From Publishers Weekly
Powered by an unorthodox heroine and colorful writing, this Victorian romance gets off to a rousing start. Englishwoman Payton Dixon has grown up aboard her family's ships, and although she's small enough to pass as a cabin boy, she aspires to become a sea captain. Her dream is hindered by her rough brothers, who consider her goal laughable, and the fact that she's fallen in love with one of her family's captains, Connor Drake. Worse yet, Connor is about to marry someone else. Payton's startling hijinks to break the engagement, and Connor's attraction to her, prove a winsome combination. When Connor is kidnapped by a vengeful pirate and Payton sneaks on board disguised as a cabin boy, Cabot's (Portrait of My Heart) plot twist, although far-fetched, offers interesting possibilities. However, Payton's somewhat childish antics eventually wear thin, and after all the adventure, the happy ending seems anticlimactic.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Ms. Cabot stirs our minds and hearts."--Bell, Book and Candle
"Witty dialogue abounds from the first page, but what sets this romance apart are the hero's charm and keen sense of humor, which immediately endear him to readers...A jewel of a romance."--Publishers Weekly on Portrait of My Heart
"I'd read a cereal box if it was written by Patricia Cabot!"--Julia Quinn, author of How to Marry a Marquis
"Witty dialogue abounds from the first page, but what sets this romance apart are the hero's charm and keen sense of humor, which immediately endear him to readers...A jewel of a romance."--Publishers Weekly on Portrait of My Heart
"I'd read a cereal box if it was written by Patricia Cabot!"--Julia Quinn, author of How to Marry a Marquis
Book Description
A stormy heart
Adventurous, outspoken, Payton Dixon has two passionate dreams...a clipper ship of her own and the love of Captain Connor Drake. But both seem impossibly out of reach, since her beloved captain is about to marry another, and worse, he's been given her ship as a wedding present from her traitorous father.
A thwarted love
Out to prove she has right on her side, Payton manages to unleash a scandal and ignite all sorts of trouble. As for Drake, he can't decide whether to throttle the girl he's grown up with, or make love to the beautiful woman she has become.
An Improper Proposal
Adventurous, outspoken, Payton Dixon has two passionate dreams...a clipper ship of her own and the love of Captain Connor Drake. But both seem impossibly out of reach, since her beloved captain is about to marry another, and worse, he's been given her ship as a wedding present from her traitorous father.
A thwarted love
Out to prove she has right on her side, Payton manages to unleash a scandal and ignite all sorts of trouble. As for Drake, he can't decide whether to throttle the girl he's grown up with, or make love to the beautiful woman she has become.
An Improper Proposal
About the Author
Patricia Cabot is a writer, administrator and freelance artist. She lives in New York with her husband and one-eyed cat, Henrietta. This is her third novel.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
An Improper Proposal
Chapter one
SHROPSHIRE, ENGLAND JUNE 1830
"Dammit, Payton," Ross Dixon exploded. "I can't tie the wretched thing. You do it."
Payton, at too crucial a stage with her second-eldest brother's cravat even to risk a glance at her eldest, snapped, "Wait your turn."
"Bleeding turn." Hudson, holding his chin up, had to look down the slopes of his high cheekbones to see his little sister as she worked on his necktie, and then he only saw the top of her head. "Wait your bleeding turn."
"Wait your bleeding turn," Payton said, correcting herself.
The ends of his cravat hanging limply round his neck, Ross turned away from the mirror, outraged. "Damn your eyes, Hud! Stop encouragin' her to swear. You want her to tell the first bloke who asks her to dance tonight to wait his bleeding turn?"
"No one's goin' to ask Payton to dance," Raleigh informed them, from the window seat. His cravat already tied, he'd been banished to the far side of the room by his sister with a dire warning not to stir and unloose it again. He sat in a flood of western sunlight, watching a line of carriages pull up to the front of the house. "She's far too ugly."
"Shut your bleeding mouth, Raleigh," Payton advised him.
Ross ground his teeth. "Payton," he growled. "Stop swearing.You aren't home, and you aren't shipboard. Remember our agreement? You can behave like a hoyden all you want while we're at home or at sea, but in other people's houses you'll conduct yourself like a--"
"You know," Hudson interrupted. "Payton's not that ugly, Raleigh. It's just her damned hair." Since he had an eagle's eye view of it, Hudson felt qualified to criticize. "When you were shavin' all our heads this past summer, Ross, why didn't you shave Payton's, too? It might have helped if she'd just got rid of the whole thing, and started over."
"Why did you," Ross countered, irritably, "hire a cook inflicted with lice? If you hadn't hired him on, none of us would have needed to shave our heads, and Georgiana wouldn't be forever needling me to purchase Payton a switch."
"A switch?" Payton wrinkled her freckled nose. "What would I want with a switch? Wear some other woman's hair on top of mine?" She shuddered. "No, thank you. I'm perfectly happy waiting until my own grows out again."
Hudson snorted. "You love havin' your hair cropped short. Admit it. You're a lazy puss, and never liked combin' out those damned Indian braids you used to wear."
Payton turned bright gray eyes up toward him. "Careful," she warned, tightening the cravat teasingly. "I may not have my Indian braids anymore, but I can still sever a throat with ease."
"Bloodthirsty wench, aren't you?" Hudson tugged on one of the short russet-brown curls that Payton had tried--unsuccessfully, she feared--to tuck into a pair of tortoiseshell combs. "You're going to have to learn to curb your tendency toward violence, my girl, or you'll never get yourself a husband."
Payton made a moue of distaste. "I fail to see what I need a husband for, when I already have you three telling me what to do."
