Chapter Nine #3
“Four sisters is a lot,” Phylis said in wonder, trying to imagine what it would be like to have so many siblings. Four siblings—four sisters! There must have been one week out of four that proved very interesting in the Pernrith Chance household…
“Well, I have eleven cousins, so altogether, it’s a bit of a mad rush,” Michael said, taking her hand in his. “But you understand that.”
Did she? Phylis wasn’t entirely sure if she understood anything at the moment. The whole evening had gone completely differently to how she had expected, and her expectations had been hopeful at best.
Instead of eating a delicious dinner, drinking fine champagne, and wowing Mr. Michael Chance, she had somehow managed to embarrass herself, mark herself out as an enemy of Lady Romeril, presume Michael’s own sister had been his mistress, and now she was botching a quadrille!
Not the night she had intended.
“Your crew.”
Phylis blinked. “What?”
“I said, your crew. It’s like your family, isn’t it?
” Michael’s smile was nervous now, as though he had stepped beyond some boundary.
“I mean, that is how I always imagined it. On a ship, I mean. It’s another reason why I’d like to immigrate—the journey there.
The living together, working hard, the singing—”
“You have a very rosy view of living on a ship, don’t you?”
Her dance partner shrugged, making the woman on the other side of her scowl. “Perhaps. But isn’t it like that?”
Phylis opened her mouth to tell him that he was being utterly ridiculous but was forced to pause.
A family. Yes, Drummond was like a strange sort of uncle. Cook was like her older brother; he was about her age and had lived on board almost as long as she had. The cabin boy was like the younger brother she had never had, always getting about the place and listening to conversations he shouldn’t.
And there was music. Drummond was a dab hand on the violin, and when Cook brought out his accordion, there was singing. Mostly folk songs with lyrics so filthy, Phylis would not even permit herself to think them while standing here in Almack’s, but still. There was singing.
When her gaze met that of Michael’s again, it was to see his eyes twinkling. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You don’t always have to be, you know,” Phylis tried to grumble, but she was too busy smiling. “Yes, it’s—well, they are my family. They take care of me.”
“And you take care of them. As their captain, I mean,” Michael said as they joined hands again and stepped forward. “I admire you, Phylis, and I have to tell you—”
The dance came to an end, and Phylis applauded the musicians politely along with the other dancers. Other couples linked arms and returned to groups, but Michael stood still and Phylis found she could not walk away from him.
There was a look in his eye that rooted her to the spot. A possessive… No, not quite possessive, but as though Michael wished it could be.
A shiver rippled down Phylis’s spine. Whatever this man was about to say, and he was about to say something, she could tell, was probably not the sort of thing a gentleman said to a lady in the middle of Almack’s.
And she was right.
“Phylis, I… I think it only right that I tell you how very much I want to ravish you,” Michael said in a murmur.
Whatever she had thought he’d been about to say, it had not been that. Cannon fire burned through her veins as Phylis stared up at the man, hardly able to believe her ears. “You… You do?”
“And I think you want this too,” Michael continued, his voice still low. “By God, I want you, Phylis.”
She could tell him how she felt. How she ached for him, how her fingers had never managed to recreate the overwhelming ecstasy that his tongue had brought.
How their conversations were distracting, not only when they were having them, but at the most inopportune times.
When she was counting crates. When she was giving out rotas to her crew.
When she lay there at night, alone and desperate…
But she couldn’t tell him that. Not any of it.
“Of course you do,” Phylis said with the brightest, most nonchalant smile she could manage. “Of course you do.”
And she walked away, not looking back, never to see him again.
At least, that was her intention. It had been a hallmark of their connection for so long, she could hardly conscience staying.
But a hand grasped hers, their fingers interlocking before she could stop it, and when Phylis whirled around to demand the brute unhand her, it was to see Michael clutching at his chest with his other hand, a softness to his features.
“I’d like to introduce you to my sister,” he said quietly, anticipation dancing in his eyes. “Formally—one of them, at least. Shall we?”
Phylis swallowed.
No. That was what she should say. No, because this cannot go anywhere, Michael. I’m here in London because I sent off the Dreamer, but I cannot stay away from her long. My heart belongs in the sea and yours in some far-off land, and I’ll never see you again. And I have to see you again.
Her lips parted to divulge a version of this that did not make her look an absolute fool.
“Yes,” Phylis found herself saying, her pulse skipping a beat. “I… I’d love to meet your sister.”