Tapping a gloved finger to her closed lips, Claire’s gaze swept over the busy dock, looking for someone of authority to hand over her baggage.
As a sailor hurried past, she let go of Alice long enough to snag his coattail. “Pardon me, but can you tell me with whom I may secure my luggage?”
The sailor looked at her, his gaze moving from the navy cap covering her hair to her blue traveling gown to her fine boots then back up again. “I can take it for you, m’lady.”
“Lovely.” She pulled a crown from her reticule and handed it to him.
He looked from the coin to her, his brows furrowed.
“This is for your trouble,” she said. “We will be in cabin number four if you could have it waiting for us when we get there.”
He bobbed his head and with a hurried, “Certainly, m’lady,” grabbed the bag and disappeared into the crowd.
Claire straightened her shoulders and brushed her hands together. “Well, that went very well. Don’t you think, Alice?” If Richard could see her now. No, her late husband wouldn’t at all be pleased to see her now. In fact, he was probably rolling in his grave. Good. She hoped he was rolling. This stretching of her wings, finding her freedom, was even more exhilarating than she’d believed possible.
Alice took a step back. “M’lady. I don’t think … That is … Your brothers …”
Claire grabbed Alice’s sleeve and yanked her out of the way of a wagon pulled by two tired-looking horses. Poor Alice. She was a new kitchen maid to Claire’s brother’s home and a last-minute substitute for Claire’s adventure. Claire had thought the girl would be much more appreciative of the chance to see a part of the world she never would have had the chance to see otherwise.
“Never mind my brothers.” Claire breathed deep of the crisp, briny air, and wrinkled her nose at the sharp, pungent odor of the tanning shop a few streets over. “Sebastian and Nicholas will be fine without us,” she said, referring to the brothers of which Alice spoke. Of course Sebastian and Nicholas had no idea that she and Alice were in Dover. Sebastian thought she was leaving on tomorrow’s ship with her old nanny, Betsy. Claire had outmaneuvered him by secretly making plans of her own, leaving Dover earlier, on a ship that didn’t belong to her other brother, Nicholas. Did Sebastian truly think she would be content with Betsy? The woman was a dragon and would surely have stifled Claire’s adventure. Probably the reason Sebastian insisted Betsy accompany her.
With a bright smile Claire turned to her maid to find the poor girl cowering. “Shall we?”
Alice whimpered. Claire ignored her and headed for the tall ship.
She wasn’t ignorant about sailing although she did suffer a moment of trepidation when approaching the gangplank. She’d never been on a vessel other than Nicholas’s and never had she actually been on one that sailed to another port. But she pushed the apprehension away. Her choice of a shipping company other than Nicholas’s had been deliberate—for the express purpose of cutting the ropes that tethered her to her overprotective, overbearing family.
The crowd grew more dense, and suddenly Alice’s arm was torn from Claire’s grasp. Whirling around to locate her maid, Claire slammed into a hard surface. She raised her hand to catch herself and found her chin pressed against the buttons of a waistcoat.
“Oh.” She stumbled back just as a man’s hands settled over her shoulders, steadying her.
She looked up, up, up into the darkest brown eyes framed by the longest, blackest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man. He released her shoulders but not before the heat of his hands penetrated her cloak.
He cursed and dropped to his knee. Shocked, Claire looked down upon dark brown hair, intermingled with bits of vibrant red. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed various papers scattered on the ground, some crushed beneath others’ boots. He scooped up as many as he could, but a brisk breeze lifted several sheets and spread them farther.
“Oh, dear.” She bent to pick up a stray paper but a passing foot came down on it at the same time, crushing her fingers. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and yanked her hand from beneath the boot.
Suddenly his large hand was on hers. “You’re hurt.”
She tried to pull free but he held tightly, pulling her glove off to examine her red knuckles. She hesitated, shocked that a stranger was touching her bare hand in such an intimate manner. Their faces were so close that their noses almost touched, and for the first time she noticed that his eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, and his auburn hair mussed as if he’d not had time to comb it that morning.
