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.”
“Like what? Like a beautiful woman has chosen me amongst all the men in this room to approach and I am enjoying my good fortune?”
Her lashes fanned wide, the violets springing to warmth. Then she frowned, marring the lovely cast of her features.
“Save your flattery for giddy females, Seton. I won’t be flummoxed.”
“I did not intend flummoxing.”
“Apparently you don’t intend plenty that you do.”
“You are talking around yourself. Are you flummoxed or not?”
“In your dreams.” She twisted up her sweet, full lips that tasted like honey, and he sought steadiness. But it eluded him. In his dreams of late she gave him those lips to please. In his dreams she drew him between her thighs and gave him all of her.
“Where, I wonder, has gone the perfumed ingénue from aboard ship,” he murmured.
Her eyes flashed wide again for an instant, perfectly candid. “Not far. Why? Was she having an effect?”
He laughed. “How many women do you have in that body, Viola Carlyle?”
Her brow pleated. “Only the one, as I’ve been trying to convince you.”
“What is the occasion?” He gestured to her gown. He did not again allow himself to glance at her breasts barely concealed by a strip of fabric tucked into her bodice, or he would commence slavering like the rest of the fellows in the place.
She tugged an ugly gray shawl about her shoulders.
“I am a woman, Seton. A woman is permitted to wear a skirt without particular occasion.”
He lifted a single brow. “What happened to making your sex irrelevant?”
“I still am.”
He glanced about at the dozen men in the taproom who clearly would not agree.
“Hm.” He returned his gaze to her, to her lips. He could pass his tongue over the spot of beauty riding the curve of her lower lip, then elsewhere-the soft gully of her throat, the firm tips of her breasts. He could do only that for an entire night and be satisfied. Nearly. “That scowl is taking, you know, but it does not quite suit your current fashion. Perhaps you should change clothes again.”
“Perhaps you should leap off a gangplank into a nest of hungry sharks.” She brushed past him, the caress of her arm grounding him in sudden, complete heat. For a moment, Jin could not move, every muscle strained against his nature.
Perhaps she intended it. But if she intended it, she would be slipping him demure smiles as she had aboard ship. Perhaps, instead, she hadn’t any idea that a lady did not touch a man even in such an accidental manner. Perhaps despite fifteen years living among sailors, she truly did not know what happened to a man when a beautiful woman touched him.
“Sharks are always hungry, Miss Carlyle,” he uttered, and turned to follow, but she pivoted back to him.
“Don’t call me that here,” she whispered, “or when we arrive at the farm. Please.” Her eyes were dark, unsettling vulnerability coloring them as before on her ship. “Please promise me you won’t.” Her gaze searched his, anxious.
“It is that important to you?”
“I have nothing to bind you to a promise, I realize. But I know that if you give me your word you won’t break it.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
She blinked, a swift shuttering of her expressive eyes. “I simply am.”
Jin nodded. “I give you my word.”
Her lashes flickered again, then she turned and made her way from the inn.
Chapter 13
During the drive along the coastal road then into the island’s interior, she hid her face behind the brim of a plain straw bonnet and said nothing. He studied her, the tight set of her shoulders beneath the thick shawl she wore like armor despite the midafternoon heat, her slender, callused fingers twisted about one another.
She was a woman transformed-not so much in clothing as in attitude. As the ocean disappeared behind hills and palms and the calls of tropical birds and scents of soil and green, growing things became stronger, she grew stiller and stiller. But this was not the stillness of her sunset vigils on the April Storm’s quarterdeck.
She wished silence, and he gave it to her, content to await an explanation.
The coachman turned the carriage along a narrow drive flanked by enormous yucca trees, and their destination appeared before them. It was no mere farm. The drive was not long but the house was sizable enough, two stories, elegantly English in style, gleaming and whitewashed with a veranda wrapping about three sides. Fields of sugarcane stretched out along slopes with the perfection of a painted landscape.
Viola’s head came up and a gasp escaped her lips. She stared at the house, fingers gripping the carriage’s dusty edge.
Finally he spoke. “Whose estate is this?”
“It belongs to Aidan Castle. He was once a clerk in Boston, then worked on my father’s ship for several years before purchasing this land.” Her gaze traveled with reluctant greed over the house and outbuildings, not in any obvious pleasure. “The last time I visited, he hadn’t yet built the house. It’s impressive,” she added in a subdued voice.
The carriage pulled to a halt before the porch, and a servant emerged from the beveled front door. Jin climbed out, his boots scraping on the pebbled drive from which heat rose with humid dust. He turned to offer Viola his hand.
