The sun was a fiery disc sliding into the purple horizon by the time a seaman walked down the dock to the coach that had been waiting there since morning. "There she is-the Morning Star," he told Stephen, who'd been leaning against the door of the vehicle, idly watching a drunken brawl taking place outside a nearby pub. Before raising his arm to point out the ship, the seaman cast a cautious glance at the two coachmen, who both held pistols in clear view, and who were obviously not as indifferent as their master to the dangers lurking everywhere on the wharf. "That's her, right there," he said to Stephen, indicating a small ship just gliding into port, its sails dim silhouettes in the deepening twilight. "And she's only a bit late."

Straightening, Stephen nodded to one of the coachmen, who tossed the seaman a coin for his trouble, then he walked slowly down the dock, wishing that his mother or his sister-in-law could have been here with him when Burleton's bride disembarked. The presence of concerned females might have helped soften the blow when he delivered the tragic news to the girl, news that was going to shatter her dreams.

"This is a nightmare!" Sheridan Bromleigh cried at the astonished cabin boy who'd come to tell her for the second time that "a gentleman" was waiting for her on the pier-a gentleman she naturally assumed was Lord Burleton. "Tell him to wait. Tell him I died. No, tell him we're still indisposed." She shoved the door closed, shot the bolt, then pressed her back to the panel, her gaze darting to the frightened maid who was perched on the edge of the narrow cot in the cabin they'd shared, twisting a handkerchief in her plump hands. "It's a nightmare, and when I wake up in the morning, it will all be over, won't it, Meg?"