Chapter Nineteen
Phylis watched as the English shore started to fade on the horizon.
This is right, she tried to tell herself firmly. This was as it should be. This was how it always had to be.
How could it be any other way? They were too different, her and Michael. They came from such different worlds, they had such different expectations of life, and love, and what building an adventure together could look like.
And he was surely a viscount now. He would have to go off and live in a completely different way to how she had ever imagined, bowing and scraping, dancing at that ridiculous Almack’s and smiling at royals…
Disquiet twisted in Phylis’s gut. And she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all.
“Goodbye, Michael,” she whispered as the white cliffs of Dover finally melted away on the horizon, taking with them the man she loved.
She would never see him again. Of course she wouldn’t; she couldn’t. How could she suffer through seeing Michael as a viscount—undoubtedly married, she was certain, to carry on the family line, as was his duty.
Pain rose on a swell of agony. That was, if he hadn’t immigrated by then.
Though she was sure she’d deterred him from booking passage with Pelham, the man might not even be in England in a few weeks, Phylis reminded herself as the breeze tugged at her hair.
She might never be able to find him again, even if she wanted to.
“Tie that rigging down!” roared Drummond behind her, rushing about as a rope came loose. “Come on now. Pull!”
Phylis did not even look around. She trusted the man—hell, she trusted her whole crew—and they could catch an untethered rope.
Strange. That was how she felt in this moment. Untethered. Flapping about in the wind, unsure of where she should be tied down.
A shiver rushed up her spine. Tied down? Was this what that damned man had done to her, made her wish she could be stuck in one place, for the rest of her life? Always staying still, never moving forward, never having the opportunity to see the next horizon, or the next, or the next?
Phylis swallowed down the tears that threatened.
She was not going to cry. Captains did not cry. She only remembered her father crying once, and that had been when she’d found a gown hidden at the bottom of a trunk and worn it as a surprise for her papa.
It wasn’t her fault it had been her mother’s wedding gown.
But despite her best efforts, the tears came as the Dreamer sailed forward, cutting through the waves cleanly as they advanced on their journey.
On their adventure, Phylis reminded herself, dashing away the tears and telling herself the salt water on her cheeks was nothing but spray. This was an adventure—the only adventure she had ever wanted.
Blast. That wasn’t quite true, was it?
Never before had she even imagined that she could want something more than this, more than the Dreamer and the life she had always known.
But Michael had awoken something in her she had never believed was possible: a deep desire for a home.
Not a place; not a building stuck on the ground, immovable and unexciting.
No, a home with a person. The knowledge that no matter what happened, there was a safe port in a storm no matter where in the world you were because your person was there.
Phylis swallowed—hard. Well, she had lost it. Thrown it away or forced it away or argued it away, she wasn’t really sure. All she knew was that she had made it impossible for Michael and he had left, as was his right.
And now she was alone.
“Captain?”
A dry smile danced across Phylis’s cheeks. Well. You are never truly alone on a ship.
“Yes, Drummond?” she said brightly, turning around and hoping her cheeks weren’t red.
“Small problem,” said her first mate, uncertainty shadowing his brow as he looked at his feet.
This was unlike him. Phylis had known the man forever, and he had never looked uncertain or unhappy to speak to her about anything. Even when they had discovered their previous cook had been selling off stores, Drummond hadn’t been this uncomfortable.
“Out with it, man,” she said brusquely. “It can’t be anything we can’t solve.”
One way or another.
Drummond hesitated, then said with a sigh, “We’ve got a stowaway.”
Phylis turned back to the sea.
A stowaway. Excellent.
There were three types of stowaway, at least in her experience.
The first was a child, a mite who had no family and no friends, seeking a better life on the high seas.
Phylis could sympathize with that. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to live on land with no one to protect her at that age.
Why, Jack their cabin boy had been a stowaway nigh on three years ago.
A child could be dropped off at the next port and find a different life there.
The second was an idiot. This was usually a man who didn’t wish to pay for transport to the Continent and so thought he could just steal aboard and make his way over without recompense.
They soon learned different.