"Because eventually," Ross said, "Hud and Raleigh are going to follow my example and take wives, leaving you all alone."
"What do you mean, alone?" Payton glared at him over a bare shoulder. "There's always Papa."
"Georgiana and I are taking care of Papa," Ross informed her. "And neither of us cares to be saddled with my spinster sister, in addition."
"If you would stop being such an ass and give me a ship of my own to command," Payton said coolly, "you wouldn't have to worry about being saddled with a spinster sister, let alone finding me a husband."
Ross looked horrified. "Over my dead body," he declared, "are you ever going to command a Dixon ship."
"And why not? I'm twice the navigator Raleigh is, and he's had his own ship for eight years now." She narrowed her eyes as she glanced in Raleigh's direction. "For all he spent most of those years hopelessly lost."
Looking up once again from the window, Raleigh informed her kindly, "I wasn't lost, my dear. I was exploring previously uncharted territory. There's a difference."
"You were lost, Raleigh. Your cargo rotted while you were floundering about, trying to find your way around the Cape of Good Hope. Only you weren't at the Cape of Good Hope, were you?"
Raleigh waved a hand at her. "Cape Horn, Cape Hope. Those capes all look the same. Is it any wonder I mistook one for the other?"
Payton turned to glare at her eldest brother, who was fussing with his shirt collar in the mirror above the dressing table. "See? You give him a command, but not me? At least I can tell the continents apart."
"The company," Ross explained to his reflection, as patiently as if he were speaking to a child, "is called Dixon and Sons Shipping, Payton." At her sharp inhalation, Ross held up a hand, and said, "And kindly don't start arguing again that we should change the name to Dixon and Sons and Daughter. I haven't the slightest intention of becoming the laughingstock of the shipping industry by introducing lady ship captains."
"What's wrong with lady ship captains?" Payton demandedtartly. "I've commanded your crews often enough, and quite ably, thank you very much, when you three were too drunk to hold the wheel. I don't see why I have to be married off like some kind of half-wit when I have at least as much experience as any of you--"
"I say." Hudson cleared his throat. "Are you going to tie my cravat, Pay, or fight with Ross?" When her hot-eyed glare landed on him, he took a quick step backward. "Never mind. Continue fighting with Ross, by all means."
"Don't worry, Pay," Raleigh drawled from the window seat. "Ross'll have no choice but to make you a lady ship captain in the end. No bloke's ever goin' to ask you to marry him. You're far too ugly."
"She ain't ugly!" Ross exploded, finally turning away from the mirror. "Well, at least, not anymore. Not after I paid damn near a hundred quid for that bleeding dress she's got on."
"Don't forget," Hudson reminded him, "the matching slippers. And the hat and cloak."
"Another hundred pounds." Ross lifted a snifter of brandy he'd placed on top of the dresser, and drained it in a single quick gulp. "And for what, I'd like to know? It's not like there's enough material in that dress to even cover 'er decently."
Payton glanced down at her décolletage. It was a bit daring. She didn't have a lot to show, but what was there was on rather prominent display. When she looked up again, she saw that Hudson had followed her gaze.
"Yes, Pay," he said. "I'd noticed you'd gotten a bosom. When did that happen?"
"I don't know." Payton shook her head bewilderedly. "Last summer, I think. Somewhere between New Providence and the Keys."
"I didn't notice you having any breasts when we were in Nassau," Ross declared. The eldest child, it always irked him whenever Payton, the youngest, did anything without asking--such as grow, for instance.
"That's because she wore nothing all summer but that vestand those dreadful striped trousers." Raleigh, the fop of the family, heaved a delicate shudder. "Remember? Georgiana practically had to peel her out of 'em when we got back to London."
"I wore the trousers," Payton pointed out severely, "because I didn't need everyone looking up my skirts every time I climbed the mizzenpost--"
"Wishful thinking," Hudson observed.
Ignoring him, Payton continued. "And I wore the vest because I hadn't anything to support what was going on beneath my shirt. No thanks to any of you."
"Underthings." Ross nodded. "I forgot. Another hundred quid. And for what, I ask you?"
The door to the bedroom opened, and Georgiana Dixon said matter-of-factly, "To get her married, of course." Then, taking in the sight of her husband's loose collar with a sigh, she added, "I don't suppose it would have occurred to any of you that most men employ valets to tie their cravats, not their little sisters."
It was Hudson's turn to shudder. "I don't want some bloke touching me, let alone my clothes."
"Really, Georgiana." Ross, Payton had noticed, was not quite as patient with his new wife as he'd been but a few months earlier. After all, then he'd only been courting her. Now that they were safely married, and she couldn't very well escape, he made it quite clear that the newfangled ideas she'd brought with her from London were no longer going to be tolerated. "There's something ... well, unnatural about a man helping another man to dress. That's women's work."
Georgiana nodded. She'd grown, Payton observed, quite used to the backward logic frequently employed by the family into which she'd married.
"I see," she said. "And so poor Payton's got to dress all of you before you'll let her see to herself." Tut-tutting, she went to Payton's side, and began to remove her hair combs. "You three ought to be ashamed of yourselves," Georgiana chastised. "For heaven's sake, learn to tie your own cravats. I'venoticed Captain Drake can do it. There's no reason any of you can't. You're not feeble."
"Oh, well, Captain Drake," Hudson said, rolling his eyes.
"Captain Drake can do anything," mimicked Raleigh in a high-pitched voice, and although it was not clear who precisely he was mimicking, Payton shot him a warning look. She had a sneaking suspicion he was imitating her, in which case, she'd have to give him a taste of her fist, first chance she got.
"I met the captain just now in the hallway." Using the hair combs, Georgiana began working the tangles from Payton's ...
