Hearts Don't Lie

By Jillian Chantal

Two lost souls…each living a lie.

 

Jane Millbrook, sister to two brothers presumed dead in the Peninsula Wars, has fled the only home she's ever known as it was too dangerous to remain there on her own after her mother's death. She has made a life for herself as a barmaid in a dockside pub. Her new name is Brandy as a bottle of the liquor was the first thing that caught her eye when the proprietor asked her for her name.

 

Charles Daniel Jameson, injured while in the United States during the War of 1812, arrives home to find his fiancée married to another. He's scarred both physically and mentally and resigns his Army commission. He takes to sea under the assumed name of Captain David Jones.

 

After meeting at the pub, the two of them begin to step out with each other with neither having any intention of marrying anyone. Both are broken and determined to keep up the charades they each live.

 

Until Jane/Brandy attracts a stalker….

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fowl Enterprises
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223857532

Book preview

Fowl Enterprises.

619 W. Chase Street

Pensacola, FL 32502

Copyright © 2023 by Sherry Fowler Chancellor 

Published in the United States of America

Editor: EAL Editing Services

Cover Artist: Dawné Dominique

Cover Art Copyright by Dawné Dominque

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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

Chapter One

Jane

Despite the noise in the ale house, Jane Millbrook found herself in a trance as she watched the bar man pour the golden liquid into several steins. She pictured bubbles, not a head of beer. Her mind took her back to the days before. Before her brothers went to war. Before her mother died. When they used to drink champagne before dinner when there was something to celebrate. Before she ran away into the night. Before her life changed irrevocably due to that man. When her name was still Jane.

Hey, Brandy, you going to bring us that round tonight, or what? a customer yelled across the packed room.

The bar man shoved the tray at her. Wake up. Dream on your own time or you will have plenty of time to do so as you won’t be working here. We don’t have time for lazy wenches. Get moving.

Jane plastered a false smile on her face and picked up the tray. She turned with a swish of her skirts and pretended she was happy and gay. The stench of spilled beer and the vomit still drying on the floor near the table of drunken young men from the posh set—the set she used to belong to but had no idea those kinds of boys existed—caused her stomach to roil. Will I ever get used to it?

Taking the tray to the corner table with several regulars, she set a stein in front of each of the men. The one who called across the room earlier said, Tell my mate here how you got such an odd name. I mean, really, who in the year of our Lord 1814 names their daughter Brandy?

One of the men at the table she had not seen before said, A drinking man?

The first man howled with laughter. Yes. Indeed. For you see, she told us when she was born, her mother asked her father what they were going to name her and he thought she asked what he was drinking. He smacked his thigh and laughed so hard, Jane was sure she saw tears roll down his cheeks.

Of course the story was not true, but she had to change her name when she escaped. Brandy was as good as anything else and it was what she took the night she left. The night she slept in an abandoned doorway, drinking the brandy both to keep warm and to make herself forget. She put on another fake smile. Yes. That’s right, luv. The accent that was not her own had almost become second nature. She knew if she spoke in her normal modulated tones, it would be a dead giveaway of her origins.

Speaking of love, I’m going to ask again if you’ll give up this job and marry me. I can’t provide much, but I’d take you on in a minute, a third man at the table said.

Stop asking the girl to marry you, Johnny. We all know she’s in love with Captain Jones. I would suggest you leave her be. He isn’t one you want to tangle with, the first man said.

I’d take him on for you, sweetie, the proposer looked up at Jane. One word from you and I would. I say it and I mean it.

That one-eyed, scarred sea dog would break you in half, Johnny. Best leave the girl alone.

Brandy, order up. Move it, girl, the bar man yelled.

Glad to get away from the man who constantly asked her to marry him and afraid she might eventually have to run again to escape from his persistent proposals, Jane left the table with relief.

The rest of the night was hectic and she was grateful to be busy. It helped her not to think. Thinking was her enemy lately. Always something to fret about and if it was not money issues, it was imagining what would happen if she was found out. She lived in dread of someone she knew in her past life wandering down to the waterfront and into this pub. She had chosen to remain in London only because she did not want to chance getting on one of the mail coaches and being discovered. She was sure there was a hunt for her as soon as the household woke that morning almost a year ago and realized she was gone. A reward was probably in the offing as well. But she could not go back. There was no way she could return home. When she was not at work, her mind raced with worry about being found and dragged back to Mayfair.

