Chapter Thirteen #2
“Oh, good evening,” said Michael brightly. “You look… You look lovely.”
Phylis snorted and rolled her eyes. She’d sailed a hot day back from Hull, swabbed the deck herself for a few hours because Jack was feeling poorly, not had a time for a wash before the argument over Cook’s stores broke out, and had a desperate need to change her shirt.
When she looked back at Michael, his smile was quiet, and convivial, and genuine.
“Lovely,” he said softly.
She was not going to blush, Phylis told herself firmly. She was not going to because she absolutely did not believe the man. He was a gentleman. He had been born and raised to be polite—and that was all this was—to ladies.
“Though you could do with a clean shirt,” Michael added helpfully.
Phylis exhaled a laugh, all the tension melting from her shoulders, and she asked the question that had been burning on her heart from the moment she’d seen him from the balustrade. “What were you talking to Captain Pelham for?”
His smile was mischievous. “Oh, you don’t like me talking to other captains, do you?”
“I don’t like anyone talking to Pelham,” Phylis retorted, thrusting her hands in her pockets and telling herself that this had absolutely nothing to do with Michael, and everything to do with that rogue. “You know he’s—”
“A smuggler? Yes, he was quite desperate to tell me,” said Michael lightly. “I will admit, I started to believe the man doth protest too much.”
She stared blankly. ‘Protest too much’? What the hell did that mean?
Clearly, her confusion was palpable, for he added, “I mean, I wondered if he had truly ever smuggled because he seemed so determined to make sure I knew he had.”
Phylis chuckled, stepping closer to the man—to keep their conversation quiet, she told herself.
Not for any other reason. “Oh, no, he’s a smuggler, all right; he went to prison for it in York.
I’d suggest not going on his ship at any point.
Keep yourself out of trouble. Your family wouldn’t like that. ”
The moment she mentioned his family, Phylis could see she had—not overstepped some line, somehow, but danced close to the edge of it.
Which didn’t make sense. Why invite her to luncheon at his home to meet his family if he didn’t want her to…
But he was still going. Even after that wonderful afternoon, she didn’t matter enough to him for him to consider staying. Or even booking his passage with her instead.
Phylis’s joy vanished. “Your family wouldn’t like what you were talking to Captain Pelham about, would they?”
“Now, Phylis,” Michael began awkwardly.
“Would they?” She couldn’t keep the anger from her voice and she didn’t care if he felt uncomfortable at her vehemence.
“It’s a personal matter.”
Phylis ignored his simple statement. “It’s not a personal matter. You’re still leaving. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
Michael did not meet her eye.
“You’re still planning on immigrating,” Phylis said quietly, all the energy and power of her statement fading as she stared up into his deep-blue eyes.
She could hardly believe it. After she’d seen the world he lived in, the world he was able to enjoy—his home, his family, the way they so patently loved him—he would give all that up for a perhaps middlingly happy life in a country far away, where no one knew him?
It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.
“I still don’t understand,” Phylis whispered, unable to prevent the assertion from leaving her lips. Yes, she’d acknowledged he must have felt trapped, in a way, by Society’s expectations, but there were still plenty of good things for him here.
Michael shrugged the shrug of a man who wished to appear nonchalant. She had seen it time and time again in her crew, and that meant he didn’t want her to ask any more questions.
“Why?” she said promptly, reaching out and poking the exasperating man in the torso.
“Ouch!”
“Why would you want to leave?” Phylis insisted, staring up at the man who was starting to mean more to her than…than anything. “Why do you still want to immigrate?”
“I’ve wanted to immigrate for over a year,” Michael said defensively. “Long before you and I met. It’s what I want, Phylis.”
It was what he wanted, and that was why it hurt so much. Phylis did not want to exactly interrogate that thought. It would surely lead to something even more painful.
“I’ve told you before, there’s nothing stimulating for me here,” he continued in a low voice as a pair of men carrying a crate between them staggered up the dock past them.
“Society has all these expectations of me and I don’t want that.
I don’t want any of it, Phylis. Seeing the same people day in, day out, the same parties, the same ridiculous balls—”
“So you are ready to leave your family merely because you don’t like a dance?” Phylis could hardly understand it. “You do realize that most people living in this city would give their right arm to have your life—and you’re just ready to abandon it?”
A flicker of anger sparked in Michael’s face as his eyes narrowed. It was an expression she had never seen on the man and Phylis’s breath caught in her throat as she took a step back.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Michael said in a low voice, his gaze searing into hers. “I believe people should choose the life they want, Phylis Seaton, like you did.”
“I didn’t choose this. I was born to this life.”
“And that’s what I was. Born to this, this prancing about in the right kind of waistcoat and the right kind of cravat. It’s ridiculous!” Michael threw up his hands with a bitter laugh. “I don’t want it, Phylis!”