An Affair by the Sea
(Siren’s Retreat #2)
Orphaned pianist Allegra Brown is a poor relation with nothing much to recommend her, save a minuscule dowry and a very big imagination. She has spent the past several years as governess to her younger cousins, who are now ready for their come out—and want Allegra to marry, too. Specifically, they eagerly await the return of Allegra’s dashing, handsome, swashbuckling, conveniently absent and secretly fictional fiancé, the dread pirate Captain L’Amour.
The only place Mr. John Sharp strikes fear is in the courtroom, where his neat, ordered mind is renowned for winning every case he presents. John loves predictability and longs to be a chef. Unfortunately, every time he puts on an apron, the entire kitchen catches fire. Much like passion burning between him and a certain wildly unpredictable spinster, who seems to have confused him for a dashing, exciting pirate. By fulfilling her fantasies, can his dreams come true…together?
Chapter 1
March 1818
Brighton, England
After removing every item from his valise and placing it in the perfect drawer or shelf in his well-appointed temporary lodgings overlooking the beach, Mr. John Sharp set out from Siren’s Retreat to explore the bustling seaside town.
To be honest, John was more than ready to explore any place on Earth that was not London.
He had lived in London all his life, the only exception being four years studying law at Cambridge, fifty miles away. Brighton was the same distance, but in the opposite direction—south, not north. As John breathed in the fresh, salty air, he could scarcely believe it had taken him three-and-thirty years to venture this far afield from his neat and familiar office in dirty, crowded London.
Instead of soot from coal clouding an oppressive sky, fluffy white clouds dotted the wide expanse of blue overhead. Instead of a cacophony of horses and carriages and street vendors, he could even hear crashing waves and the call of birds. Here, tourists like himself were more likely to stroll along the pretty streets than to barrel through in a coach-and-four, bellowing at the driver of the high-stepping phaeton before you to mind his ribbons.
It was peaceful. Or ought to be. Would have been, if his mind weren’t replaying over and over the disastrous events of the past fortnight, culminating in the worst night of his life and a public humiliation. Distracted, he attempted to dodge a pair of pedestrians on the same walking pavement.
“Good afternoon,” said a smiling young lady, only to receive an elbow in the ribs from her blushing companion for having the boldness to speak first. She fluttered her eyelashes unrepentantly.
“Good afternoon,” John answered politely, but without slowing his pace. He gave a brief nod, then returned his gaze straight ahead to the shops lining the street.
He was not here for a summer romance, and certainly not on the hunt for a bride. He’d tried that once, hadn’t he, and just look how that had gone.
Oh, John was used to admiring glances from women, but he had never been a rake or a flirt. Too much uncertainty in such endeavors. Too much left to chance. He preferred establishing an infallible plan for everything…and then have everything go according to plan.
Unlike the past fortnight.
For over a decade, he had enjoyed an illustrious career as a successful and respected private solicitor. Well, respected by his former employer, colleagues, and clients. John had no lofty title and no towering family seat, but he was known as the man who never lost a case, and was paid handsomely for his thorough command of the law.
John had done the very thing he had set out to do as a thirteen-year-old boy on his first day at Harrow. He was a solicitor. He was a success.
He was unfathomably, unbearably bored.
Being good at law did not mean he liked it. It meant it was safe and steady and lucrative and endless. It was not a source of passion.
Not like a good oven.
“Oh!” A young lady gasped as a shiny red apple rolled against the spotless black toe of John’s leather boot. “However did that fall from my basket? I am so sorry, sir. Would you be so kind…?”
However, indeed. The edge of her basket was five inches higher than the scant apples it carried, and John had glimpsed her toss the fruit his way himself.
Nonetheless, he gripped the handle of his walking stick tighter and bent to scoop up the apple and return it to its fresh-faced owner.
“Your apple, madam. Good day.”
“Oh! I’m—”
John pretended not to hear her and continued on toward the row of shops ahead.
Brighton’s pretty young ladies would not be half so interested in a well-dressed stranger if they knew he’d run from London in disgrace.
Law was his career, but the kitchen was his calling. This was supposed to be the Year of John. He had more than enough money saved for a year’s sabbatical to pursue his passion. He had spent months courting a calm, sensible young woman who would make a practical and unobjectionable wife.
And then, the day he locked his office for the last time in order to take the helm of a popular pâtisserie whose chef was returning to France for a three-week holiday, everything had gone up in flames.
Literally.
His sensible, predictable intended Vivian jilted him. The serving girls failed to show up for their posts. The kitchen help was in too high spirits over a boxing match to pay attention to their batter. The milk bottles crashed on the kitchen floor. The girl minding the cash box slipped and broke her arm. They had all been far too busy dealing with that to remember the pastries in the oven, which not only caught fire themselves, but also set ablaze the oil-damp towels the kitchen boys used to remove the incinerated pastries. In a panic, the boys responded by slapping burning towels against other inopportune surfaces, setting them afire as well in the process…
In all, John’s inaugural debut as master chef lasted four hours and thirty-five minutes before dozens of buckets from a team of timely firemen extinguished the blaze—and John’s dreams—all in one go.
He had never realized he possessed such absurdly bad luck, because he had never before done anything that relied on luck. John was the best solicitor in the history of his firm precisely because he studied every second of that history and knew every word of the law.
Winning legal cases was like baking a gâteau de mille-feuilles au chocolat et vanille. Followed the recipe? Enjoy your dessert. Deviated from the plan? Disaster.
A shop caught his eye just on the opposite side of the clean and empty road. John walked eighty yards past to the intersection, where a crossing sweeper awaited, and looked both ways—twice—before striding across the street.
He knew precisely how many accidents occurred in London every year due to drivers and pedestrians alike failing to follow instructions. John even kept a little notebook atop his desk with hash marks indicating how many preventable injuries he had personally witnessed from the window of his second floor office.
Everything he had ever been or experienced in his entire life had indicated the wisest way forward from any position was with an exhaustive and practical plan.
He’d thought he had one.
He had not counted on the unpredictability of other people.
The trick, he determined, was simply to avoid them at all costs. Instead of taking over someone else’s chaotic pâtisserie, he would open his own tea room. Large enough to attract a respectable crowd, and small enough for him to handle the orders himself, in a cozy kitchen of his own design. Where everything was always ready and waiting for him in its place, clean and refilled and fresh and definitely not turning to cinders as flames shot into the sky.