EXTRACT FOR
The Pirate's Slave
(Fiaine Cluiun)

The wind caught and pulled on her hair as Lady Susanna Warlick climbed the wooden stairs onto the deck, her skirts rustling with each step. She dared a glance at the men working on the ship and allowed her growing sense of contentment to seep into her muscles, relaxing them. Despite her doubts when the journey had first been suggested, she couldn't deny that the trip had proved to be a good idea.

Here, away from the city and those who knew her, she didn't have to think about running into the man she should have married, had the coward not eloped with a most unsuitable woman. Honorable marriage, that had been the plan for both of them. That he had a mistress hadn't been a problem, in fact the more he kept himself from her bed, the more attractive the arranged marriage had become.

She pushed the unwanted memory away as she strolled toward the railing, her gaze drawn by the rippling blue and green waves, some tipped with white. No smoke or smog filling the air, no unwanted stinking piles in the street to avoid. Out here she didn't have to concern herself with anything but enjoying herself before she reached the islands. Once there her new life would begin.

Balls, welcoming parties, men, and women of her own age who hadn't been there when the news had spread. 

Lights had sparkled from the chandelier as couples had danced across the honey glow wooden floor. Music floated through the air mingling with low conversation and the occasional peel of laughter. Everything the ball should have been, with dozens of her friends all waiting for Edward to arrive.

Her intended.

"Oh, do show me the ring again," said Lucinda as she leaned in, her small fan fluttering wildly. 

"I couldn't, it's not proper." A small, expected lie. There was a game played among her set that every woman had to follow when it came to the engagement ring. "I've already-"

"Yes, yes, we know, now let us take a proper look. You can't imagine that a brief glimpse under your mother's watchful gaze is enough. I barely caught a glimpse." Georgette laid a gloved hand on Hannah's arm. "She'll be back soon, once she's caught up with the others. Please don't make us wait any longer."

The correct thing would have been to form a small protest again, then display the ring, carefully worked over the long, formal elbow length gloves, but with her mother there was no telling how long they would have before she returned, no doubt with several other older women in tow. 

"Alright, but please, if she returns then I have to cover it again." She uncovered her hand, removing the folded fan she'd demurely used to shield the ring. Though wearing it under the glove would have solved the issue, the stone was simply too large to wear without the risk of damaging the gloves, or it being caught on the material as she'd dressed. Instead, the slender band with its brilliant stone, sat on top of the delicately embroidered satin gloves.

The ruby, surrounded by tiny diamonds, was a grand gesture, far more than she'd expected from Edward, but extravagance was a part of what her mother called a 'generous nature' that might need to be curtailed by a dutiful wife. For a woman who admitted it was a man's world, her mother had managed to encourage her father into better habits if even half of the gossip was to be believed. 

"I've never seen anything like it before." Amelia grasped her wrist and turned it, letting the ruby catch the light. "It's unusual, for an engagement ring I mean. Not the stone but the design. All those little diamonds around it. I thought rubies had fallen out of fashion last year." She sniffed the released her grip. 

"My mother says that a quality piece of jewelry can never truly go out of fashion, and only a fool would believe this to be anything but true quality." Nicolette gushed and reached out to lightly touch the back of Hannah's glove. "I'm so sorry about the rumors about him, but perhaps this marriage is exactly what he needs." 

Hannah's brow furrowed. "Rumors? Why, I don't know what you're talking about." She pulled her hand back and covered the ring once more. 

"Oh, my dear, of course you haven't heard." Amelia leaned in, her eyes sparkling with delight. "He has a mistress."

Hannah feigned a smile. "Of course he does. What single man doesn't? One can't expect them to remain chaste, they must be allowed to engage in dalliances before tying the knot." And after if Edward had spoken the truth. "I'm certain it will all be dealt with once we're married." Carefully hidden and laughed away when people dared to mention it. 

"Oh, but it's far more delicious than a simple affair with a respectable widow, or a kept woman in some small house. No, this has been going on for years and she's from-"

Her mother appeared, flustered, her fan hanging from her wrist. "Hannah, we're leaving. Now."

Hannah stared at her mother, mouth moving but for whatever reason she couldn't speak.

"Did you hear me girl, we need to leave."

Voices rose and fell around her as Hannah rose, legs trembling beneath her gown. Her gaze flickered from her mother to the small knots of men and women now gathering, their voices mingling, carrying, though she could only catch a word here and there. 

"He's fled, eloped they say."

"A serving girl."

"Below stairs Mistress, in his own household."

"Does she know?"

"If not, she'll be told soon enough."

"Oh, the poor girl. How will she show her face in society again?"

Society be damned. She'd done nothing wrong and yet the doubts, the questions, accusations, had all piled in on her in small, subtle slights in the days after the ball. 

A family connection with the Islands had offered a means of escape, both from the stories, letters, the unwanted visitors who dropped in to check on the 'poor dear'. Hannah was no fool, she'd understood there was no sympathy in the women who'd come to see her. She was fodder for gossip and the visits a means of gaining further information.

Her fingers curled around the railing, fingers now bare of rings, as she closed her eyes and leaned into the wind. The breeze picked up a loose spiral of hair, tugging it back from her face as it teased at the feathers of hair slipping free from her carefully coiffed curls.

Here, without the hateful stares, pointed questions or worse, the fake sympathy for what she'd been through, she could relax. Not even her mother had dared to leave London with her, but she'd been happy enough to see the back of Hannah if the speed at which her mother had agreed to the trip was anything to go by. 

It didn't matter that the journey would take weeks, it would give her time to work through everything Edward had put her through, and plan for her life ahead. A new world, to her at least, and though there was a chance the story of her fianc?'s elopement and entanglement with a most unsuitable woman would arrive on the Islands, by then she would have established herself and no one there would remember the ring she'd worn with such pride.

She'd be free to begin a new, unsullied, life.