Miles Before I Sleep

by Byrd, M. Donice

  “Aye, I thought we could do it at the watch change at 4:00 AM. The passengers will be asleep and the blood can be washed off the deck before they rise.”

  With a deep scowl, Miles nodded his reluctant approval. “The engine will be running as soon as that slide valve is replaced, so the noise should drown out much of the sound,” Miles said, walking over to the window and looking out over the vast ocean.

  “I want you there, also,” Levi said. “You need to see what your actions have caused.”

  Miles fought mixed emotions. He wanted the man punished, but he had never witnessed a flogging. “Can’t we just throw him overboard and be done with it?”

  “It’s one hundred lashes for this serious of a crime, Miles. He will be lucky to live through it. We will be finding blood drops high and low for days.”

  “Christ! Maybe we should wait and turn him over to the authorities when we get there.”

  “They have no jurisdiction over what happens at sea. He was caught in the act. Justice at sea is swift and severe. It is the only deterrent we have to keep it from happening again. Trust me; I dislike this as much as you.”

  18

  Andrea emerged from the bedroom some four hours later dressed in the tangerine dress. She had fashioned her hair into a chignon and was glad to see Miles had located her stray shoe. She had slept through the engine being restarted and the hammering to repair the splintered doorframe.

  Andrea was mildly disappointed to find herself alone in his suite, but pleased to find a domed tray sitting on the table. She removed the lid to reveal an assortment of small dishes. It was an odd assortment, she thought, as she plucked half a strawberry out of a bowl of fruit and popped it into her mouth. There were almonds and olives in small bowls and little cubes of cheese and slices of ham on a plate. She lifted a cover from a small square silver dish and found it filled with sardines. Lastly, there was a ramekin filled with bread pudding. It was far more food than she could possibly eat, but she supposed Miles just asked for an assortment because he didn’t know what she liked.

  She longingly eyed the ebony olives. They were one of her favorite treats. However, knowing she would have to spit out the pits, she opted not to eat them. Then again, there was a porthole where she could dispose of the unsightly stones. Andrea took the whole bowl with her to the porthole and ate them one after another, dropping the fleshless pits out the opening until every olive was eaten. Since she was alone, she put the bowl to her lips and sipped the small amount of brine out of the bottom of the bowl as she had done when she was little. She smiled at her daring.

  After eating her fill from the other foods, Andrea decided she should begin repairing the tear in her dress. It would help her pass the time. Andrea tentatively opened the doorway. She was greeted by a large sailor with a surprised expression.

  “I just have to get something from my stateroom,” she said as she avoided looking him in the eye. She left the door ajar and hesitated when she saw another sailor posted at her door. “Excuse me, this is my room.”

  The sailor looked past her to the first sailor to see if he should let her, pass before he stepped aside. The door had been repaired, but the raw wood had not yet been stained to match.

  Andrea had not been prepared to relive the attack in her mind when she entered the room. By the time she retrieved the needle and thread, her hands were shaking and her pulse was racing. She ran out of her room and into his, slamming both doors in the process and throwing the bolt on his.

  ~*~

  Miles Huntington’s brow lowered as he entered the corridor that housed their staterooms. The two men posted to keep watch were at neither door but stood between the rooms talking.

  “Mr. Huntington!” one of the sailors said upon seeing him. “We were just trying to decide if we should come get you.”

  “A woman came out of your quarters, went into the other one and ran back into yours as if she’d seen a ghost.”

  Miles cursed under his breath and pulled a key from his pocket. “Andrea, it’s me,” he said not wanting her to be alarmed when she heard the door unlocking. He knew the moment he saw her sitting at the edge of the chair, her back straight as a lamppost, that she was upset. She looked up and smiled pleasantly at him, but as she looked back at her sewing, he saw her hands were trembling.

  “I hear the engine running,” she said casually.

  “Yes, it was a valve,” he said. Any other time, he would love to discuss the engine, but she was doing that thing she did when she was distraught. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Did you wake up with a headache?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  That was debatable. She obviously was not fine. “Did you eat something?” he asked, lifting the cover off the tray. It appeared she had nibbled a bit of most things except the bread pudding and only completely finished one bowl. “I didn’t know what you liked.”

  “I’m not picky.”

  He stared at the empty bowl trying to remember what was in it. “What did you do with the pits?” he wondered aloud.

  She had strange notions of what was proper. Olive pits on the side of the plate would no doubt be quite uncouth to her.

  “If you must know, I put them out the porthole.”

  A smile tugged that his lip. “I hope you can spit a long ways.”

  “I have never spit in my life,” she said in her most refined accent.

  “You know we’re not at the edge of the ship. There is another ten feet of deck below us. You were probably pelting passengers and crew with olive pits.”

  Andrea gasped and dropped her sewing into her seat as she flew to the porthole. “Please, tell me you’re jesting.”

  “Afraid not.”

  Andrea opened the nautical window, pressed her face into the opening, and could just barely see the railing around the deck one story below them.

