shabby cabin, and wondered how the men were getting along in Boston now. But she did not miss her life at sea, and it sat on her poorly that she did not.
She should. She had loved captaining her own ship, trawling the Massachusetts coast for ne’er-do-wells, remaining hundreds of miles away from Aidan because she could not bear to give it up. Now she had, and she did not miss it.
She missed Jin. Quite a great deal.
The project of becoming a lady was not proving sufficient to erase him from her thoughts. Or her insides. Inside, in her chest and belly, a dull ache reminded her daily that he had turned her life upside-down, but whether it was for the best was yet to be seen.
She toyed with the ribbons dangling beneath her breasts, trying to pull in a full breath against her stays. Her feet were pinched in the silly little slippers, and she was tired of sitting before her mirror every morning for an hour while Jane played with her hair.
“Starting tomorrow,” she murmured to the window, making mist again, “I will tie my hair in a queue and Serena will smile and Jane will glower and I will be much”-she poked her finger into the mist-“much”-another poke-“more comfortable.”
“Vi?” Her sister stood at the door.
“Yes?” She turned. “Who was it that called?”
“You will be cross with me, I am afraid.” Her hands folded together. “He heard that you were here through the servants, of course, and he wrote to me straight off. But I told him he mustn’t come until you were ready. You haven’t spoken of him, though, and I did not wish to rush you…”
“It is the baron, isn’t it? He is here.”
Serena nodded. “He wishes very much to see you.”
Viola crossed the chamber, drawing in as much air as the wretched corset would allow and taking her sister’s hand. “Then we must not keep him waiting.”
She walked the corridor to the blue parlor quite as steadily as Serena and Mr. Yale had taught her, but her palms pressed against her skirts were like clams. Serena gestured to the footman and the door opened.
The gentleman standing in the middle of the room did not suit it in the least. Amid the rich gold and sapphire of the parlor he was a sand-and-hay scarecrow, thin of hair and frame, and garbed somewhat shabbily. But his kind eyes were the same, and filled with tears.
Her throat thickened.
“Viola?” he uttered.
She attempted a curtsy. “Good day, sir.”
His papery brow crinkled. “Will you stand on ceremony with me, then? Has my little girl grown into such a great woman of the world that she will not come to me now and take my hand?”
She moved forward. He stretched out his hands, she put hers in them, and a tear overflowed onto his sunken cheek. Then onto both of hers.
“Your hands are the same,” she whispered-warm, encompassing, and safe as they always had been. As she had remembered every night aboard ship that first month and for so many nights after, dreaming of home and wondering if her papa would come after her. Then Fionn told her they all thought her dead, and she ceased dreaming. Dreams might suit Serena, but not an adventuresome girl like her. Not the girl her papa believed her to be. He would wish her to be brave.
And so she had been brave. But now she trembled like a ten-year-old again.
“You are a beauty, so much like your mother.” His face, careworn and aged as she had never imagined it, creased into a gentle smile. “My little girl. My Viola. How I grieved for loss of you.”
Perhaps she saw in his eyes the extent of that grief. Perhaps she only felt it in her heart. But she could not withstand his affection, even were she to again lose it, Serena’s, and the affections of all whom she had striven so hard to forget.
“I missed you too,” she said on a catch in her throat. “Papa.”
His hands tightened around hers and Serena choked on a laughing sob.
After that there was much conversation and many, many reassurances.
“Vi, they are here!” Serena stood in the kitchen doorway on the balls of her feet.
“They?” Viola laid down a sprig of rosemary and drew off her apron.
“Alex. And friends. There are four carriages coming along the drive.”
Her heart did a strange little jig.
She should not be so eager. She cast a quick glance at the herbs spread over drying pans. It was the most innocuous ladylike task she had accomplished yet, and her favorite so far. But it could wait.
She hated herself for hoping. But she could hate herself and still dash after her sister toward the front of the house where servants already were hauling in portmanteaus and traveling cases. They reached the foyer lined with maids and footmen as a gentleman came through the door. Tall, strapping, and remarkably attractive, with walnut- colored hair, an elegant air, and the smile of a man who knew his worth, he announced in a bold voice, “Where is my lady wife?”
“I am here, my lord.”
Viola had never heard Serena’s voice thus, low and touchingly sweet. Lord Savege’s regard alighted upon her, and his face relaxed into a raffish grin.
“She is there, indeed.” He came to her, took up her hand, and pressed quite a lengthy kiss onto the back of it. Then onto the palm. Viola’s toes curled watching it. Her gaze darted toward the door.
“How are you, my lady,” the earl said, “and how is our daughter?”
“Quite well, both of us. She is napping now.” Serena slipped her arm through his. “Alex, allow me to present to you my sister, Viola.”
“Miss Carlyle.” He bowed. “Welcome home.”
Three ladies and a gentleman entered the foyer then, none of them known to Viola. The footman closed the door behind them and her heart fell. Silently she berated herself.
In the next minutes she found it entirely believable that her sister had fallen in love with the Earl of Savege. He was not what she imagined an earl should be, stuffy and proper. He tended rather toward an open manner and enormous charm.
“My sister, Kitty, Lady Blackwood, wishes to meet you,” he said, “but remains in town with her little one in the hopes that we will all return there shortly. She has however sent her bosom companions with me as temporary replacements.”
A willow of a girl with tumbling silken brown locks and dark eyes curtsied. “I am Fiona Blackwood,” she said upon a gentle Scottish lilt. “Lord Savege’s sister, Kitty, is married to my brother and she is my very great friend. And you are ever so pretty.”
“But does she have two sticks to rub together in her head, is more to the point.” Behind gold wire spectacles framed by short flaxen locks, green eyes studied her. “How do you do, Miss Carlyle? I am Emily Vale but I would prefer you call me Lysistrata.”
“You have changed it again, my lady?” Mr. Yale drawled as he entered the foyer. “You must have wearied of Boadicea.”
“Boadicea was Emily’s chosen name before Lysistrata,” Lady Fiona whispered into Viola’s ear.
“I did not weary of it,” Lady Emily replied to Mr. Yale. “But I am already weary of you and I have only seen you for ten seconds.” She paused. “Now it is fifteen and I am still weary.”
Mr. Yale chuckled.
“Pay no attention to
“This is Madame Roche, Miss Carlyle,” Lady Fiona said, dimples denting her alabaster cheeks. “She is Lady Emily’s companion and positively diverting.” Her gaze followed Mr. Yale. “But I see you are already enjoying diverting company.”
Serena drew forward a lean, fair-haired man with bright blue eyes. “Viola, meet our stepbrother, Sir Tracy Lucas.”
