Harriet blinked.
Sheffield abruptly straightened. “Give me your direction, and I’ll have one of my men come in two days to collect you, your maid, and your baggage.”
Harriet shook her head. “There’s no need to trouble yourself or your men. Give me direction to your ship’s berth, and Gabriel will escort me.”
Sheffield tilted his head to one side. Could he see how worn her dress had become, how she’d had to mend her gloves? “Need to leave your lodgings and come take your berth on the Wind Dancer right away while we’re provisioning?”
Harriet almost sighed in gratitude. He didn’t need to know she’d been unable to sleep in their hotel room—the only room they’d been able to afford and still have money for food—because of the mice that scurried across the floor as soon as the candles were doused. Never mind the little creatures sharing the mattress with her and Betsy. A canvas hammock on the ship now seemed like a heavenly place to sleep.
“Yes, thank you. That would be most agreeable.” She called Gabriel over, and within minutes they had directions to what would be her new home for the next fortnight.
Other than her room at the Academy, she hadn’t had a new home since she was four years old.
And this home could sink.
The dowry, she reminded herself. A roof over their heads. Just keep thinking of the reward that awaited her and her family for taking these risks.
Chapter 3
“I don’t know about this, miss,” Betsy said as two sailors set down their trunk and portmanteaus in a cabin aboard the Wind Dancer the following morning. The men slid the door shut as they left, and Betsy grabbed for the wall as the ship subtly rolled to starboard.
“Nonsense,” Harriet said with forced brightness, widening her stance and bending one knee to remain upright. She hung her cape on a hook and refused to grab on to it for support. “This will give us time to adjust to the ship before we set sail. Find our way around, know where everything is.” Learn how to not fall on our arse, she silently added, as she shifted her weight again to keep her balance.
Flashes of memory from her childhood came to her, of running and playing on a ship’s rolling deck with ease, but once ashore continually falling down as though it was the land that pitched and rolled, not the sea.
Betsy looked a tad green about the gills, though Harriet was sure it was just the lighting. Her own stomach’s current distress was merely a disagreement with the lumpy, stale porridge they’d had for breakfast at the hotel. It would soon pass. She resumed her inspection of their new quarters.
Given the flat back wall, they must be at the stern of the ship. How lucky for her that the brig had such a nice passenger cabin, since Sheffield had said he normally carried cargo rather than passengers. She’d expected to be bunking in the hold instead of a cabin above the water line. Daylight filtered through the two small windows above the single bunk against the far wall.
To get to the bunk, one had to step around a table with four chairs. Off to the left was a wardrobe, a companion piece to the slant top desk on the opposite wall. Beneath the scratches and worn spots from decades in service, Harriet recognized the well-made lines of Chippendale. Last year, Madame Zavrina had been thrilled to find a Chippendale secretary at a used furniture merchant, at a price that would have paid Harriet’s salary for months. She gave it pride of place in the parlour to impress visitors.
Wait. A desk, in a passenger cabin?
With growing unease, Harriet peeked in the wardrobe, and found it filled with shirts, folded trousers, and other masculine garments. Ignoring Betsy’s complaints about the ship’s constant motion, Harriet stepped over to the desk and opened the slant top.
Quill and ink, compass, sextant, and a leather-bound book. The ship’s log.
Oh, good heavens, they were in the captain’s quarters!
“Come along, Betsy,” Harriet said, sliding the door open and trying to calm her pounding heart. “We won’t be staying here.”
“Thank the good Lord above,” Betsy muttered, and fell into step behind Harriet.
They pressed back against the wall to make room for crewmen carrying crates of foodstuffs to the galley, and climbed to the top deck in search of Sheffield.
He and his first mate were on the quarterdeck, directing men who were hauling on ropes, which controlled a cargo net filled with barrels, crates, and bundles of hay swinging overhead toward the open hold.
“Lord Sheffield, there’s been some mistake,” Harriet began. She started her next sentence but gave up when the crew’s singing, a chant really, drowned out her words.
“Heave away, haul away,” they sang as they worked in unison, and the full net quickly descended into the hold, disappearing from sight.
Sheffield turned to her. “You were trying to say something, Miss Chase?” The early morning sun was at his back, glinting off his gold earring, shrouding his face in shadow so all she could see clearly was his large form, draped in a caped greatcoat against the October chill.
Ah, yes, she had come up here for something. What was it again? “Your men put my things in your cabin by mistake.”
“No mistake. It’s either there or put you in the hold with the goats.” They both turned as three men walked up the gangboard, each carrying a dwarf goat. Very unhappy goats, judging by their loud bleating, especially considering the animals’ diminutive size.
“But if I’m in your quarters, where will you sleep?” Oh good heavens, he didn’t mean to share, did he? There was only one bunk, and it was already going to be a snug fit sharing it with Betsy. “With the goats?”
