Page 3 of Again, Scoundrel

“You shouldn’t be out here alone. This isn’t New York.”

Violet sighed deeply and with an unusual compliance agreed. “You’re right,” she said. This was definitely not New York.

She looked behind her one last time but saw nothing except shadows and stars. “Let’s go back inside.”

Alistair Crawford pressed himself further into the darkness below the balcony and shook his head.

What in the blazes just happened?

If he’d been caught with her—Violet, she said her name was Violet—with her hand on his chest, where he could still feel it burning through his linen shirt and silk waistcoat, his lips only moments away from hers, he’d be on his way to the altar right now instead of to port. It had been only luck, or some finely-honed instinct of self-preservation, that caused him to glance away from her upturned face and toward the French doors in time to see a silhouetted figure about to open them. If he hadn’t, he’d have kissed her.

Hell’s teeth, the urge to touch her had been fierce. He’d felt like one of those opium users he’d seen so often in the Navy, with the same hazy, faint smile of oblivion painted across his face. That same inexorable pull toward destruction, with no regard for the consequences of his actions. Consequences he’d blithely ignored at every opportunity. Why hadn’t he stayed where he was in the shadows and quietly watched her?

She was worth watching, with big blue eyes and a delectable bosom. Why hadn’t he waited for her exit and then discreetly followed her back into the ballroom to find his mother and his brother?

Which I should do right now.

He was only home for a few short days between his stint with Her Majesty’s Navy and his departure tomorrow as a newly minted captain with the East India Company. Thank Christ he’d managed to press himself against the wall and disappear into the gardens, but it was far too close a call for his comfort. His plan for the future had nearly been ruined before it even began.

He needed that plan. As the second son of the Marquess of Timsbury, and persona non grata of his small, four-person family, he had nothing else.

His elder brother Darius would have the family fortune, title, and lands by right of his inheritance. Whatever Alistair would have was up to him. He couldn’t be distracted by blue eyes and delectable bosoms and a compelling recklessness that mirrored his own.

No, he’d set sail tomorrow as planned and never think of Violet again. Except perhaps, as the rush of blood still pumping through his nether regions reminded him, when he was alone in his cabin at night. Then he might think of her often.

Chapter

1

Transatlantic Crossing, 1853

Violet Goodwin clung to the railing of the ship as it pitched. Her insides roiled and her feet slipped, but she needed the breath of fresh air, if only for a moment. She chewed a small sliver of ginger and inhaled, ignoring the salty spray of the ocean that stung her face.

The wild root, along with the dried peppermint leaves she made into tea, were all that kept her from casting up her accounts on this disastrous voyage, as so many of her fellow passengers had done. Even the crew looked faintly green from the relentless waves.

In their five weeks at sea, they’d encountered storm after storm. Dark clouds, blue-purple like the worst bruises, edged onto the horizon just as soon as the last ones cleared. Port, still one week out according to Violet’s itinerary, could not come fast enough.

She closed her eyes for just a moment and swallowed the ginger, then she turned, her feet once again sliding as she took a few careful steps toward the ladder that led below deck.

She needed to tend to her mother, who was so ill she’d barely left their cabin, as well as the other passengers who accepted her help. Her precious store of ginger and peppermint was nearly depleted, but she could ration them for their few remaining days. They would land in England soon enough.

Violet had made it nearly all the way down the narrow ladder when she heard the skid and thump of a body hitting the floor, followed by the kind of howl a human being only made when in intense pain. When that sound was followed by a low, agonized keening, she took the last few steps of the ladder at a hop and hurried back to her cabin.

“Violet!” her mother exclaimed from the small bed. “You shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”

“I know, Mother,” Violet said as she reached for her medical bag. “I’ll return in a moment.”

“Violet, wait!”

But she was already out the door, her hand gripping the small bag of supplies she’d brought with her on the voyage. Even this small kit had been too much by her mother’s way of thinking, but Violet was not about to leave the entirety of her medical study behind her in New York. She’d spent too long and worked too hard to give it all up now.

“Get the surgeon!” she heard someone yell as she rushed up the ladder toward the sound of wailing.

She moved as quickly as she could, lifting up the hem of her woolen traveling gown to keep her balance on the slick, wet deck as she went. She passed several men with their heads bent over the railing, one of whom she noted was the surgeon.

Poor man, she thought briefly, but didn’t feel overly sorry for him.

He’d refused her ginger and peppermint tea only hours ago, implying she was some sort of cotton-headed debutante instead of the practical nurse she had become.