An Improper Proposal (5 page)

The old woman stared down at Payton with an inscrutable expression on her face. Her eyes, behind the lenses of the lorgnette, were a very bright blue, and seemed strangely familiar to Payton, though she couldn’t, for the life of her, think why.

“You,” the woman said, finally, “must be the Dixon girl, then.”

“Payton Dixon, ma’am,” Payton said, extending her right hand amiably. “How d’you do?”

“Payton?” the woman echoed. “What kind of name is that?”

Used to the question, Payton replied, “The name my father gave me. He called me after Admiral Payton, ma’am. All of my brothers and I are named for seafaring explorers or naval heroes. Ross is named for my father’s good friend Captain James Ross, who was killed by hostile natives whilst he was looking for the Northwest Passage, and Hudson for Henry Hudson, who—”

“I ought to have known straight off.” The old woman ignored her hand. “You’re quite disgracefully tan. Still, the freckles led me to think you were much younger. Are you really eighteen?”

Payton put her hand down. She supposed that, once again, she’d managed to offend someone with her mannish forwardness. Oh, well. She hoped the old lady wasn’t anybody important, or Georgiana would skin her alive. “I’ll be nineteen next month.”

“Extraordinary.” The blue eyes raked her. “You don’t look a day over twelve.”

Payton hadn’t taken any offense at the old lady’s interrupting her, her reference to her freckles, or her refusal to shake her hand. But to accuse her of not looking a day over twelve—now that was just too much.

“I may not be as filled out as some people”—Payton cast a baleful glance at Miss Whitby, who was still pounding away at the keyboard—”but I assure you, I’m full grown.”

The old woman made a tsk-tsking noise with her tongue. “Well, then, your father hadn’t ought to be letting you go about—how did you put it? Bashing people on the head with bagatelle cues. You ought to be concentrating on the kinds of activities girls your age normally pursue.”

Payton looked disgusted. “If you mean finding a husband and all of that, you needn’t worry. Ross—my eldest brother—has already informed me that I’m to come out this year, and that I hadn’t ought to count on sailing again anytime soon.”

The old woman nodded approvingly. “He’s perfectly correct.”

“Well, I don’t think so,” Payton grumbled. “I’ve been at sea for most of my life, and I’ve turned out all right.”

“That,” the old woman sniffed, “is a matter of opinion. I’ve heard about you, Miss Dixon.”

Pleased to hear that her seafaring skills were being so widely discussed, Payton inclined her head modestly. “Well,” she said. “I did once make the West Indies run in under seventeen days, but I admit I had my brother Hudson’s help—”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean that I understand you possess some rather … forward-thinking opinions.”

“Oh.” Payton nodded. “Well, if you mean that I believe there’s no job a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better, then yes, I suppose I do. Ross says I oughtn’t get my hopes up, but I fully expect that for my birthday next month, I’ll be given a ship of my own to command. I’m hoping for our fastest clipper, the
Constant
, but I suppose I could settle for something a little older, to practice on, you know, until I—”

The old lady gave the floor a sharp rap with her cane. Fortunately Miss Whitby was too absorbed in her performance to notice. Several other guests, however—Georgiana included—looked in the direction of the sofa.

“Young woman.” The grande dame eyed Payton severely over the tops of her lorgnette. “Only a person who had spent the whole of her life trapped on a ship with a lot of men would aspire to something like that.”

Payton said, “Oh, but I think I’d make a fine captain. I mean, except for the heavy lifting, which I admit, because of the way we’re shaped, is harder for women, there really isn’t anything men can do that we can’t. On top of which, we have the added advantage of being able to give birth—”

Another rap of the cane. This time, the look Georgiana shot in their direction was decidedly alarmed.

“Miss Dixon.” The old woman’s lips were quivering, and not, Payton thought, with amusement. “I must say, I think it quite negligent of your family, allowing you to go about discussing such topics. Not to mention bashing people on the head.”

“But if I hadn’t bashed him on the head,” Payton said, “he’d have hurt someone.”

“Despite what you might think, Miss Dixon, it isn’t at all attractive, this declaring yourself equal to men. Nor do I think it particularly wise of you to go about helping your brothers to capture—what did you call them? Oh, yes. Galley rats.”

