Page 3 of Devil of the High Seas
“Must I go through with this?” she asked in a desperate whisper.
Her mother’s brown eyes softened. “Lord Castleton is young and handsome, but he is also a good man, my little love. He has been a good neighbor to us for many years, and he is lonely. This is agoodmatch, better than anyone you would find in London. When you marry him, you’ll live here, just beside our home, so Father and I will be close by, and you will be free to visit us and bring the grandchildren as well.”
Children? She was too young to think of children and settling down.
“Come and dance with your betrothed.” Lucia gently extricated Josephine from her hiding place and escorted her to a tall man in a fine burgundy frock coat who was watching his guests dance.
Lord Castleton was undoubtedly a handsome man. At twenty-six, he was the master of one of the wealthiest estates along the coast of Cornwall. His family and hers had shared a border for more than a century. With warm brown eyes and rich brown hair pulled back into a queue and tied with a burgundy ribbon, Castleton was the sort of man every woman would dream of marrying. His features had been perfectly carved by envious angels, but a hint of a tragic air hung about him. She knew he had been married as a younger man to a woman he had loved. She had perished in childbirth, along with the son she’d been carrying, and he had not married again. It moved her heart in his direction, even though this life was not the one she wanted.
“Lord Castleton, I have found her,” Lucia said with a warm chuckle. “She was hiding behind a statue in the corner.”
“Mother!” Josephine hissed.
Lord Castleton had a bemused smile on his lips as he bowed over Josephine’s hand.
“I hope that I’m not so frightening as all that?” There was a teasing in his eyes that eased the flutter of nerves inside Josephine. His lips were warm on her knuckles, and she wished she could fall in love with him, live in this beautiful house and raise beautiful children with him.
But no matter how hard she wished for it, it didn’t come true.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Josephine nodded. One could not refuse a gentleman a dance, certainly not one she was soon to marry.
Lord Castleton tucked her arm in his and escorted her to the center of the ballroom. The quartet of musicians had just finished a song and were whispering, their powdered wigs bent as they spoke to one another. Then, as if deciding upon the next song, they raised their bows and began to play a lovely tune. Castleton spun her in his arms as the dance began, and she found she was able, briefly, to forget her fate. She passed by Dominic and Roberta as she twirled in Castleton’s arms, and her older brother winked at her.
She adored Dominic and was so glad he was finally home. She and Adrian had been mere babes when Dominic had run away to sea. They had been too young to truly remember him, but they’d grown up with stories of him their entire lives. He had only been fourteen when he’d left, and he’d become one of the fiercest pirates of this new age. Not that Josephine or her family had known that about him until last year. To the rest of the world, he had been missing for almost fifteen years. Her parents had been brokenhearted every one of those years during his absence.
She would never forget that fine spring day last year when he’d come through the front door of their home. She’d taken one look at the darkly handsome man and had seen her long-lost brother. She’d flung herself into his arms, so glad to have him home. Her father had shared Dominic’s tale with her, but Josephine knew that he had left many of the details out because of her supposedly delicate ears. Adrian knew more than she did about Dominic’s life as a pirate, and it was the first time in their shared lives as twins that he had refused to tell her everything he knew.
Josephine had always been interested in pirates. As a daughter of Cornwall, she had the sea in her blood. She knew all about Blackbeard, Kidd, Bonnet, and other infamous pirates of the golden age, perhaps even more than Adrian did, but discussing pirates with other young ladies over tea was frowned upon, to say the least.
Castleton’s voice intruded upon her straying thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”
“Pirates,” she replied before she’d given her response proper thought.
She bravely met his gaze, expecting some kind of reproach, but his eyes only sharpened with curiosity.
“Indeed? And what about them holds your rapt attention?”
They continued to dance, and she bit her lip before responding. “They have grand adventures in faraway places.” That was safe enough of an answer. She wasn’t about to confess that what she truly envied was their freedom. Oh, to have the freedom to live outside the authority of others...
“You remind me of someone I loved long ago. They were fascinated with pirates and stories of buried treasure as well.” Castleton smiled, the expression somehow enhanced by his sorrow.
“Was that your first wife?” she dared to ask.
“No, my brother.”
The music ended, and she stumbled. “You have a brother?” Had she known that Castleton had a brother? She racked her memory but couldn’t seem to recall having ever been told that. She had never met Castleton’s brother, and no one had ever mentioned him to her. She was quite certain of that.
“I did. He’s been gone for seven years now.” Castleton’s tone was heavy with old remembered pain. “Come, let me escort you to dinner.”
And just like that, the discussion of his brother ended, and she didn’t dare press him on it, though she did guess that if by “gone” he meant “dead.”
The evening’s festivities turned to the dining hall, which seated thirty guests at a large pair of tables. Wine flowed freely and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, everyone except Josephine. She had no appetite and quietly slipped away from the dining hall, making some excuse as to feeling a little ill.
She wandered through the candlelit corridor and paused by a tall window that overlooked the drive leading up to the house.
Lightning suddenly illuminated the world outside, and she stepped back from the glass at the blinding flash. Her heart leapt into her throat at the violent crash of thunder that followed an instant later. It was only a storm. She liked storms, but that crash had been very close to the house.
