An Improper Proposal Read online

  Determined that this one time, she was going to look him in the eye and not blink or turn away until he did, Payton raised her gaze to meet his. It never failed to unnerve her, the unnatural blueness of his irises, so like the color of the water off the shoals of the Bahamas. The only difference was that there the water was so clear, she was able to see all the way to the ocean floor. She could not—had never been able to—read what lay behind Drake’s clear blue eyes. They might as well have been black as pitch, for all she could see through them.

  How he might have answered her, she had no idea, for she could not read his expression, and they were interrupted before he could reply.

  “Connor?” The musical voice drifted from the open doorway, quite startling them both. Jerking her hand from Drake’s arm, Payton turned, and saw in the hallway a pretty redheaded woman in a pale blue dress trimmed with pink rosettes. Matching rosettes adorned her slippers and hair.

  “I thought I heard your voice, Connor,” the woman said sweetly. “Good evening, Miss Dixon. I just had the loveliest chat with your father. He showed me the latest addition to his musket-ball collection. He’s such a dear man. I quite adore him.”

  Payton managed a tepid smile. “Oh,” she said. “I’m so glad.”

  To Captain Drake, Miss Whitby said, “Are you coming down, dearest? I understand your grandmother has just arrived, and has been asking for you.”

  Captain Drake’s smile, which he’d seemed to have so much trouble controlling a moment before, had entirely disappeared. Now, instead of bringing out the golden highlights in his hair, the fading sunlight brought into extreme relief the lines in his face, of which, Payton noted, there were a great many more since she’d seen him last. Two particularly deep lines stood out from the corners of his mouth to the tips of his flaring nostrils. He looked, suddenly, like a man much older than his thirtieth year.

  “Of course,” he said to Miss Whitby. “I’ll be down momentarily.”

  Miss Whitby, however, didn’t move. “I do think we ought not to keep your grandmother waiting, my love,” she said brightly.

  Captain Drake said nothing for a moment. He seemed extremely interested in the pattern on the carpet. Then, suddenly, he looked up, and pinned Payton where she stood with the full intensity of his unbearably bright gaze. “Will you accompany us downstairs, Miss Dixon?” he asked.

  Payton, still a little alarmed by the transformation his face had undergone since Miss Whitby’s appearance—and completely transfixed, as always, by his stare—could only shake her head. “Um, thank you,” she murmured, through lips that had gone quite dry. “But no. I … I need a moment.”

  To her relief, the captain lowered his gaze.

  “Very well, then,” Drake said, and he offered his arm to the redheaded woman.

  “Good evening, Miss Dixon,” Miss Whitby said very sweetly. And then the two of them turned to go, and Payton watched as Miss Whitby slipped her gloved fingers into the crook of the captain’s arm, and smiled sunnily up at him. “I imagine,” she said, “that your grandmother must be very curious to finally meet your fiancee.”

  “Yes,” Payton heard Drake reply. “I imagine that she is.”

  Chapter Two

  Crossing the room after the captain and his fiancée had left it, Payton went to the mirror hanging above the bureau.

  The tortoiseshell comb her brothers’ horseplay had knocked from her hair dangled behind her ear in a woeful manner. It had probably been there the whole time she’d been talking to Captain Drake. It had most certainly been there while she’d been talking to Miss Whitby.

  Sighing, Payton reached up and tried to tuck the comb back into place. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t get it at the same angle as Georgiana had had it. When she was done, the comb ended up sticking out rather comically from the side of her head. Rolling her eyes, she turned away from the mirror in disgust.

  Really, Payton thought to herself. Her hair was the least of her problems. Even with her freckled and sunburned nose, her small stature and relative lack of bosom, she knew she was not, as Raleigh had so diplomatically put it, ugly. If she’d been truly ugly, her brothers would not have been so cavalier as to joke about it. But she also knew perfectly well that she looked nothing like other girls her age. She certainly didn’t look a thing like Miss Whitby, with her creamy white skin—not a freckle to be seen—and her waist-length auburn hair. Payton looked nothing like Miss Whitby, and acted nothing like her, either.

