A Gentleman's Daughter: A sweet, clean historical romance (Sisters of the Revolution Book 1) Read online

  A Gentleman's Daughter

  DAUGHTERS OF COLUMBIA BOOKS

  © 2020 Diana Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  SWEET ROMANCE BY DIANA DAVIS

  Historical

  Sisters of the Revolution with Audrey Glenn

  A Gentleman’s Daughter

  A Lady to Lead

  Freedom’s Ring

  Liberty’s Charge

  Integrity’s Choice

  Sisters of the Revolution Extra

  A Colonial Christmas 99¢ holiday short story collection

  Contemporary sweet romance by Diana Davis

  Her Reluctant Rock Star

  COZY MYSTERIES BY DI DAVIS

  Lori’s B&B

  1. Inn Over Her Head

  2. Inn Trouble

  3. Inn Vain

  4. Inn Dire Straits

  5. Inn Danger

  Dusky Cove B&B Cozy Collection (books 2-5)

  Ray’s Gifts

  6. The Gift of Grift

  7. The Gift of Lift

  8. The Gift of Rift

  9. The Gift of Thrift

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  A Gentleman's Daughter

  Cover

  Front Matter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading!

  More from Diana Davis & Sisters of the Revolution

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Cassandra Crofton had never been to a dock before, but as she stepped out of the coach after her sister, she was instantly certain she did not like them. Between the stench and the noise, clearly this was no place for a gentleman’s daughters, no matter how far they were being forced to travel.

  The familiar ache returned to her heart. The time had come. They were leaving England.

  Lowell, their villainous cousin, approached a sailor. “This is the Rimington, correct? Bound for the colonies?”

  “Philadelphia, that’s the one.”

  Cassandra stared up at the vessel, covered in a web of its own rigging. The paint peeling off the sides gave it a haunted appearance. Surely this ship could not safely carry them for the six-week voyage across an ocean — and that time estimate was if conditions were favorable.

  “I’ve purchased passage for these two.” Cousin Lowell pointed at Cassandra and her older sister, Helen.

  “Women?” The sailor squinted at them, as if he couldn’t tell their gender from their appearance.

  “Ladies,” Cassandra corrected him.

  The sailor turned back to Lowell. “Jest these two? Without you?”

  “Yes. They have one another for chaperones.”

  Cassandra pressed her lips together to hold back an impertinent remark. While traveling together saved them a small shred of dignity, this was clearly not the way things were done in their society.

  Lowell didn’t look at them as he paid the sailor and directed him toward their waiting trunks. To be sure, Lowell was glad to be rid of them at last. The letter from Uncle Josiah accepting their charge had arrived less than a fortnight ago, and Lowell had immediately made the arrangements final.

  Two sailors fetched their trunks, hauling them up the gangway.

  Cassandra studied the ship in front of them, her stomach already rolling as if they were onboard. She glanced over at Helen, but she did not find reassurance. Instead, she found resolve in looking at her sister’s riding habit, dyed black like her own.

  Suddenly moving to the American colonies still felt incredibly unwise, but they no longer had an alternative. They had to get across this ocean to the only family that would have them.

  Cassandra looked back to bid Lowell farewell. He was perhaps the one part of England she would never miss. However, he had already boarded the coach and shut the door.

  Very well, then. She and Helen turned to each other, her sister offering an encouraging smile. “It will be an adventure,” Helen said. Her eyes said her words were an effort to convince herself as much as Cassandra.

  “Yes.” Cassandra hoped her voice held more conviction, but she doubted it.

  Little else remained between them and their fate: leaving England, most likely forever.

  By unspoken signal, Cassandra and Helen clasped hands. They’d already said their goodbyes in Surrey. No one else was at the docks to see them off.

  “Ready?” Helen asked.

  Yes. It was time. Time to be brave. Every feeling in her chest seemed to cry out that this was wrong, but Cassandra took a bracing breath and tamped down her emotions. She moved forward, and so did Helen.

  Before Cassandra made it two steps, however, a tall man in an impeccable wig and fine coat of green velvet strolled past them, cutting off their path. Behind him trailed a short, portly servant. The nobleman paused, allowing the servant to trot ahead to the ship’s crew.

  Helen cast a sly look at Cassandra. They had had enough of society for Cassandra to know immediately what her sister meant. While a man that handsome and obviously rich would have had every eligible girl in Surrey vying for a dance, this popinjay was sorely out of place on the docks.

  He had yet to notice — or care — that he had cut them off. Helen rerouted around him and Cassandra followed her. Honestly, Cassandra might never understand how the nobility could be so blessedly ignorant of anyone but themselves at times.

  Cassandra gathered her courage again, and she and Helen approached the gangway. For Cassandra’s part, she was striving to stride forward and not turn back. They were going to make the best of their reduced situation. At least they would if Uncle Josiah proved as generous as he seemed in his letter.

