His Californian Countess

She tilted her head and frowned a bit. “May I help you, sir?”

It was only then he realized he’d been staring. He blinked and the deck shifted under his feet. “Sorry. At first I thought you were someone else. But you aren’t her a’tal.” He nearly cringed at the sound of the Irish lilt in his voice before he remembered. He was free. He could talk as he wished. His uncle had drilled repressing that accent into him all his life, but he was his own man now. Jamie Reynolds answered to no one.

“Should I be sorry I’m not her?” the young woman asked.

“Definitely not.” He didn’t know what surprised him most, her sweet, warm smile, her answer, or his. Nor did he know why she’d unnerved him so completely. “Is this your first trip at sea?” he asked, needing, for some reason, to keep the conversation going. He knew he should probably continue his search for Helena, but now that the ship was under way, all urgency deserted him. He pushed thoughts of Helena away, suddenly wanting to know more about this lovely, innocent-eyed woman.

“I was born in California, but my family died of fever. I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle but I traveled overland. I remember little of the journey and only a bit more of the state. This is my first trip anywhere since except to Poughkeepsie, New York. I went to a college there.”

He raised his eyebrows. “College?”

She nodded. “Vassar.”

“Beautiful and intelligent. Not qualities I’ve seen in combination all that often.”

Her little pointed chin notched up a bit. “Are you saying it is mostly homely girls who have good minds?”

She had backbone. He liked that. “I was speaking of London and the young women of its marriage-mart Season. Beauty and pretty manners are prized. Intelligence isn’t.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed the bitterness in his tone.

She blushed prettily and he relaxed. “That was a compliment, then?” she asked, her head tilted a bit.

“Of course. Colleges for women are rare, aren’t they? England has Girton College, but they don’t offer a degree.”

“Vassar does and there will be more colleges that do, I assure you. You find London’s women distasteful for some reason.”

And she was perceptive. “Many of them are only interested in learning how to trap a man into marriage, then to run his house and his life afterward. They aren’t beating down Girton’s doors, I assure you.”

She smiled. “And you had to come all the way to America to escape them?”

“I had other purposes in coming here. It’s a happy coincidence that they’re there and I’m not.”

She seemed to ponder his answer with an adorable little frown wrinkling her smooth forehead. “It wasn’t very smart of them to let you escape.”

He laughed. “So if they’d been smarter, I wouldn’t be here? Intelligent women can be dangerous then. I must remember that.”

It was her turn to laugh. And it was such a low and sensual sound it reminded him he’d been too long without a woman’s warm body beneath his.

She flashed a look at him from head to toe, then gave him a teasing grin when her eyes met his. “You look quite capable of defending yourself against danger of any sort,” she said. Then she did the strangest thing. She looked out over the water and her expression changed from temptress to pixie in an instant. “Oh, look! We’re moving. It’s so beautiful,” she cried, so animated she fairly vibrated with glee.

“We’ve been moving since we began talking.”

“I hadn’t thought there’d be so much water! Which is rather silly of me, isn’t it? It’s only that this is all such … such an adventure.” Her smile was even broader now, showing more of her even white teeth. Her eyes had gone wide with wonder, too. Innocent eyes.

He looked away from her, feeling things he shouldn’t for an unescorted female. An innocent one at that. His gaze fell on the water and through her battery of questions, he experienced again the excitement of his first voyage.

Growing a bit tired, but not wanting this interlude to end, he leaned on the rail and pointed out Brooklyn with its verdant-green rolling landscape, Manhattan and the few landmarks within it that he’d learned to spot on earlier trips.

The wind freshened and the sun reflected off the rippling water like dancing diamonds. The ship vibrated and the deck shifted under his feet. Crewmen seemed to fly up the ratlines. A whooshing sound from the bow cutting through the water filled the air, disturbed only by a drone of conversation from the passengers still on deck or the occasional shout of a crewman going about his business.

“So, does your adventure end with the voyage?” he asked now that they entered the harbor. He looked back at her. It was a lowering thing to admit, but the attraction he felt for this woman showed him how little he’d known of true desire before. He certainly hadn’t felt anything like this for Helena for whom he’d embarked on this voyage. For her he felt only duty and obligation. Perhaps he should be looking for her now, but he had the whole voyage to relay her father’s worry for her safety and to offer whatever assistance she needed.

“End of the adventure?” his lovely rail-partner asked, calling him back from his mental wonderings. That endearing frown reappeared. It made her eyebrows arch downward in the middle.

I must get her name.

“I hope the adventure continues for a long time.”

“Where did it begin, if I may ask?”

“Begin? I grew up in the mountains in Pennsylvania. I’d been to Poughkeepsie, New York, for college, but that city is small, especially compared to New York City. I’d been through there on the way to the school, but I never left the rail station. The cities have been very exciting.”

