Memoirs of a Scandalous Red Dress, page 1
part #5 of Bachelor Chronicles Series
Elizabeth Boyle
Memoirs of a Scandalous Red Dress
To my Aunt Susie.
You never stop amazing me
with your resiliency and wry humor.
Our family’s other storyteller,
please continue to make us all laugh,
for there isn’t a day when that isn’t needed.
All my love,
Lizzie
Contents
Chapter 1
Philippa, Viscountess Gossett, followed her escort through the crowded docks…
Chapter 2
The argument in the parlor below carried quite easily to…
Chapter 3
Lady Gossett stared in horror at the man holding the…
Chapter 4
What makes no sense about this is why this devil…
Chapter 5
Pippin closed the door to her cabin and sank against…
Chapter 6
Once she’d disappeared down the ladder, Dash had turned from…
Chapter 7
Mr. Dashwell,” Pippin whispered from the doorway of the gangway. “Is…
Chapter 8
Dash tried to catch his breath, dared not open his…
Chapter 9
Pippin watched Dash come toward her, swaying unevenly on his…
Chapter 10
Pippin awoke the next day to a bright ray of…
Chapter 11
Two days later, Dash found his way above decks and…
Chapter 12
Pippin stood in the middle of her cabin and shook…
Chapter 13
The rap on her door brought Pippin straight out of…
Chapter 14
When Dash next awoke, it wasn’t to find himself in…
Chapter 15
Dash came up on deck looking for Pippin, even as…
Chapter 16
Dash watched Pippin whirl around the deck in her red…
Chapter 17
Dash paced back and forth before the fireplace, Pippin growing…
Chapter 18
Captain Gossett stood on the deck of his ship and…
About the Author
Other Books by Elizabeth Boyle
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
The London Pool, 1837
Philippa, Viscountess Gossett, followed her escort through the crowded docks of London toward the HMS Regina, where the most recently christened ship in the fleet was about to gain a new captain.
Her son.
Lady Gossett shivered, with a sort of uncontainable pride that she shouldn’t admit to. He wouldn’t like it. Serious and stalwart, noble and utterly British through and through, John, the current Viscount Gossett, and about to be named Captain Lord Gossett, would never approve of his mother’s bubbling enthusiasm for this remarkable promotion.
So she’d leave it to the headlines in the newspapers to shout his accomplishments.
Youngest commander to be raised to captain in nearly twenty years. Bravest officer in the Royal Navy. The hero of the Cadmus. Saved all one hundred and fifty souls with his daring.
Lady Gossett shivered. How like his father he’d been that day. Reckless. Rash. Courageous. Diving into a storm-tossed sea to swim a line over to a floundering ship. Nearly drowned doing it, and by all accounts had come out of the icy Atlantic grinning like a mad fool.
Too much like his father, she mused.
Yet that was the last time she’d seen that side of her son, for shortly thereafter her husband had died so very suddenly, and John’s once devil-may-care existence had been buried that same day.
The responsibilities of a title, inheritance, and the people who relied upon the family for his governance and benevolence had been at war with his one true love: the sea. The heavy obligations of his new duties had clipped his spirit, leaving him somber and far too proper.
As she approached the ship, the lieutenant who’d been awaiting her carriage turned to her. “There she is, my lady. Isn’t the Regina a grand beauty? Give those new Yankee clippers a run for their money, I’d say.”
“Yes, very much so,” she told him, smiling graciously as he offered her his hand and she made her way up the gangplank to the deck where her son awaited her, along with Admiral Fairham and several other high-ranking officers from the navy.
At first John smiled at her, until he noticed her gown. Then his jaw set into a stubborn, nay, disapproving line.
“Madam,” he said, taking her hand. “Why have you put off your mourning?”
Oh, yes, John would notice. So suddenly proper to the point of creaking, he would notice her choice of gown. Which was mauve, and still well within the proper confines of respectful grief.
But still, a far cry from the raven’s black she’d worn since her husband died.
“Gracious heavens, John,” her daughter, Virginia, the Countess of Claremont, said, winding her arm into her mother’s and shaking her head at her brother. She and her husband, the Earl of Claremont, had come a little earlier and were already manning their places of honor. “Father has been gone for two years, and Mother’s dress is hardly, well, it’s not the least bit—” she started to say, but there wasn’t time to continue the discussion.
Thankfully, thought Lady Gossett.
For just then, Admiral Fairham stepped up, disengaging the viscountess from her daughter and bringing her fingers to his lips. “Lady Gossett, you look enchanting today.”
A gallant from another time, the admiral still considered himself the rake he’d been in his younger days, and Lady Gossett could feel her son’s spine stiffen at the man’s familiar tone.
Oh, what was it with these young people today that they so disapproved of their parents’ rakish and devil-may-care manners? You’d think the British with their youthful new queen would quite embrace life as they had done in generations past, instead of standing so upright that one expected them to snap in the first good wind.
