Loving Sarah (2 page)

“The weather will hold until we’re well out,” Lucky said as he scanned the sky and horizon around them. Ian didn’t question him. He knew better. Like an old sailor, Lucky had an instinct for forecasting weather just by looking at the clouds. “Remember, my sister’s throwing us a dinner party to see us off. Be at the house around seven.”

“I’ll be there. You know I wouldn’t miss an opportunity for real food. Anything is better than the grub Old Will throws into a kettle,” Ian said as they neared a waiting hackney.

“You need to find a better cook,” Lucky replied. “So you stop trying to take mine.”

The driver tipped his hat and opened the door for the gentlemen. “You go on without me. I’m just going to get cleaned up and make sure the watch is in place. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Fine.” Lucky gave a quick nod to the man holding the door, then asked Ian if he needed the address again. Ian shook his head and simply asked the hackney driver to return for him after dropping off Lucky. “Then I’ll see you soon.”

The hackney door closed on Lucky. After the driver cued the horse to move on, Ian turned back to the dinghy tied below and rowed out to the
Revenge
,
his best hope for victory in this race
.
Their supplies had been loaded earlier in the day, so he’d moved his boat away from the hustle and bustle of the dock. And any potential sabotage. Not that he suspected his fellow competitors of such underhanded behavior, but one could never be too careful when the stakes were this high. Tying off the dinghy, he climbed onto the deck and double-checked to make sure all was in readiness for the start of the race. Normally, he wouldn’t have considered wasting their time entering a race, but the twenty-five-thousand-pound purse was far too large to ignore. More importantly, if he and Lucky were serious about succeeding in their joint venture, the newly chartered Empire Tea Importers, they needed more ships. Two retrofit Baltimore schooners, though a respectable beginning, wouldn’t turn the kind of profits necessary to expand their business in the manner they wanted. The tea run they’d made last year left him with barely enough to live on after paying the note and their crew’s salaries. Lucky might not need the money as much as Ian did, but he’d be damned if he’d let his partner pay their way until they could turn a profit. Lucky had done enough already by paying the shipyard bill for the retrofit of the two boats over the past winter.

His dream, and Lucky’s too, was to have a fleet of at least a dozen clippers, preferably designed and built to their specifications. After carefully studying Colonel Beaufoy’s publication,
Nautical and Hydraulic Experiments
, where Beaufoy tested and found Newton’s hydraulics theory unlikely, Ian had begun drawing his own hull designs. To maximize hull space for valuable cargo, Ian’s idea was first to streamline the design of the hull; next to make her longer and deeper in the keel; then, to eliminate the complete dependence on ballast and use lead plate on the keel in conjunction with minimal internal ballast for stabilization. He was excited and anxious to test his theory. If it worked, he knew it would forever change the way hulls were designed and built. And his father, wherever his soul rested, would be proud.

Having grown up with a university-educated naval architect for a father, a man who designed and built clipper hulls, Ian knew that shipyards in New York and Baltimore were willing to build experimental designs; whereas in Aberdeen and Halifax, they were more likely to insist the time-tested and proven designs they had been successfully building for the last twenty years were better. Ian knew his design held promise and so did his partner. So he would amuse Lucky and have the Aberdeen yards look at the designs, but Ian knew they would likely have to go back to America to have them built the way they wanted.

Ian made his way down to his small cabin, stopping to take a bucket of fresh water from the barrel near the companionway. He ladled some into the metal basin, set the bucket down near the washstand, then stripped. He dunked his head into the bowl and began washing. One day, he’d like to have a house with a proper bathing chamber. There would be no more tossing water out of portholes or over the railing and refilling wash basins. No more bathing with cold water, except when at sea. Worst of all were the times he had to bathe with salt water, because it always left him feeling sticky and itchy. For that reason, he understood why some of the crew went without baths during those times.