  “Oh, my word,” she muttered. “Oh, my word.” Her hands covered the lower part of her face. “I’m mortified. I never would have eaten the olives if I’d realized we weren’t at the edge of the ship.”

  Miles was barely able to keep from laughing. “Oh, I would’ve loved to have had a view of the show. I imagine people casually strolling under our little porthole when something strikes them on their noggins. The first one looks about, but the little pit bounces off his head into the ocean leaving him to wonder if something actually hit him at all. I should like to think of Lady Pike and Callie walking through your little trap. On the ground, a dozen little brown pearls waiting to roll out from under their feet as they passed. Perhaps they might have even fallen overboard.”

  “How can you joke about it?”

  “How can you not see the humor in it? I propose tomorrow, we get a bowl the size of a bucket, fill if full of olives and do it intentionally.”

  “Miles….”

  “Andi…,” he echoed approaching her.

  “I shan’t touch another olive for the rest of my life,” she said softly, as if speaking to herself. She closed the porthole and turned to him.

  Miles, being careful not to touch her bare skin, placed his hands on her upper arms. “If you can’t see the humor in it, at least tell me you can see the irony.”

  She stared at him silently, blinking slowly.

  “You’re trying so hard to always be proper that in your quest to hide your olive pits, you do something that turns out to be worse than placing them on the side of your plate.”

  “I always do the wrong thing,” she whispered.

  She looked so miserable that he felt compelled to draw her into an embrace. “Stop trying so hard, Andi. Be yourself. Stop worrying about what other people think.”

  “This is who I am.”

  He sighed sympathetically. “You’re too critical of yourself,” he said, stepping just far enough back, so he could see her face. “Did you mean what you said about never eating olives again?”

  She did not answer right away. “Yes,” she finally said, her e
yes no longer able to meet his.

  “Do you always punish yourself by denying yourself your favorite foods?” he said, remembering how she did not put sugar in her oatmeal that morning.

  Again, he had to wait for her answer. “Yes.”

  “Have you eaten bread pudding since that Christmas you had to apologize to the servants?”

  He saw the tears well up in her eyes and her chin draw up and dimple. “No.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself long enough? Your servants ate a smaller portion or perhaps did without once. How many times have you done without?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When we—” Miles began but corrected himself. “Someday when you have children and one of them creeps down in the middle the night to have an extra dessert, are you never going to allow them to have it again?”

  A silent tear fell down her cheek. “No.”

  “Why are you harder on yourself, than you would be on someone else?” he asked, cupping her face and brushing the wetness away with his thumb.

  “I have inferior bloodlines. My mother was an actress, for heaven sake. My father was born working-class. We are as common as you get. I have to show I have risen above my station, so I can attract the right kind of husband. Do you think anyone wants a woman who is a thief as their wife, or one who would take food out of the mouths of humble servants? It is not their fault they were so low born.”

  Miles shook his head. How could he get past nearly two decades of her being taught she wasn’t good enough?

  “It could be worse,” he said, then dropped his voice down. “You could be an American,” he said with mock disgust.

  Her lip twitched up.

  “Who on earth would marry an American? We have no lords. Only businessmen like me, landowners, and, God forbid, politicians. I suppose you could aspire to marry a man who hoped to one day be president.”

  “Stop teasing me. You know who my father wants me to marry. At least in my mother’s plan, I would have some choice.”

  Suddenly seeming angry, Miles stepped away from her. “I'm sorry to speak unkindly of your mother. However, if the third son of a baronet, who you loved with all your heart, asked for your hand, and an eighty-year-old fat, impoverished childless duke with a reputation for beating his wives to death, offered for you, your mother would encourage the match with the duke, with no regard to your feelings or safety. When your mother implies that you will have a choice, I suspect it only applies if you make the choice she wants—perhaps if two earls offer for you, you might get to pick the one you liked more.”

  “My father would never allow Mama to marry me off to anyone as odious as you describe.”

  “I think your father has made it clear you will never marry into the aristocracy. He wants you to marry someone with a background similar to his.”

  “I will never marry your cousin. He is just as detestable as an eighty-year-old wife beater.”

  “Damn it, Andrea. I am not going to sit by while you speak ill of my cousin. You spent an hour of your life in his company. You have no right to judge the man he is today, based on a conversation he had when he was eighteen years old. He is a good, hard-working man. His loyalty knows no bounds.”

  “Your cousin is off-limits, but criticizing my mother is fine?” she shouted. “How much time have you spent with her? How many conversations have you had with her?”

  “I have not said anything about your mother that your father did not put in his letters to my—to Richard. I trust your father’s judgment.”

  As if a curtain came down between them, Andrea suddenly pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. Her face lost its tension in a way Miles was beginning to recognize. “I believe I’ve overstayed my welcome,” she announced.

  Entering the bedroom, she collected her belongings there and retrieved her sewing as she passed through the sitting room as she left his cabin.

