Bristol, 1800

This was not the way Allen Pendale had intended his departure. He had anticipated a nostalgic, sentimental farewell to the city of his birth, dirty and noisy, bustling with life. Seagulls wheeled and cried overhead, the winter sky was a hazy smoky blue, St. Mary Radcliffe’s spire rising proudly among the terraced houses.

It was a pity that Lord Glenning, redfaced, cuckolded, and irate, drove his curricle in a chaos of spilled barrels and cursing seamen along the dock toward the Daphne. And an even greater pity that a ship could not be merely untethered and flicked forward with some sort of nautical whip like a horse and carriage.

“Pendale, you whoreson!” Glenning’s voice was audible, barely, as the Daphne meandered away from the quay.

The other passengers, standing in a knot on deck, surrounded by their luggage, paused and looked at Allen.

“Do your friends always bid you farewell so?” One of them, a red-headed woman asked, a cynical smile on her face.

“Only the ones I’ve cuckolded.” Now Allen could see Glenning’s bulbous face, and his arm rising, sighting, the glint of pale winter sun on metal.

“Get down!” Allen shouted and pushed the woman down, landing on top of her. Breathless he waited for the sound of the shot.

“What are you doing?” The woman struggled beneath him, her face red with fury, and flailed at him with a free arm. “Get off me immediately!”

“Beg your pardon, ma’am. I was merely saving your life.”

“It would not have been in danger had you kept your breeches buttoned.”

“I regret I didn’t have such foresight.” He raised himself from her, sorting out cloaks, her umbrella, and a reticule, and plucked her bonnet from under his knee.

“You’ve ruined it!” She swiped at her flattened bonnet.

“Beg your pardon,” he said again, wondering if Glenning was reloading, or merely waiting for his head to appear within range once more.

She slithered out from under him, scooting herself across the deck, giving him a fine view of her ankles and one collapsed stocking, dull and gray, revealing a pale, slender calf.

Allen listened for the crack of a gunshot but heard only the stamp of feet and hoarse chant of the crew as they worked the capstan.

The woman was the first to stand. “A telescope,” she said in disgust.

A telescope?

He stood and peered at Glenning, who roared out inaudible curses, his fist waving in the air. Sure enough, his lordship had a telescope tucked under one arm.

“I thought–” Allen began in self-defense, his face reddening, but the woman turned away.

The gap between the sloop and the quay widened, as overhead the sails snapped and filled. Above the canvas belled, round and dazzlingly white, while familiar landmarks ashore slid by.

He followed the red-haired woman, prepared to make an apology for manhandling her to the deck. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I acted unforgiveably.”

She shrugged. “I thought you were supposed to fight under these sort of circumstances.”

“Only if the woman is worth dying for or marrying,” he responded. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Allen Pendale, at your service, ma’am.”

“I am Miss Clarissa Onslowe.”

She glanced at him with a look he was used to seeing from his clients, when they had something to hide, and hoped he would not notice the omission. Not a very good liar, he concluded, while wondering for a brief moment what this dowdy spinster–with admittedly attractive ankles–could possibly have to hide.

“Pendale? You are related perhaps to the Earl of Frensham?”

“My father.”

Well, of course. What did she expect, on a ship bound for the Caribbean island where the Earl owned one of the largest estates and was neighbor to her future employer?  She gave Pendale an abrupt curtsey and turned away to follow the other woman passenger, Mrs. Blight, down to the cabin they were to share. Not only had Pendale been pursued by a jealous husband, but he had also been foolish enough to nearly miss the tide–she gave a sniff of annoyance, and gathered her cloak and skirts to descend the steep stairway, little more than a ladder, that led below.

She followed Mrs. Blight, ducking through a low doorway, and into a small cabin the size of a closet.

“Where–” she began before realizing that what she took for two shelves were in fact their beds. Dim light filtered in through a small, greenish glass window.

“Well, this is fancy, I must say!” Mrs. Blight smiled, obviously impressed with their accommodation. “Mind your head on the lamp, my dear. This is a far cry from the last ship I was on.”

“You have sailed before?”

“Not exactly.” Mrs. Blight, back to Clarissa, dug into her possessions. “I was visiting a gentleman on a man-o’-war–some years ago, when I was young and foolish.” She sighed, and produced a substantial medicine traveling chest from which she took a tiny mirror, a rouge pot, and a length of gaudy ribbon. “The Captain will expect us to show our best finery at dinner. Take this ribbon, my dear Miss Onslowe. Your cap may be finely worked, but it’s not at all becoming.”

Clarissa took the ribbon, a tawdry piece of stuff she’d normally turn up her nose at and give to a chambermaid. However, in these close quarters, it would be diplomatic to accept. “Thank you, Mrs. Blight.”

“A woman should always appear at her best. I know these things, my dear, from my line of business.”

“Your line of business?” Mr. Blight was Lemarchand’s overseer, she knew that much. She couldn’t imagine what possible trade Mrs. Blight might have practiced–a servant, she would have guessed, or possibly the proprietor of a small shop. Not at all the sort of woman she would have imagined herself traveling with.

Mrs. Blight, mirror in hand, looked up from patting rouge on her cheeks. “I kept a house. I tell you, I was hard put to make the choice when Blight asked for my hand. When a woman does as well as I did, she must make sure she does the right thing in giving it all up for love.” She sighed, produced a small vial and shook a little of its contents onto the palm of her hand, then dabbed liberally at her neck and bosom. A strong scent of roses filled the cabin.

“I was a housekeeper, too,” Clarissa said, although wondering whether they had indeed shared the same profession.

Mrs. Blight squinted at herself in the mirror, and watched Clarissa lace the ribbon through her hair. “Better,” she said. “Why, you might pass for thirty if you’d use a little rouge.”

“I’m eight-and-twenty,” Clarissa said. “Thank you for the ribbon.”

She grabbed her spinster’s cap and placed it on her head, covering the gaudy ribbon. Then she squeezed past Mrs. Blight and made her way onto the deck again.