Life at sea wasn’t the romantic, adventurous dream he’d imagined. But this had been his reality for the past five years since leaving university. He supposed he could have lived on credit and taken rooms somewhere, as did others in his financial situation. But Ian was too American for that, as Lucky reminded him on those rare occasions when Ian complained out loud. He might be the grandson of the Earl Mackeever, former commander in the King’s Navy and a hero who was severely injured in the Siege of Charleston saving the lives of his sailors as his ship sank. But, he was still the American-born son of a Baltimore naval architect who’d designed ships for the Americans in their second war for independence—one of the two reasons his grandfather hated him and the old sod reminded him of it each time Ian had seen him. Of course, since
the incident
, Ian hadn’t seen him at all.

Yes, the man with whom he shared blood despised him because of it. He never failed to remind Ian that his mother was a servant in his home and his father was a traitor to Great Britain and responsible for the deaths of many fine British sailors, perhaps even his uncle.

But there was another reason the old man hated him. One so dark and so foul that Ian had never told a soul, not even his best friend. The secret existed only between him and his grandfather, and when the old bastard died, Ian would be free to live a normal life. Or, as normal as an American-born heir of a Scottish earl could live.

Coming to Britain as a child hadn’t been easy. Some people, he’d learned over the years, had long memories, especially when they’d lost loved ones. And when your father was instrumental in expediting their dispatch to the next life, it was even more difficult to find a friendly face at school, and later university. Ian often felt he was the only unwelcome foreigner at school. It wasn’t until Oxford, where he met Luchino Antonio Francesco Gualtiero, the Conte di Loretto, Lucky to all who knew him, that he’d found a kindred spirit. His new friend was just as much an outsider because of his swarthy, Mediterranean appearance as Ian was for his American blood. It was in that atmosphere, that he and Lucky had become fast friends and immediately after university, business partners.

Now, at age twenty-five, Ian had the entire world before him. And no place to call home except this ship. He wasn’t British because he was born in America, but no longer American because nothing remained there for him, hadn’t since his father died twelve years earlier, when Ian was thirteen. The last time Ian saw his father, Ian had been twelve years old and forced to board a ship to England to live with the grandfather and two aunts who would see to his proper education and preparation for him to take his place in society as his grandfather’s heir. It had been something he’d fought against with all of his little boy might, to no avail.

Opening the cabinet, he remembered the cedar lining still needed replacing as he took out his good clothing. Repairs inside his cabin had been low in priority during the renovations, but now as he looked over his best trousers to make sure they weren’t moth-eaten or torn, he decided it needed to get moved up on the list. He checked the coat and linen shirt for tiny holes, saw none, and smiled. Lifting the only waistcoat he owned, he noticed the stitching at the edge of the wool where it met the satin was coming apart, but knew it would remain hidden by the coat.

If he ever did take his place in society, he would need to pay more attention to his dress. Ian owed it to his father’s sisters not to be an embarrassment to them when he did, especially after all they’d done for him over the years, from taking him in when his father sent him over for his formal education to sponsoring his entrée into society. Events like this dinner with Lucky’s family were sure to become more common as they became more successful. He had to think of tonight as an opportunity to polish his manners and become more accustomed with the world he’d not been born to but now found himself a reluctant part of.

Success would make his aunts, two dear old ladies he adored, proud. Until then, he had to stop wasting time worrying over his grandfather’s hatred.

L
ady Sarah Eileen Halden dropped her gaze as her brothers discussed the upcoming race, lest they see the delight in her eyes while her final plan started to form. The rented home in Liverpool the family had taken for the next several months was nowhere near as large or opulent as Caversham House or Haldenwood, but it had something that would serve her well this night. She’d spied it right after arriving and looking over her temporary bedroom. She had a balcony that was a mere ten or twelve feet above ground. Sarah could quite easily climb over the railing and ease herself down. The drop, after lowering herself as much as possible, wouldn’t be much more than the jump from her favorite tree at home.

She saw it as a sign that she was meant to go with Lucky on this race.

