His voice was a pleasant baritone, yet not overly deep. It was the crisp way he pronounced some words and yet seemed to linger over others that drew her. It wasn’t just that his tone differed from that of American men. A host of English men materialized each season in San Francisco, many on the lookout for wealthy wives. Blackhawk’s voice was similar to theirs and yet it wasn’t. Perhaps the difference was that his words were more a caress than a sound.
What a fanciful thought!
“Would you care to tour the deck with me, Miss Abbot?” he asked.
Fanciful or not, his voice was blatantly sensual. She felt it to the tips of her toes.
Wyn shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I already have an engagement.”
“Later, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
When she made no immediate move to leave, he closed the scant space between them even more until the hem of her skirt brushed the toes of his boots. He took her gloved hand and raised it in his. Wyn was barely conscious of her surroundings when at long last his lips brushed audaciously over her fingertips.
The breeze was fresher now that they were at sea, but the passion in Blackhawk’s eyes held the chill at bay, and warmed her. His hair was as dark as his name implied and lay in tumbled splendor over his brow. She recognized the work of a master tailor in the cut and fit of his dark suit, and of an artist in the design of his boots. Deegan had dressed as dapperly, though. Clothes were part and parcel of a fortune hunter’s trade.
“What are you thinking, Miss Abbot?” Blackhawk asked, recalling Wyn to the present.
She gave him a considering look. “I was wondering, Mr. Blackhawk, if you play whist.”
Hildy was busily sorting through her belongings when Wyn returned to the suite of staterooms they shared. With her new status as a Shire Line stockholder had come the privilege of boarding the ocean liner the evening before. Wyn had thought she and her friend already settled, their trunks unpacked, their gowns hung neatly in the clothes-press, the few personal belongings they’d brought scattered around the trio of linked cabins.
“Have a nice stroll?” Hildy asked, without turning her head. A number of her new gowns were tossed negligently aside, covering divan, chairs and ottomans in the parlor. She held a gown decorated with silver tissue before her and considered her reflection in a cheval mirror.
Wyn closed the hatch, carefully securing it behind her. “There was a lovely breeze off the port side,” she said. “Since the captain was occupied with putting to sea, I managed to enjoy myself without his running commentary.” Of course, she admitted silently to herself, the encounter with Mr. Blackhawk had greatly enhanced the minutes she’d spent on deck.
“That’s the burden you must bear for being the lady of his choice this voyage, dearest,” Hildy reminded. “You yourself told me there is always a belle on the voyage. If I didn’t have other plans, being fawned on by a man in uniform would appeal strongly to me.”
Wyn walked through the archway that led to her sleeping quarters, unpinning her. hat as she went. Two long strands of hair dangled over her shoulders. She touched one briefly recalling how Garrett Blackhawk had rescued it from the wind, imprisoning the contrary lock between his long, elegantly tapered, masculine fingers. Rather than refix the knot at the crown of her head, Wyn pulled the rest of her hairpins free and let the curls spill loosely down her back. “Plans? What sort of plans?” she called out to Hildy.
Her friend appeared in the hatchway, an elaborate gown over each arm. “In which of these do I look the most attractive?” she demanded. “The silver or the deep lavender?”
Hair brush in hand, Wyn glanced back over her shoulder. “Don’t tell me you have a new prospect in mind already?” In Hildy’s vocabulary, a prospect meant an available, marriageable man.
“I cornered the purser while you were communing with nature,” Hildy said. “I gushed compliments about the ship until he regaled me with a list of viable names.”
Wyn sank onto the stool before her dressing table and worked at the tangles in her hair, half envying her friend’s single-mindedness. Perhaps she should adopt it. If her requirements in a husband were only half as mercenary as Hildy’s she would soon have a home of her own, then children about her skirts.
And a lifetime of winter in her heart.
It was better to remain alone.
“By all means, make it the lavender then,” Wyn advised. “It nearly gave the meat packing magnate in Chicago apoplexy when you wore it to dinner at the hotel.”
Hildy held the dress against her curvaceous form and peered past Wyn to her reflection in the ornately framed mirror that hung over the dressing table. “Quite a staid little man, wasn’t he?” she mused. “Hopefully I’ll have better luck this time. The steward tells me we have a member of the British aristocracy aboard and he will be eating at the captain’s table with us tonight.”
“A duke perhaps?” Wyn suggested.
“A baron. Not a very exalted rank, but I understand he’s wealthy.”
“Perhaps he knows your brother-in-law. You could ask him as a conversational opening.”
Hildy exchanged the lavender for the silver gown and considered her image in the glass a second time. “And totally destroy the good baron’s interest? The Loftus family connection is the last thing I should mention. You’re right about the lavender. Lord, I hate being in mourning, even half mourning. Are you wearing the terre-verte?”
“Not if I’m going to stand near you,” Wyn said brushing through another wind-born tangle. “Besides, I have no need to dazzle anyone. As the only Shire Line family member aboard, I’ll have the captain’s undivided attention even if I dress in sack cloth.”
“Well, you are the Belle,” Hildy said. “Oh, but I did learn a bit of distressing news.”
Thinking the ship had developed a problem, Wyn put her brush aside and turned to face her friend. “Don’t tell me one of the grand saloon chandeliers is loose.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hildy scoffed. “The ship is perfect. It’s the quality of the passengers that is at fault.”
The rakish dark face of Garrett Blackhawk flashed in Wyn’s mind. He was probably only one of many fortune hunters aboard. Hildy surveyed her reflection a last time, considering how to make her conquest. Yes, Wyn reflected, there were a good number of mercenary passengers aboard, and they were not all male.
Hildy tossed her gowns over the end of Wyn’s bunk and perched on the lid of her largest trunk. “If I’d discovered he was aboard before we sailed you could probably have had him tossed off,” she said and assumed a thoughtful expression. “Do they still keelhaul people?”
This was serious indeed. “Not aboard a Shire ship,” Wyn answered, “and never to a paying customer.”
Hildy sighed. “Well, perhaps Deegan didn’t pay for his pas—
Blood rushed to Wyn’s face. “Deegan? Deegan Gallo-way?” she demanded in a tight voice.
“I don’t believe he noticed me,” Hildy admitted. “He was engaged in conversation with a very pretty girl and a mountainous woman whom I took to be her mother.”
Not only was he aboard, he was dallying with another heiress! Wyn surged to her feet, fuming and confused at the tumult of emotions his name raised in her breast. Had Pierce arranged this? She recalled clearly that he’d placed a wager on Deegan’s success in winning her. Pierce’s disreputable conduct in the past lead her to believe in the likelihood of the scheme. He’d probably sought Deegan out before leaving San Francisco months ago and arranged everything.
Well,