Free Miles Before I Sleep by M. Donice Byrd

captain and a bearded dark-haired man. She could tell even at that distance, he had changed considerably since she had seen him five years before. He no longer seemed the awkward boy he had been and had matured into adulthood. Curiosity made her want to stay to get a better look at the man to whom she was betrothed, but common sense made her leave. She just couldn’t stay there when she knew her father could arrive at any moment.
    Andrea was nearly a block away from the pier when the high voice of a young paper hawker rose over the noise of the crowded street. “Shipping heiress flies the coop! Sebastian James offers five thousand pound reward for her safe return!”
    Hearing his banner call, Andrea nearly stopped dead in her tracks. Great heavens, every man, woman and child in London would be looking for her.
    She made her way through the crowd to the boy and bought a paper. “I’ll give you two shillings if you go sell your papers on the docks where that new steamship is unloading its passengers.”
    “Two shillings, milady? But I’m supposed to stay on this corner,” the boy said hesitantly, torn between the two shilling windfall and his responsibilities.
    “Five shillings, but you have to stay there until all the passengers are off the ship.”
    Andrea had never thought she had a cruel streak, but she would sorely like to see the look on Shamus O’Shea’s face when he found out he would not be married her after all. Would his face go pale when he saw her father’s fortune slipping through his fingers? She couldn’t help her animosity towards him. He was the man who took away her dreams of someday being Lady Andrea. He had caused her a year of worry and now she felt forced to leave her home. She only wished she could deliver the news herself.
    Remembering the five thousand pound price on her head, Andrea hurried to a market she had passed earlier. She purchased a few things that she had not had the foresight to bring and hurried back to her room at the inn.
    ~*~
    The young clerk who had unknowingly spoken with Andrea James finally got his chance to step out of the H & O’s office to get a glimpse of the new steamship and one of the men he worked for, Miles Huntington. He just could not believe it. It was the first time Miles Huntington had come to England. In the past, his partner/stepfather, Richard O’Shea had always been the one to come. Two years earlier O’Shea’s health had forced him to send his New York manager to make his annual trip to inspect the books.
    It wasn’t exactly that Miles Huntington was there that excited the clerk—it was why he was there. The man was betrothed to the daughter of Sebastian James, by jingles! James had come to the H & O office less than a week before inquiring when The Lady Fair was due, and had told him about the betrothal himself.
    John Price smiled to himself. The girl was said to be quite comely, in fact, it was said that The Lady Fair had been named with Andrea James in mind. Beauty and money. What more could anyone hope for in a wife?
    John Price was so used to London’s noise that he had heard the little newspaper hawker repeating his banner at least a dozen times before what he had cried registered.
    Price placed a coin in the boy’s hand and rushed up the gangplank, dodging trunk-toting passengers with the newspaper clutched in his fist. The first sailor he asked pointed out the bearded man in the pilothouse, and he quickly mounted the companionway.
    “Mr. Huntington,” Price gasped, slightly winded, and thrusting the paper towards the tall man. “It’s Miss James.”
    “What?” Miles said, not understanding until he glanced down at the banner headline.
    “Shamus, what is it?” Miles’s cousin Rory O’Shea asked, seeing his cousin go pale. When Miles didn’t answer, Rory moved closer, and began reading the paper over Miles’s shoulder. “Sweet Mary and Joseph! Why do you think she ran away?”
    Miles gave Rory an irritated glance.