  Take just now, for instance. Never in her life would Payton have been able to say, “Are you coming down, dearest?” to Connor Drake, and keep a straight face. Connor Drake was infinitely more dear to Payton than he would ever be to Miss Whitby—and anyone who said otherwise would get a taste of Payton’s knuckles—but she’d have sooner cut out her tongue than actually call him dearest. Of course, that might be because, had any of her brothers heared her calling their friend Drake dearest, she’d never have lived to hear the end of it.

  But still, Payton didn’t think men really liked being called dear. It certainly hadn’t looked to her as if Drake had much appreciated it. At least, his face, when Miss Whitby had uttered her “dearests” and “my loves,” hadn’t changed a bit, except maybe to get a little harder and more stern-looking.

  Then again, Ross never looked any different when Georgiana called him dear. But that was probably because his wife only called him dear when he was doing something of which she disapproved. Payton rather suspected that behind closed doors, Ross and Georgiana were quite different with one another—definitely different with one another, since she’d once walked into the parlor unannounced and overheard Ross calling Georgiana his little monkey, a pet name to which Payton would have had definite objections, had anyone—even Captain Drake—ever used it on her.

  But perhaps, she thought, Captain Drake and Miss Whitby, like Ross and Georgiana, were different with one another when they were alone. Maybe when they were alone, Drake enjoyed being called dearest. And Miss Whitby enjoyed being called his little monkey.

  The image of Captain Drake and Miss Whitby alone with one another made Payton feel a little ill, so she hastily put such thoughts out of her head.

  Turning back to the mirror, Payton spread her skirt wide and fluttered her eyelids, mimicking, in a stilted little voice that was much more highly pitched than her normal tone, “I imagine your grandmother must be very curious to finally meet your fiancée.”

  Rising from the curtsy, she made a violent motion, as if she were kicking something—or someone. But the sudden movement caused her corset stays to pinch, and she immediately regretted the action, and put a hand to her hip to rub the tender spot there. “Bloody hell,” she murmured, to make herself feel better.

  Judging that the captain and his bride-to-be were well down the stairs by that time, and that she could, without fear of running into either of them, descend, Payton did so, looking about her with interest. She felt a certain curiosity about the house, which she had never visited before that day. In fact, though she’d never have admitted it aloud, she’d slept little the night before, so excited had she been about their impending visit.

  And, except for the fact that the master of the house was marrying a woman whom she couldn’t abide, Payton couldn’t say she’d been disappointed. Daring Park was the estate upon which Drake had been raised, where he’d lived most of his life before a disagreement with his family about his future had sent him to London to seek his fortune. The rambling, three-storied house was over a hundred years old, and filled with lovely old furniture that Georgiana assured her were all priceless antiques. This was very different indeed from the Dixon town house in London, where all the furniture had been bought new soon after Payton’s father had made his first five thousand pounds. It still looked new, since the Dixons were never at home for more than a few weeks a year, spending the rest of their time at sea.

  Still, Payton quite liked the look of Daring Park. It was one of the few places on land where, she fancied, one c
ould safely walk around barefoot and never fear stepping on something sharp.

  And although she could see no telltale signs of Drake ever having inhabited it—no initials carved into the balustrade, or portraits of him hanging in the Great Hall—she could still picture him tearing about the place as a young boy, tormenting his tutors and making his elder brother, with whom he’d never got on, cry. She liked the place all the better for that.

  These were of course completely fabricated imaginings: Drake never spoke much about his childhood, which had apparently been somewhat unhappy. Still, Payton’s overactive imagination filled in what she did not know, until she had him leaping about the roofbeams overhead with the same energy he leapt about the rigging on board the Virago, the ship he’d been commanding for Dixon and Sons for the past half a decade, and would presumably continue to command for a decade more to come.

  Not that Drake needed the job, let alone the salary. His brother’s untimely death nearly eight weeks earlier had left him a wealthy man, indeed. In fact, he needed never to go to sea again … at least, not in order to earn his keep. Whether he chose to continue sailing was entirely up to him …

  And the woman he was to marry upon the morrow, of course.

