“Well,” he said. They had reached her chair. On either side of it, her brothers were tossing candied cherries at one another. Drake did not appear to notice; he was too deeply engrossed in their discussion. “But that can’t be helped, now, can it?”
Payton didn’t want to cause a scene, not right there in front of everyone—and not so soon after that last scene she’d just caused. But still, she was sufficiently irked—and, if truth be told, had consumed enough champagne—to demand, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady, “Why? I don’t understand, Drake. Why are you in such an all-fired rush to get married?”
But Drake only reached out and touched the tip of her nose. “Don’t,” he said, and this time, his smile was neither brittle nor forced, “worry your little head about it, Payton. Ah, look. Your brother’s making his toast now.”
Payton wanted to scream that she didn’t care what her brother had to say, that Ross could take his bleeding toast and shove it up his arse, for all she cared. But she happened to look up and notice, just at that moment, Miss Whitby’s gaze on her. Miss Whitby’s eyes were as blue as her future husband’s, but lacked the warmth that his so often held—when they were not skewering one with their intensity. At that particular moment, Miss Whitby’s gaze was icy cold, no doubt because Drake had had his finger on someone else … but on someone else’s nose, for pity’s sake. The man was forever pressing down the tip of her nose, as if she were four bloody years old!
But that didn’t seem to make any difference to Miss Whitby, who was leveling an extremely waspish look in Payton’s direction.
“Attention.” Ross had stood up, and was banging on his wine goblet with a spoon. He was so drunk that he’d begun to sway gently on his feet. Georgiana was gazing up at him a little trepidatiously, as if at any moment she expected him to come toppling down on her.
“Your attention, please. Attention.” The diners quieted somewhat, and turned their faces toward the eldest Dixon son. All except for Miss Whitby, of course. She continued to stare at Payton. “Thank you. Thank you. I’d like to take this opportunity to say, if I may, that on behalf of my brothers and
I—I
mean, me—oh, and my father—”
“And Payton,” interrupted Raleigh.
“Oh, and my sister, Payton. On behalf of all us Dixons, we—”
“No, no, no.” Sir Henry, not quite as drunk as any of his children, pulled on his eldest son’s coattails with enough force to bring him plunking back down into his chair, where he sat, blinking confusedly. “That’s not the way to do it. Here, let me.” Sir Henry took the glass from his bemused son’s hand and stood up to make the toast himself.
“A little less than fifteen years ago,” he began, with a solemn bow toward Drake, who’d taken his seat at the head of the table and was gazing fondly at his employer, a stunted little whelp of a lad came to me, lookin’ for a job. I felt right sorry for the li’l weevil—” This was met with general laughter, at which Sir Henry blinked a little confusedly. Still, he carried on. “So I made ’im a cabin boy. Since then, he’s grown into one of the finest sailors I’ve ever known—no, I should say one of the finest men I have ever known. Why, he can ride out a sou’wester with the best of ’em, and tack up a topsail in no time flat. Not only that, but he’s an unerring navigator, the only man I know who’s actually managed to render a reliable map of those treacherous islets and reefs that make up what we call the Bahamas—”
“That’s the only reason we like ’im,” shouted Hudson drunkenly. “For ’is damned map!”
“Finally,” Raleigh announced, with a hiccup, “we’ll have an edge up over that blighter Marcus Tyler!”
“Marcus Bloody Tyler,” Hudson corrected him.
Sir Henry sent his two younger sons an irritated glance. “Connor Drake is a man I’m proud to have in my employ,” he continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “A man I would be proud to call son. And it’s for that reason that I would like to offer Captain Drake a full partnership, equal to that of my own boys, in Dixon and Sons—”
A general gasp went up from the guests gathered round the dining table. And not only the guests seemed astonished. A quick glance at Drake revealed that he too seemed stunned.
But he could never have been as stunned as Payton was when she heard her father’s next words.
“In addition, as my way of thanking him for his years of faithful service, I’m hoping Captain Drake will accept, as a small token of my gratitude, the Dixon ship
Constant
, of which he may take immediate command, as it is docked in Portsmouth, waiting to take the captain and his bride on their honeymoon to Nassau—”
If anyone thought it at all odd, a shipping merchant offering a baronet partnership in his business, as well as a boat he could have purchased five times over with a fortune the size of which Drake had inherited, one wouldn’t have known it from the way the people gathered round his dinner table behaved. Sir Henry’s announcement was greeted with cheers and applause.
