The Price of Indiscretion Read online

  “Thank you,” Constance said, blushing.

  With a start, Miranda realized that because they had kept so much to themselves, her youngest sister had not known what it was like to have a man court her. She had not realized her beauty until Lady Overstreet’s words—and what a shame that was. Indeed, all three of them had kept to themselves. She could say it was because their father had guarded them closely from the trappers and travelers who had come by the trading post, but that would not be completely true. The men of the valley had avoided them. The women weren’t the only ones who had treated the Cameron sisters with scorn, and it was her fault.

  “And then there is you, Miranda,” Lady Overstreet said.

  Miranda shrank back, uncomfortable.

  “Your sisters are lovely,” Lady Overstreet said, “but you are exquisite. There isn’t a man in this room who can take his eyes off of you.”

  “That’s not true,” Miranda denied quickly.

  “Oh, but it is, and you know it,” Her Ladyship answered. “Your sisters know it, and it is a sign of their love that they accept it.”

  “No,” Miranda protested, but Charlotte cut her off.

  “Yes, you are different from us.”

  Constance nodded her head.

  “I don’t want to be different.” Beneath the table, Miranda crossed her moccasined feet and clasped her hands together, fighting the urge to bolt again. “I never wanted to be different.” The burn of tears embarrassed her.

  “You can’t fight it,” Lady Overstreet said. “It’s the way God made you. Instead of being embarrassed, you should be using it. It’s a power.”

  “I don’t want power.”

  “But you have it, whether you wanted it or not,” Lady Overstreet returned. “There is something about hair as blond and pale as yours that attracts men. Your figure alone is enough to inspire lust in them.”

  Miranda looked away, her cheeks burning furiously.

  Lady Overstreet leaned across the table. “Don’t ever shy away from being what you are. Life is too hard as it is. A woman has very little say, and only a fool would ignore what gifts she has been given. I could marry you off to that duke and one so wealthy, your sisters would be certain of finding noble and generous husbands.”

  “It can’t all rest on me,” Miranda said weakly. “I can’t marry.”

  “You can,” Charlotte said. She looked Miranda intently in the eye. “It’s all in the past. He’s gone. He doesn’t matter anymore. We’re going to forge new lives.”

  Lady Overstreet’s ears picked up. “He? What’s this about?”

  Miranda kept silent, her back stiff with tension. Charlotte cast a glance at her, as if expecting her to speak. Miranda didn’t talk about Alex. Her family had not understood, and even after all this time, her emotions concerning him were still too much in a turmoil. Guilt weighed heavily upon her. Part of her wished she’d never met him.

  Another part yearned to see him again. Just once. Then maybe she would be able to forget him.

  Charlotte spoke, her words formal. “Miranda had an indiscretion years ago.”

  “An indiscretion?” Instead of being put off, Lady Overstreet was very interested. “Please tell.”

  “There isn’t much to say,” Miranda murmured.

  “Then tell me what little there is,” Lady Overstreet instructed.

  Miranda shook her head. Even after all this time, Alex was too personal a topic to be shared.

  It was Constance who answered. “Miranda had an Indian who wanted to marry her. A Shawnee. He wanted her to go with him.”

  “An Indian? How intriguing,” Lady Overstreet said.

  “Hardly,” Charlotte answered tersely. “Miranda was fifteen at the time. Too young to know better.”

  “You were sixteen and promised,” Miranda reminded her.

  “To a white man,” her sister answered.

  Miranda could have said Alex was white, too. He’d been half British, but he had chosen his Shawnee side, the side that, in the end, she could not follow.

  Lady Overstreet fueled the sudden tension by asking, “Weren’t the Shawnees the ones who had killed your mother and baby brother?”

  For a moment no one spoke. And then Charlotte said, “Yes.” The word seemed to hover in the air around them.

  “Oh dear,” Lady Overstreet said.

  There was silence, and then Constance picked up the story. “They tell me Father was a different man when Mother was alive. But once she and Ben were killed, he changed. He got mean.”

