The Lost Countess That Counted Stars (Historical Regency Romance)

by Patricia Haverton

  “Yes, you have me there. I have a soft spot for him, too.”

  Lord Buckthorn picked Henry up and set him on the floor. “Off with you, now. I saw a rat on the deck, you scoundrel. Go kill it.”

  Henry sat on his haunches and washed his face, licking his paw before swiping it over his ears, over and over. Lord Buckthorn sighed.

  “See what I mean? No discipline whatsoever.”

  Delighted to see the captain’s affinity for a cat, Merial certainly felt better about her circumstances.

  How can a man who likes a cat be a rogue?

  She finished her breakfast as Lord Buckthorn promised her warm water to wash with.

  “I have combs and brushes,” he went on, “but no pins for your hair.”

  “I can braid it, My Lord, so it can become somewhat proper.”

  “While I have no gowns for you, either,” he said, “I can offer you shirts and trousers, as I am certain your gown will not suffice for the rest of the trip.”

  Wear a man’s clothing?

  Blushing, she stared at the busy cat, knowing that if she wore her gown day in and day out, it would soon begin to smell, as well as rip and tear. She had no idea which would be a worse fate. Swallowing hard, she replied, “Yes, if I must, I will garb myself in trousers.”

  Lord Buckthorn folded his hands together in front of him, gazing at her with compassionate eyes. “If I may be so bold as to speak in this fashion,” he said slowly, “if my crew see a lovely woman in a gown on the deck, well, they may not do their jobs. However, a woman in a shirt and trousers? I am hoping that they might accept you among them a tad better.”

  “Is it not also said that a woman on board a ship brings bad luck?” Merial gazed back at him frankly.

  “That, too, Miss Hanrahan,” he admitted with a smile. “They may not look at you with such superstition if you were garbed like them.”

  “I have no wish to cause you difficulty, My Lord,” she replied with a smile. “If wearing trousers makes the running of your ship more smooth, then how can I refuse?”

  His boyish grin surfaced, and Merial thought she would do just about anything to keep seeing it.

  “Thank you, Miss Hanrahan,” he said. “After you have washed and changed, then I will give you a tour of the Valkyrie.”

  Armed with combs, brushes, and a small man’s garments, Merial went back to her cabin, Henry trotting at her ankles with his tail high. Permitting him inside with her, she brushed her hair out, then braided it, and tied it with a ribbon from her gown. Wincing at donning the trousers, Merial actually found them rather comfortable once she had them on.

  Spreading her arms, she twirled for Henry’s inspection. “What do you think, Henry? Perhaps I am the first Englishwoman to wear men’s trousers.”

  Henry jumped onto her bunk, then promptly rolled onto his back as an invitation to scratch his belly. Obliging him, Merial wished for a looking glass with which to review her new clothes. She tucked her shirt into the trousers as the men did, and hung her gown on the hook.

  Leaving the cabin, Henry following her, she found Lord Buckthorn in the companionway with a wooden box in his hands. “My Lord?”

  “I nearly forgot, Miss Hanrahan,” he said. “This was found in the dinghy with you. It is locked with some strange alphabetical key, and I have not tried to open it.”

  Merial took it in her hands, and gazed at it. It was heavy, but did not look the least bit familiar to her. “Perhaps when I get my memories back, I will remember the combination.”

  She set it in her cabin, then returned to Lord Buckthorn. He gazed her up and down with a smile. “By the way, those clothes look quite fetching on you.”

  Chuckling, she replied, “If you have a looking glass, I would like to see myself in them.”

  “In time. Right now, I would like you to have a tour. I would not want you to get lost.”

  He gestured toward the short flight of stairs that led to the deck, and she climbed them with Henry running ahead of her. The bright sunlight made her squint and blink until her eyes grew used to it. Given what Lord Buckthorn had said about the sailors’ superstition, she was not surprised to find herself gawked and stared at.

  “Mr. Mayhew,” Lord Buckthorn thundered.

  “Aye, M’lord.”

  A heavyset, wizened man with a drooping mustache and gray eyes hurried to them, and knuckled his brow. Those eyes grew larger as he saw her, and Merial saw him visibly swallow.

  One of the superstitious fellows.

  “Mr. Mayhew, please gather the crew.”

  “Aye, M’lord.”

  He went across the deck bellowing orders. The crew scrambled to obey, climbing down ropes and the netting that led up the masts, rushing toward them to stand in front of Lord Buckthorn. She gazed back at them without flinching, and tried not to feel self-conscious in her men’s garments. Henry rubbed her ankles, meowing, so she bent and picked him up.

  Perhaps if they see how he likes me, they might accept me more easily.

  “M’lord, all the crew have gathered, sir.”

  Lord Buckthorn raised his voice slightly. “This is Miss Hanrahan,” he began, “you will grant her the respect and courtesy she deserves as a lady and a guest aboard this vessel. She came to us with nothing, yet will leave with the memory of a pleasant voyage. I have asked her to dress in this fashion, and she readily agreed, so that perhaps you will come to accept her, and not regard her as a bad omen. Am I understood?”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” came from the throats of the assembled seamen.