  20

  Although Miles had sent the sherry to her room, she did not imbibe before bed. Perhaps if she had, the sounds of Clyde Sully being flogged might not have awakened her. The crack of the whip, his screams of pain and pleads for mercy filtered in through the open porthole, forcing her out of bed to close it. Whether real or imagined after that point, Andrea was compelled to pull the pillow over her head to drown out the sounds she still heard. The sound was so horrific; Andrea wanted to run on deck and beg for mercy for him. Had she known it would last as long as it did, she would have.

  The next morning, Andrea found herself in a pensive mood.

  Miles had ruined everything. She was not going to get a chance to demonstrate to her father that she could run his business. Even if she donned the tweed suit she had sewn, and tried to disappear into the city, her father would soon be there, ready to plaster her face in the newspaper again, and most likely, Miles would be close on her heels. She had lost the only chance she was going to get to prove herself.

  She needed a new plan.

  Andrea knew her father had gotten where he was by never taking no for an answer. He could be ruthless when it came to business, and she knew when it came to this marriage, he would be the same way. It did not matter that Miles did not believe her father would force her and frankly, even if his cousin refused, Sebastian James was going to choose her husband. The only way she was not going to have to bend to her father’s will was to be married and bedded before her father caught up with her.

  She even knew whom she wanted to marry. Andrea put her hand on the wall that separated their rooms. He was always so nice to her and he encouraged her to express her opinions. One person had ever cared what she thought before, only Rita had ever sought her counsel. It certainly did not hurt that Miles Huntington was as fine a specimen of masculinity as she had ever met. He was tall and handsome and he seemed to like her. Dear God, he held her face in his hands and said he wanted her for himself.

  As she remember the intense look on his face, her stomach began feeling funny. Did he mean it?

  But how, how could she get him to ask her? With any other man, she would just explain her situation, swallow her pride and ask, but she could not ask him. Miles was the cousin of the man she had jilted. They were close friends as well. She could never ask him to betray that. No, if he wanted to marry her, he would have to do the asking. But how?

  ~*~

  Miles Huntington sat in his room staring at the wall that separated his suite from her cabin. What he really wanted to do was tell her he was Shamus and suggest they spend the next month getting to know each other to see if they would suit. But he couldn’t do that. Andrea would rather eat oatmeal without sugar because she could select it for herself, than to have a plate of pastries of someone else’s choosing. No, she had to have options. He could not tell her he wanted to marry her—no matter what.

  He knew what he had to do—even if he did not like it. He needed to provide her with a variety of suitors. Only if she rejected each of them, could he offer himself to her. Even then, she had to understand it was her choice and she could say no.

  If she said no, he’d have a long talk with her father and try to convince him to quit trying to dictate her life—and while he was at it, he’d tell him about the hogwash his wife was telling her. If she picked another man, Miles would pull him aside and tell him also. It made him sick to think a mother would go to such lengths to keep her daughter chaste—not that he knew that was why she did it but what other explanation was there? Sebastian James did not impress him as a cruel or a selfish man, so surely, that was not Lillian’s experience.

  At that moment, Miles sent a secret prayer to the heavens that he be the man to teach her the ways of love. Whether it took hours or days to get her ready, he would do it. She deserved her first time to be special and not frightening.

  It was so important to him that her first time be good, that he wanted to seduce her just to make sure it was. But he couldn’t do that because that would take away her options.

  Miles realized with a start, that
Andrea James was the one woman that he would abandon his morals for and cuckold her husband if he did not treat her as he should. Christ, he hoped if she married someone else that she would live in England, so he would never have to see her again. Seeing her and her husband together in social situations, would drive him mad.

  Miles crossed his arms and decided he would marry her, even if he had to seduce her. He would offer her a selection, so she would feel like she had choices, but in the end, he could not let her marry anyone else. He could not go through his life not knowing if she were being treated the way she deserved.

  ~*~

  A light knock on the door drew Andrea out of her musings. She opened the door to find a waiter half-bowed over a large silver tray. This was the first time a waiter other than Phillip had brought her meal but with the two sailors posted outside her door, Andrea did not hesitate to let him in.

  “Just set it on the table,” she said. “Take the bread pudding and the olives with you. I did not order them. I don’t want them.”

  In the two days since the attack, Miles made Phillip add the offending items to her tray at every meal including breakfast.

  The tall dark-headed waiter removed the domed cover.

  “You must’ve brought the wrong food. There’s enough there for two people.”

  Andrea looked at the waiter’s face for the first time and realized Miles had donned a waiter’s uniform to bring her tray. He had also shaved off his beard.

  Andrea’s heart skipped a beat. She had forgotten how handsome he was, or maybe he was just handsomer now than he was at twenty-two.

  “I was hoping you’d invite me to join you.”

  After a moment’s contemplation, she acquiesced. She had been bored and lonesome and afraid to leave her room for fear that people would whisper when they saw her. She wished the attack could have been kept quiet, but she knew people must have seen the broken door. Although Clyde Sully’s flogging took place in the middle of the night, she doubted she was the only passenger who was awakened by his screams of pain.