But the third—the third was the rarest. They usually wanted to join her crew but feared a rejection, so they merely sought to become crew in the background, hoping for an absentminded captain.
Well, perhaps that would work on another’s ship, but Phylis made a point of knowing each and every member of her crew, and a strange face would stand out immediately.
No man could merely hope to sneak his way into her ship.
“Man or child?” Phylis said wearily, wondering what sort of stowaway she would be dealing with today. By Poseidon, it had been a while since they’d had one.
“Man,” said Drummond shortly.
Phylis turned back to face him. “And is he a thief or a fool?”
“Um,” said Drummond.
Which was strange. Her first mate was never one to hesitate, nor beat about the bush when something unpleasant had to be shared. The fact that he hadn’t just come out and answered her question was strange, indeed.
And then Phylis saw the twinkle in his eye, and she relaxed.
Ah, the second kind. A man attempting to get free passage. Oh, well, she knew how to deal with them.
“Right, then,” Phylis said, raising her voice in the certainty that the stowaway had to be within earshot. “A stowaway, you say? Throw the blaggard overboard.”
Cheers rang out from every man on the deck and there was laughter, too.
Phylis tried to grin with them. Oh, it was all a jest; she wouldn’t be so cruel as to actually throw a man overboard, even if the dolt did believe that merely hiding on her ship would make it possible to save him some coin on the crossing to the Continent.
But the stowaway didn’t know that. There was nothing wrong with imbibing a bit of fear.
“Actually, Captain,” Drummond said, stepping closer to her, his brows arching and a look that was far too knowing on his face, “it’s not a blaggard. It’s some lord.”
Phylis’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s new.”
What on earth would a man with a title be doing, not bothering to pay his ship’s captain for passage? The blasted cheek of the man. There’d be the devil to pay when—
Michael Chance, heir to the Viscount Pernrith or possibly currently the viscount himself, stepped out onto her deck.
Phylis stared.
It… It can’t be. It just can’t be. He isn’t here.
“Michael,” she breathed, the ship seeming to slip under her, making her legs quiver.
She’d never felt so uncertain, so shaky on a ship before.
Michael was dressed differently, too. Gone was the formal and stylish attire she had always seen him in, and instead he was wearing a pair of workman’s trousers, a shirt, and a waistcoat that had seen better days. There was no cravat around his neck, no tie of any kind, and he was looking at her…
Phylis swallowed. He was looking at her as though she were the most precious thing in the world.
“Michael,” she repeated woodenly, unable to conceive of any other word.
Beside her, Drummond cleared his throat loudly. “Time for luncheon, everyone! Down the hatches. Yes, even you, Jack-me-lad. Come on, everybody down, anyone whose job can wait…”
Phylis did not blink as almost her entire crew passed her, most of them staring, before they descended below decks.
Only when her first mate had closed the door and left her practically alone on the deck with the man she had fallen in love with then run away from did she realize what the hell had happened.
Michael. The stowaway.
They were the same person.
“You,” she said hoarsely.
Michael stepped forward, hesitated, then took a small step back. It was like torture, having him draw close then seeing him retreat.
But what was he doing here?
That was the question swirling her mind, making it impossible for any other thought to reach the shore of her mouth.
And that was surely why she blurted out, “What are you doing here?”
Michael grinned nervously, tugging a hand through his hair, which made him even more attractive, the blistering barnacle. “I thought… Well. I thought I’d come with you.”
“You thought you’d come with me,” Phylis repeated, half-dazed, half-unsure whether she was dreaming.
Was it possible she’d gone below deck and taken a nap and had slipped into this wonderful dream in which the man she loved—and she could not deny it, especially to herself—had suddenly appeared on the Dreamer?
“I wanted to come with you,” Michael said, his voice low as the Dreamer gliding through the waves. “I… I had to be with you, Phylis.”
Phylis cleared her throat, stepping away from the man who was so intoxicating, who made it so different to understand what she wanted.
That was, she knew what she wanted—she wanted him. But how could she just throw caution to the wind, ignore all the difficulties that lay between them, and pretend they could live happily ever after?
“I’m sorry,” came Michael’s steady voice.
A flicker of irritation mingled with the affection. “You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.”