Free Lord Buckingham’s Bride by Sandra Heath Page A

business, Miss Clearwell.’
    â€˜But your opinion matters to me, sir, and I do not wish to go down in your estimation. I don’t wish to behave as I now do, nor does Lord Buckingham, but we do have excellent and pressing reasons, I promise you. Please restore me in your good books.’
    He searched her face for a moment and then softened. ‘How could I refuse such a plea, Miss Clearwell? Of course you’re restored in my good books.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘Do you still intend to go on to St Petersburg?’
    â€˜On the Duchess of Clarence ? Yes, I do, but she will not arrive here for a day or so yet.’
    â€˜Perhaps we’ll see each other there?’
    â€˜Chance might make our paths cross, Miss Clearwell, but since you are destined for the exclusive grandeur of English Quay, which is on St Petersburg’s fashionable South Side, and I will be in the commercial area on Vassily Island, across the Neva to the north, I cannot imagine that we will meet again.’
    â€˜Then perhaps we should say goodbye now, sir.’ She extended her hand. ‘I wish you better fortune in the future, Captain Merryvale.’
    â€˜Goodbye, Miss Clearwell, I trust that whatever the, er, extenuating circumstances are, they are successfully resolved.’ Touching hishat, he left her just as the Russian master returned to conduct her to her cabin.
    The captain of the Pavlovsk was a fierce-looking, redheaded martinet with the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. He ruled his ship with a rod of iron, brooked no insolence or disobedience, and thought nothing of inflicting severe punishment upon wrongdoers. He spoke only the most rudimentary English, and so communicated with her by beckoning and saying ‘ Da. Da .’
    She followed him toward the stern and the doorway in the poop that led down to the cabins on the deck below. There were six cabins in all for passengers, and each one boasted a large airy window that looked out from the stern toward the bulky Dutch East Indiaman moored a little farther along the quay. She wondered which one was occupied by Francis; it was impossible to tell because the other doors were closed.
    As the Russian left her, she looked around the cabin that was to be hers for the next five days. It seemed that one cabin was very much like another, for this one was exactly the same as the cabin on the Duchess of Albemarle . There was a narrow bed, a table, a chair, and a wooden chest, all fixed firmly to the floor to prevent them from moving in heavy seas, and on the wall there were several hooks and a gimbal-mounted candle-stick to provide light at night and when the window was boarded over in stormy weather.
    She unpacked her valise, which a member of the crew had taken the moment she went on board. She hung her few items of clothing on the hooks and placed her hairbrush and other things on the table. She paused when she took out her book, for she could only reflect with astonishment the startling sequence of events that had resulted from her spur-of-the-moment decision to invent a tale of runaway lovers for Prince Nikolai’s benefit. Still, it was nearly over now, and the moment the Pavlovsk set sail, she and Francis would behave much more correctly and properly toward each other.
    With a deep breath she placed the book on the bed, and then she retied the ribbons of her straw bonnet before going up on the busy deck again, expecting to find Francis waiting for her. But there was no sign of him yet. She must have passed his cabin door when he was still inside, for her cabin was at the very end of the narrow passage.
    She adjusted her hood, for the sea breeze was very cold, and then she wandered slowly toward the bow, where there was far less activity . She gazed around at the panoramic view of Stockholm, its harbor, and the surrounding pine-clad hills. The sunlight shone on the water, and she looked toward the point where the previous day an ill-fated