  Taking them in at all was generous. They might have to be grateful he fed them. It was more than Lowell was willing to do now.

  But first, they had to get across this ocean.

  As they reached the base of the gangway, however, the nobleman’s servant held up a hand to stop them. “Pardon me, ladies. One moment.”

  Cassandra and Helen halted abruptly. Would that same nobleman hold them up a second time? Were they supposed to observe precedence in boarding a ship?

  Apparently so. The nobleman finally deigned to approach, staring down his Roman nose at them. His expression could best be described as a simper, but noblemen surely did not simper.

  He did not bother to address them, as if they were so beneath his notice, he had no need of acknowle
dging their existence.

  Had they been at Heartcomb, he would have given their father his respect. He would have wanted to know their names. He would have danced with them, were he lucky enough to find them unengaged.

  Instead, he saw them as less than the sailors hauling his trunks up the gangway for him.

  “Why on earth would such a nobleman travel to the Americas?” Helen murmured. They both glanced at the servant, but he didn’t seem to have heard them. He paid a crew member and marched back to his coach.

  The sailor gestured for them to pass, and Helen and Cassandra nodded their thanks. At least they had been taught how to treat people beneath them. There was no excuse for such ill-breeding.

  On deck, the rocking of the boat, even anchored, was not the only reason Cassandra felt unsettled. The crew seemed to watch them with suspicion. Surely there were other women making this voyage. They could be the only ones making the journey alone, however.

  Or perhaps it was their attire. Their habits and hats had to betray their class. Yes, moving across an ocean was hardly a thing ladies of good breeding did — unless they had been orphaned and impoverished.

  Perhaps the clothing on his back — and the contents of his multitude of trunks, still making their way up the gangway — were the popinjay’s last possessions left in the world. His wig might have been freshly powdered and his valet might have just taken care of his business, but if he were that well off, why would he be making such a journey? They weren’t crossing an ocean willingly, that was certain.

  A throat cleared next to Cassandra and she turned. There stood the nobleman in question, and at a closer range, she saw the fine detailing of the gold braid along his coat. Perhaps he was not quite so reduced in circumstances as she’d imagined.

  The nobleman pointed at her, then flicked his wrist, as if he were too good to use words to command her to move. Cassandra checked behind her. A carrier bearing yet another heavy trunk stood behind her, waiting to pass.

  “Pardon me,” Cassandra said, quickly sweeping out of his path.

  The coxcomb practically snorted. “I should think so.”

  Cassandra glared at him with such heat he should have withered. Helen took her arm, as if cautioning her from unleashing her tongue.

  Instead, Helen did the honors. “Dearest, do you remember what they said at Heartcomb about men in ditto suits?” Although Helen clearly addressed Cassandra, no one could be ignorant that she referred to the popinjay’s matching coat, waistcoat and breeches.

  “Oh, yes. They haven’t the imagination to coordinate any other ensemble.”

  The nobleman laughed, a single syllable entirely through his nose. “How very low.”

  Before Cassandra or Helen could defend themselves, the coxcomb strutted away.

  Both of them turned away in disgust, approaching the ship’s railing. “What a peacock,” Helen muttered.

  “Practically a macaroni.” That was not strictly true; he was fashionable without becoming a caricature.

  “Exactly how one should outfit one’s self for a voyage overseas of at least six weeks.”

  Their own dark grey riding habits, formerly navy and red, were much more hardwearing than such finery. Still, with their own complements of braid and buttons, Cassandra did not think they were so poorly turned out to merit such disdain.

  On the other hand, perhaps she should be grateful for the popinjay’s distraction from her pain. The view from the ship’s railing held only the dock they’d just left. While it was far from Cassandra’s most beloved part of England, in both the geographic and metaphoric senses, she still couldn’t bear to stare at it. She turned away before tears could threaten.

  Her sister seemed to agree. “Let’s find someone to help us to our quarters,” Helen suggested. “Hopefully we shan’t have to deal with him much on the voyage.”

  “Or in the colonies.” With any luck, Philadelphia would not be his final destination.

  Helen located a seaman who did not appear to be overly busy sunning himself, and he obliged them by leading them below deck, the ladies grasping onto railings and walls the whole way.

  If Cassandra had been put off by the exterior of the ship, the interior was even more dispiriting. Although the sun streamed down the stairs after them, the corridor was dark and dank. They were to spend how long in these cramped quarters?

  “Only got free cabins fer passengers,” the seaman informed them, pointing at each in turn. Cassandra took a moment to infer that “free” referred to the number — three — rather than the status or price of the passage. “Can’t say which is yers.”

  “Thank you,” Helen said. “We’ll find out.”

