“Really, Benedicta, you’re giving me a megrim.” She stood a head taller than me, her golden hair pinned into a coiffure of ironed ringlets and ornamented with a plume of feathers. “I spent a fortnight making this gown, and by God’s heart, you will wear it with dignity.”

To hell with God’s heart. I swore in spite of his teeth. But never in the presence of the Lady Abigail.

“I didn’t ask for this.” I motioned at the gown and the ornate furnishings of my bedchamber. “For any of this.”

“I didn’t ask for you. Yet here you are, an ungrateful, quarrelsome hoyden, born with both fists clenched.”

It was always the same when the countess looked at me. She didn’t see her only child, a daughter to love, or a girl with earnest dreams.

She only saw her shame. Her ruination. The reason she was exiled.

Shifting toward the window, I sought a brighter view outside the glass panes. The dawn-lit sea stretched eastward from the sandy shoreline, aglitter with waves I couldn’t hear from my bedchamber.

I’d never ventured beyond the port of Charleston, never even stepped foot aboard a ship. But England flowed through my veins. And constricted my chest. Quite literally.

“It’s too tight.” I reached back, clawing at the stays that pinched my spine. “It hurts to breathe.”

“Then don’t.”

“Don’t breathe? For how long?”

“For as long as it takes to secure an offer.”

An offer I didn’t want.

I endeavored to live on a ship with a crew of cursing tars, not in a house with a line of biddable servants. I wanted to ride a horse with my feet in stirrups, not sidesaddle and upright. I fancied stout ale over watery tea, sword-fighting over sewing, and would rather burn my nose in the sun than sit in a stuffy parlor.

And this gown? I stifled an unladylike grunt. What I wouldn’t give for a pair of trousers.

Which was why, as a girl on the cusp of a betrothed marriage, I was undesirable, uncooperative, and entirely unfit for this.

Unfortunately, the countess didn’t sympathize with my position or my improper attributes.

With a hand circling my arm, she dragged me to the dressing table and examined my appearance in the mirror.

“Well…” She tilted her head and sniffed. “I’m not a seamstress, but I daresay I’ve seen nothing so smart outside of London. If you remember your station and keep your mouth shut, the gown alone might win his favor.”

My reflection glared back at me, clad in the flounciest, most attention-grabbing dress in Carolina. Striped in shades of pink, the skirt opened in front to reveal a white petticoat trimmed in a dozen too many frills.