“Ian and I have gone over the charts several times and already plotted our course.” Lucky pointed to something on the map Sarah’s brother Ren, the Duke of Caversham, had spread across the table in the drawing room where they’d all gathered while waiting for the last of their dinner guests to arrive. “Both crews have been with us at least a full year. They made the tea run with us, and they’re all veteran sailors. Most have crossed the Atlantic at least once, some several times. So we’re very confident in everyone’s abilities.”

“Good,” Ren said, “I know this is an exciting challenge for you, but remember do not push your boat any harder than she can handle. Even if you don’t win this race, you know I’ll finance you.”

“And I as well, Lucky,” said Elise’s husband Michael, the Earl Camden, and Sarah’s brother-in-law.

“I appreciate your offer, Ren, truly. And yours too, Michael. But this is something I want to do on my own, and Ian feels the same.”

The butler announced the arrival of Mr. Ian Ross-Mackeever, Lucky’s business partner and long-time friend. When Sarah looked up and met his eyes, she could have sworn her heart skipped several beats and her mouth went dry. The man was far more handsome than she’d remembered. His greenish-brown gaze met hers, and she quickly turned away and took a sip of her sweet wine.

It had been almost a year since she’d last seen him, the night he’d come for dinner at Caversham House before leaving on their trip to China. It was just as the Little Season was getting underway, and she’d thought it was a shame he wouldn’t be around to amuse her and her friends. After all, he was certainly good-looking enough then, but now he was a sun-kissed Adonis come to life. The time seemed to have made him even more ruggedly handsome. He’d become broader in the shoulders, and his face bore a healthy glow. His dark blond hair was liberally streaked with gold in a manner that could only have come from working in the sunshine on the open sea, like hers had when she was a girl sailing her little sloop around the pond at Haldenwood, pretending she was a great explorer.

Rugged and handsome. Those were the only words she could think of as she glanced at him again. Without a doubt, his Viking god-like looks were the cause of the tiny tremors that coursed through her body each time she looked at him. She felt perhaps, if given more time together, a plethora of emotions and feelings might have a chance to develop.

Sarah had to stop thinking of him this way. As attractive as the man was, she had no time for romance right now. She had a race to sail with Lucky. When it was over, she might indulge and see where a flirtation would lead.

From her position, half-turned from him, she covertly watched Ian greet some of the other guests as he made his way toward where she stood with her brother, Ren, her brother-in-law, Michael, and her brother-by-marriage, Lucky. As he did, she noticed his evening wear was somewhat outdated, but it did nothing to detract from his intense vitality. Before she embarrassed herself, she took her leave from Ren, Michael, and Lucky and sought her sister-in-law’s company where she sat with a group of ladies.

Talk among the women soon turned to the goings-on in town now that the season was almost over. “My girls are still in town with their aunt,” Lady Vance said, “and they were loathe to leave. Now that my two nieces are married, my sister is relishing taking my elder daughter through the season’s events.”

Sarah traveled in a different set than Miss Vance, the younger girl’s friends being more the intellectual blue-stocking type. Just the same, she smiled politely, remembering how exciting her first season had been as well. She’d truly enjoyed her first and even her second season. Then her friends began to marry, leaving to start their own families. And with each season Sarah’s tolerance for the superficiality that was the season grew thinner. In her head and heart, she was always elsewhere. Her friends knew it and the men she’d met sensed it, which was why she was twenty-one and still unwed, with no prospects on the horizon.

Sarah had long grown bored with her lot in life. She craved adventure. Longed to see the world. Growing up, she’d always questioned why men were respected when they successfully ventured outside the boundaries set for them by society, but never women. Why was a woman’s reputation in tatters when she did something bold and adventurous, and not a man’s?

The year before, she’d thought to stowaway with Lucky to China, but had been afraid to actually dare it. That fear had been the only thing keeping her inside her comfy, gilded cage—the fear of not being accepted after returning from her grand adventure. But not this year.