Chapter Sixteen
Michael had most definitely not gone to the docks today. He had not sought out Captain Phylis Seaton, and he had not gone to the Norton’s Circulating Library or Southwark Market.
In short, he had done absolutely everything he could to ensure that he did not run into Phylis Seaton.
Which had been his first problem.
“It’s the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen,” said his sister Gwen in an undertone as the clatter of Don Saltero’s Coffee House rumbled about them. “Do you not think, Teddy?”
“Yes, yes,” said their sister listlessly, poking at her cake with a fork but not bothering to eat any of it.
Scowling, Gwen turned to Michael. “Don’t you think so?”
“Yes. Yes, absolutely,” he said as firmly as he could manage.
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “You do know what I’m talking about, do you?”
Blast. “Mostly?” Michael hazarded.
It was fortunate, indeed, that they were in public, else his sister would surely have thrown something at him—a dangerous consideration, when the only missiles at her fingertips were scalding-hot coffee and a toffee bun.
“You’re not listening to me! None of you ever listen to me,” Gwen said sharply, leaning back in her chair. “It’s like I’m not even here sometimes.”
Michael nodded vaguely. A figure had walked past Don Saltero’s Coffee House who had the same color hair as Phylis. Not exactly the same, obviously; no one could match the vibrancy, the shimmer of that woman’s hair…
“Michael.”
In fact, he’d never seen anyone with the same smile. The way her intelligence shone from it, that curve of her lips, that promise that whatever she was about to say was absolutely brilliant.
“Michael.”
And now that he came to think of it, there was something about her eyes, a hazelly green that sparkled in the sunlight and glittered in the moonlight. He would have to remember to tell her, next time he saw her, that her eyes—
“Michael!”
Michael blinked. Gwen was glaring as though he had mortally wounded her—which was harsh. He hadn’t even said anything. “What is it?”
Gwen threw up her hands in irritation and almost knocked the elbow of a waiter who was taking a pot of hot chocolate to another table. “What is the point of chaperoning us if you’re not paying any attention?!”
Her words individually made sense, Michael was sure, but he couldn’t quite put them together. Chaperoning? Chaperoning whom?
Teddy removed her fork from her mouth, humming a quiet tune. “He’s thinking about that Mrs. Seaton.”
“Captain Seaton,” Michael found himself correcting her, though he couldn’t prevent the smile that crept across his lips. “And yes, maybe I am.”
“Mama thinks—”
But what precisely their mother thought, he would never know. His gaze had flickered to the windows, where a woman with just the right shade of fiery hair, a lilting smile on her face, and a sparkle in her green eyes had walked by.
“Michael!”
His chair had fallen to the floor in his haste, but Michael did not care. His stomach had lurched and other parts of him a little farther south than his stomach had tightened, and he had to be with her. He had to.
Phylis.
“Michael, you can’t just—”
What precisely he couldn’t do, according to Gwen, Michael was not to hear. He had already launched himself across Don Saltero’s Coffee House and through the door, catching sight of a woman with swaying hips and a complete control over his body as she turned a corner.
“Phylis—damn, Captain Seaton!” he called, hastily rushing after her. “Oh!”
Michael was forced to halt in his steps as he quickened around the corner and almost threw himself into Phylis’s arms.
Which wouldn’t exactly have been a hardship, but it probably wouldn’t have been the best idea in public.
“Michael! Mr. Chance,” Phylis corrected, her cheeks flushing as she looked up at him. “How—How pleasant to see you.”
How pleasant to see you.
They were on the streets of London, Michael reminded himself sternly, and it wasn’t as though she could be open and honest about how delighted she was to see him.
After all, the last time they had been together, it had been possible to be a lot more open. A great deal more open.
An ironical smile was creasing her lips, and Michael knew with a jolt that she was thinking precisely what he was.
This was why he loved this woman. Oh, he loved this woman: her brilliance, her bravery, the way she did not bother to consider the needs of anyone because she was exclusively focused on pursuing…
What was that in her hands?
“You look busy,” Michael said brightly, gesturing to the paperwork in her hands. “I’ve been having coffee with my sisters, though they haven’t exactly been good conversationalists.”
Phylis cocked her head innocently. “Were you by any chance not listening to them?”
His mouth fell open in astonishment. “How the devil did you know that?”