  “I suppose he didn’t react very well to one of his daughters taking up with a savage?” Lady Overstreet said.

  Alex wasn’t a savage—

  Miranda held the words back. She’d learned it never mattered what the truth was. People thought, what they thought, and she’d already proven she wasn’t strong enough to stand up to them.

  But she wasn’t a coward. She could not let her sisters tell her story. “Alex wanted to marry me. He wanted to do what was right. When he asked for my hand in marriage, Father became insane. He horsewhipped Alex until he was nearly dead. He would have killed him. Father drank a lot then. He needed more liquor, and he left with friends to go get it. I guess it is thirsty work killing a man.” Her voice almost failed her.

  Charlotte reached for her hand. Miranda looked down at her sister’s hand holding hers before slowly raising her eyes to Charlotte’s. “I cost all of us so much.”

  “You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, and in the end, it doesn’t matter. I would not have been a good farrier’s wife.”

  “But you would have had children.”

  Tears welled in Charlotte’s eyes. She blinked them back. “I will have children,” she said with conviction. “And they will grow up safe and free and never have to worry about senseless killing.” She offered her free hand to Constance, who took it. For a moment they sat, holding each other’s hands, remembering.

  Lady Overstreet must have sensed the bond between them. “What is it?”

  Charlotte smiled. “We held our hands just this tightly fifteen years ago when the Shawnee attacked the trading post. I was with Constance picking up kindling for the fire. Miranda was helping Mother hoe the garden. Father was gone with some traders. Miranda saw the hunting party attack Mother. She came running for us. If she hadn’t done that, Constance and I would have been discovered and killed. Or worse, taken prisoner.”

  “You would have done the same,” Miranda said.

  “Would I?” Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know. I remember being paralyzed with fear, but you knew what to do. You hid us beneath the old hollow log, and they didn’t find us. They looked inside the log,” she told Lady Overstreet. “That’s where I would have hidden, and it was the first place they searched. They knew we were there. But because Miranda had ordered us to squeeze in between the outside of the log and the ground and then had covered us with leaves, they didn’t find us.”

  “One of their moccasins was right up to my nose,” Constance said. “I was so scared, but we held hands tight and they left.”

  “We stayed that way all night,” Charlotte said. “We were too afraid to move until we heard voices we recognized.” She faced Miranda, “And now I am asking you to be as brave as you were then. I’m asking you to let go of the past. Forget him. He was an indiscretion, nothing more.”

  Forget Alex…

  The air in the room grew close. The smell of the ale and meat pies threatened to make her sick. How could Miranda forget Alex? And then she realized she had no choice. He’d asked her to go with him once. She’d refused. She’d been too afraid. He’d told her he would not come back. He hadn’t.

  So did it really matter if she married a man who could give her sisters what they wanted?

  Miranda smiled at each of them, loving them so much. Charlotte was right; family was what mattered. And she wanted Constance to someday find love. Maybe her love would come to a happier end than Miranda’s had.

  “I will go to London.
” Once her mind cleared, the words had been easy to say.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said, giving her hand a squeeze.

  “Very good,” Lady Overstreet said. “You won’t be sorry, my dear. And you needn’t worry about your sister or your futures. I know Miranda will take. I will see her married to a fine man with a title and enough money to pay my fee.” She paused before adding, “There is just one thing, and I hesitate to bring it up except that it could be important, and best we discuss it now.”

  “What is that?” Charlotte asked.

  Lady Overstreet leaned close to Miranda. “This indiscretion of yours—”

  “It was ten years ago,” Miranda assured her. Yes, she had waited long enough. The time had come to move on.

  “Yes, I know, but I have one question, and I don’t mean offense, but we should be candid with each other. After all, we are sophisticated women.”

  Charlotte was nodding her head. Constance appeared uncertain. Miranda wished Her Ladyship would say what was on her mind.

