The Horsemaster's Daughter by Susan Wiggs Page A

said, “I came in person because any other way would fail to do justice to the incredibly generous offer you made me.”

    She pressed her nail-bitten fingers into a steeple. “Then you will take me? I’m going to Rio on your ship?”

    “No.” He said it swiftly to kill the blooming hope on her face. “It is not that you are lacking in any way,” he hastened to add. “The fault is with me, and with my ship and crew. The Swan is a working vessel filled with working men. We could never live up to the standards of such a genteel lady as yourself.”

    She flinched, looking down and to the side. Submissive, defeated. Ryan had the feeling he had drowned a kitten, and the feeling made him angry.

    “I should think you’d let me be the judge of that,” she ventured timidly.

    He gestured across the yard toward the house. “Nothing on the Silver Swan can compare to this. You cannot trade paradise for months in cramped quarters in the company of seamen.”

    “I can, if only you will let me.”

    What an irritating, intractable thing she was. Ryan paced the deck of the gazebo. “Ma’am, you seem to think your service as a translator is all that is required of you on this voyage. Rivera, our former translator, was also an able navigator.”

    “Celestial or instrumental?” she asked.

    “Both,” he fired back.

    “Fine. I am versed in both. I’ve studied the Bowditch and have taken courses in spherical trigonometry.” Her timidity fell away as she spoke.

    A low whistle came from Journey, who stood in the yard near the gazebo.

    “I don’t use Bowditch,” Ryan said, struggling to hide his surprise.

    “There’s no need. The position can be figured without it,” she agreed.

    In truth, the trigonometric formulas were all black magic to Ryan, but he wasn’t about to admit it to this smug female. “So you understand a thing or two about navigation. That does not qualify you for this venture.”

    “I daresay I know more than a thing or two.”

    She lifted her chin in defiance. Defiance. Ryan imagined her on his ship, defying his orders.

    “What’s the proper position for the royal yard?”

    “Thirty-six degrees to the larboard beam…until you reach the equator. Then it changes to starboard.”

    He turned his back to hide his amazement, looking out at the lawn as he asked, “Then tell me how to haul out into the stream.”

    “You reef the studding sail gear.”

    He refused to look at Journey, knowing he’d find him grinning from ear to ear. “And what about the chafing gear?”

    “That’s simple,” she retorted. “You put it on and leave it there.”

    “I concede, Miss Peabody, that you have startled and impressed me with your knowledge. But understanding the finer points of seamanship requires more than—”

    “Good God, Calhoun, it really is you,” called a voice from the verandah.

    Miss Peabody made an uncomfortable little whimper in her throat. Ryan shaded his eyes as a party of white-clad young people came hurrying toward him.

    He recognized the men from his Harvard days: Quentin Peabody, famous for his tennis serve and infamous for his phenomenal stomach, which held vast quantities of liquor. His brother Bronson, so attractive he was almost pretty, was deeply studious and well-liked. Foster Candy, a braying ass of a fellow—or a veritable hog when it came to wallowing in the gossip pit—and Robert Hallowell whose only memorable quality was his family’s wealth. And finally Chad Easterbrook, Abel’s son and heir. He was graced with a godlike handsomeness and a frighteningly vacant mind.

    They arrived in a tumble of laughter and introductions, and Ryan made the acquaintance of the ladies—Lydia Haven and Isadora’s sister, Arabella, who resembled a fashion doll in a dressmaker’s shop.

    “What a pleasure to see you, Calhoun,” Quentin declared in the lazy, academic drawl of the longtime university man. “You made quite the stir when you lit out from Harvard, old