  Merial could not tell from their faces if they agreed with his assessment or not, but hoped they would not think of her as an evil being on board. She would hate to have one of them pitch her overboard because he thought she was a bad omen.

  “Return to your work now.”

  The men knuckled their brows, one or two offering her tentative smiles as they turned to go back to their duties.

  “Mr. Mayhew, please formally meet Miss Hanrahan,” Lord Buckthorn continued. “If she requires anything, please see to it. Miss Hanrahan, Mr. Mayhew is my first mate.”

  Mr. Mayhew knuckled his brow as his gray eyes watched her carefully, as though she were a beast who might attack him. “I will look after ye, Miss,” he said, “should ye have need.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mayhew.”

  He bolted, not quite running, and vanished toward the bow. Lord Buckthorn laughed, glancing at her.

  “Do not mind him, Miss Hanrahan,” he said, gesturing for her to accompany him. “Women, at sea or on land, frighten him.”

  Henry wriggled in a request to be put down as Merial started to walk alongside Lord Buckthorn. Still, he tagged along with them, his tail high in the air. As Lord Buckthorn pointed out this or that on the ship, Merial listened carefully as she eyed the men. Intent on their tasks, she did catch no few of them watching her from the corners of their eyes.

  Standing in the bow, she gazed at the wide ocean, a deep blue against the paler blue of the sky, the wind in her hair. That sensation instantly brought back the dream—riding a galloping horse. She blinked, and the memory vanished as quickly as it had come.

  “Look,” she exclaimed, pointing.

  Not far away, a sea creature broached the surface, spewing a spray of mist into the air before diving below the sea again. A huge, flat tail slapped the water, creating a wash of foam, then vanished.

  “A whale,” Lord Buckthorn stated with a grin. “Not truly dangerous to sailing vessels.”

  “Are there not whaling ships?” she asked, gazing in awe where it had vanished. She could not believe the sheer size of the creature. “That hunt them?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Lord Buckthorn answered. He then pointed. “See? There are more of them.”

  Merial witnessed more spouts and more tails, delighted at the experience. Shading her eyes, she gazed around to see more of the whales, but the sea remained empty of them. Something brushed against her trouser leg, and she glanced down.

 
Henry ran out onto the bowsprit, and the figurehead of a woman with widespread wings that thrust out from the bow of the ship.

  “Henry!” she cried.

  “Do not worry about him,” Lord Buckthorn told her. “He does that all the time. His claws sink into the wood, and he is safe enough.”

  “But, what if he falls in?” Frantic, Merial watched as Henry crouched on the woman’s head, staring intently down into the rushing sea beneath the bow.

  “Then we are in trouble,” Lord Buckthorn answered, his tone serious. “Tales say that if the ship’s cat is lost overboard, so is the vessel. If the ship survives, however, it will have only nine more lives.”

  “Henry,” she called. “Come back here.”

  Henry twitched his tail a few times, then turned and trotted, sure-footed, back to the bow. As though trying to reassure her, he wrapped himself around her ankles, gazing up with adoration in his golden eyes.

  “Do not go out there again,” she scolded him, her hands on her hips. “That is dangerous. If you fall in, you will surely drown. Or become a meal for a whale.”

  Henry meowed, bending to scrape his ear over her trousers. Merial drew a deep breath, then caught a glimpse of Lord Buckthorn’s laughing countenance. “Well, he could,” she snapped, annoyed.

  “Am I disagreeing with you?” he asked, his eyes wide and innocent. Yet, they still laughed.

  In a huff, Merial turned and walked past the helmsman, who grinned and knuckled his brow as she passed him. From there she strode from the bow to the stern with Lord Buckthorn explaining what the crew members were actually doing. She grew lost in the phrases like mainsail, jib, boom, crow’s nest, sea anchor, rigging, amidships, port, starboard, fo’c’sle, helm, lanyard, mizzen, poop deck, among a hundred others.

  With Henry and Lord Buckthorn beside her, she stepped out onto the poop deck, gazing out at the wake the Valkyrie left behind. “That way is America,” she murmured. She glanced up at him. “What is it like?”

  He shrugged. “Not so different from England, I suppose. They have a president, not a king, yet their Congress is not so different than our Parliament. The people are coarser and ill-mannered, compared to England.”

  “They have no aristocracy, is that correct?”

  “That is so.”

  Merial brushed her fingers down the rough fabric of her shirt and trousers. “Am I among the aristocracy? I feel as though I am, as I feel an affinity for you, a lord, while not feeling it among the men. Is that strange?”

  “Not at all,” Lord Buckthorn replied. “I have no doubt you are of noble birth. Your mannerisms, your concern over the lack of a chaperone, how you hold yourself. They all speak of you as the daughter of an Earl, or a Marquess.”

  “I see.”

  She stared out at the vastness of the sea, feeling very small and insignificant. “All this will be here when we are gone,” she murmured. “The sea is without time.”

