How to Be a Proper Lady

Miss Hat and her pincushion mother, and went to the lower story. The front door was bolted, but from the drawing room another door let out onto the veranda at the side of the house. She opened it and stepped into the moonlight.

She shrank back into the doorway’s shadow.

Beyond the veranda a garden stretched toward the cane fields, dotted with old trees and exotic shrubbery, a neat white picket fence scrolled with vines defining its boundaries. Tropical flowers bloomed beneath the moon’s silvery light, the strident songs of insects saturating the darkness.

Beneath the feathery shadow of a Mapou tree, a man and a woman walked close beside each other. Miss Hat’s white gown seemed to shimmer, drawing the moonlight. The gentleman picked a flower and proffered it to her. He spoke quietly, and in the stillness the familiar timber of Aidan’s voice carried to Viola. He took up Miss Hat’s hand as though it were porcelain, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed it.

Then he kissed her lips.

Viola choked, cold nausea sweeping through her. She whirled around and slammed into Jin.

“Whoa.” He caught her waist, his eyes snapping across her face then, swiftly, to the garden. His brow drew down. But tears welled in her eyes, and her palms pressing to his chest, feeling him so abruptly, only confused her further. Because she understood now abruptly that he did not truly make her feel weak.

Aidan did. With Aidan she always felt as though she were not quite enough. But Charlotte Hat obviously was enough-beautiful, refined, well dowered, from a prosperous family of good quality. He could stroll in a midnight garden with her and kiss her hand while he made promises to Viola he never kept.

She lifted her eyes to Jin’s and saw awareness in the crystal blue, and a flicker of anger.

Her insides twisted. He never pretended with her. He made her feel uncertain, yes-as though she might at moments allow herself to relinquish the iron grip she held over her feelings. But he also made her feel alive and full of possibility.

“Violet?” His hands tightened on her waist, strong and steady. He did not look again into the garden, his gaze instead focused entirely on her.

A tear tumbled onto her cheek.

“No,” she whispered. She had demanded, but now she did not want him to call her that. She wanted him to call her by her real name.

She broke from his hold, dashed a hand across her face, and fled inside.

Chapter 14

Sleep would not come. She lay on her bed in her ugly brown dress, staring into the sweltering darkness and holding back tears. Weeping would not help. It would only prove that she was as foolish as any other woman.

But she was not like any other woman. She was Violet la Vile, captain of her own ship and fifty men wholly devoted to her, privateer for the state of Massachusetts, and strong and clever enough to manage this as she had managed any number of scrapes, mishaps, and setbacks in her years on the sea. The woman who had sunk the legendary Cavalier would not crumple into a ball and cry herself silly simply because the man she had loved for a decade and intended to marry had kissed another woman-a modestly eligible maiden-in full view of anybody, including her. She would rather die.

But it hurt, and she hated that it hurt. In one instant, her future had changed, but her past had changed as well. All those times he promised her marriage, had he never intended to honor those promises? Had she been the greatest fool alive after so many years to believe he ever would? Worse yet, had her father known this all along? Had he given Aidan the money that allowed him to leave the ship so that Viola would not continue to hope on girlhood dreams?

She stared dry-eyed into the darkness, chest and throat tight, containing the sobs. When she heard the shouts, she thought they were in her imagination. But they came closer, more strident.

She darted from the bed to the window. In the distance, not more than a league away, a cane field was lit up bright red, smoke billowing into the midnight sky.

Throwing her sash across her shoulder and shoving her feet into her slippers, she bolted out the door and down to the veranda.

Pandemonium reigned. Men ran in every direction, dragging a pair of oxen, a mule, yelling to one another, Seamus and Aidan’s voices shouting orders above it all. A donkey brayed, the air thick with a sweet smokey odor.

Aidan came toward her and grasped her hands.

“Violet, you must go inside and tell Mr. and Mrs.- Ah.” His gaze shifted over her shoulder. “There they are. Thank you, Seton.”

Viola turned and met Jin’s gaze. Miss Hat’s ghostlike hands clutched his arm as he drew her onto the drive, her parents before them garbed in nightclothes like their daughter.

“What is happening, Mr. Castle?” Mrs. Hat demanded. “Are we in danger of being overtaken by fire here?”

Aidan shook his head. “Not at all, ma’am. I assure you, my men are doing all that is required to contain the flames. Often we burn the stalk tops in the field in order to expedite the harvest. We are accustomed to this.”

“The entire stalks are burning, Castle, and your men’s alarm is clear,” Seton said evenly, releasing the girl into her mother’s keeping and moving toward Aidan. “Who would have reason to have set this fire?”

“Those damned laborers, trying to threaten you into further privileges.” Seamus swung over to them. “That’s who’s done it. My cousin’s fool notions have gone and burned down all we’ve accomplished here.”

“It is only one field.” Aidan raked his hand through his hair. “The men are watering the ditches. It will not spread.”

“Every word that trips from your tongue may be gold to our family in England, Aidan, but here you’re wrong.” Seamus spat the words, his cheeks crimson. “If you used slaves like everyone else, this would not have happened.”

“I will not use forced labor when there are men willing to do the work for wages. I will not.” He spoke as though something were trapped in his throat.

Seamus swept his hand toward the burning field, the brays of the animals and shouts of men all about in the sweltering night air, sticky, acrid smoke clouding all. “You can see they are willing, can’t you?”

Jin’s attention shifted behind Viola and he moved past her. She turned. Little Billy ran toward them from the direction of the outbuildings, Matouba’s barrel shape trotting in his wake.

“We seen them, Cap’n.” Billy’s eyes on Jin were eager. “We seen them light it, then run.”

“Where have they gone?”

“Headed up the road,” Matouba intoned.

“North? Toward the port?”

“Yessir, Cap’n.”

“What are those men saying?” Aidan was stripping off his coat, his gaze shifting from the flames licking closer to the yucca trees between the field and the garden.

Viola touched Matouba’s sleeve. “Why would Mr. Castle’s hired laborers have run to the port? If they set the fire, why wouldn’t they remain here and pretend innocence?”

“ ’Cause they ain’t the hired laborers, ma’am.”

“What do you mean they aren’t the laborers?” Seamus spat.

“Them’s sailors, sir,” Billy said. “Talking Dutch, they was, just like them boys loading that sloop earlier today at the dock.”

“Good God.” Aidan’s face blanched. “Perrault.”

Viola shook her head. “Isn’t that your neighbor?”

“Goddamn, Aidan!” Seamus swore. “See what I’ve told you? You there!” he shouted to a pair of men running toward the burning field. “Soak the heap rows. Those sparks mustn’t reach the house.” He ran off.

Jin moved toward the house. “Have you the horses?”