Chapter One

His men were not going to like this.

Rupert strode over the deck of The Sapphire Princess, clutching the letter Arthur Carmichael had given him.

“Listen!” Rupert’s voice boomed over the crashing of azure waves against the hull. “I have an announcement.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

Some pirates clambered down the rigging, and others stepped over the rope strewn deck to reach him. Gold gleamed from some of their fingers. Their last haul had been bloody magnificent.

“Reckon ‘e’s found us another ship to attack.” Fergus brushed his fingers through his red beard, the length wilder and more unrestrained than anything the Royal Navy would allow. “Practice your figures, men. We’ll be counting jewels soon.”

The other pirates cheered at the sailor’s musings, and their eyes sparkled as their lips spread into toothy grins. They rubbed their hands and even ceased their incessant tobacco chewing.

“What be it, Cap’n? Spanish? Portuguese?” Fergus asked. “Don’t suppose it’s…French?”

“Nah.” A pirate shook his head, and his gold earrings shimmered in the sunlight. “Can’t be that. We’ve chased them all away!”

Laughter rumbled and drowned the thunder of waves and wind.

“We are going to England,” Rupert announced.

“You be asking us to attack our home country?” One pirate hollered, and his bottom lip managed to drop to a level it didn’t even reach when gobbling meat pie. “His Majesty’s own territories?”

The other pirates quieted, and the waves seemed to once again roar. Salty spray toppled onto the deck, as if Neptune himself were contemplating sinking The Sapphire Princess at the sound of such heresy.

“Ain’t all our country.” Fergus glared at the patriotic pirate. “Some of us be hating that land. Stealing good Cornish stock.”

A few others murmured. Fergus wasn’t the only man to have been impressed into the Royal Navy.

Fergus placed a roughened hand over his chest. “Don’t ye worry, Cap’n. I’ll be helping you attack England. Jes you see. Reckon the pistols work the same on the English as they do on those frogs.”

“While I appreciate your loyalty, that won’t be necessary,” Rupert said. “I have something else in mind. We will no longer attack anybody.”

“Never?” Confusion riddled the faces of his men. “But how will we survive? We gotta eat, Cap’n.”

“We will become tradesmen. Merchants.”

The men frowned. Some tilted their heads, as if a new angle for their ears might change the words ushered from Rupert’s lips.

“We will become…” Rupert sighed, and even his chest tightened at the words he would need to say next. “Decent people.”

Horror scudded over his crew’s faces.

“My word.” Fergus strode toward him. “Perhaps ‘e’s ‘ad too much sun. Bound to ‘appen ‘ere in the West Indies. Jes never thought it would ‘appen to the Cap’n. Now bless your ‘eart, Cap’n. You sure you don’t wanna lie down?”

“I do not take orders from the weather,” Rupert growled. “If any one of you desire to remain pirates, I will understand. I’m certain when we stop in Port Royale that you’ll find another captain to work for given all of your impeccable qualifications for causing havoc on the oceans.”

“Ain’t nobody that ain’t affeared of The Sapphire Princess. ‘Specially you, Cap’n Brown Beard,” Fergus said, and the rest of his crew shouted assent. “Yer the scariest captain of them all.”

Pride swept through Rupert, but he limited himself to a solemn nod. “You shouldn’t call me that anymore. I doubt other tradesmen will desire to part with their goods to a man with that appellation.”

“But what shall we call you?”

He hesitated. There was his birth name of course, but he hadn’t gone completely mad, despite what the others might think of him. He sighed. “You may call me, Captain Rosse.”

He thrummed his hand through his beard. It had taken years for him to grow it to its current bushy and intimidating length. “I’ll be shaving this anyway. You’ll all need to get cleaned up too.”

“I suppose I’m jes a regular sailor now,” Fergus lamented. “Ah, it’s an end of an era.”

Rupert glanced again at the sophisticated script that formed the letter’s signature. “It’s the beginning of a better one. Men, set the sails for Brighton!”

Chapter Two

Brighton

July 1817

Louisa’s mother may have suggested they visit the English Channel, but Louisa was certain her mother had not intended her to venture into it.