  She did. “Miranda, are you a virgin?”

  Her question shocked not only Miranda but her sisters. As Miranda groped for words, Lady Overstreet continued. “I had to ask because there will be men who will ask me, and I can save you future embarrassment. Some men think this is very important, while others would not care. And there are ways around both attitudes, but I do need to know.”

  Charlotte and Constance closed their own gaping mouths and turned to her. It was telling that Charlotte hadn’t immediately leaped to Miranda’s defense and a sign she wasn’t so certain what the answer would be, either.

  “I’ve not been touched,” Miranda said almost defensively, adding to Charlotte, “Alex wasn’t like that.”

  “Too bad,” said Lady Overstreet. “A handsome savage in the forest. It could be interesting.” She laughed at her own little jest while Miranda lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap, her face burning. If she married, another man would have the right to touch her.

  Could she deal with it?

  For her sisters, she would.

  Realizing that they watched in silence, Miranda knew she’d have to reassure them. She picked up her untouched cider mug. “Then we have an arrangement, have we?” she said, proud that her voice was brave.

  “Yes,” Lady Overstreet said, lifting her own mug. “We have an arrangement. To your success, the Misses Cameron.”

  For the briefest moment, Charlotte and Constance met Miranda’s gaze. They sensed what this was costing her, and then Charlotte said, “Yes, to Miranda’s success. May she find a noble man.”

  “And one who will love her,” Constance echoed.

  They clicked their mugs with Lady Overstreet’s, and Miranda raised her drink, too. She smiled, she drank, she accepted her fate.

  She was finally turning her back on Alex.

  She prayed he would forgive her.

  Two

  Ponta Delgada, Azores

  Alex Haddon, captain of the sloop Warrior, was so angry he could have chewed through his own mainmast.

  The Azorean pilot, a wily bastard by the name of Esteves, had charged him twice as much for his services as he had the merchant ship moored some way up the dock from the Warrior. Esteves knew that after crossing the Atlantic, the Warrior’s hold full of sugar, rum, and tobacco, Alex desperately needed to replenish supplies. He knew Alex would have no choice other than to pay up. The bugger hadn’t even shown up to do the piloting but had sent his nephew Diego, a lad who barely had a beard on his chin.

  And now Diego had informed Alex that he must pay more.

  “For what?” Alex snarled, letting his temper show. The money was not the issue. Alex had more than enough in the hands of his bankers to pay Esteves a thousand times over.

  But it was a matter of honor.

  “F-for mooring,” the hapless Diego stammered.

  “Mooring,” Alex repeated, his doubts made clear as he let the word linger in the air. He looked past the lad to where his first mate, Oliver, a barrel-chested Scotsman, stood with Flat Nose, a Mohawk whom Alex had saved after he’d escaped from being impressed, and Vijay, the Arab they’d found floating adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, who would never tell his story. All three were part of the Warrior’s thirty-man crew; each man had signed with Alex out of loyalty, not fear.

  “The pilot is aboard that merchantman docked up the way, Captain,” Oliver informed Alex. “That ship didn’t have to pay what we’ve been charged.”

  Diego swallowed, and Alex didn’t blame him. His men were a fearsome lot, Flat Nose with his bald head and smashed nose more menacing than the others, and Alex was a fit man to lead them. He wore his heavy black hair to mid-point down his back in proud defiance. Half Shawnee and half British, he had the blood of both great chiefs and aristocrats flowing through his veins. He bowed to no man, especially a pilot who felt his port was a petty fiefdom.

  “Bring me your uncle,” Alex said with quiet, and dangerous, authority. “I will not be fleeced just because my firm is small and he believes he can.”

  Diego ran for the gangway.

  Alex watched him go before saying to Oliver, “I can understand Esteves had to pilot in that manof-war over me.” He nodded to the British warship moored out in the harbor. Anchored close to the mouth of the port because its draft was too deep to be brought any closer, the ship had the ominous air of a bulldog guarding a door, reminding all who saw it that only a fool challenged the British navy.

