His back to the ballroom, Henri spoke with ease about what he knew best, sharing details of his last cruise and the current careening on Indigo Island.
Another gentleman joined in. “You’re the talk of all the coffeehouses on the coast, not to mention broadsides and newspapers, with your black jacks and lucrative prizes.”
“Is it true you’ve captured more than thirty enemy ships in a twelvemonth?” an officer asked. “Spanish, mostly, as well as notorious buccaneers?”
“Much of it hearsay,” Henri countered. He shied from any praise or applause, though it was preferable to being vilified as a pirate. “As privateer, I simply align with colonial authorities in wanting the lawlessness by sea stopped.”
“Well, I for one welcome your return to port amongst us proud Virginians. ’Tis hurricane season, after all.”
Henri grimaced as a line began forming. He might be headed straight for a tempest with supper at hand.
The double doors of the dining room swung open. Like with dancing, those of highest rank went first, titled Virginia officials and whatnot, which left the Shaws somewhere in the middle. Quinn and Eliza were far ahead, at the front of the line behind Lady Lightfoot, thus removing one of Esmée’s familiar underpinnings. Thankfully, Father was at hand, speaking with a Williamsburg merchant. Behind them was her dear friend Kitty Hart, followed by . . .
Captain Lennox.
Esmée fixed her gaze straight ahead, feeling as wooden as a ship’s figurehead. Were his intense eyes boring into her stays-straightened back? Censuring her for sitting out the dancing more than she danced? Finding fault with her for being unpowdered and plain? Her plan to remain in the shadows backfired badly. Instead she’d gained unwanted attention because of her simplicity.
Breathe, lass.
Mightn’t the captain have forgotten all about her? Perhaps she’d left so little a dent in his conscience that she was all but invisible now. Certainly he’d had other flirtations since. She certainly couldn’t hold a candle to many of the young belles tonight in their whispering silks and winking gemstones.
The line crawled toward the dining room’s entrance, supper smells mingling with fragrant beeswax candles. She put a hand to her waist to finger her chatelaine, something she oft did when distressed. But it was a habit of no use to her now, for she wasn’t wearing it.
Places were sought, a great shuffling and fuss occurred, and Esmée found herself staring at the one remaining seat.
To the right of Henri Lennox.
All the other places around the immense table were taken, leaving her standing conspicuously. She dared not look at the captain, yet she felt his unease like a stone wall between them. Or was it her own discomfiture? She sat down and looked to her lap, a hammer tapping at her temples and threatening to flip her stomach.
How had they left it at the last? When they’d faced each other that final time in the Shaws’ townhouse parlor, their voices rising notch by notch?
“Marry me, Esmée.”
“I would, Henri, if not for the sea.”
“So the sea is the only obstacle between us.”
“It robbed my mother of my father. I would not have it rob me of you.”
“You would have me forsake my calling, then.”
“Better your calling than your wife.”
“Your stated reasons are your refusal, I take it.”
She had made no reply. And then, a decade’s absence.
Supper’s seating arrangement left Henri feeling keelhauled—roped and thrown overboard only to be dragged under the ship’s backbone to his doom. So far Esmée hadn’t said a word. The long table was wide enough that conversations across it were impossible. He tried to say a few words to the elderly lady to his left who was stone-cold deaf. Esmée seemed in a similar predicament with the gentleman to her right, who was more absorbed by laughter and talk farther down. Awkwardness did not begin to describe the arrangement.
Henri swallowed. Removed all regret and blame from his tone. He stole a look at her. “How does one account for ten lost years, Miss Shaw?”
Esmée’s pale hand stilled on her wine glass. The pearl ring she wore unearthed a long-buried memory. “One does not, Captain Lennox. Or, if left no choice, very carefully.”
Silence.
He stared at the candelabra in front of him. “By some trick of fate, we have ended up side by side.”
“Fate, sir?” Mockery curdled her tone. “I don’t believe in it.”
“Mayhap the Almighty is having a fine jest at our expense.” He drummed his fingers lightly atop the damask tablecloth. “To your credit you were never one for theatrics or hysterics. You’ll simply soldier on through supper and make the best of it.”
“And you, stalwart seaman that you are, shall do the same.” She shifted as if uncomfortable in her chair. “Despite the fact we are drawing noticeable attention.”
He raised his gaze. No less than half a dozen pairs of eyes were on them. “People have long memories of thwarted love affairs.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, I for one have a few overdue inquiries,” he said, then paused to swallow a sip of wine. “How is your dear mother?”
“Buried.”
Nay. Dismayed, he let the news settle. Her terse answer begged details he could not ask about. “My deepest sympathies.” He meant it. Eleanor Shaw had been an uncommon woman. A woman ahead of her time, or rather a woman who made good use of the time she’d been given.
“A question for a question,” Esmée said as soup was served. “Why have you come ashore?”
He eyed the monogrammed bowl surmounted by the Lightfoot family crest that was set before him. Crab bisque? “I spent the last three years in the Summer Isles. I was beginning to forget Virginia.”
To this she made no reply. The lukewarm soup was more enjoyable than their stilted conversation. Only a dozen more courses to go.
“How is your father?” he asked, having spied the admiral earlier in the evening. It was a far safer question.
“Adrift without my mother.”
“And your sister?”
“’Tis my turn, Captain.”
He wished for a little levity, but she was unsmiling. Intense. Gone was the warmth and approachability that had once marked her. Had she somehow assumed some of her sister’s mercurial hauteur? If so, it was a cold, shrewd beauty that left him missing the Esmée of old.
“What of your own Virginia kin?” she asked, turning intelligent eyes on him.
“Deceased. The rest are in Scotland, if you recall. And France. I’ve none left in the colonies.”
Her lengthy pause rattled him. “I’m . . . terribly sorry.” She ran a spoon through her soup but made no move to eat it. “To answer your earlier question, my sister is as irrepressible as ever.”
Down the long table came Eliza’s unmistakable laugh. She was heavier than he remembered. Enceinte? And all aglitter from head to toe. In the press of guests he’d not gotten a good look at the bewigged gentleman who’d danced with her. Her husband?
“Your sister was always one to land on her feet,” he murmured.
Esmée herself was dressed far more sedately. Her yellow gown seemed rather faded, but the lace draping her bodice and sleeves was exquisite, a foil to her bountiful black hair. And her pearls . . . She’d always preferred them. When in the South Seas he’d oft been reminded of that.