  “How very profound,” he commented with a lifted brow. “For I, too, have felt the timelessness of the ocean, witnessed her unchained power. Yet, we often take her for granted while we use her for sustenance, or travel upon her face.”

  “Do you catch fish as you sail?” she asked.

  “Of course. There is nothing like fresh fish on a voyage when all we have is salted beef, pork, or herring along with the grains, potatoes, and the other vegetables and fruit we must eat before they go bad.”

  “I adore fresh fish,” Merial murmured wistfully.

  “Then I shall endeavor to have it available to you as often as possible. Come, I would like to introduce you to our ship’s cook.”

  With Henry accompanying them, she and Lord Buckthorn went below decks where he pointed out the crew’s bunks and hammocks, the holds, and took her to the cook. He turned out to be a big man with tattoos on his bare arms and bulging muscles, a mop of greyish-red hair, his trousers tight around his expansive waist.

  Yet, he greeted her with deference and a polite smile, and actually gently shook her hand.

  “This is Mr. Maurice Gauthier, from France,” Lord Buckthorn said with a grin. “The best ship’s cook in England. This is our guest, Miss Hanrahan.”

  “How do you do?” she asked.

  “Very well, Miss,” he replied with a thick French accent. “How you like my cooking, eh?”

  “Quite well, Mr. Gauthier,” she replied, answering the kindness in his eyes. “If it is all right with both of you, may I repay my passage by working here in the galley? I wish to be busy, and, well, contribute.”

  Lord Buckthorn appeared astounded by the suggestion while Mr. Gauthier beamed. “I would like that very much, eh? Say, do you cook?”

  “Well, no,” she admitted. “I do not think so. But I can learn. And I can wash pots with the best of them.”

  “I hire her, no? M’lord, you say yes, please. She be a great help, no?”

  Lord Buckthorn sighed. “Very well. But remember, she is a noblewoman, so do not turn her into a drudge.”

  “Ah, merci, merci. She will learn my greatest secrets and become a cook, no?”

  “No.” Lord Buckthorn eyed him firmly. “And she begins tomorrow.”

  “Ah, cherie, I will see you soon, no?”

  “You will address her as Miss or Miss Hanrahan,” Lord Buckthorn growled, scowling, as Merial laughed.

  “Please, My Lord,” she said, giggling. “I do not mind being addressed as cherie. It means ‘sweetheart’, does it not?”

  “Oui, cherie,” Mr. Gauthier answered with a wide grin.

  Lord Buckthorn sighed, aggrieved. “You will treat her with respect, Gauthier. I mean it.”

  Mr. Gauthier bowed. “But of course, M’lord. I treat all the ladies with the utmost respect, yes?”

  Before she shamed herself by laughing herself silly, Merial left the galley, and almost tripped over Henry who ran ahead of her with a huge rat in his mouth. “What a delightful man,” she gasped as Lord Buckthorn scowled.

  “He has a few issues with English nobility,” he groused, glancing back. “As though we are to be treated with the same familiarity as that damn cat.”

  “He means no harm, My Lord,” she said, getting her giggles under control. “I like him.”

  “Are you certain you wish to become his assistant?” he asked. “I do not require it of you. You have no need to ‘repay’ anything.”

  “But I feel I do,” Merial replied. “You saved my life, brought me on board your vessel, are feeding me delicious food. I feel the need to give back in some small way.”

  Lord Buckthorn gestured for her to walk with him. “I will admit, such will keep you out from under the eyes of the men,” he commented as they climbed the stairs to the upper deck. “Though they seem to be looking at you as a person, and not a bad omen.”

  “The clothes, perhaps?”

  “Or just that they might view the kindness that shines from your beautiful hazel eyes.”

  Merial felt her blush run from her neck to the roots of her hair. “That, that is very kind of you to say so.”

  “It is the truth,” Lord Buckthorn replied with another boyish grin. “Come, let us enjoy the pleasant weather before Henry brings us the head of his rat as a gift.”

  Merial followed him up to the decks above, casting her gaze around at the men working, and feeling a chill run down her spine.

  What will happen if they continue to view me as a bad omen?

  Chapter 5

  Though Christopher could scarcely admit it to himself, Miss Hanrahan fit in among his crew as though meant to be there. By her third day on board, she worked with Maurice in the galley from dawn until well after dusk, and if he wanted to see her, he had to visit her there. On her first day, the pair were as thick as thieves, calling one another Maurice and Merial, and her hands had turned red from washing pots.

  “I love it,” she told Christopher when he dragged her away after supper. “Maurice tells the lewdest jokes.”

  Even in the dark, he knew she blushed furiousl
y. They ambled amidships as the crew ate their supper below, the helmsman guiding the ship by both the stars as well as the compass. “He should not do that,” Christopher admonished gently.

  “I know,” she admitted. “I cannot help it. I feel so free, so unrestricted by the boundaries of propriety. I fear I am reveling in his boorish behavior. What does that mean?”

  “That you are enjoying yourself.” He grinned down at her. “I do freely admit we English are a stuffy bunch, so worried about what the ton will say. The Americans gossip as much as we do, but you know what the difference is?”