The Horsemaster's Daughter by Susan Wiggs

cheating, he’d had the man hauled off in chains, leaving behind a salon full of his ill-gotten gains. Ryan had inherited comfortable quarters indeed.

    Built into the wall of the cabin, invisible behind a false panel and snug against the hull itself, was the purser’s till, a safekeep of steel with a combination lock. Other than Abel himself, only Ryan knew the combination. When he sold the cargo in Rio, he’d receive payment in pounds sterling. It would all go into the till, never to be opened until Abel did the honors once they returned.

    “I remember,” Journey said, “when we were lads we’d climb to our lookout on a clear night and navigate our way to the Spanish main.”

    Ryan smiled, picturing the two of them lying side by side on the rough wooden planks of their tree house, hands clasped behind their heads, gazes turned to heaven. The breeze had stirred the poplar leaves, but to the boys’ ears it was the shush of the great deep Atlantic rushing past the hull of their ship. Their destination was a place he and Journey had conjured up from their imaginations. They had built it on their own boyish dreams, endowing the perfect island with everything a boy could want: gumdrop trees, geysers that spewed sarsaparilla, crystal clear freshwater pools for swimming. A pond in which the fish leaped for joy, grabbing right onto the end of their fishing poles. No chores, no schoolroom, no lessons, no stern tutor or disapproving papa, no mammy with a hickory rod.

    “Did we ever actually reach that place?” Ryan checked the buttons of his cuffs. “I don’t remember.”

    Journey set down the salt cellars, a thoughtful, distant expression on his face. “We’re still looking, Skipper. We’re still looking.”

    A light knock sounded at the door, and in came his mother, attended by Fayette, her maid. He greeted the ladies with the Southern gallantry that had been bred into his very bones: a courtly bow, a charming smile, a sweep of his arm toward the table.

    Then he spied Miss Isadora Peabody standing uncertainly in the companionway. A twinge of exasperation nagged at him. If she felt awkward, it was her own doing. She had used her influence with Abel to muscle her way aboard this ship. Ryan had resolved to use his position as skipper to make her regret it.

    “You’re a crew member,” he said. “You’d best eat in the galley with the men.” He started to close the door.

    “Oh, Ryan, for heaven’s sake,” his mother said, grabbing the door before it slammed. “Miss Peabody is my companion. I won’t hear of her eating hard tack and ale in the galley.”

    “Truly,” Miss Peabody murmured, “if the captain orders me to go elsewhere, then I must obey.”

    “But I’m the mother,” Lily said smugly. She elbowed Ryan aside. “Come in, and we shall celebrate our last night before departure.”

    Isadora didn’t look at Ryan as she edged into the stateroom. He couldn’t quite bring himself to banish her. The painfully arranged hair, the trussed-up style of her black dress, the way she squinted behind her spectacles caused him to feel an unaccustomed tug of…of what? Annoyance, yes, and something perhaps akin to pity.

    He tried to figure out why his mind kept clinging to thoughts of her. He’d always been a man who attracted pretty women, and Miss Peabody was not pretty. He enjoyed the charm of female company, yet she was not charming. He liked the inanity of lighthearted conversation, yet she was neither inane nor lighthearted.

    So why did she plague him?

    Perhaps it was the secrets she guarded within the hazel-and-gold depths of her eyes. In spite of himself, he wanted to know what thoughts hovered there, what ideas. What hopes and dreams.

    Of course, he didn’t want to hear about her misguided passion for Chad Easterbrook, but other things about her—who she was and what she wanted, what she loved and hated, what surprised her, what delighted her, what angered her.

    Immediately he pulled