She pulled her hand from his. “I’m fine. Truly. But you will lose your papers if we don’t get them now.”
She spotted a few some feet away, again trampled by the crowd. She hurried over and managed to retrieve them.
The gentleman—for that was exactly what he was; no one other than a gentleman could afford a waistcoat that fit so perfectly to such wide shoulders—was looking down with a look of disbelief at the crumpled, muddy and torn papers in his hand.
She handed him the ones she’d retrieved, brushing at the dirt as he grabbed them from her with a glacial look that had her cringing. “Were they important?”
“Yes,” he bit out between clenched teeth. “They were.” He muttered something under his breath.
She caught only a few words but they were enough to make her insides freeze as she reminded herself that this man—whom she no longer thought of as a gentleman—was a stranger, and she no longer had to listen to men berate her. She suffered years and years of that with her husband, and while her brothers didn’t treat her harshly, the censorship of her actions was always in their eyes. She wasn’t putting up with any more of that.
She lifted her chin and shot him what she hoped was a haughty glare and not a frightened grimace. “If they are so important, sir, then why weren’t they secured in something safer than your hands?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. She secretly smiled. See, Claire, you still have it in you.
With a growl he turned on his heel and stomped off, leaving her alone in the mass of people. Well. That was entirely ungentlemanly. With sinking dread she stared at the spot where he’d been standing and cursed under her breath. Words she’d heard her brothers say, but which a lady would never utter. She didn’t care. The words were appropriate for this situation. That man, that ungentleman, was Sebastian’s long-time friend. And even though they had not seen each other in many years, there was always the possibility that he would recognize her.
Oh, this would not do. Not do at all.
Brushing the dirt from her skirts with only one gloved hand, she desperately looked around for her other glove. When she couldn’t find it, she motioned for Alice to follow her. “Come along, Alice. ’Tis time to board.”
Alice’s eyes rounded in terror. Claire motioned for her again, a bit more impatiently this time. If they didn’t hurry, they would miss the ship and she was determined not to miss this particular ship. “Come, Alice.”
Alice shook her head and took a step back. Claire’s heart thudded. “Alice,” she said in her most imperial voice. “Let us go.”
“I can’t …” Suddenly Alice turned on her heel and ran away, back toward the shops lining the street and away from the ship.
“Alice!” Claire took a step after her, then looked back at the ship where already the last of the passengers were boarding. She looked toward where Alice had disappeared but the crowd had swallowed her whole.
Oh, dear.
The bell of the Abby Dora began to ring. She needed to be on that ship and away from England now. With a heart heavy with apprehension and a little bit of fear, Claire joined the other passengers on the gangplank. Trepidation slowed her steps until she halted, forcing the passengers to move around her with grumbles and irritated looks. She turned to look back at Dover, searching for Alice one last time, her gaze sweeping across the landscape.
She squeezed her fingers together, bunching her skirts as an overpowering need to
scurry back down that gangplank seized her. Sebastian would be furious when he discovered her gone and Betsy still at home.
Shaking off the need to run back to solid ground, Claire straightened her shoulders and continued onto the ship.
Once on board she fought her way to the railing among the crush of the other passengers, but there she found she was alone in her wish to wave good-bye to England.
As the ship’s sails snapped full with the brisk breeze, her gaze moved to the famous white cliffs of Dover, her last sight of England for a very long time. She could hardly believe she was finally here, after so many years of dreaming. After so many years of living under the iron fist of her abusive husband, of the prying eyes of the ton, of the stifling love of her brothers. After long nights of swearing to herself that someday she would escape it all.
And now she had.
• • •
Nathan leaned against the railing and watched the lights of Calais bob in time with the ship. Frustration roiled through him. It took only a few hours to sail to Calais from Dover but the ship left England late and they missed the high tide that would have taken them straight to Calais’s shore. Now they were stuck offshore for the night while they waited for the morning tide.