She ignored it, fussing with her skirts and shawl at the steep step, then releasing an exasperated breath and accepting his assistance. On the drive she pulled her fingers from his quickly.
“Good day, mum. Sir.” The servant drew the luggage from the carriage.
“Good day,” she replied. “Will you please tell Mr. Castle that Violet Daly has arrived?”
The servant bowed and disappeared within the house.
Jin proffered his hand again to assist her up the porch steps, but she grasped the rail and ascended alone. He held back, watching her pass her palms over her skirts several times and adjust bonnet and shawl again. Then he followed.
The door opened. With a confident stride a man came onto the porch. Dressed in a neat linen jacket and trousers, buffed shoes and silk waistcoat, he appeared about Jin’s age, broader framed though not quite his height, his face and hands darkly tanned. His attention went directly to the woman standing between them.
She moved to him, tucked her chin down, and extended her hand.
Castle grasped it, said, “Dear Violet,” and drew her into his embrace. She put her arms about his waist and pressed her face into his coat.
Jin stood perfectly silent, the late-afternoon sun slanting across the veranda and the pair before him, the slightest breeze rustling through the cane stalks in the fields and fluttering through Viola’s skirts.
She had not told him the truth, of course. The occasion for her change of clothing and demeanor, apparently, was Aidan Castle.
He felt the same, thick-chested and solid. And he smelled the same, like shaving soap and tobacco smoke, so familiar that Viola almost sensed her father nearby now, as though if she were to look up Fionn would be standing beside Aidan.
He released her and she allowed herself to study him clearly. He looked the same as well. Light brown hair curled over his brow, somewhat long as sometimes he wore it when he forgot to have it cut. His face had not altered, square and tan, with the same slightly heavy nose, wide, bowed lips, the shallow cleft in his chin, and warm hazel eyes that smiled at her now.
“Your journey passed smoothly, I assume?” His voice was so familiar, a voice she’d heard every day until four years earlier when he left her father’s ship to become a planter.
“Without mishap.”
“I expected as much. We imagined the season early enough now that you would avoid rough weather.” He looked so glad to see her, his gaze fixed comfortably in hers.
“We?”
“You will remember my cousin Seamus. He paid a visit last spring and never left.” He chuckled, the same assuring sound she had depended on when her father fell ill and she so badly needed assurance. “My aunt and uncle were keen for him to leave Ireland, of course, getting himself up to tricks as he’s always done.”
“So… he is here?” She had met Seamus Castle only once on a long visit he made years ago to Boston, a young man with too much cheek and too little imagination.
“He’s been a great help with the management of the workers. But let us not stand out here in the heat. Come inside and take something cool to drink.” He reached for her hand then paused, his gaze shifting behind her. “Ah. Forgive me. This is…?”
“My quartermaster while Crazy is on furlough. Aidan, this is Jinan Seton.”
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Seton.” He extended a hand. Seton stepped forward and grasped it.
“The pleasure is mine.”
Something in Viola’s insides did a peculiar little turn about.
Aidan screwed up his brow. “Seems I recognize that name from somewhere.”
He released Aidan’s hand. “Do you?”
“But I suppose Seton is a common enough surname in these parts, isn’t it?”
“I daresay.”
“Ah.” Aidan smiled. “You are an Englishman.”
“Mr. Seton holds a privateer’s commission from the Royal Navy.” Viola’s gaze darted between them. “He is only serving as my lieutenant because- Well… He is-”
“Between ships,” the bounty hunter finished.
“Ah. Of course.” Aidan’s glance shifted over his guest. “Any sailor from Violet’s ship is welcome in my home.” He gestured to the door. “If you will. I wish to make you acquainted with my other guests.”
Viola went before them into the high-ceilinged foyer, stealing a glance at the man with whom she had sailed to this island. He wore a crisp white shirt, neat trousers, and a coat she’d never seen, finely tailored that did justice to his broad shoulders and lean frame. He looked as perfectly at ease in these garments as he did in those he wore aboard ship. During the drive, concentrating on trying not to look at him, she had not noticed his clothes.
Mostly, as usual, she had noticed his eyes. And his hands. And his mouth. Always his mouth.
She cared nothing about what he wore. He was handsome in anything and nearly nothing. Her gaze slipped up from his waistcoat and, as on that first day, he was watching her stare at him.
Aidan poked his elbow in front of her. For a moment she looked blankly at his sleeve, unable to blink away the memory of the sailor’s bared chest streaked with rain.
Neither man spoke.
“Violet?”
