Chapter 2
Two
“Iwant to go home!” she shouted.
Ramsay opened the cabin door, ducking slightly beneath the low beam. Penelope stormed in, small fists clenched at her sides.
He closed the door behind them with a quiet thud. “We’ll arrive in England soon, Penelope. Be patient.”
“No!” She whirled on him, cheeks blotched red from crying. “I’m tired of the boat. I’m tired of you. I want to go back home to Sophia!”
“Penelope… Sophia is not your family. She only took you in after your mother… Well, I am your family now.”
“Sophia would have found it!” she cried. “She would have!”
“The doll’s gone,” he said, too sharply. “You have others. Play with those.”
She stared at him, stunned for a moment. Then her face crumpled. “You don’t understand anything!”
He exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “I understand more than you think.”
“No, you don’t! You’re not my father. You’re not even nice. You’re just—mean. And loud. And you don’t care.” Her voice wobbled as her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “I hate you.”
Silence. Something in him stilled then folded in on itself.
Without another word, Penelope turned and marched to the adjoining door, yanked it open, and disappeared into her little chamber. The door slammed shut behind her.
Ramsay stood alone in the cabin, frozen in place.
Then he crossed the narrow room and sat by the small round window. Sea and sky blurred together beyond the glass. Salt and guilt clung to his skin.
He pressed his forehead to the cool wood beside the frame and shut his eyes. He had no idea how to fix this. And no one left to teach him.
Ramsay had never felt more out of his depth in his entire life, and that included the time he’d nearly drowned off the coast of Wester Ross. At least then he’d had the ocean to blame.
Now he had Penelope.
The ship groaned as it rocked gently, sails straining overhead. They had been at sea for nearly a month now, and still, the girl refused to speak to him unless forced. Not that he blamed her.
Children, it turned out, held grudges longer than grown men. And Penelope’s was a particularly dignified silence, made worse by the fact that she often looked just past him, as though he was some unpleasant smell in the corridor.
He sat hunched in the small chair by the cabin window of his quarters, running a hand through his hair.
It was damp at the temples. His coat was unbuttoned, his boots caked in old salt.
A breeze kicked up, snapping the edge of the sail, but it did nothing to clear the dull ache lodging behind his eyes.
He hadn’t slept properly in weeks. And not just because of the creaking cot or the sea’s relentless heaving.
It was the weight of it all. The responsibility.
The fact that Athena, her mother, was dead, and his brother George, Penelope’s father, was also dead.
And now, Penelope somehow had become his.
The door creaked open behind him.
“Your Grace?” came a crisp, polite, female voice.
He looked up. Miss Bransby, Penelope’s nanny, stood there with her notebook pressed to her chest, eyes unreadably blue, mouth set in a line so thin it might as well have been carved. She wore no expression whatsoever.
God help him.
“Yes?”
“I’ve drawn up a preliminary list of items Miss Penelope will require once we reach London.”
“Have you now?” he said, lifting one brow as if bracing for pain. His temples throbbed faintly. It was too early for lists.
“I have.”
She stepped out and held it toward him. Ramsay hesitated before taking it. The paper was thick, slightly smudged in one corner. He scanned it.
It was not a list. It was an essay.
Stockings. Gloves. Pinafores. New shoes—two pairs. Hair ribbons. A cot. A governess. Schoolbooks—“to begin phonetic training as early as possible.” A rocking chair. A proper wardrobe. A companion—“preferably a girl of similar age.”
He dropped his head back with a groan. “Christ.”
This should not be my bloody responsibility.
Her mouth pursed, but she didn’t say a word.
Ramsay dragged a hand down his face. He hadn’t wanted this.
He hadn’t asked for it. George had left no will, only a bedside plea and a box of letters—one of which had led him to Corfu, and now to this ship, this girl, and this damn list. And every day since, he’d felt himself slipping further out of control like a man trying to build a house in the middle of a storm.
Miss Bransby was still watching him. Her eyes missed nothing.
But he knew. Penelope couldn’t flourish in uncertainty. Children couldn’t grow into accomplished women without something steady beneath their feet. She needed a home. Routine. Stability.
I can’t give her any of that.
He turned toward the small porthole, looking out at the sea.
The wind had picked up. Somewhere above them, ropes creaked against the mast. He could hear Penelope’s voice, faintly, from the adjoining cabin, humming to herself as she rearranged the buttons in her sewing tin.
She hadn’t spoken a word to him since after breakfast.
“She doesn’t like me at all,” he said finally.
“She doesn’t know you, Your Grace,” Miss Bransby replied. “Give her some time.”
Time. As if that were something he had in surplus.
He turned back, brow furrowed. “How does a man get used to this kind of life? I’m not built for this.
Miss Bransby handed him a second list. “We’ll need to arrange for a proper haircut as soon as we arrive, Your Grace. She hasn’t had one in months, and she won’t let me near her with shears. It’s beginning to affect her vision.”
“For the love of God.”