Payton raised her eyebrows. “And what was I supposed to do, pray, while they were under such insidious attack?”

“You ought to have been fainting, like Miss Whidby.”

Payton flashed the old lady an annoyed glance. “It’s Whitby, and what good does fainting ever do? It only causes everybody else a lot of bother, while they run around looking for smelling salts and things. Besides, if Miss Whitby had had the sense to up-anchor and seize a bagatelle cue, like I did, she might have been able to hang on to her money.”

“Yes,” the old lady said. “Well. Be that as it may, men prefer women who faint over women who wield bagatelle cues.”

“That isn’t true,” Payton drew breath to insist, but the old woman lifted an imperious finger to silence her.

“It isn’t you the captain is marrying, is it?” she said pointedly. “It’s her.”

Payton followed the old woman’s gaze. Miss Whitby had finished singing about her revolting discovery under the ash grove, and had moved on to describe how her love was doing her wrong, casting her off so discourteously.

Only if she had stabbed Payton in the heart with a whaling hook, then twisted the handle, could that old woman have hurt her more. Because of course she was right. Payton wasn’t the one the captain was marrying. The captain had probably never considered the Honorable Miss Payton Dixon as a potential wife for a single moment in his life. At least, not seriously. It was Miss Whitby who seemed to be all that he wanted in a bride, and more. Bloody hell.

Well, she couldn’t let it bother her. If Miss Whitby was the woman he wanted, then Payton would do her almighty best to make sure it was Miss Whitby he got. After all, she loved Connor Drake too much to deny him his heart’s desire—even if his heart’s desire was burning a hole through hers.

Besides, if he was stupid enough to want someone like Miss Whitby, then he bloody well deserved her.

“Well,” the old woman said imperiously. “What happened next?”

Having .been lost in her thoughts, Payton blinked at her. “What?”

“Don’t say ‘what,’ child. Beg my pardon, then tell me what happened after you and your brothers saved the unfortunate Miss Whitby from her assailants.”

“Oh.”

Payton couldn’t imagine why she was behaving so stupidly. Perhaps it was the heat. The drawing room, like the bedroom Ross and Georgiana had been assigned, faced full west, and had not, perhaps, been the best room in which to gather at that time of day, since the bright rays of the sinking sun were streaming at full strength through the twin sets of French doors that led out to Daring Park’s lawns. Fans were moving at no sluggish pace, and even Georgiana, who always appeared cool and collected, was beginning to look a bit wilted.

But the old woman seated beside Payton didn’t appear the slightest bit discomfited by the heat, in spite of the fact that she was dressed in a long-sleeved gown of heavy purple velvet. Her silver hair had been coiffed into an elaborate arrangement on top of her head, beneath which her scalp had to be prickling. She did not, however, lift a finger to it, nor did she reach for the black lace fan in her lap.

“Well,” she said. “Get on with it.”

Payton sighed. This was the part of the story where, she felt, she’d made her crucial mistake. For when the girl they’d rescued had wakened from her faint, she had seemed so helpless and childlike that Payton hadn’t had any objection whatsoever to her brothers’ insistence that they invite her to stay at the town house until her health and financial circumstances improved.

The problem, of course, was that there was nothing at all wrong with Miss Whitby’s health: she was really quite remarkably health for a woman who claimed to be without family or income. And, being that she was quite without any skills whatsoever, her financial situation remained exactly the same.

“I see,” the old woman said, after Payton had imparted these facts. “And was Captain Drake besotted with her from the beginning? Or did his affection for her seem to come on suddenly?”

Quite suddenly, indeed. In fact, it had been Payton’s brothers Hudson and Raleigh who had expressed the most interest in their houseguest, squiring her about the city and flirting with her rather outrageously at times. They had even come to blows once or twice over her, although, Payton assured her listener, Hudson and Raleigh came to blows over just about anything, their most vicious fight to date having been over a pair of socks.

“One morning, a fortnight ago,” Payton explained to the grande dame, “we were all eating breakfast, and Drake—I mean, Captain Drake—came down—He was staying with us, too, did I mention that? Anyway, he announced that he and Miss Whitby were getting married, and that he’d be honored if we’d all come to Daring Park for the ceremony. He said—he said he knew it was sudden, and that it would shock a lot of people, his marrying so suddenly after his brother’s death, but that it couldn’t [__]be helped, and he hoped we’d all understand.”