“Cities, not city?”

She laid her hand over his on the rail and smiled at clearly happy memories. “I stopped off in Philadelphia. For the Centennial Exposition and—oops.” She lifted her hand from his and covered her mouth with it. His gaze flew to her eyes and found them widened. He didn’t know what could have alarmed her when all he felt was the loss of her innocent touch. “I shouldn’t have mentioned our Centennial, should I?”

He smiled. “I took my daughter to see it. I assure you most people in Britain have got over the revolt. It has been a hundred years, after all. Though there are those who still insist on referring to America as the colonies.” His smile widened. “I suppose it follows that a country bold enough to revolt against an ancient power would spawn colleges for women and female adventurers,” he teased.

“Adventurer?” She took a deep breath, which made her breasts swell inside the pretty blouse she wore. “My, but I like the sound of that! I’m an adventurer!”

He dragged his gaze off the sight of her lovely bust line, but it fell on her mouth. Then what she’d said sank into his muddled mind. Jamie laughed as the ship fell out a bit from under them, and by some fortuitous hand of fate, she fell right into him. Glad he was anchored against the rail, he caught her in his arms and enjoyed the feel of her petite form from the instant their bodies came into contact. Then he steeled himself and regretfully helped her get on her own feet.

Flushed, she ducked her head and apologized for her clumsiness. “Not to worry,” he told her, while keeping his enjoyment to himself. “You’ll get your sea legs under you quick enough.”

She hugged herself and shivered. “Well, unless I want to take a chill, I must get to my cabin and unpack. I may come up again after finding my shawl. It’s been nice talking with you. I suppose I’ll run into you again. Large as the Young America is, it is small in the general scheme of life. Thank you for helping occupy my mind. I was a bit nervous about leaving the docks.”

“I didn’t get your name,” he said as she turned to walk away.

She pivoted and shot him that enchanting frown for a split second before her lovely smile blossomed. “No, you didn’t,” she replied, then hurried away.

His bark of laugher turned several heads, but he didn’t care if they thought him odd or gauche. She was really quite refreshing and he was sorry to see her go. But she was correct. During more or less the next one-hundred-and-thirty days if the ship had fair winds, they would see each other constantly. He couldn’t help but be glad of it. He’d get her name when next they met.

Jamie turned back toward the river and leaned his forearms against the gleaming gunwales. After several minutes, his eyes began to burn and the reflected sunlight became annoying rather than appealing. Perhaps his pixie had taken the magic of the sailing with her and perhaps she’d had a good idea about settling in.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what cabin he’d secured for himself. He started off and realized his legs were less steady than they’d been all day. He made a grab for the rail. The movement of the ship made walking difficult so he stayed put for a few minutes longer. Finally, a boy dressed in what appeared to be a uniform, passed near him. “My name is Reynolds,” Jamie said, his voice sounded rough and strained. “I wonder if you could direct me to my cabin and help me locate another passenger, Miss Helena Conwell.”

The crewmember, a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, stared in obvious surprise for a moment, then his confusion seemed to clear. “Ah. Lord Reynolds, is it? We’d begun to despair, thinking you’d missed the ship.” The lad had it wrong—he was Lord Adair, not Lord Reynolds—but British titles were confusing and mostly unimportant to Americans. That was why he dropped its use whenever possible. But arranging for a specific cabin near a woman who was not in his party had needed a certain amount of diplomacy and prestige, as well as extra funds.

“Sir, are you quite all right?” the crewman asked.

Jamie straightened and shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the swirling thoughts muddling his brain. His mind bounced next to Mimm and all her fussing that he might be ill. It was ridiculous that he could have gotten what his daughter had. Meara’s doctor had all but promised it was only a disease of childhood. But even if Jamie was sick in some more minor way, he still couldn’t let on. They’d surely put him off the ship. Helena was on the Young America and he had to make sure she was safe and that she understood all that had happened.

“I’m perfectly fine,” he answered finally, then stiffened his back and notched his chin up.

The crewman nodded, but looked a bit dubious. “Your cabin is actually across the saloon from Miss Conwell’s. Close as possible, as you requested. This way, sir.”

Jamie’s exhaustion increased as he moved below, following the crewman through the saloon in the raised poop deck until he stopped before a cabin door.

“Stateroom six is yours, sir. The lady’s is just over there. Stateroom three,” the crewman explained and indicated Helena’s door or hatch or whatever the hell it was called aboard a sailing ship. The lad tried unsuccessfully to cover a smirk. “I’ll be steward for both staterooms during the graveyard shift. Just hang that little sign on the door if you’re needing privacy with her.”