her my word.” If I didn’t show up, what would Mrs. Peyton do?

She wouldn’t have time to find someone else.

That would be cruel of me after the kindness she’d shown.

“You can break a contract,” Aunt Byam said. “Let that cosseted darling wash her own gowns.”

Break the contract. Stay here. Find work as a maid and hope for something better than cracked, bleeding hands and endless days of scrubbing pots.

I wrapped my arms around my middle. That thought made me as sick as the thought of working for one of Captain Woodall’s kin.

Would she be just as reserved, just as incomprehensible as they said her father was?

I should have known a situation so perfect would come at so steep a price.

All my excitement fled, leaving a hollowness in its wake. I couldn’t stay in Portsmouth. We’d quit the rented room. Mama and Aunt Byam were off to Fareham and their employer’s estate as soon as they deposited me at the Marianne . I had nowhere else to go.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. How could I go back on my agreement with Mrs. Peyton?

Contract or not, I’d made a promise. I knew too well the effects of broken word and broken trust. My life had been shattered by them.

The dockyard blurred, buildings turning into mountains too steep to climb and masts becoming forests I could not cross.

“You said HMS Marianne , yes?” the wagon driver asked. “I believe she’s just ahead.”

“If you would let us out here,” Aunt Byam said.

My limbs shook as we descended. Mama thanked the man and gave him a penny for his service. I stood stupidly as my aunt and mother dragged my trunk and hers from the wagon bed.

Aunt Byam hugged me goodbye, her whole body stiff and her farewell clipped. She stayed with Mama’s trunk and let us carry mine on together. My grip on the handle kept slipping from the sweat on my palms.

“You still have time to reconsider, love.” Mama’s voice seemed to come from far away, my brain whirled so swiftly.

Like the hands of Papa’s clock at his desk in the rope yard when he’d wound it each morning.

Too many things pulled me in all directions—wanting to go to sea, wanting to support my aunt, wanting freedom from the weight of the past, wanting to stay far away from anything connected to the dreadful Woodall family.

In nineteen years, I’d learned life didn’t give you perfect situations wrapped in pretty bows, like a new hat from the milliner, but it didn’t stop me from wishing it did.

Why did this feel as though I had to choose between my family and myself?

“Come with us,” Mama said when we reached the gangplank.

I panted from the exertion, eyeing the incline we’d have to brave. The ship’s black and yellow paint gleamed fresh and new. She beckoned me to climb aboard, to see what excitements and dangers awaited on the ocean.

“Might I help you with your trunk?” The rich voice curled around the words in an accent I hadn’t often heard in Portsmouth.

Not when we were at war with the country the accent belonged to.

An olive-skinned man with wild, dark curls bobbed his head in a bow.

He seemed to be about forty but moved with the carefree nature of someone half his age.

“Trunks can be rather troublesome things.”

Mama said nothing but looked to me. I swallowed slowly. The Frenchman waited patiently for my answer.

“Yes, thank you,” I said.