Payton did not go on to describe how the piece of scone she’d been swallowing at the time had jammed in her throat, and how her brother Hudson had had to whack her on the back in order to keep her from choking to death on it. And how, despite the embarrassment of having choked so unattractively at breakfast, she’d actually been glad she’d done so, since the tears streaming down her face were taken as a side effect of the choking, and not as a consequence of the announcement
—
which, in fact, was what they were.

Instead, she shrugged. “And that was all.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed behind the lorgnette. “And he hadn’t shown any signs of marked preference for the lady before that?”

Payton didn’t think it was jealousy that made her shake her head and declare, “None.”

“How odd,” the old lady said. She pursed her lips, then went on to say, “So you’re telling me this Miss Whitby has no family and no fortune? Nothing, that is, except for her pretty face and manners?”

Payton shrugged again. “I suppose so.” Mentally, she added, If you call that pretty.

“Stop that shrugging,” the old woman said. “It isn’t attractive. Do you like her?”

Payton raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s better. I asked whether you like her. Miss Whitby. Do you like her?”

Payton looked at Miss Whitby. She had stopped playing. Everyone had begun tapping the sides of their fans in polite appreciation. Payton thought that the only thing they could be appreciative of was that the performance was over, and they could now move freely about the room—perhaps even open the French doors, and go outside for a breath of fresh air. As she watched, Miss Whitby rose and bowed modestly, smiling beatifically at her audience, most of whom could only be strangers to her. Then, collecting her voluminous skirts, she moved away from the pianoforte.

Miss Whitby’s lustrous red hair—in which, Payton was certain, lice had never nested—gleamed in the light from the setting sun. Her skin, upon which not a freckle showed, glowed pale as the moon. Payton thought about how she’d opened up her home to this young woman, a poor orphan who’d claimed to know not a soul in London, and to whom she had extended every civility, from lending her gowns—the fronts of which had had to be let out to better accommodate Miss Whitby’s more rounded form—to letting her borrow her favorite mare to ride round Hyde Park of a morning.

And she had paid Payton back, by stealing away the only thing that she’d ever really wanted.

“Actually,” Payton said, “I believe I hate her.”

The old woman pursed her lips. “That is unfortunate.”

Payton looked at her. “Is it? Why?”

And then a voice that was all too familiar asked, shyly, “I beg your pardon, but aren’t you Lady Bisson?”

The old woman beside Payton smiled up at Miss Whitby, who’d come to stand in front of them.

“Indeed,” she said coolly. “And you must be the young woman who’s marrying my grandson upon the morrow.”

Payton blanched. Bloody hell.

Drake exhaled, aiming a thin stream of blue smoke through the open French doors and at the ball of fire sinking fast to the west.

“I spoke to the gardeners, as you requested, sir.”

Gerald McDermott, who’d been butler at Daring Park for only a year, was anxious to please his new employer. He had enjoyed his situation with Sir Richard immensely—particularly as it kept him in proximity to his mother, who cooked for the nearby vicarage—and very much hoped the new baronet would maintain his employment.

It was rumored in the kitchens, of course,  that Sir Connor intended to sack all of the servants and shut the house up immediately following tomorrow’s wedding ceremony, so that he could return to the sea he loved so much. But McDermott could not give this rumor any credence. Where, were the baronet to do this, would his bride reside? For surely even a man as adventurous and unpredictable as Sir Connor could not expect his wife to risk her health and safety with him on the high seas—not when it was so fraught with pirates and other maritime dangers. The idea was ridiculous.

No, McDermott had faith he would be living at Daring Park—and enjoying his mother’s tasty tea cakes—for some time to come. He had met the future Lady Drake, and he did not think her the type of woman to spend any significant amount of time on the wind-driven deck of a boat—even the well-built, highly livable clippers of the Dixon and Sons line.

Referring to the list he held, McDermott continued. “And per your instructions, sir, tomorrow morning the gardeners will fasten bouquets of orange blossoms to the sides of only the first four chapel pews—”