A Brother's Price

where everyone knows not to mess with your sisters, and your sisters know where they live.”
    Jerin nodded. “I know not to talk to strangers, but you’re Miss Skinner.”
    Abie Skinner smiled. “Thank you, Master Whistler.”
    “So, you’re going to be on this boat?”
    She tried not to grin, then shook her head and laughed. “Yes, Master Whistler. I’m going home.”
    “For a visit?”
    “No, for good. I got a letter from Eldest.” She patted her pocket, and a paper crinkled under the pat. “My scattered sisters and I have finally accrued enough money to purchase a husband of modest breeding.”
    “How wonderful!” Then the implication sank in. “You’re not coming back?”
    “No.” She grinned widely. “Someone else will have to force basic figures and reading onto willful young minds.”
    “My sisters will miss you.” He could think only that Doric would be crushed.
    “Some of them. I will miss those ones.”
     
    They had two cabins on the second deck. Jerin would share a cabin with one of his sisters. Captain Tern would sleep in the other cabin. They worked out a schedule where at all times at least two of the women would be awake while the other two slept. One of his sleeping sisters would always be in the bunk under the window while he slept. It was as safe as they could make the trip.
     
    That afternoon he took a stroll on the sundeck with Summer and Corelle. He had stepped out of his room intending to pull down his veil. The unobstructed sight of the sunshine on the water checked him. He climbed the stairs to the sundeck with his sisters trailing him.
    Jerin expected Corelle or Summer to say something about his veil being up, but they didn’t. Feeling someplace between guilty and free, he walked the sundeck, more interested in the fellow passengers. They gave him wide smiles and nods of greeting, but, with quick looks at his armed sisters, didn’t speak to him.
    At the stern, over the churning paddle wheel, he met Miss Skinner.
    “ Tch , Mr. Whistler, what are you doing?” Miss Skinner reached up and tugged down the veil. “There are people on this boat not to be trusted. If they thought you were an ugly thing behind that veil, they might leave you alone. Don’t tempt them by showing them how stunningly beautiful you are.”
    “I’m not stunningly beautiful.”
    “Most women only see a few men in their lives. Their father. Perhaps their grandfather. If they are lucky, a brother and their husband. Any other men they see are always veiled. To them, anything with both eyes and sound teeth is a handsome man. My family are portrait painters. My hand is not as good as my sisters‘, so I decided to teach instead, to see a bit of the world. Before I left, though, I had seen an extraordinary number of men and paintings of men. You, Mr. Jerin Whistler, are the most stunningly beautiful man I have ever seen.”
    “Me?”
    “Yes, you.” She twitched the veil, artfully arranging the fold at his neck. “So don’t tempt the scruffy lot on this boat more than your mere presence already does.”
    “Yes, Miss Skinner.”
     
    The next morning it was raining. Captain Tern was guarding him while his sisters slept. Miss Skinner came to the door, bearing a gift.
    “Here, I have something for you to look at.” It was a large book, almost three feet square. She set it down on the table and opened it to reveal maps done in gorgeous color. “This is an atlas. It has maps of all of the countries of the world.”
    “I wish I could have gone to school,” Jerin murmured.
    “ Tch , I wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility of keeping you safe, Mr. Whistler. It would have been too easy for someone to steal you away, and then where would I be? All alone in Heron Landing with the Whistler girls out for my blood.”
    “Are you happy about getting married?” Jerin asked.
    “To tell the truth, I’m giddy as a girl.”
    “Even though you don’t know your husband at all?”
    “Honestly”—she blushed—“I haven’t thought much about him, just the babies. We had a brother, who was killed a year before we would have swapped him for a husband. Maybe if we hadn’t grown up so sure we would be married, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. Some days, it’s all I can think about, having children of our own.”
    “Really?”
    She nodded unhappily. “The first day of school and the last are always the hardest. The seven-year-olds come in that first day, oh so little and darling. You just want