Page 4 of The Princess Stakes
Goodness, am I doing the right thing?
England was an entire world away, and fitting into life there would be a struggle. But she had no choice.
It was either that or die.
Two
“Storm’s in the winds, Cap’n!”
“All the more reason for us to outrun it, Gideon,” Rhystan said to his quartermaster, standing at the helm while navigating their passage out of the harbor. “And save on coal while we can before we can put into port at St. Helena.”
Gideon bellowed an order to hoist the sails.
“Give a hand with the moorings, Abe,” Rhystan shouted to a nearby deckhand, who nodded and shot down the deck. “Raise the masts. Haul braces and sheets!”
“Aye, Cap’n!”
It didn’t take long for the ship to be underway, the push of the incoming storm just enough to give them an extra boost once the sails were raised. Rhystan stayed on deck, keeping a close eye on the dark horizon. It was more difficult leaving port at night, but he didn’t mind sailing in the darkness.
With the winds from the incoming storm at his back, they would make excellent time. And if they lost wind or ran into trouble, he’d drop the screw propellers. The ship was of a unique engineering design—half sail, half coal-fired steam—and the best of both worlds in terms of speed and function.
The glimmering light of dawn had yet to stretch across the sky, giving shape to the storm that chased their heels. Cyclones were rare but worse than a game of hazard. With any luck, the bad weather would blow past them. Squalls and storms were a necessary evil of being on the sea, and while Rhystan’s ship was built to withstand them, cyclones were not pleasant to endure. Not even for the hardiest of sailors. He would prefer not to encounter one this early in the journey.
They’d been out in the Arabian Sea for several hours before he felt the insistent growl of hunger in his belly. Rhystan scrubbed at his sore eyelids. Visiting the dockside tavern last night hadn’t been the brightest idea, but the crew had deserved a round of drinking and female company before the long trip. While he’d enjoyed a few tumblers of whisky, the latter hadn’t been for him, however.
He’d spent one or two of his younger years in the company of enthusiastic spinsters and widows, but since he’d become duke, sating his desire wasn’t worth the risk of wedlock—especially when those women invariably found out who he was and schemed to become the next Duchess of Embry. Nowthatwas a trap he strove to avoid at all cost. Avoiding women altogether seemed to be a smart bet.
Rhystan scanned the horizon. “Right, Gideon, take the wheel. I’ll head down.”
A man of few words and even fewer expressions, his quartermaster grunted in answer. They’d been part of the original ship’s crew together, and when Rhystan had purchased theBelongingfrom its previous captain to be the first ship in his shipping fleet, Gideon had chosen to stay on. A mountain of a man with part Turkish origins, Gideon kept to himself. He was a competent sailor, an even better fighter, and he was loyal. But beyond being an orphan and living as a deckhand on the high seas, he never spoke of his past.
That made two of them. Until the dukedom had crashed into his lap, Rhystan hadn’t shared much of his past either. Where they came from did not make them who they were. If it did, he would be a sorry excuse for a man.
All over a woman who jilted him.
Rhystan frowned as he strode across the deck. Ever since he’d thought of Joor and Sarani earlier, he’d been unable to strike either of them from his mind. It’d been a lifetime ago. He’d been but a stripling himself in Joor. A third-born, cocksure, nineteen-year-old son of a duke, determined to make a name for himself and forge his own way.
“The army or the clergy,” his father, the duke, had said on his seventeenth birthday. “Choose.”
With the heir and the spare accounted for, Rhystan had chosen the Royal Navy to be contrary. After the navy, he’d joined the British East India Company because he knew his father wouldn’t approve of any son of his dabbling with the working classes. Though tied to the British Crown, it was a trading company—an unscrupulous one as he’d later discovered—and much too pedestrian for a duke’s son, even the bad egg of the family. He’d toed the line of being disowned until his father had practically ceased to acknowledge his existence.
When the accidental fire caused by a blocked chimney had consumed the hunting lodge and killed his brothers and father during the duke’s fiftieth birthday celebration, the ducal estate had fallen to Rhystan, along with the care of his remaining family: a mother who resented him, a nearly grown sister he’d never known, and a sister-in-law and two nieces he’d briefly seen at the funeral. And so, the precious mantle had fallen to him.
The pressure. The responsibility. Everything he’d run from.
You should have been there, a voice taunted.
Rhystan rubbed his temples, a surprising amount of guilt and bitterness pouring through him. He hadn’t been plagued with so many thoughts of his past in years. First, his pathetic first love, and now, his dead father and brothers. The title was cursed.Hewas cursed. Cursed in love, cursed in life. The only thing he hadn’t been cursed with was a lack of fortune.
He stopped in the kitchens to wolf down his ration of food before making his way to bed with a bottle of whisky in hand.A dreamless sleep, he thought. That was what he needed. Not thoughts of his freedom slipping away or of hot, fragrant nights filled with laughter and adolescent vows.
Sarani.
The beautiful, headstrong daughter of the Maharaja of Joor. His first love. Hisonlylove. He’d learned quickly from that disaster.
He hadn’t thought of her in years. Rhystan would have assumed the passage of time would have lessened the ache, but he was wrong. His chest contracted painfully. She’d been sixteen and stunning. He’d fallen head over heels for her and thought she’d felt the same, until he realized she didn’t.
Rhystan came to a halt at the entrance to his quarters as the phantom scent of jasmine assailed his nostrils. He must be tired. Jasmine had no place on a ship like this.Shehad smelled like it, the soft skin at her throat and wrists delicately fragrant. He’d kissed them enough to know. Buried his face in her glossy waist-length hair. Stolen her kisses and shared more. He’d been intoxicated. So much so that the scent of jasmine haunted him to this day.