At least, not without a sturdy horse to haul her bathing machine into a sufficiently deep portion of the water, and certainly not without two trained guides to thrust her from the machine. Sisters of dukes were not supposed to be visible to the telescope-wielding gentlemen who strolled the shore for glimpses of young ladies in flannel bathing costumes.

She would forego any chaperone, even the imposing four-legged variety.

Raindrops continued to topple downward, and pebbles glistened on the shore, abetted by the constant drizzle. Gray waves lapped against the shore and mirrored the gray sky. It might be afternoon, but the sun seemed to have vanished long ago. She’d spent her whole season looking forward to when she’d next be by the ocean, but British weather hadn’t failed to accompany her. Still. The familiar scent of the sea was unmistakable, and her lips ascended upward.

Chalky cliffs adorned with sheep curved around the town, and ships squatted on the horizon. The town lacked a proper harbor, though that did not dissuade ships from anchoring. Loutish sailors sat in cutters and sloshed their oars through the foamy waves in rhythm.

Beside her, chaises and barouches rumbled past ivory townhouses so new the salt spray scarcely sullied their elegant exteriors, and tourists thronged below the domes of the Marine Palace. They fixed their gazes on the structure, as if hopeful the regent would declare a passion for rainy weather and abandon his sumptuous sanctuary to join them outside.

“You shouldn’t be doing this, miss.” Raindrops dappled Becky’s cap, the coarse cotton and single lace ribbon an ineffectual barrier against the drizzle. “And you mustn’t forget that your mother desires to speak with you.”

Louisa swallowed the self-reproach that surged through her. “I must. It’s my last chance.”

Their feet crunched over the shingle screen that protected Brighton’s shore, and Louisa refrained from informing Becky that she had another errand after this.

“Be careful,” Becky said.

“I’m simply going swimming,” Louisa said, though they both knew nothing about her activity could be characterized as normal.

The wind swept against Louisa with more than its customary vigor, and seaweed lay scattered over the ocean, creating a soggy border that only a few valiant seagulls ventured to dip into.

And me.

On another day the thought might make her smile, but today she only clutched her diving helmet more tightly.

This is the last time.

She placed her diving helmet over her head and fastened it to the collar that accompanied it. She’d designed the helmet herself, selecting the copper material that would withstand water.

She handed the long leather hoses attached to the helmet to her maid. One hose supplied air to the back of the helmet, and used air exited from a similar pipe in the front.

Becky’s expression did not echo the joy that cascaded through Louisa. “You resemble some sort of soldier, miss. You’re fortunate somebody hasn’t shot you.”

“I would never permit that to happen,” Louisa said, though the words came out muffled. The waves rippled temptingly before her, and the salty scent filled her nostrils.

She inhaled and stepped into the gray waves. She strove to memorize the sound of her feet crunching against pebbles and the crisp temperature that energized her body. Murky shadows of jellyfish flitted about, content to indulge in the water constantly, and not spurred by a pressing inclination to escape their relatives.

She strode deeper into the ocean, her strides made more inelegant than normal by her heavy bathing costume. The water rippled into tempting billows, but she raised her head to the horizon.

Steel clouds rolled over the sky, their speed unhampered by the weight of their yet unreleased ammunition. Below them the dark outlines of ships heading to larger ports flitted through the billowing waves, the crests larger and more turbulent than that expected for a seaside town at the height of summer.

Raindrops fell with greater speed, and few bathers ventured into the water. Only a smattering of defiant tourists, perhaps determined to attain all of Brighton’s offerings after their likely uncomfortable coach ride through the copiously clay laden lanes of the Weald, hovered beside their bathing machines.

Some sailors rowed passengers to the large ships anchored outside the city. Brighton might not have a proper harbor, but it was still a town of ever-growing importance. Most were likely headed to the ship bound for Dieppe, but Louisa allowed her gaze to rest on a larger ship. The Sapphire Princess.

Nothing about the schooner indicated it was bound for the West Indies, but Louisa still inhaled, as if she might smell the scent of pineapples and tropical flowers.