  But from what Payton had gathered, Miss Whitby had no great love for the sea. She had once stated, with a sideways glance in Payton’s direction that one would have to have been blind to have missed, that she thought salt air was rather hard on the complexion.

  But if Payton’s complexion had suffered from the years she’d spent accompanying her father, and then her brothers, at sea, evidently Mr. Matthew Hayford failed to notice it. Either he liked a woman with a tan, or he wasn’t shallow enough to let such incidentals get in the way of his friendships. Because as Payton reached the landing, she saw that Matthew was waiting for her at the end of the stairs, looking quite different in evening clothes than he did in his first mate’s uniform.

  “Ahoy, there, Miss Dixon!” he cried, obviously pleased to see her. “The captain said you were on your way. And I must say, it was worth the wait. Don’t you look a picture!”

  Payton, a little taken aback by this enthusiastic greeting, glanced around to make certain it was really she to whom it had been addressed. But there was no one on the stairs behind her. Unlikely as it seemed, the admiration on the young man’s face appeared to be for her. But she’d known Matthew Hayford for years, and he’d never told her she looked like a picture before. Could it be the corset? She glanced down at herself. More likely it was the décolletage. Men were strange creatures, indeed. Perhaps she ought to heed Drake’s advice, and think twice about being alone aboard an entire ship of them …

  Still, Payton greeted Matthew with a sunny smile and an outstretched hand.

  “Well met, Mr. Hayford,” she said, giving his callused fingers a hearty shake. “When did you arrive?”

  “Only just,” Matthew said. “Isn’t this place posh? Did you see those swans in the lake out back?”

  “Oh, that’s nothing.” Payton pointed to one side of the Great Hall. “Look at those suits of armor. Georgiana says they’re real. Real knights bashed about in them. Drake’s ancestors, I suppose. Can you imagine?”

  Matthew followed her gaze. “Lord,” he breathed. “Captain Drake’s ancestors were right short, weren’t they?”

  “They were not,” Payton cried defensively. Then, seeing that quite a few of the suits would have fit her, she said, “Well, they didn’t know anything about proper nutrition back then. You couldn’t expect them to grow much.”

  Matthew turned his admiring gaze back upon her. “Is there anything you don’t know about, Miss Dixon?”

  She gave the appearance of giving this question thoughtful consideration. Really, if she were to be perfectly honest about it, Payton would have to admit that there wasn’t much she didn’t know. She certainly considered herself better educated than most girls her age. What did they know about, except hair arranging and gossip? She knew how to bring down a sail during a squall, chart a course using only the position of the sun and stars in the heavens as a guide, and kill, skin, and cook a sea turtle with no other utensils than a knife, a few rocks, and some dried-out seaweed. If she hadn’t seen it for herself from the deck of one of her family’s ships, then she’d heard about it from Mei-Ling, the Cantonese cook who had accompanied the Dixon children on almost every voyage they’d ever undertaken. It was only since Mei-Ling had returned to her native land to enjoy her well-earned retirement—and Ross had brought Georgiana into the family as a sort of replacement—that Payton had begun to realize how very lacking her education had been on one subject in particular: love and marriage.

  What, for instance, would Mei-Ling have made over the fact that, when he could have had any woman in the world, Connor Drake had chosen to marry the odious Miss Whitby? Payton had a feeling Mei-Ling’s thoughts on the matter would have been quite illuminating.

  But since she wasn’t prepared to share with anyone her dissatisfaction over the upcoming nuptials, let alone admit her ignorance in matters that involved the heart and not a compass, Payton simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “No.”

  She was a little startled when Matthew let out a horse laugh that was so loud, it echoed about the massive chamber. In fact, she had to smack him rather forcefully upon the shoulder to get him to be quiet.

  “It wasn’t that amusing,” she said. It was truly baffling to her how men seemed to go right out of their heads whenever there was a hint of bosom showing anywhere. Well, some men, anyway. Connor Drake had, unfortunately, seemed to remain in perfect possession of his wits when her bodice slipped.

