How to Be a Proper Lady

He nodded thoughtfully, then reached to take up her bag. She snatched it away.

“Don’t you dare.” Her throat was tight.

His brows slid upward.

“You are not my servant,” she said.

“No.”

“Then what business do you have carrying my belongings?”

He settled back on his heels, quick awareness in his eyes. “This is a show of denying your sex, I take it.”

“Not denying it. Making it irrelevant.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“I think I am beginning to.” He took up his own pack and slung it over his shoulder. “I hope you will not consider it an unforgiveable impertinence on my part that I have arranged for a carriage?” he said easily. He understood that she must prove herself at every port, that she must be seen to behave and be treated like any other shipmaster, that this had been her life for two years since her father died. That he comprehended this with barely an explanation from her only made her heart race faster.

“Thank you. First I need to visit the inn across the street there.” She pointed into the town, the main street quiet now in the midafternoon heat.

“As you wish.” He gestured with a hand toward the gangplank sloping down to the dock. “Madam.”

“Do not bow.”

“Do you think you might leave off with the hissed commands now that we are on land?”

She shot him a glance. Her stomach somersaulted. A dent creased his lean cheek. Viola’s vision quivered- twinkled-as though she hadn’t sufficient air.

Stars. In the middle of the day.

“If you don’t like it,” she managed to mutter, “feel free to take your leave.”

“Mm hm. I know that trick.” His smile did not fade.

They passed onto the street and across the light traffic of people and vehicles. The brilliant sun bathed the town in heat and stirred up clouds of dust, making everything seem to shimmer.

That must be it. The sun. Not his smile. The sun.

“You are unusually cheerful. For a man who has made the sea his life, you seem to enjoy making land a great deal.”

A three-story structure, the inn boasted fresh paint and impressively tall windows. To either side elegant buildings lined the street, all likewise clean and tidy, carrying the unmistakable aura of prosperity. This modest English island colony was thriving.

He paused to allow her to precede him up the stair to the door.

“I think, rather, that I enjoy my captain,” he said quietly.

She jerked her head around, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

His brows bent. “At a guess, entering the inn you have said you wish to visit?”

“I mean, don’t compliment me.”

He shook his head, rolling his eyes away, and walked into the building.

In the foyer, she went to the desk and pulled out her purse, motioning Seton into the taproom adjacent. Without comment he went. He would not allow her to escape, she knew, but she had the most peculiar feeling that he trusted her not to try to run away.

Foolish imaginings. Of course she would not run away with her ship at the wharf and most of her crewmen spread about town and probably three sheets to the wind already.

She paid for a private chamber and the innkeeper led her through the public room to a stairway that rose along the wall, then showed her into a modest chamber. Viola unpacked and a maid arrived with a basin of water. She scrubbed her hands and face and drank the remaining contents of the pitcher, reveling in the flavor of fresh water. Then she and the girl set about combing the tangles from her hair and lacing her into the change of clothing. When they finished, she pressed a coin into the maid’s palm and dismissed her.

She stood before the narrow oval mirror and studied their work. Her shoulders slumped. It was always the same. She looked ridiculous.

Her face was brown as a berry, her masses of curls would never be suitably tamed, and she despised the dress. But the dressmaker in Boston had said it was the latest style, with a tight bodice ruched up beneath her breasts and puff sleeves that barely managed to cover her shoulders. At least the color was acceptable, light brown with darker brown pinstripes. The dressmaker had not approved, offering instead an awful pale yellow fabric with tiny orange blossoms embroidered all over it that looked like underclothing. Viola had refused. If she must dress as a woman, she would do so without shaming herself. In any case, she had a shawl to cover it all up, serviceable gray wool Crazy’s wife had knitted for her.

She poked her feet into the thin, uncomfortable slippers her father had given her six years earlier, and stuffed her breeches, shirt, and shoes into her traveling case. Leaving the chamber, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror again and halted.

Probably it was an effect of the heat, or of her hair all pulled away from her face in the arrangement the maid had effected. Her cheeks seemed to glow, and her eyes were peculiarly large and bright.

But she still looked ridiculous.

Seton would laugh. Or he would remain so obviously silent she would know he was comparing her to the real ladies to whom he intended to take her-ladies like her sister, Serena-and finding her coming up pathetically short.

It mattered nothing. She would not go to England with him and she would not be obliged to stand beside those ladies to be unfavorably compared. She would remain here and marry Aidan Castle. Aidan had known her since she was fifteen, on board ship and off, and he never cared whether she wore breeches or skirts. Why had she changed clothes before going to his house?

In a stew of disgruntlement she descended the stairs, searching the taproom and wishing she didn’t care what Aidan Castle or Jinan Seton would think of her now. Wishing she could ignore the need inside her for him to notice that she had changed.

She found him easily. Where other men drank and ate and talked, he stood alone. Shoulders against the wall, arms crossed, eyes closed as though he dozed, he appeared perfectly at ease, as though the possibility of threat or danger never occurred to him. Why should it? From Lisbon to Port-au-Prince to New York, sailors feared the Pharaoh, and respected him. He had nothing to fear.

As though he sensed her regard his eyelids lifted, and beneath a lock of dark hair his crystal gaze came to her. It flickered down her skirts, then up again. His lips parted. His shoulders came away from the wall and he unfolded his arms.

He stared.

At her.

He did not seem displeased.

Viola’s nerves spiraled. Her belly went hot, hands cold. He might say he did not intend to kiss her again. She might insist she did not want it more than air.

But they were both lying.

Her eyes danced. Yet wariness shadowed them, wariness he had not seen there before, that perhaps he had put there.

It ill suited her. The brazen, impish sparkle should not be dimmed.

Yet still she was lovely. From the bird’s nest of hair pinned atop her head and the scuffed toes peeking beneath her hem, to the gown, plain and of a hideous color, her garments were a shambles. But by their shape they revealed the woman, and the woman claimed his breath. Slender and perfectly curved, with the tilt of her chin confident and the column of her throat pale, she appeared the lady she had been born.

She drew notice. Across the taproom men fell silent to watch her descend and walk to him. But her gait was a sailor’s; she trod upon her hem and stumbled. He grasped her elbow.

“Damn,” she muttered, and tugged away.

He smiled.

A little puff of air seemed to escape her, but she said peevishly, “What? Don’t look at me like that.”