  “But,” Alex continued, “making me cool my heels while he piloted in a merchantman and sending that lad as a substitute was an insult. I’ll have my pilot fee returned or we shall hang him by his heels from the yardarm.” He moved over to the bulwark, catching sight of Diego elbowing his way through the crowd of merchants, vendors, and sailors conducting business and gossiping along the stone pier on such a fine day.

  Oliver followed him. “The lads would like a bit of sport,” he agreed with a quick smile. He was a Scotsman who had not seen the shores of his homeland in more than twenty years, and yet his burr was as strong as if he’d been away only a day. “Not many of them will be going ashore, what with that warship in the harbor. There’s not a one who wants to find himself impressed. Of course,” he said, dropping his voice just a note to sound as if he were confiding in Alex, but still loud enough to be heard by all on deck, “the odds are against you, Captain. The lads all think the pilot will keep his money.”

  Alex turned, surprised. “Against me?” He looked around the ship to the men who had overheard what Oliver had said. Some of them grinned outright, knowing this was a challenge Alex would not ignore. “You would side with a Portuguese pilot?” he demanded of his crew.

  “No one bucks a pilot,” one of the men said. “Not even you.” His words were met with laughing agreement.

  “We’ll see about that,” Alex answered, his good humor returning. There was nothing like a challenge to add a bit of interest to a matter. They’d been out to sea these three weeks and more. He worked his crew hard, himself even harder. They all needed a bit of fun. “Double your wages if I don’t get the fee returned.”

  They all liked that. The grins across faces were wider now.

  “And if you win?” Oliver asked.

  Alex leaned against the railing, crossing his arms, and pretending to think a moment. “What shall I claim as the prize for such disloyalty?” he wondered with mock seriousness. “I know, if I win, Mr. Oliver will have to dance a jig every night for a week.”

  Everyone liked the wager—except Oliver. He was a notoriously bad dancer, but his protest was quickly shouted down, and he was good-natured enough to go along with the wager.

  “And,” Alex said, once he could be heard over the hoots and catcalls, “we’ll be leaving on the morning tide. This place reeks of rotted wood and dead fish. Stay aboard, lads, and keep out of the king’s clutches. I don’t want to lose one of you scoundrels.”

  They nodded agreement, and Alex felt his chest swell with pride. The
y might look like cutthroats and misfits, but there wasn’t a better crew on the seas, and he returned their loyalty four-fold. They were his family, and the Warrior, his home.

  Ah, but what a home she was. The sloop had been designed to his specifications. She was one hundred and ten feet long, carried four guns, and could outmaneuver any ship on the ocean. Let the East India Company and others build ships the size of buildings. Alex could make three trips in the Warrior compared to their one. She skimmed the water with the swiftness of a hawk. And because of clever design, she held just about the same amount of cargo, something that made his business partner and blood brother Michael Severson very happy.

  This ship was his pride and joy. He was her ruler, and here a man could expect fair treatment and be respected and well-paid for honest work—

  A low appreciative whistle, the sort any woman-loving male makes when he sees a pretty lass, cut across the air.

  Alex might be the Warrior’s captain, but he moved like every other member of the crew to the bulwark. Oliver was right at his heels. A group of his men had already gathered there. They moved aside to make room for their captain.

  Nor was the Warrior the only ship to take notice. Up and down the wharf, men were lining up along the dock and gathering along their ships’ rails and looking toward the merchantman that had thwarted Alex’s meeting with Esteves. Apparently many knew what they were waiting for. Several climbed rigging wanting a better look, and the air vibrated with excitement.

  Alex had never seen the like. He craned his neck and noticed a knot of ships’ officers and merchants gathering at the foot of the merchantman’s gangway. This woman must be something special to produce so much interest.

  The crowd of gentlemen parted. A woman of some thirty years wearing a green dress and matching bonnet stepped forward on a gentleman’s arm.