Page 4 of The Pirate Lord
“True.” He looked vastly relieved that she’d refused his hastily spoken offer. “Besides, it wouldn’t keep you from going, would it?”
“I’m afraid not. Come now, this convict ship won’t be as awful as you imagine. Most of the women were convicted of non-violent crimes. The surgeon will have his wife aboard, and missionaries have brought their wives with them in the past. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
They’d passed into the Strand, and he glanced out the window as if seeking answers in the glittering shops that catered to the aristocracy. “What if you took a servant along for protection?”
She cast him a shrewd glance. He was weakening. She chose her words carefully. “I can’t. We’re keeping my relationship to you a secret. I’m supposed to be a spinster schoolteacher. I’ll be running a school for the convict women and their children, as the missionaries have previously done.”
“Children?”
Just thinking of all the children who ended up traveling aboard those ships made her see red. “Yes, a transported convict woman is allowed to take with her any male child under six and any female child under ten. If you think I’ll be exposed to terrible sights, think of those poor urchins.”
“Why must you be incognito?”
“I’m keeping a journal chronicling abuses. If the captain and crew know I’m your sister, they’ll hide their activities. We want an honest assessment of conditions on the voyages.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t send someone?—”
“Sara Willis, schoolteacher, wouldn’t travel with a servant, I assure you.” She tried for a lighter tone. “Do you think me so inept I can’t do without a maid for a while?”
“Ineptness has nothing to do with it.” He paused. “So you think to set sail on theChastity, do you? Devil take it, that’s an inappropriate name for the ship, if I ever heard one.”
When she shot him an irritated glance, he turned to stare out the window. They were already driving up to the Blackmore townhouse on Park Lane, an impressive Palladian villa meant to intimidate any lesser mortals who ventured into its lofty halls.
Sara could remember how its towering pillars and myriad windows had awed her when she and Mama had first come to dinner there. But her stepfather hadn’t let her feel intimidated. He’d offered to show her the new litter of puppies in the kitchen, and that had endeared him to her forever.
Sometimes she missed him as much as she missed her mother. She’d never known her real father, and the earl had filled that position so admirably that she could never think of him as anything but a father. He’d loved her mother dearly. Though his death a year after her mother’s had devastated both her and Jordan, it had come as no surprise. Lord and Lady Blackmore had never liked to be parted.
The carriage shuddered to a halt, and Jordan climbed down onto the frost-crusted driveway, turning to help her out. He didn’t release her hand at once but took it in both of his. “Is there anything I can say to talk you out of this?”
“No. It’s something I must do. Really, you mustn’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
“You’re my only family now, moppet. And I have no wish to lose you, too.”
A lump formed in her throat as she squeezed his hand. “You won’t lose me. You’re just lending me for a while. The year will fly by, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Jordan flinched. A year sounded like forever. Although he said nothing as she let him lead her into the house, he wanted to shake her senseless. A woman of her station on a convict ship! What insanity!
But there was little he could do to stop her. Even Father had been unable to curb Sara when she was determined upon some course. Her tale of sneaking out to meet Colonel Taylor proved that.
The devil take Taylor! If it weren’t for that deuced colonel, she might even now be settled with a husband and children, instead of gallivanting off to Australia on a fool’s errand.
He watched as Hargraves came out to take her cloak and she cast the man an accusing glance.
Poor Hargraves colored to the roots of his thinning hair. “I’m sorry, miss. Truly I am.”
As usual, Sara softened at the sight of the servant’s remorse. Patting Hargraves’s hand, she murmured, “It’s all right. You were just doing your duty.”
As she left them to climb the stairs, Jordan stood staring after her. The woman was too kind and generous by half. How on earth would she survive on a convict ship? Her work with the Ladies’ Committee had given her a taste of human misery, but she’d never been immersed in it. Once aboard that ship, she’d be stuck there a year or more. Unprotected. Alone.
He looked at her slender back, at the wisps of auburn hair escaping her chignon, at her unconsciously feminine walk, and a sigh escaped his lips. Sara was oblivious to her own attractions. She might feel awkward in society, but that had never kept men from desiring her. Quite the contrary. He’d spent her first season quelling the untoward advances of her more eager suitors.
It wasn’t that she was especially pretty, though her looks were certainly presentable. She drew men to her with her intelligent manner and her frank kindness toward everyone, regardless of their station. A sour, pinch-faced spinster teacher might have nothing to fear from the sailors aboard theChastity, but not Sara. How could he let her go off on that ship with no protection?
He couldn’t. And since forbidding her to go was useless, he had only one alternative. He must make other arrangements.
Chapter Two
Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.