“You are an easily distractible man, Michael Chance,” she said lightly, in a tone which he would have described as flirtatious, if he’d had enough brain power to think of words longer than two syllables. “I know you.”
“I know you.”
She most certainly did; they had known each other quite thoroughly three nights ago.
A lazy smile slipped over Michael’s face. “Why don’t you come back with me so I can be distracted by you as they talk?”
Phylis’s cheeks flushed as her smile faltered. “I—I would, Michael, but I have to get back. We’ll be setting sail in a few days, and—”
“‘A few days’?” Michael repeated, the noise of the London street fading as he stared at the woman he loved in utter incomprehension. “What do you mean—‘setting sail’?”
It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense.
How could she—how was this possible? Michael didn’t understand; they had discussed this. He had been most clear with her…or at least, as clear as any man with a ragingly stiff manhood and a passion for a woman halfway undressed could be.
His mouth was dry, his throat a knot as he stared at the woman before him whose cheeks were only flushing a darker and darker red.
“I-I don’t—how can you be setting sail?” Michael stammered, all certainty gone as his world shifted under his feet. “I thought…”
“These contracts have to be fulfilled, I can’t just—I’m going to the Netherlands. Just for a few weeks,” Phylis said hastily, “and then we’ll be back. We’ll be returning with—”
“How many weeks?”
Michael’s pulse thumped heavily in his ears as he watched her swallow. Why was she—how was this happening? Had they not decided that they would be happy together forever? How could they be happy together forever if she was going to leave?
“Six, seven, maybe eight.” Phylis shrugged as she carefully avoided meeting his gaze. “Perhaps longer. You know how it is. You go where the work is.”
“Phylis,” he breathed, unable to say or do anything else, his world crumbling around him.
Eight weeks. Eight weeks?
The idea of going eight days without her was a disaster, one he could not bear, and yet she could swan off for eight weeks?
And she was leaving so soon. Had she even thought of telling him this? Or would she have simply left, departing from the London docks in the Dreamer without a word, without a note, leaving him to wonder where she had gone and if he would ever see her again?
Words. Words were coming, and from a long way off.
“—but as we discussed, there’ll be opportunities for us to see each other, depending on where you are and where I am, at least once a year.”
Michael swallowed down the bile that rose at the thought of never seeing her again. How could this have happened—how could they have misunderstood each other so entirely?
“I have a way—it’s not easy, and it will require compromise, but we could be together.”
His mind reeled, flinching away with the merest possibility that she would leave him.
How could she leave him?
“Michael? Michael?”
Michael tried to clear his throat, but that would require any sort of control over himself and so instead the words he intended to think but never say slipped out. “How could you do this to me?”
Phylis blinked, clearly confused as a passerby in a huge bustle stared at the pair of them. “Do what to you?”
“You’re leaving.” His voice cracked, but there was nothing Michael could do about it. Nothing he could do about the agony in his chest, the prickling distress in his stomach, the way his mind was filling with red hot anger.
She’s leaving me.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” Phylis repeated, evidently at a loss to understand why he would utter such an obvious statement. “And as we said, we can arrange to—”
“I thought—I mean, I thought you weren’t going to leave at all,” Michael said hoarsely, staring into her beautiful eyes and wondering how on earth he could have misunderstood.
He appeared to have once again miscalculated. Instead of the warm apologies and soft hand on his arm that Michael had expected upon such a statement, a storm was brewing in Phylis’s green eyes.
“You thought I wasn’t going to leave?” she asked coldly. “Aren’t you the one who is leaving? Aren’t you the one who is leaving his loved ones even as they ask him to stay—but of course, you have not even told them! They can’t ask you to stay because you keep the truth from them.”
An ice pick through the heart might have done less damage.
Michael gaped, hating the truth of her words and knowing it was utterly impossible for him to argue with such a statement. “It’s not the same,” he said thickly.
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Phylis had taken a step toward him and Michael hastily retreated into a convenient alleyway.
The noise of the street faded away as Phylis hissed, “It is exactly the same and you know it. Your loved ones will be devastated to find out—what, are you going to leave a note? Are you going to tell them or just fade away into the night?”
“It’s not the same—I love you,” Michael said desperately.
Phylis’s breath caught in her throat as she lurched back on her heels as though scalded.
Which, Michael could not help but think darkly, is not exactly the response one wants after a declaration of love.
“I thought,” he said, barreling forward in the silence between them, “I thought I could come with you!”