She smiled back at him. “It is so freeing.”
He studied her. “I didn’t know you valued freedom.”
She shouldn’t. Freedom was not something she would ever have but deep down it was what she craved more than anything.
“Don’t we all want freedom? The power to make decisions for ourselves. As a lady, what I can have freedom over is limited, but that doesn’t mean I don’t dream of it.”
She stared down at the pieces on the table and realized as they had been talking, Sam had continued to piece the dissection together. It wasn’t finished but there was enough to see what it was.
“It’s a ship,” she said excitedly.
He chuckled. “I was wondering when you would notice. You aren’t a particularly good dissection partner.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are asking me all these probing questions.”
“I just want to learn who Lady Clara really is.”
Clara stared into his hazel eyes and found them filled with a sincerity that left her briefly speechless. Finally, she said, “Enough about me. How did you end up with a duke as an adoptive brother?”
Sam smiled. “Jack, along with my sister Annie, were put in the orphanage I lived in. We became close. The woman who ran it, Mrs. Seawald, was a hideous person, and you can say we bonded over our common hatred of her.”
“Was it awful?” Clara asked, intrigued.
He pressed his lips together and contemplated her question. Clara didn’t want to push and for a moment thought she had overstepped, but he said, “Beyond awful. No children should ever live the way we did. It was a fight just for food. When I met my siblings, Jack had taken a couple poundings trying to protect what little food he and Annie had access to.”
“You saved them,” she said in admiration.
He blushed and shrugged. “Don’t make it out to be so noble. I saw that befriending them could be beneficial to my own survival but yes, eventually we became a family.”
She smiled, not sure she believed his practical reasoning.
“Then Maggie and Joseph took us in, making their daughter our sibling as well. The Kincaide family is a crazy group.”
“The Kincaides, are they in America?”
He grimaced and said, “No, they passed a few years ago in a carriage accident. Around the time we launched our passenger vessel company.”
She squeezed his hand and smiled. “You must miss them.”
He squeezed her hand back and nodded. “I do and always try to honor them in whatever I do. Joseph was a fisherman who expanded his business into cargo and made his money that way. He was always cheerful and loved us all. Maggie was the quieter one but fiercely devoted to our family. They were wonderful people.”
Clara realized her hand was still resting on top of his. She blushed and placed it on her lap, overwhelmed by the emotions swirling within her. She studied her pieces and found a couple spots to connect them to Sam’s. “So why do you think she picked a ship?”
He smiled and Clara could tell he truly did adore his sister-in-law. “It’s a painting of our newest ship, the SS Aster. I love all of our ships. Mercy would say they are my only loves, but this one has a special meaning. We named it after our parents.”
“Your surname isn’t Aster though.”
A large smile lit up his face, and he said, “Not many people know this, but my parents’ surname was originally Aster. They changed it because they were concerned that someone was after Jack and Annie when we were younger. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Still, I always told Joseph that someday one of our ships would be given his real surname.”
She smiled. “He would be proud of you.”
Sam swallowed hard and Clara sensed he was overwhelmed with emotion. He nodded and said, “Enough serious talk.”
Clara was delighted to learn more about Sam but sensed the discussion about his family was over and teasingly said, “So your ships are your only loves? I find that hard to believe.”
She couldn’t believe she asked him that. What was it about Sam Kincaide that made her so bold?
He held a piece out to her and said, “No other loves. Acquaintances but nothing more.”