“And she’ll require proper indoor shoes. She’s grown out of the last pair.”
He stared at the list. “Is there an end to any of this?”
“Not until she grows up. And even then, only a little.”
Then she was gone.
Ramsay stood there, holding both lists like they were orders of execution. He had faced councils, duels, and creditors, but none of them had prepared him for a four-year-old.
He looked out at the sea again, dragging a hand down his jaw. A gull dipped past the stern, shrieking into the wind.
What in God’s name was he going to do?
Ramsay pushed up from the chair with a sigh that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. His joints ached from the stiff seat, but he ignored them as he crossed the small cabin to the doorway.
He leaned there for a moment, one hand braced against the frame, the other hanging loose at his side. He didn’t know what she needed. He hardly knew what he needed. But he knew she deserved more than silence. More than this limbo.
He could just see her, Penelope. She had stopped crying but only because she must have been exhausted. She lay curled on the small settee beside the trunk, arms tucked beneath her chin, boots dangling slightly over the edge.
Her breathing had evened, but her eyes were still open, glassy and dark. She wasn’t asleep. She stared out the porthole with a sort of wary stillness, as if waiting for something—or someone—to arrive who never would.
The sight made something turn uneasily in his chest.
Ramsay remained at the door for a few moments longer, unsure if she’d noticed him. Her small shoulders didn’t move. She didn’t speak. But then she stirred. Her fingers shifted beneath her cheek, and her gaze drifted toward the porthole, where sunlight skimmed the waves in flashes of gold.
“Are we almost there?” she asked.
Her voice was soft. Hoarse from earlier crying. As if the words had waited too long in her throat.
Ramsay blinked. “What?”
She repeated herself, still facing the window. “Are we almost there?”
“Almost.” He cleared his throat.
“Oh.” A pause. “Will Papa be waiting?”
His mouth went dry.
He stepped further into the room. “No. He—he can’t meet us.”
She turned her face fully now. “Why not?”
He sat, awkwardly, on the edge of a low stool. “Because… your papa’s not well. Remember?”
Penelope blinked. “But I thought he got better.”
He exhaled. “No, Penelope. I’m sorry. He didn’t.”
She turned her head back to the window.
A long silence settled between them. Ramsay watched the slow rise and fall of her back, the frayed hem of her sleeve.
Then, “Will Mama come later?”
Ramsay felt something sharp lodge beneath his ribs. “No. She… she can’t either.”
More silence. And then her voice again, softer now. “I don’t have a papa. Or a mama.”
He looked at the floor. “You had them. You still do in a way.”
“That’s not the same,” she whispered.
He ran a hand through his hair. “No. It’s not.”
Her voice cracked. “And I lost Marigold.”
Ramsay looked up. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were shining, and her mouth was pressed in a tight line.
“I know,” he said.
“I don’t have anyone now.”
A breath hitched in his throat. That quiet devastation, too old for her age, sent a bolt of guilt clean through him.
He felt it like a weight behind his ribs, dull and insistent.
What kind of man had he been to think he could simply retrieve the child like a package and deliver her to a household that didn’t yet exist?
George had been many things, but he’d at least meant to try.
“That’s not true,” he said quickly. “You have Miss Bransby. You have me.”
Penelope didn’t answer.
Ramsay looked down at his hands, rough and useless in his lap.
He hadn’t been made for children. He could barely manage himself.
He hadn’t known how to hold her when she cried, or what to say when she woke in the night and whispered for her mother.
Keeping her fed and dry was the best he’d managed, and it didn’t feel nearly enough.
But he couldn’t bear to hear that tone again. Not from her.
He cleared his throat. “Look here—I’ll find the doll.”
Penelope turned her head.
“Marigold,” he said. “I’ll search the entire ship, stem to stern. Every cabin, every trunk, every bloody knot in the wood, until I find her.”
Her brow furrowed. “You promise?”
Ramsay hesitated then nodded. “I promise.”
She said nothing, but after a long moment, she nodded. Once.
He rose, brushing his hands on his trousers. “I’ll start now. Best to look while the light holds.”
He moved toward the door. He paused. Her voice had been so small. So certain.
I don’t have anyone now, it echoed.
He turned his face slightly toward her and said, quieter this time, “I’ll find the doll, Penelope. And a mother to take care of you, too. The way a child deserves.”
He paused, hand still on the latch. The words had come from somewhere deeper than he expected, perhaps, by the echo of a voice he’d only heard once.
That bold English lass.
The one who’d stepped between him and the child without hesitation. Who hadn’t softened her words, hadn’t curtsied or simpered or smiled like so many had since he had become a duke. She’d stared him down and spoken plain: A child does not deserve to be treated like this.
He hadn’t liked hearing it, but he hadn’t forgotten it either.
Penelope didn’t reply, but as he stepped out into the corridor, he realized her eyes had closed at last.
He nodded to Miss Bransby in passing, and she stepped into the room without a word, leaving Ramsay to the corridor and the gathering dusk.
The hunt for Marigold was about to begin.