“Hoist the sails!” Miss Carla squawked.
All four pairs of eyes turned toward the bright green parrot in the little wooden barred cage she was occasionally kept in. The bird had belonged to Nathan. She was a sweetheart when she was on his shoulder, but everyone else she regarded as the enemy.
During the first year, whenever Gabrielle tried to pet the bird or feed her, she usually yanked back fingers dripping blood. She’d been persistent, though, enough so that Miss Carla had eventually defected to the enemy camp, as it were, and Nathan had gifted her with the bird her second year in the islands.
The parrot’s vocabulary until then had merely been nautical—and disparaging about her mother. Even the name Nathan had given the bird had been a deliberate insult to his wife. He’d found it amusing to teach her phrases like “Carla’s a dumb bird” and “I’m an old biddy,” and the worst one, “A copper to drop me drawers.”
He’d been so embarrassed when she’d first squawked “Carla’s a dumb bird” in front of Gabrielle that he’d immediately marched the bird down to the beach to drown her in the ocean. Gabrielle had had to run after him to stop him, though she was sure he wouldn’t really have killed Miss Carla, and they’d both been able to laugh about it later.
Ohr tossed his dinner napkin at the bird’s cage, getting three hard flaps of her wings and a “Bad girl, bad girl” out of her.
Richard chuckled at the parrot, but then got back to the subject at hand, asking Gabrielle, “You’re nervous about getting married?”
That question threw her off. “Married? No, I’m actually looking forward to meeting all the dashing young men who will be in London for the Season. I hope to fall in love with one of them,” she added with a smile.
That was true, but she just wasn’t sure she wanted to live in England again, when she’d loved the islands so much. And she certainly didn’t like the idea of living so far away from her father. But she was still hopeful that she could convince the man she married to move to the Caribbean or, at the very least, spend part of each year there. “But calling in this favor from a man I don’t know and my father barely knows, well, I really hate the idea of doing that,” she added. “He could just close the door in our faces, you know.” She could hope.
“We’re here to make sure he doesn’t do that,” Ohr said quietly.
“You see!” she exclaimed. “Then we’d be forcing his hand, and you just don’t do that with English lords. Do either of you even know him, or know how my father helped him to incur this favor?”
“Never met him,” Richard replied.
“I have, though I didn’t know he was an aristocrat,” Ohr said. “My experience of lordly types, minimal as it is, is that they are mostly popinjays who crumble at the least sign of aggression.”
She couldn’t tell if Ohr was joking or not, but Richard made a sour look to that remark, which was very telling. Good grief, was her friend an English lord without ever having let on that he was? She stared at him hard, but he merely lifted a brow at her. He probably had no idea he’d stirred her curiosity with his reaction to Ohr’s comment.
She shook the thought from her mind. It was absurd, anyway. Englishmen might become pirates, but English lords certainly wouldn’t. And the lord they would be visiting tomorrow could be the veriest dandy, but that didn’t erase her reservations. She was simply mortified to have to collect on a favor that wasn’t owed to her personally. She was the one who was going to end up being beholden, and she hated the idea of that.
She’d grown and changed a lot over the last three years. She’d found out that she could be resourceful, that if something needed to be done she could get it done. She’d survived a hurricane that had struck while her father was away, and she and Margery had pitched in to help the town recover from it. She’d been left alone with just Margery for weeks at a time when her father sailed without her, and she had liked making her own decisions.
She’d enjoyed treasure hunting with him, and she’d miss those adventures once she married. But mainly, she disliked reverting back to depending on others to get things done for her. So it simply went against the grain now to have to ask this English lord to help her.
“We could always hold him ransom until he finds you a husband,” Richard said with a grin.
She realized he was only teasing her now and she returned his grin. She’d say one thing for Richard, he had no trouble a’tall getting someone’s mind off of what they didn’t want to be thinking about. And she needed to stop thinking about that tall, handsome fellow she’d encountered on the docks today.
Good heavens, that man had been startling. She’d been broadsided, as her father might have put it, blasted right out of the water. It was no wonder she’d made such a fool of herself. But she would have been much more embarrassed if he’d noticed her ogling him, as she’d caught herself doing before he glanced her way.
He’d been a giant of a man with unruly golden brown curls. And she could have sworn his eyes were black, they were so dark. Such a fine figure of a man, but he was handsome, too.
She hadn’t meant to be so sharp with the man, but her heart had still been pounding from that cart that had bumped her, causing her to lose her balance. His grip on her arm had been rather tight, too. And she’d been afraid that Ohr and Richard, being so protective of her, might cause a scene because he had his hand on her.
Which wasn’t a silly fear. They’d already done so just ten minutes earlier when a sailor had merely jostled her. They’d nearly tossed the man over the wharf into the water. She’d told them then to be more discreet and walk behind her the way English servants were supposed to do.
Then, when the tall, handsome man had looked down at her with those dark eyes, his gaze turning sensual, she’d become more unsettled. And if that wasn’t bad enough, when he’d given her that engaging grin, she’d felt something stir deep inside her. So flustered by then that it took her a moment to even grasp what he was saying, her tone had come out sharper than she’d intended, enough to turn him rude.
She sighed to herself. She’d probably never see him again. She’d met enough Americans in the Caribbean to recognize his accent. Americans visited England, but they didn’t stay here, and most of them didn’t even like the English. Why, it hadn’t even been that long since the two countries had been at war with each other! So if she ever saw that particular American again, she would be amazed. Every bit of embarrassment she’d felt today over her own behavior would come rushing right back to her—and probably have her acting the fool again.
Chapter 8
GABRIELLE’S NERVES WERE NEARLY SHREDDEDby the time they knocked on the door in Berkeley Square. The townhouse was in the upper-crust end of town. It had taken half the morning to find out where the lord lived. Her father certainly hadn’t known, as he hadn’t seen the chap in more than fifteen years. All he knew was that the man had moved back to England quite a few years ago with his son.
She’d tried to look her best for this meeting, and Margery had helped, getting the wrinkles out of her clothes, but her nervousness was making her feel like she wasn’t up to scratch. And she was cold. Good grief. It was still summer in England! But she was too used to the warmer climate of the Caribbean now, and, unfortunately, her current wardrobe reflected that.
She had only a few stylish dresses and even those were made of lightweight materials. Long ago she’d tossed away just about her entire wardrobe that she’d left England with, because it was much too warm for the Caribbean. Now her trunks were filled with brightly colored casual skirts and blouses, and not even one petticoat.
She had a purse full of money for her new wardrobe, but that wasn’t going to help her make a good first impression today. She was hoping no one was home, that the man wasn’t even in England. If Richard and Ohr weren’t with her, she wouldn’t be standing here biting her lip. She would be on the first ship back to St. Kitts.
