The Other Miss Bridgerton

Why a ship captain needed a guide to agrarian masterpieces, she couldn’t imagine, but she did get a few moments of pleasure from the section on Aubrey Hall, the country estate where her father had grown up, and where her cousins still lived.

Poppy had visited Aubrey Hall several times, although not recently. When her family gathered with their aristocratic cousins, they were more likely to do so in London. It made sense, Poppy supposed. Lord and Lady Bridgerton of Kent maintained a magnificent residence in the capital, which meant that Mr. and Mrs. Bridgerton of Somerset did not have to. The current viscount, her father’s older brother, was a generous man, and he would not hear of his siblings and their families staying anywhere else. Fortunately, he had plenty of room. Bridgerton House was a grand, stately manse with a sizable ballroom and over a dozen bedchambers, right in the heart of Mayfair.

It was where Poppy had lived during both of her London Seasons. Her parents had remained in the country; neither was particularly fond of city life. It was probably why they had happily accepted Lady Bridgerton’s offer to supervise Poppy’s presentation and debut. That and the fact that Aunt Alexandra was a viscountess, and thus a powerful sponsor for a young lady looking for marriage.

Although apparently not powerful enough, as Poppy had gone through two Seasons without finding a spouse. That wasn’t Aunt Alexandra’s fault, though. Poppy had received a proposal, and while the gentleman had means and looks, he’d possessed a moralizing side that Poppy feared would strengthen and grow mean with age. Even Aunt Alexandra, who was eager to see her charge well-settled, had agreed with her on this.

Several other gentlemen had also expressed interest, but Poppy had not encouraged them. (Aunt Alexandra had not been nearly so sanguine about this .) But Poppy had held firm. She was going to have to spend the rest of her life in the company of her future husband, whoever he turned out to be. Was it too much to hope for someone who was interesting to talk to? Someone who could make her laugh?

The people she’d met in London seemed to talk only about each other, and while Poppy was not wholly averse to gossip (honestly, it was a liar who said he was) surely there was more to life than discussions of horse races, gambling debt, and whether a certain young lady’s nose was too large.

Poppy had learned not to ask the questions that so frequently popped into her head. It turned out that the young ladies her aunt had selected as suitable companions were not interested in why some animals had whiskers and some didn’t. And when Poppy had wondered aloud if everyone saw the same blue sky, three separate gentlemen had looked at her as if she were having some sort of madness attack, right in front of their eyes.

One had even backed nervously away.

But honestly, Poppy could not imagine why everyone did not think about this. She had never been inside anyone else’s mind. Maybe what she thought was blue was what they thought was orange.

There was no way to prove it wasn’t.

But Poppy didn’t want to live out her life as a spinster. And so she’d resigned herself to another Season in London the following year, provided Aunt Alexandra was willing to sponsor her again.

But all that had changed. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it might change. Who knew what the state of her reputation would be when the Infinity returned to England? There was still the chance that she might slip back into Briar House with no one (except Elizabeth Armitage) the wiser, and Poppy held on to that possibility, but it was a slim hope, indeed.

Perhaps she should count herself lucky that she seemed to have landed among the world’s only band of scrupulous pirates. Or privateers, or traders, or whatever they wished to call themselves. She supposed she was lucky; her situation could have been far worse. She could have been beaten. She could have been violated.

She could be dead.

But she wasn’t going to be grateful. She refused to feel gratitude for the men who had most probably ruined her life forever.

The hardest part—for now, at least—was the uncertainty. This was not a case of Will I enjoy the opera tonight, or will I find it tedious? It was Will my life continue on as normal, or will I forevermore be an outcast to society?

The strangest thing was, she had a feeling she would feel differently if she knew that Elizabeth had managed to keep her disappearance quiet. If she knew that no one would ever point to her and say, “There’s the wicked, fallen girl who ran off with pirates.” (Because they would say that; it was far more delicious than the truth, and in matters of reputation the woman was always to blame.) If Poppy could be certain that she’d regain precisely the same life she had left behind . . .

She might think she was enjoying herself.

Oh, she was still bitter that she was stuck in this cabin and had not had so much as of a breath of fresh air in nearly a week. She really would have liked to have explored the rest of the ship. Poppy doubted she would have the occasion to take such a voyage again, and she’d always been curious about the way things worked. A sailing ship was full of such puzzles: How did the men hoist the sails, for example? Did it take more than one? More than three? How was the food stored, and had anyone done a review to determine if it could be done in a more hygienic manner? How was the work distributed, and who made the schedule?

She’d asked the captain dozens of questions, and to his credit, he’d answered most. She’d learned about hardtack, and why she should be grateful that she didn’t have to eat it. She now knew that the sun rose and fell more quickly near the equator and that a massive ocean wave was called a tsunami, and no, Captain James had never experienced one, but he’d met someone who had, and the description still gave him nightmares.

Poppy loved to ask him about the sailors on the Infinity , and he told her that they hailed from twelve different countries, including two from the Ethiopian Empire. (Which she could now locate easily on a map.) Captain James had tried to describe them to her, explaining that their features were quite different from the men he’d met from the western side of the continent, but Poppy was much more interested in their customs than how they looked.

She wanted to talk with these men who had grown up on a different continent, to ask them about their lives and their families, and how to pronounce their names (because she was fairly certain Captain James wasn’t doing it right). She was never going to have an opportunity like this again. London was a cosmopolitan city, and during her two Seasons in the capital, Poppy had seen many people of different races and cultures. But she had never been allowed to speak to any of them.

Then again, until this week, it had never occurred to her that she might wish to. Which made her feel . . . odd. Odd and uncomfortable.

It wasn’t the nicest of feelings, and it made her wonder what else she’d never noticed. She had always thought herself open-minded and curious, but she was coming to realize how impossibly small her world had been.

But instead of Ethiopia, she got to learn more about Kent. (Engineering Methods of the Ancient Ottomans turned out to be far more about engineering than it was about the Ottomans and was thus not only not exotic, but also completely indecipherable.)

And so Poppy was examining the illustrations of the Aubrey Hall orangery after dinner—for perhaps the dozenth time—when Captain James came in, alerting her as usual with one sharp rap before entering.

“Good evening,” she said, glancing up from the chair she’d dragged over to the windows. The view didn’t change, but it was beautiful, and she’d become devoted to it.

The captain didn’t look as tired as he had the last few nights. He’d said that all of the sailors had got over their putrid stomachs and were back on duty, so maybe that was it. She imagined everyone would have to work harder when three men were out sick.

“Good evening,” he said in polite return. He headed straight for the table, lifted the lid off one of the dishes, and inhaled deeply. “Beef stew. Thank you, Lord.”

Poppy couldn’t help but chuckle. “Your favorite?”

“It’s one of Monsieur LaBaker’s specialties,” the captain confirmed.

“Your cook’s name is LaBaker? Truly?”

Captain James sat down and dug into his meal, taking two very happy bites before saying, “I told you he was from Leeds. I think he just put a La in front of his name and called it French.”