“My Lord Admiral,” Lady Gossett demurred as she politely tried to pluck her fingers free with little success. “I am quite honored to see you again, and on such a capital occasion.”
“Ah, yes, my lady, most excellent,” he said winking at her in a way that suggested he had other ideas for the day.
She paused for a wicked moment, then replied, “And how is Lady Fairham? Still in London, or has she gone down to Bristol for the rest of the summer? I do say, I haven’t seen her in an age, and must make sure to write to her this very afternoon a full accounting of the day.”
At the mention of his terror of a wife, the admiral released her hand, and Lady Gossett folded her fingers demurely in front of her as an impeccable matron should, but not before she shot a glance at her son as if to say, There. Is that dignified enough?
John looked as if he wanted to keelhaul her, but then again, she doubted her proper son would ever entertain such a disreputable thought.
“A most excellent sailor you’ve raised, my lady,” the admiral said, slapping John on the back and changing the subject, obviously more than happy to avoid a discussion about his wife. “Takes after his father, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” she replied. “He does.” Or rather he did…
“Like father, like son,” the admiral bustled, his muttonchop whiskers working up and down. “Gossett was quite the yachtsman, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, my lord. He loved sailing,” she said, glancing away at the mention of her husband, images of him flashing through her memories. Idyllic days at the seaside, the children playing on the beach, laughter ringing over the waves. And Brent, always Brent, smiling over the children’s heads at her, love shining in his eyes.
They’d had a good life together, until…until…
“Shall we begin, Lord Gossett?” the admiral asked, and John nodded and led the way to the raised deck at the stern of the ship.
As the ceremony began, with the crew standing at attention on the lower deck, reporters milling about, and spectators crowding the docks below, Commander Lord Gossett, England’s beloved hero, became Captain Lord Gossett. And as the admiral droned on and on—Fairham did love the sound of his own voice—Lady Gossett found her attention wandering.
Her gaze drifted across the deck of the ship and out toward the docks.
She tried to pay attention, but, botheration, Fairham was a dull old bag of wind, and the salty scent of the sea was in the river today. While others might pinch their noses shut in dismay, Lady Gossett loved the sea. Her toes curled in her half boots, and she wished for a wild, crazy second she was sailing away with John, on a ship, toward the edge of the horizon and all the mysteries that the world beyond held.
Beyond London. Beyond the green, tame meadows of England.
A bit of a breeze curled at her hair, all done up properly beneath her bonnet, but teasing her nonetheless, like a lover’s secretive, tempting kiss.
Like a whisper from her past.
It was like having a life, long lost, dangled before her, where she was Lady Gossett no more. Not even Lady Philippa Knolles, as she’d been known before her marriage. No, when the sea whispered to her, she was Pippin, the nickname of her youth, the girl who’d risked too much…
Risked everything…
Fixing her gaze on her gloves, she told herself she needed to appear the admiring, proper mother, but something inside her, something long-forgotten, clamored to be let loose.
Remember, Pippin, a
She blinked for a moment, and she was no longer on the deck of John’s new ship, but on a beach at night. The stars overhead twinkled seductively to the chorus of waves crashing near her feet.
Come with me, Circe…
She took a steadying breath and shook off the errant vision, focusing instead on John’s solemn expression. But all too soon her gaze wandered again, this time over the railing and into the crowd gathered on the docks, pressed together to witness this historic promotion.
Seeking refuge from her memories, she focused on the mass of people, common and noble alike, until her sweeping gaze halted at the sight of a solitary sailor, atop a vast wall of crates. It was impossible to miss him, at least for her, what with the bright red scarf tied around his head. Or maybe it was how he had his dark hair tied in a queue at the nape of his neck, or the tan of his face against his stark white shirt, or those high boots and breeches that made him look more like a pirate of old than an ordinary, common sailor.
And he saw her as well, his gaze fixed on her and her alone. As their eyes met across the distance, it seemed as if an ocean opened between them, his haphazard smile calling her to cross it.
Pippin, remember me?
Oh, yes, she wanted to cry out. I do.
Then he made a jaunty salute and, she swore, winked at her, before jumping from his perch and disappearing into the crowd.
“No,” she whispered. Then her protest came out louder. “No!” Loud enough to stop the admiral’s lofty speech and have everyone on the deck turn toward her, staring in horror at Lady Gossett’s untimely and unseemly interruption.
She staggered back just a little as that trembling, dangerous desire, the one she’d tamped down tighter than a keg of powder all those years ago, ignited.
How could this be? How could he be here?
Then Lady Gossett made the day all that much more memorable by dropping like an anchor onto the deck.
It might have been “the hot sun overhead that caused Lady Gossett’s distress,” as one reporter wrote the next day in his newspaper, or her “overwhelming maternal pride,” as another put it.
But neither of them had the right of it.
Lady Gossett had fainted dead away for only one reason. She’d looked across the deck of the HMS Regina and seen her past.
She’d seen a ghost.