She flickered her eyelids down, and her mind envisioned turquoise water and cerulean skies. Warm, salty waves might crest about her, and she almost felt the flutter of palm trees and glimpsed their unchanging, consistent colors and their wide leaves that feathered delicate shadows over the sand.

Were the fish in the Caribbean truly as different as everyone said? Were they simply more colorful versions of the trout and haddock with which she was familiar? Or did they possess structural variations unique to those islands? And if that was the case, as she suspected, how could that happen?

Some Renaissance scientists had interested themselves in such matters, but the information was outdated. Louisa desired data, and her diving helmet would make the gathering of such information verge on the effortless.

Tomorrow Mr. Thornton, a man who met all the requirements of athleticism demanded for a diver coupled with scholarly ability, would change the ichthyological field, and she would be able to say she performed a small function in aiding him. She couldn’t wait to meet him.

Louisa sank into the frigid water before any of the other bathers might exclaim at the oddity of her contraption. She welcomed her descent, shivering only slightly, intent on enjoying her last minutes with the diving helmet. Water remained her preferred place to be, but ever since her mother had read a certain unflattering article, it was the only place of any tolerance.

Especially now.

Her eyes no longer hurt when she peered under the surface, her chest no longer ached as it fought for air despite her desire to prolong her time underwater, and her hair no longer obscured her view when she swam: her diving helmet rendered such problems obsolete.

Some fish stilled, as if sensing her presence, but she wasn’t going to harm them.

This was Louisa’s world, one where no one chided her for being too shy or awkward.

She swam through seaweed, and brown shrimp skirted away from her. Mussels, clams, and cockles dotted the ocean floor, their pearly shells gleaming from the dark sand. Large yellow starfish gripped hold of rocks, as if conscious of the comfort of their position and to hinder a frightful fate of being swept up to the surface. Crabs stepped daintily over the mussels, undeterred by their high leg count, and Louisa smiled.

If only this were not the last time.

She’d spent so long fabricating her diving helmet, and it would take her months to reconstruct it. The copper exterior, inspired from those worn by men fighting fires, had needed to be specially commissioned. She’d found men suspicious of doing business with women, and she would need to wait for one of her brothers to return for her request to be given sufficient respect. Even a small flaw in the diving helmet could be perilous.

Percival was in Sussex with his new bride and baby, and Arthur was in Jamaica again on some undisclosed business.

She sighed. At least Mr. Thornton would be able to make good use of the helmet in the Caribbean. There were likely all sorts of fish to document there. Tonight she would meet him, and all her hopes for her research would come true.

“Miss Carmichael! Miss Carmichael!” A high-pitched voice interrupted her contemplation.

A bluestocking flees an arranged marriage by donning some breeches and boarding a ship bound for the Caribbean.

Ever since Louisa Carmichael's brother unexpectedly inherited a dukedom, her mother's expectations for her have veered in a distinctly vertical direction. Louisa dreams not of glittering ballgowns, but of exploring the tropical waters of the Caribbean with her latest invention, an underwater breathing apparatus.

Lord Rupert Haywood, future Duke of Belmonte, has no desire to manage an estate with his corrupt father. He prefers to roam the ocean with his crew of rugged pirates.

When her mother arranges a marriage for her, Louisa decides she might just don a pair of breeches and discover the Caribbean in disguise. The only problem is a certain very handsome captain...

USA TODAY Bestselling Author Bianca Blythe has written over twenty fun and frothy Regency-set historical romances, filled with wallflowers, spinsters, dukes, and rogues. On occasion, she also writes historical mysteries under the name Camilla Blythe.

Born in Texas, Bianca earned her bachelor's degree from Wellesley College and completed a graduate degree in her beloved Boston. She spent four years in England, working in a fifteenth-century castle. Sadly she never spotted dukes and earls strutting about in Hessians.

Bianca credits British weather for forcing her into a library, where she discovered her first Julia Quinn novel. She remains deeply grateful for blustery downpours. 

After meeting her husband in another library, she moved with him to sunny California. On occasion she still dreams of the English seaside, scones with clotted cream, and sheep-filled pastures. For now, she visits them in her books.