Except, of course, from the youngest Dixon. Payton sat where she was, completely and utterly stunned.
Her ship. Her father had just given Connor Drake—who was not even a blood relation—full partnership in the family company. And her ship.
And not just any ship, either, but the
Constant
, the newest and fastest ship in their fleet. The ship that by rights ought to have been Payton’s, the one she’d asked for not once, not even twice, but several dozen times over the past few months.
The ship that—except for an act of nature, over which she had no control, that had determined that she would be female instead of male—would have been Payton’s when she turned nineteen.
For a moment, she simply sat there, dazed. When she did finally manage to tear her gaze away from her father, she swung it accusingly toward Ross. That traitor. He’d done it. He’d always said he would, but Payton had never believed it. Even when the gowns and other assorted fripperies for her coming out had started arriving, she hadn’t believed it. Her brother would come to his senses soon. She knew he would. He had to. Payton Dixon wasn’t cut out to be anyone’s wife. She was cut out to be one thing, and that was commander of the
Constant
.
But he’d done it. He’d actually gone ahead and done it. Skipped over her as if she didn’t even exist and given what was rightfully hers to his friend.
Shifting her gaze toward that friend, Payton found Drake’s attention already focused on her. While everyone about him was shouting congratulations and raising their glass, Drake alone sat without a smile. For the first time, Payton thought she could read what was behind those inscrutable blue eyes of his. And when his lips parted, and he mouthed two words at her, she knew she had not read his expression wrong. I’m sorry, he said.
The worst of it was, regret was not what she’d read in his eyes. Instead, she saw an emotion Payton could not abide—not when it was directed at her.
Pity.
Well, that was enough. The man she loved was not only marrying someone else, he had also managed to take away the only other thing in her life that she had ever wanted—besides him, of course. And he had the gall to sit there and pity her!
She couldn’t stand it. She would not sit there and endure it, not for a minute more. Rising, Payton threw her balled-up napkin onto the table and stalked away.
But not before she’d caught a glimpse of the triumphant look on Miss Whitby’s face.
“No,” Payton said, for what she was sure was the hundredth time. “I will not come downstairs, Georgiana. I haven’t any desire to be in the same room with my brothers right now, thank you. In fact, if I had my way, I wouldn’t even be in the same county—the same country
—
as any of them. But since you won’t let me go back to London tonight, I guess I’ll just have to stay up here in dry dock until I rot.”
Georgiana stared down at her intractable sister-in-law, who two hours earlier had flung herself across the canopy bed in the guest room to which she’d been assigned, and had refused ever since to get up.
“Really, Payton,” Georgiana said. “While I can understand your disappointment, I think you’re being too hard on Ross. You can’t have honestly expected him to give you a boat for your birthday. I mean, not really.”
Payton, sprawled on her stomach, oblivious to the fact that her skirt was hiked up to her knees, pinned her brother’s wife with a disgusted look. “Not a boat. A ship. And yes, I really did,” she said. “Hudson got a ship for his nineteenth birthday. Raleigh got a ship for his nineteenth birthday.” She struck a pillow with her fist. “Can you really blame me for thinking maybe, just maybe, there was some justice in the world, and that I might expect a ship for my nineteenth birthday?”
“But Payton, really.” Georgiana shook her head. “It’s just a boat, after all.”
“It’s not just a boat. It’s the
Constant
.” Payton could not think of a way to impress upon her sister-in-law the importance of this fact. “Don’t you see? I deserve her, Georgiana, after everything I’ve done for this company. And Ross went and gave her to Drake. It’s not fair.”
Georgiana sat down on the mattress and smoothed some of her sister-in-law’s hair from where it had fallen into her eyes. “But darling,” she said, speaking gently. “Women don’t become ship captains.”
“Some do,” Payton said.
“Well, certainly, some do. But only out of necessity. And those women aren’t … well, they aren’t nice.”
“How do you know? Have you ever met a woman ship captain, Georgiana?”
