“‘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 would 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 on 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 that, 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. Was it 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 it turned out—was being shanghaied by some galley rats, and so of course we went to help her. I boshed 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.”
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? Boshing 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 s
niffed, “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 musk say, I think it quite negligent of your family, allowing you to go about discussing such topics. Not to mention boshing people on the head.”
“But if I hadn’t boshed 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 Whitly.”
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 hearty for a woman who claimed to be without family or income. And, being that she was quite without any skill 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 purs
ed 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?”
An Improper Proposal Page 4