“Oh.” Her cheeks heated and she set her fingertips awkwardly on Aidan’s forearm.
He chuckled. “My dear, you are priceless.” He drew her into a drawing room. It was a lovely chamber, decorated with modest taste and English detail, yet another piece of the house he had built and furnished without telling her anything about it though she was to someday share it.
Within were four people. Seamus Castle leaned against a chair back, swinging a thick gold watch chain around his forefinger.
“G’day, Miss Violet.” He ducked her the slightest bow. He was an attractive man, with a high brow like Aidan’s and the same curly hair, but his mouth seemed formed into a permanent smirk, his green eyes hooded. “Pleasure to see you again.” The last time, five years earlier, he had trapped her in a shadowed alcove and tried to put his hands on her breasts. Her knee had smarted for days from impact with the pistol butt hanging at his groin. His groin had too, clearly. Viola learned several new cuss words in that moment.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hat, allow me to introduce to you Miss Daly and Mr. Seton, friends of mine whose ship has just arrived in port.” Aidan turned her to face them.
In an instant Viola knew them to be prosperous merchants from some northern city. New Yorkers, Philadelphians, or Bostonians all had the same look about them-the men overfed, the women overly superior, and both of them overdressed.
Bulges strapped into high-starched collars and a wool coat with enormous lapels, Mr. Hat creaked to his feet and shook hands with Seton.
“Glad to know you,” he rumbled.
“Sir.” The sailor turned to Mrs. Hat and bowed. “Ma’am.”
She wore a pinch-lipped smile and a taffeta gown embroidered with black pearls, vastly expensive and thoroughly unsuited to the climate. She assessed Viola from brow to toe, then Seton, and finally nodded, the black feather in her headdress jerking.
“And this,” Aidan said with a gentle smile, “is Miss Hat.”
The girl was angelic, not above seventeen and pretty as could stare. And Viola did stare, wondering how Miss Hat made her pale blond locks curl against her brow and cheeks so perfectly, and how she could bear to wear so little in front of all these people. She was tall like her mother, with a willow’s figure and soft blue eyes over which golden lashes modestly dipped. She curtsied, the diaphanous skirt of her pristine white gown gliding against her legs. Her hands tucked in its folds were lily white.
“Sir. Miss,” she whispered. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Seton bowed, looking so English, so perfectly like an actual gentleman, for a moment Viola stared again at him too.
Aidan guided her to a chair.
“Mr. Hat owns a dry goods mercantile in Philadelphia, Violet. He is visiting on business, hoping to expand his horizons. We
are fortunate that he was able to bring his family with him, aren’t we, Seamus?”
The Irishman screwed up his mouth into a grin.
“Course, coz. Always a fine thing to have ladies about to brighten the place.” He leered at Viola.
Mr. Hat grasped his daughter’s hand and patted it. “Wanted my little Charlotte to see the sites, don’t you know, before I settle her on a lucky fellow for life.”
Miss Hat blushed to her pale roots, eyes downcast, but her smile remained sweet.
The servant who had met them at the door came to Viola with a tray. She accepted a glass and smiled.
“Thank you.”
“Dear me, Mr. Castle.” Mrs. Hat’s gaze fixed on Viola’s feet. “I fear I have been remiss these past two days. I had no idea that in the islands ladies spoke to servants amongst company. I shall make certain to rectify my behavior.”
Aidan chuckled. “Commerce between the serving class and their betters is sometimes freer here than up north, ma’am, it’s true. But you could never be remiss in any manner, I’m certain.”
The woman’s gaze slid upward, halting at Viola’s lap. Viola peered down. Her skirt was hitched up under her knees, her calves encased in cheap stockings perfectly visible.
Heat flushed her cheeks. “Oh.” Hands damp, she tugged under her behind to loosen the fabric. She was obliged to tug harder, but after a little hop of her behind off the chair and another tug, finally her hem fell to the floor.
“Castle, I understand you have not owned this property long.” Seton’s voice cut smoothly into the thick silence. “I enjoy an acquaintance with several planters on Barbados and Jamaica, but none on this island. How do you find the business here?”
“Quite good, in fact. My closest neighbor, Perrault, is less than forthcoming with the stream that runs through his lands before mine, but I haven’t yet had irrigation troubles.” He looked about with a smile. “If the laborers demanded fewer privileges, I would be a thoroughly contented man indeed.”
“I’ve told you, cousin,” Seamus drawled, “if men are given their freedom they will misuse it whenever they can. You should have slaves working your land, not wage laborers.”
How to Be a Proper Lady Page 11