“Well, no. But the simple fact is, Payton, it isn’t at all seemly for a woman to go off to sea with a boatload of sailors, and no male kinfolk to protect her—”
“Protect her from what?” Payton glared at her sister-in-law. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re talking about, Georgiana. But I think it would be pretty asinine for a crew who’d been hired on by a woman to turn around once they were out to sea and rape her. I mean, after all, she’s paying their salaries. It isn’t very likely they’d be able to collect their pay after doing something like that.”
“But supposing they couldn’t help themselves.” Georgiana tapped her fan agitatedly against the bedpost. Discussions like this, which occurred all too frequently with Payton, tended to make her nervous. She sometimes found herself longing for the days before she’d married Ross, when words like “bloody” and “rape” had never once been uttered in her presence.
“Men aren’t like women, Payton,” Georgiana said. “We can control ourselves.” She shrugged her bare shoulders. “Men can’t.”
“All the more reason,” Payton said, “that we should be the ones in charge.”
Georgiana looked skeptical. “Payton, you’ve traveled the world. You’ve seen cultures and lands I’ve only read about. Can you tell me that you honestly think you can put away to sea with a crew of men—hard-bitten, brutal sailors—and trust that nothing untoward will occur?”
Payton said passionately, ” Yes. Because while I do believe that men as a whole are a sorry lot, as individuals they can be appealed to rationally—”
“Oh, Payton, really.”
“Well, all right, then. I’ll appeal to their rational sides, but I also intend to carry a loaded pistol with me at all times.”
Georgiana looked down at her sister-in-law with a sad smile. “I admire your tenacity, Payton. I really do. But I think it might be better if you just forgot about this wild idea of becoming a lady sea captain, and came downstairs with me to have some champagne. Everyone is having a lovely time below—well, except for Matthew Hayford, who was crushed when I told him you wouldn’t be coming down.”
“Matthew Hayford,” Payton echoed bitterly. “I suppose you’d be happy if I did go down. Matthew might propose, and take me off your hands.”
“Well, Mr. Hayford is a very sweet boy, Payton, but he’s hardly the kind of man a girl like you ought to be marrying.” Georgiana fussed with the buttons on her elbow-length gloves. “He’s only an officer, after all, dear. You need someone with a title, and a bit of land. I can’t think why Captain Drake didn’t invite any peers here tonight. Why, Matthew Hayford doesn’t even own his own house!”
“If he ever got his own commission,” Payton suggested wickedly, “we could live on his ship.”
“Live on a ship.” Georgiana sniffed. “The very idea! Here, Payton, why are you wearing that ribbon? Take it off.”
Payton looked down at the pink silk ribbon round her wrist.
“No,” she said.
“What do you mean, no? Why are you wearing it? Isn’t that the ribbon from the menu?”
“Yes. And no, I won’t take it off. I’m using it as a reminder.”
“A reminder of what?”
Rolling onto her back, Payton lifted one of the pillows and dropped it across her face. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her voice muffled by the heavy down.
Georgiana rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what the captain could have been thinking, seating you between your brothers. I specifically told him to seat you between Captain Gainsforth and Mr. Raybourne. Out of all his guests, they’re the most eligible. I’d rather hoped to give you a taste of what it will be like next season in London. But no, he had to go and seat you between your brothers. And they had to go and let you get drunk. Despite what you like to think, you’re not a man, Payton. You can’t hold liquor the way your brothers do.”
Payton lifted a corner of the pillow. “I’m not drunk.”
“When we go up to London for your first season,” Georgiana said, “you’re to remember that social functions are not drinking contests. You’re not to attempt to drink your suitors under the table, do you understand? Lord, I take it back, what I said about being angry at Captain Drake for not inviting any peers. That’s just what we don’t need, someone who’d go carrying tales about you back to London.” She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “I suppose, what with his brother hardly cold in his grave, it would have been very bad taste indeed to have a large wedding. Well, even if Richard weren’t dead, it still would have been in poor taste—”
“Why?”
A knock sounded on the door to Payton’s bedchamber. She knew it could only be one of her brothers when the knob turned before she’d had a chance to call “come in.” Ross stuck his head in.