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to have known straight off.” The old woman ignored her hand. “You’re quite disgracefully tan. Still, the freckles led me to think you were much younger. Are you really eighteen?”
    Payton put her hand down. She supposed that, once again, she’d managed to offend someone with her mannish forwardness. Oh, well. She hoped the old lady wasn’t anybody important, or Georgiana would skin her alive. “I’ll be nineteen next month.”
    “Extraordinary.” The blue eyes raked her. “You don’t look a day over twelve.”
    Payton hadn’t taken any offense at the old lady’s interrupting her, her reference to her freckles, or her refusal to shake her hand. But to accuse her of not looking a day over twelve—now that was just too much.
    “I may not be as filled out as some people”—Payton cast a baleful glance at Miss Whitby, who was still pounding away at the keyboard—”but I assure you, I’m full grown.”
    The old woman made a tsk-tsking noise with her tongue. “Well, then, your father hadn’t ought to be letting you go about—how did you put it? Bashing people on the head with bagatelle cues. You ought to be concentrating on the kinds of activities girls your age normally pursue.”
    Payton looked disgusted. “If you mean finding a husband and all of that, you needn’t worry. Ross—my eldest brother—has already informed me that I’m to come out this year, and that I hadn’t ought to count on sailing again anytime soon.”
    The old woman nodded approvingly. “He’s perfectly correct.”
    “Well, I don’t think so,” Payton grumbled. “I’ve been at sea for most of my life, and I’ve turned out all right.”
    “That,” the old woman sniffed, “is a matter of opinion. I’ve heard about you, Miss Dixon.”
    Pleased to hear that her seafaring skills were being so widely discussed, Payton inclined her head modestly. “Well,” she said. “I did once make the West Indies run in under seventeen days, but I admit I had my brother Hudson’s help—”
    “That’s not what I meant. I mean that I understand you possess some rather … forward-thinking opinions.”
    “Oh.” Payton nodded. “Well, if you mean that I believe there’s no job a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better, then yes, I suppose I do. Ross says I oughtn’t get my hopes up, but I fully expect that for my birthday next month, I’ll be given a ship of my own to command. I’m hoping for our fastest clipper, the
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, but I suppose I could settle for something a little older, to practice on, you know, until I—”
    The old lady gave the floor a sharp rap with her cane. Fortunately Miss Whitby was too absorbed in her performance to notice. Several other guests, however—Georgiana included—looked in the direction of the sofa.
    “Young woman.” The grande dame eyed Payton severely over the tops of her lorgnette. “Only a person who had spent the whole of her life trapped on a ship with a lot of men would aspire to something like that.”
    Payton said, “Oh, but I think I’d make a fine captain. I mean, except for the heavy lifting, which I admit, because of the way we’re shaped, is harder for women, there really isn’t anything men can do that we can’t. On top of which, we have the added advantage of being able to give birth—”
    Another rap of the cane. This time, the look Georgiana shot in their direction was decidedly alarmed.
    “Miss Dixon.” The old woman’s lips were quivering, and not, Payton thought, with amusement. “I must say, I think it quite negligent of your family, allowing you to go about discussing such topics. Not to mention bashing people on the head.”
    “But if I hadn’t bashed him on the head,” Payton said, “he’d have hurt someone.”
    “Despite what you might think, Miss Dixon, it isn’t at all attractive, this declaring yourself equal to men. Nor do I think it particularly wise of you to go about helping your brothers to capture—what did you call them?