Twenty-seven years earlier
Smuggler’s Cove
Hastings, 1810
Captain Thomas Dashwell waded through the black churning surf and darkness, pulling the rope tied to the longboat behind him, dragging it and its occupants ashore. Wet to his chest, chilled to his very bones, the breeze only adding to his discomfort, he couldn’t have cared less.
He’d collect his gold, unload his passengers, and get the hell away from England.
Not that he had any illusions that he’d get all the gold he was owed, but one could hope. After all, he hadn’t expected this delivery to take two nights. An extra day that would have been better spent speeding home with a hold full of French brandy and silks.
And toward a tidy profit.
His boots, now full of seawater, sloshed and pulled at his legs, slowing his pace, but he was nearly to the rocky shore.
Dash took a deep breath and heaved the rope a bit harder. He didn’t need to make these illicit trips, as his first mate, Mr. Hardy, liked to remind him, but he couldn’t resist the hefty purse the English paid him to help bring their agents home from the Continent, smuggled out of France right under Boney’s very nose.
Dash grinned. He liked that part. Thumbing his nose at the snooty Frenchies and taking English gold for the privilege. Lots of gold.
Ah, yes, gold. It was an odd thing, he mused as he pulled again on the rope but made no progress. This time one of his crew jumped into the surf beside him and lent a hand. He scowled at the man, for he’d ordered them to keep in the boat with their heads down, lest there be trouble.
As there had been last night.
He glanced up at the cliffs towering overhead where on the previous evening the king’s militia had peppered the beach with bullets as they’d tried to deliver their passengers. Pompous fools. Shooting up a bunch of sand and probably spending tonight down at the local inn, bragging how they sent that “demmed smuggler” running.
Only out of range, he would have told them. Dash had no desire to die, no matter the risks he liked to take, but he never left a job unfinished.
Or wages uncollected.
Dash laughed to himself and tugged one last time on the rope until the bow of the longboat crunched against the rocks.
So far, so good.
That was, until he looked up and found himself faced not by his usual contact, Lord John Tremont (Mad Jack to the likes of Dash) but nose to nose with the man’s harridan of an aunt, Lady Josephine.
Christ. This didn’t bode well. Not at all.
“Well, if it isn’t the old girl herself,” he said, plucking his hat off as he offered her a regal bow. At least he hoped it was good enough to charm her a bit. After all, she was supposed to be dead. “I see the reports of your demise were premature.” He leaned closer to her. “That or the devil tossed you out of hell.”
As he planned, the bit of Irish charm he’d inherited from his mother worked in his favor.
Lady Josephine grinned and reached and took him into a hug. “Dash, you are the most incorrigible, impertinent, young man.”
“And you wouldn’t have me any other way,” he said, slipping quickly from her wily grasp before she had a chance to clean out his pockets. She might have been born the daughter of a duke, but Lady Josephine would put the finest Seven Dials foyst to shame with her skill.
Again he searched for any sign of Jack, but to his shock, Lady Josephine stood flanked by two girls, a pair of coltish chits whose wide eyes and stiff stances said they hadn’t their companion’s experience in these matters.
“And who do we have here?” He winked at the tall, lithe creature to the lady’s right, and damnation if the chit didn’t blush like an innocent.
As if she’d never been kissed.
Well, he could take care of that problem. Moving toward her, to get a better look he would aver, his real problem cut him off.
“You leave her alone, Dashwell,” Lady Josephine blustered. “She isn’t your type. And I’ll warn you, I taught them both to shoot a rat when they see one.”
“My lady, you wound me,” he said, bringing his hand to his heart while his gaze wandered back to the tall, fair miss beside her. Sure enough, there was a pistol in her trembling hand.
Misses with pistols and Aunt Josephine back from the dead? He rather preferred the militia…Though they didn’t have pretty blond hair, or sweet lips that looked in need of kissing.
As if Lady Josephine could read his thoughts, she started nattering at him again, giving his theory that the devil had indeed tossed her out of the afterlife some credence.
“Enough of this nonsense,” she was saying, waving her own pistol about like it was merely a lady’s fan. “Unload your passengers right this minute.”
Ah, yes. The devil probably hadn’t liked being ordered about any more than he did.
“—furthermore, Thomas Dashwell, why in God’s name didn’t you put them ashore last night? It isn’t like you wouldn’t be paid.”
Wouldn’t be paid! He snorted. If there was one thing he did know, an Englishman and his coins were difficult to part. And Lady Josephine, like her pinchpenny husband, was even worse. “You’ll get your cargo when I get my gold.”
Lady Josephine nodded toward a pile of driftwood behind them, where a mule stood tied to a weathered branch.
He grinned and strode up the beach, flipping open the first pack. Even before he dipped his hands in, he knew the contents.
Gold. And plenty of it.
Mr. Hardy was wont to say, “The captain can smell it, he can.” There was some truth to that. And right now Dashwell’s nostrils were filled with the scent of newly minted guineas. Enough Yellow Georges to make even the dour Mr. Hardy happy. Nodding in satisfaction, he whistled low and soft like a seabird to the men in the longboat.