He reached into his pocket to retrieve the letter that changed his world and his beliefs but realized that it was in his cabin, drying, because some damn chit had scattered his papers through the mud. He added her to his list of curses and pushed away from the railing to head to his cabin and at least try to sleep.
Damn. He still had to check on Sebastian’s sister. Why the hell he agreed to help Sebastian Addison was beyond him. The bigger question should be why Addison even approached him in the first place. Everyone knew Nathan Ferguson, Lord Blythe, was unreliable. And, of course, he’d proven that again tonight by not searching out Lady Hartford to see if she was faring well on this voyage.
He recalled bits of the conversation he’d had with Addison the morning three days ago when Addison had asked the favor. To be honest, Nathan had still been half in his cups and hadn’t yet gone to bed while most people were nearly finished with their day. The conversation was a blur to him. Addison had told Nathan that Lady Claire was traveling to France with her old nanny.
It had been her nanny, correct?
Yes, Nathan was sure of it.
“Why would your sister not procure passage on one of your ships?” he’d asked, referring to Nicholas Addison’s company that was fast becoming the biggest shipping company in England and the American colonies.
“She did,” Addison said. “Or rather, I secured passage for her, then I discovered through one of Nicholas’s acquaintances that she went behind my back and made her own plans.”
“Why the devil would she do something like that?” Blythe’s head ached, and the noise from the coffeehouse hadn’t helped.
“Claire is headstrong. She has it in her mind to tour the Continent since she missed out on what she terms ‘an adventure.’ I’m willing to allow her a little freedom but I’m damned if I’ll allow her to go flitting about foreign countries without at least some protection. All I ask is that you watch out for her until she reaches France. I don’t want her falling prey to the con artists and thieves that haunt the docks. She has letters of introduction from me and letters from my bank in the event she needs money. Once she reaches Paris, I suspect she’ll attend balls and do a bit of shopping. Betsy will rein her in if need be, and Betsy has been told to inform me of Claire’s whereabouts and actions.”
“Wait a moment,” Nathan said, a memory coming to him. “Claire. Wasn’t she the one who nearly ran away with that rascal? What was his name? The one who owed nearly everyone money.”
Addison had chuckled but the look around his eyes was strained and guarded. “That was long ago. She’s … Well, that was long ago.” He leaned forward. “I haven’t told Claire that you will be watching out for her and I prefer to keep it that way.”
“I doubt she’d even recognize me, Addison, it’s been forever and a day since we’ve seen each other. But why me?”
Certainly there were more reliable gentlemen on the ship. Nathan was the last person Addison should charge with watching his sister. After all, he was a despot. Society said so and he wasn’t in much of a position to dispute it. Opening his own gaming hell had been his way of thumbing his nose at those who already thought the worst of him—and of ensuring that his mother kept her nose out of his life.
Nathan couldn’t remember what Addison’s answer had been. Neither did he care at that point. In the end, he’d agreed. He was sure Addison probably gave him a description of Claire, but Nathan couldn’t recall. At the time, he remembered a young girl with brown hair who used to follow him and Nicholas about and pester them with questions. Who chattered nonstop until both boys were sorely tempted to toss her in the lake.
Addison assured Nathan that Lady Claire was well chaperoned so maybe it didn’t matter that he’d yet to search her out. Yet his conscience wouldn’t allow him to shirk this duty. He owed it to his friend, the only one who’d stood by him when his life fell apart after his father’s death.
He would locate the captain and discover what cabin Lady Claire was in. In the morning he would make certain she was well taken care of. When they reached Calais, he would ensure that she was safe and then wash his hands of her.
A soft shuffle of feet had him looking to his left and pausing in wonder. There she stood. The cheeky minx from the dock. The one who nearly ruined his papers.
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