  The seaman gave a mock salute and headed away. Cassandra and Helen each peered into a room. Upon her opening the door, the bright light through the window blinded Cassandra for a moment.

  “I beg your pardon!” The green velvet popinjay scowled at Cassandra from inside the cabin.

  “My apologies.” She hurried to step back. How had the nobleman gotten down here ahead of them?

  The popinjay stalked to the door. “I don’t know how you people behave where you come from,” he sneered, “but while we are aboard this vessel, I shall thank you not to barge into my chambers.”

  Cassandra found herself unusually thunderstruck. The first reflexive defense her mind mustered was to drop into a slight curtsy.

  Precisely the fuel this nobleman would need to seal his judgment of her, to be sure.

  “Dearest.” Helen appeared at her elbow. “I found our quarters.” She scrutinized the coxcomb up and down. “What have you found?”

  At last, Cassandra recovered. “Someone whose rank is far above his breeding, it appears.”

  The nobleman’s eyes flashed. Her comment had found its mark. He gaped at her a moment, then snapped his mouth shut. Whether he thought himself too good to respond or simply couldn’t think of an answer, she couldn’t say.

  Cassandra looped her arm in Helen’s, and they strode off to their own cramped quarters, less than half the size of the nobleman’s.

  Helen launched into her lecture the moment they were alone. “It won’t do to make enemies before we’ve left English soil.”

  Cassandra peered out the round window at the water outside. “But we’ve already left English soil.”

  She looked at her sister, their eyes finally filling with tears.

  Helen recovered first, drawing a breath and swiping at her cheeks. “The colonies will be wonderful,” she said. “I’m sure they’re not as bad as everyone says.”

  “Uncle Josiah wouldn’t have stayed if they were. Unless he couldn’t stand to make the return voyage.” Cassandra pressed a hand to her queasy stomach. Perhaps sitting would help. She scanned the room, bare but for two bunks and two trunks. She wanted to lie in the bunk and not get up ever, especially not in the colonies, but she settled on her trunk.

  Helen’s quiet sobs filled the room again. Cassandra put aside her own pain. She could do this one small thing for her sister. “Uncle Josiah must be very kind, mustn’t he?”

  “He is taking us in.” Helen steadied herself against the window’s round frame and drew a shaking breath.

  “If he’s anything like Mama, he’ll be the kindest man in all of Pennsylvania,” Cassandra tried once more.

  Helen managed a weak smile. “He left a very long time ago.”

  Cassandra knew the story well: not long before she and Helen were born, Mama’s brothers, Josiah and William, set off for the colonies in search of adventure and glory in King George’s War. Instead, Josiah had met a wife — a Quaker woman, if the family rumor were true — and William had met his end.

  Cassandra looked to Helen. She couldn’t be sure whether her sister was quite so pale because of the ship’s gentle bobbing or because she was thinking of Uncle William’s untimely death.

  Surely the colonies couldn’t be that dangerous, could they?

  “We shall be perfectly fine,” Cassandra promised her sister. �
��We only have to get to Uncle Josiah.”

  “Perhaps the voyage won’t be quite so dreadful,” Helen said, making her tottering way to her own trunk. “We’ve already made a new friend.”

  Cassandra laughed at both the joke and from relief that Helen’s spirits were buoyed. But her sister was right. The next six weeks — or more — would only be tolerable if they could stay far away from that popinjay.

  The Lord David Beaufort set the tin plate of hard tack biscuits aside on one of his trunks of books. He had never before made such a terrible mistake, and he didn’t just mean the food.

  He laid back on his hard bunk. He’d sensed it from the moment he’d boarded this dreadful little dinghy, and four weeks at sea had done little to change his mind. At the outset they’d hoped to make the journey in six weeks, but the captain had informed him that two storms and low wind had set them at least ten days behind that schedule.

  As much as he wanted off this ship, part of him was looking forward to his task in Philadelphia even less. He had finally become accustomed to the constant rolling of the waves, after spending far too much time above deck below the weather and losing his second-best wig overboard along with what passed for a meal here. He glanced at the hard tack he couldn’t choke down today. Small wonder half the sailors had but half their teeth if this was their diet.

  Lord David spent as little time in his stifling cabin as he could, but the alternative was milling around in the hold with the ship’s other passengers who were so very common. Their manners and dress and . . . aroma turned his stomach almost as much as the ship’s motion had.

  So above deck it was. He climbed out of his bunk and ascended topside. Passengers were not actually welcome on deck — he could tell he got in the working sailors’ way from time to time — and he hardly wanted to spend more time in the sun, but at least he could find air up here. The breeze was pleasant.

  He strode across the deck. Clearly he would never develop the sea legs of the sailors, but at last he felt more at ease on the boat. The horizon held nothing but the open ocean in every direction, their ship a tiny speck in a vast, literal sea.