An Improper Proposal (4 page)

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 the …

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 luring 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 favourite 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 in 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 favourite 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 here.

“‘The dear ones I mourn for, again gather here,’”  sang Miss Whitby.

Payton was rather surprised to see Miss Whitby wasting such a fine performance on a lot of women. Surely her time would have been better spent saving her song for after dinner, when the gentlemen would be gathered round. Her bosom could be put to much better use there.

Then again, Miss Whitby’s bosom had already done its work: it had snared her the finest catch in England. Or at least, that’s what Payton supposed had attracted Drake, since it didn’t seem to her that the odious Miss Whitby possessed anything else that would be of interest to a man.

The ash grove, how boring, Payton thought, as she began to look about the room. She recognized quite a few of the women gathered there. There was Georgiana, of course, pretending to look engrossed in Miss Whitby’s performance. Georgiana had confided to Payton that she found Miss Whitby’s insistence on employing vibrato when she sang in front of company a bit affected. There were the wives and daughters of some of the officers with whom Captain Drake had sailed in the past. In fact, except for the rather grand-looking old woman who was entering the room just then, there wasn’t a single person she didn’t recognize. Where, Payton wondered, were Miss Whitby’s guests? Even if she hadn’t any family, surely the bride-to-be had invited someone to join her for such a momentous occasion …

But not, evidently, the old lady who’d just entered the room. After a casual glance through a pair of lorgnettes at Miss Whitby, the woman moved with decorous intent toward the empty cushion on Payton’s couch. It was only after she’d lowered herself onto it—with the help of a handsome cane—and arranged her voluminous skirts around her legs that she leaned over and inquired of Payton in a creaky whisper, her eyes very bright behind the lenses of her spectacles, “Who is it, pray? That creature singing so abominably?”

Payton, who’d been thinking something very much along the same lines, couldn’t help bursting out laughing at such an unexpected observation. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from interrupting the performance, but even so, Georgiana heard her, and turned in her chair to shoot her a warning look.

The old woman beside Payton, however, seemed to possess not the slightest qualm about conversing during Miss Whitby’s musicale.

“Is that the one he’s marrying tomorrow?” The old lady’s hands—which were quite elegant, despite their being flecked with age spots—clutched the handle of an ornately carved ebony cane. “That one singing?”

Payton, recovering herself, nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered. “That’s Miss Becky Whitby.”

“Whitby?” The old lady flicked the songstress a skeptical glance. “I never heard of anyone called Whitby. Where do her people come from?”

“She hasn’t any people, ma’am.” Payton had to lean close to the old woman’s shoulder in order for her whispered responses to be heard. “Everyone in her family is dead.”

“All dead?” The old woman raised her fine silver eyebrows. “How convenient. I expected as much. Well, marry in haste, repent at leisure, I always say. Go on. You seem to know all about it. Where did he meet her?”

Payton did know all about it, much to her displeasure. She would have much preferred to have known nothing about the matter at all. It had occurred to her shortly after Ross’s wedding that her other brothers, and even their friends, might one day marry, as well. But it had never entered her mind that the next wedding she’d attend would be Connor Drake’s. Even thinking about it now caused an uncomfortable knot in her stomach that she was very much afraid might never, ever go away. At least, it hadn’t gone away, not even for a few minutes, since she’d first heard about the impending nuptials between Captain Drake and Miss Whitby. She’d even been to see the ship surgeon about it, and he, baffled, had declared the discomfort to have no physical cause that he could find. Wasn’t possible there might be an emotional cause?

But Payton had indignantly denied any such possibility, and put it down to a bad batch of oysters she’d consumed in Havana. She would continue to do so too until the day she died.

“We were in London,” Payton explained, keeping her voice low enough so that she would not be the recipient of any more disapproving stares from her sister-in-law. “We’d just got back from the West Indies run. Drake had—I mean, Captain Drake—had learned upon our docking that his brother had died, and he was supposed to meet some solicitors at an office near Downing Street. Well, no one liked for him to go alone, because it was such a sad thing, even though he hadn’t liked his brother much. So we all up-anchored and went with him, and as we were coming out again from the solicitors’ offices, we heard some screaming, and saw that there was a great row outside this inn across the street. A woman—Miss Whitby, as turned out—was being shanghaied by some galley rats, and so of course we went to help her. I bashed a fellow flat on the head with a bagatelle cue—”

“I beg your pardon?” The old woman raised her lorgnette to get a better look at Payton.

“Well, there happened to be a bagatelle table in the inn—”

“Of course,” the old lady said. “A bagatelle cue. How stupid of me. Do go on.”

“Well, in any case, we managed to drive the galley rats away—well, except for that one Hudson killed—and then we took Miss Whitby inside, because she was fainting. When we’d revived her, she told us the men had stolen her reticule, which contained all the money she had in the world, because she’s an orphan and hasn’t any family.”