  “Listen, Miss Dixon,” Matthew said, when he’d recovered himself sufficiently to speak again. “I was talking to the captain a minute ago, and what do you think he said?”

  Fumbling with her hair combs again, Payton said, “I can honestly say I haven’t the slightest idea what the captain said, Mr. Hayford.”

  “Oh, only that after dinner, there’s to be dancing. Real dancing, with an orchestra, not just some bloke playing his accordion.”

  Payton nodded. “I saw the musicians pulling up out front,” she said.

  “Well, Miss Dixon, would it be too forward of me to ask that you please save a dance for me? Would you mind?”

  Payton nearly stabbed the hair comb directly into her scalp. Turning her astonished gaze toward the young man, she stared at him, her mouth slightly ajar—not an attractive look, she realized, and one Georgiana had warned her to avoid at all costs. She remembered too late, and snapped her lips together like a grouper sampling air for the first time.

  Good Lord! A man had just asked her to dance! For the first time in her life—nearly nineteen years of life, to be exact—a man had actually asked her to dance. Payton couldn’t believe it. Hudson and Raleigh had been proved wrong in one swift, brilliant stroke!

  Struggling to remember what she was supposed to do—Georgiana had warned her this might happen, despite Payton’s assurances that she was far too boyish for any man even to consider asking her to dance—Payton chewed on her lower lip. She quite liked Matthew Hayford, a young man who, at twenty years of age, had a promising career ahead of him, and a rather nice head of thick dark hair—he had not been on the clipper with the lice infestation.

  Still, it was only as a friend that she liked him. He was quite handy with a sail, and played a clever game of whist, a favorite shipboard pastime amongst the officers. She certainly would never hesitate to hire him on as a mate when she finally got her own command. But dance with him? That was different.

  Still, it was only an invitation to dance, after all. He wasn’t asking her to marry him, for pity’s sake. So what was she waiting for?

  For him, a voice whispered in her head. For him.

  Right, she said to herself. Well, he is marrying Miss Whitby on the morrow, so you’d better bloody well set your sights elsewhere, missy.

  “Yes, thank you, Mr. Hayford,” she said politely. “That would be
lovely.”

  “Oh.” Matthew looked a little astonished, but pumped her hand up and down quite emphatically, anyway. “That’s champion, Miss Dixon. Just champion. Till dinner, then?”

  “Till dinner,” Payton agreed.

  The two young people parted ways, Matthew heading for the billiard room, and Payton for the parlor where the ladies were said to be gathered. She had no trouble finding this room, since she could hear the tinkling of a pianoforte drifting out from behind the solid door, and recognized Miss Whitby’s lilting soprano as she sang a rendition of “The Ash Grove.” This song was a particular favorite of Miss Whitby’s, though Payton couldn’t think why, since it had a rather nasty narrative to it, about a young man finding his love lying dead beneath a tree. But then, Payton tended to find love ballads as a whole morbid, and vastly preferred sea chanteys, most especially those with beats that made one want to stamp one’s foot very hard upon the quarterdeck.

  The parlor, she found, when she opened the door to it, was decorated in only a little less masculine style than the rest of the house, with fawn being the color most primary. Slipping into the room quietly enough to attract no attention—everyone was too engrossed in Miss Whitby’s performance to pay any mind to her—Payton sat down on the first vacant seat she found, a luxuriously soft, but somewhat worn, leather sofa.

  “‘The ash grove, how graceful,’” warbled Miss Whitby.

  She had a nice enough voice, Payton supposed, but she had a feeling that’s not why Miss Whitby so loved to sing. She loved to sing because she looked so good doing it. Every time she took a breath to swell her song, her bosom rose to startling new and dramatic heights. She made quite a picture there with her blue skirts billowing about her and her bosom puffed up so much that it looked as if any second it might all spill out of the daringly cut gown she wore. Looking down at her own bosom, Payton felt rather depressed. She wondered if Miss Whitby hadn’t, by any chance, stuffed handkerchiefs into the cups of her corset to add padding to what was already naturally there.