Girl. She thought back to the last time Mr. Scott called her this, when with Joseph, and how he hadn’t liked it, how he’d taken her side.

She’d accepted her place in life. As a poor woman, she was the lowest of the low, a nobody. She’d never questioned her station or how others treated her . . . until Joseph.

Was Joseph right? Was Mr. Scott showing a lack of respect for her as a person? She and the poor girls were every bit as much human beings as the wealthy ladies on the ship. Why should he speak with them more kindly and with more dignity than he did to her and the others of her class?

Silence stretched out between them. Though she was tempted to peek at him and gauge his expression, she kept her head down.

“You cannot imagine the shame that would come to the Columbia Mission Society and to the illustrious sponsor of our trip, Miss Angela Georgina Burdett Coutts, if you carry forth with enticing Lord Colville into marriage.”

Enticing? Mercy flinched. Was that what everyone believed she’d done to Joseph—entice him?

“Not only would such a union cause a scandal and disgrace for Lord Colville, it would disgrace the Mission Society, Miss Coutts, and all the other sponsors. They would become the laughingstock of London.”

Mercy hung her head further. She surely didn’t want to cause a scandal for Joseph or humiliate him.

“Oh my, oh my.” Mr. Scott’s voice began to rise again. “And you can guess where the blame for the scandal will fall most heavily, can you not?”

She shook her head.

“It will fall directly upon me.” His tone was laced with genuine anxiety that bordered on panic. “I shall be ruined. Reverend Thomas Nettleship Staley, the newly consecrated Bishop of Honolulu, will suspend my license and perhaps ban me from service altogether. I shall be sent away and will lose all hope of patronage from any of England’s fine and noble families.”

Mercy didn’t understand half of what Mr. Scott was saying. But it was clear enough that Joseph couldn’t marry her, not even if she wanted it—which she didn’t. He’d not only embarrass himself, but it would bring shame to everyone involved in the bride ships.

“What shall I do?” Mr. Scott began to pace the deck outside her door with his short, choppy steps. “What shall I do?”

“You needn’t worry, sir.” She wrapped her arms around her middle to ward off a chill that came from the inside out. “Nothing’s to come betwixt Lord Colville and me.”

Mr. Scott swung his hands back and forth vigorously, picking up his pace, walking five steps before turning and walking five more, then repeating.

Surely the reverend had heard her earlier when she’d told Joseph no, that she wouldn’t marry him.