Many times this evening, she felt eyes on her as she went about her tasks. It was almost a relief when she realized it was that Johnny fellow who always asked her to marry him. He did not frighten her the way she feared the man who was supposed to be trusted to look after her when she lived at home. That man who chased her from the only place she ever felt safe.

Brandy, you’ve been distracted tonight. I don’t know why, but you need to put whatever it is out of your head and return tomorrow ready to work harder. I haven’t lost any coins tonight because the men like you, but your dallying around will eventually cost me and then it’s on the streets for you.

Jane hoped he was not serious. It took her a while to obtain this job—not that it was ideal—but what was the daughter of a gentleman to do when all she had been taught was how to be a wife and mother and how to run a household? She could not very well be a governess since she had no references and she would surely have been found within days of leaving if she had tried that route. She had to set aside her aversion to being in a beer hall if she wanted to eat and sleep somewhere besides a doorway. And thus, she landed here. In a dodgy area of the city among people she never would have met otherwise. Most of them were nice, but there were quite a few who frightened her.

I’m sorry, Mr. Blaine. I don’t know why I’m slow tonight. Just anxious about the weather, I think. She set her empty tray on the bar, waiting for him to load it again with steins.

Aye. I bet you’re thinking about your man out on the seas with that powerful storm coming. I wonder why he doesn’t make an honest woman of you. He can afford it.

Unsure what her employer knew about the sea captain she loved, she did not know how to respond other than to say, He always says it wouldn’t be fair to me as I would be alone most of the time.

Not once you got yerself some little ones. That would keep you plenty busy. He laughed. Might as well take old Johnny up on his proposal. You’re not getting younger, you know. It’d be a right shame for you to end up like old Bessie over there. Almost fifty years old she is. Bunions and achy bones and she’s still laying whisky down.

Jane glanced over toward the other barmaid. She did look exhausted by the ravages of the work, but she was still beloved by the customers and always seemed to be ready for their antics. Bessie jumped right into the joking and teasing with the customers. Jane envied the woman’s easy way with people. It was hard for Jane to be so casual and informal. Must be my upbringing.

When it was finally time to close the pub, after wiping down the tables, Jane and Bessie left out the back door together. Each turned and went in opposite directions. Jane had no idea where any of the others who worked at the beer hall lived. She kept to herself when she was not at work. It helped her stay calm and quiet. Wearing the mask of a girl raised near the docks and not behaving in the way that came to her naturally was exhausting. She shuddered to think about the young ladies she knew growing up seeing her as she was now. Rough hands and the different accent. To say nothing of the risqué frock she wore.

She pulled her shawl around her tighter as she walked. It was cool at this time of the morning even though the day would bring warmer temperatures as the sun rose in the sky. The shawl brought her comfort as it was one of the few items left from her old life. Things that belonged to her mother. True, it was becoming a bit worn and faded due to overuse. Some of the flowers no longer resembled anything she had seen in life, more like blurs than pretty blooms, but it was hers and she loved it.

Jane thought about all the times Bessie wanted to trade something for the shawl. The older woman coveted it so much, Jane was afraid it would go missing someday from under the counter where they left their personal items while working. She had told Bessie a tale about where she got it as the woman would not stop asking how a poor girl like Brandy could afford something made from such luxurious fabric. In fact, Bessie had practically accused her of stealing it. Which made Jane think the woman would have no qualms about stealing it herself. Not that she wanted to think that way about a fellow barmaid.

As she ruminated, it slowly dawned on Jane that there was someone walking behind her and not passing on by. She increased her pace, thinking the person might be like her and on their way home from a long night working and not actually following her. The footsteps increased as well. Her gut clenched.

Still being unused to being on her own on the streets without a chaperone, she was usually more alert when she walked home in the predawn darkness. Her hand moved to the hilt of one of the knives she kept on her. How did I let myself muse idly this morning? I should have been paying attention.

She slowed a little to test the person behind her. Hoping she was not slowing too much as whoever it was might have a longer stride than she did, she only walked slow long enough to rate what the person behind her did.

Her pursuer’s steps slowed too.

Jane broke into a run. She was getting closer to the building where she rented a room, but did not want to go directly there. Leading this person to her home was not a good idea, but she had no idea where else to go on the deserted streets. Soon, the bakers and dock workers would be stirring but not quite yet.

Panicked, she pulled the knife from her waistband and kept moving at her fast pace.

When someone grabbed her arm from behind, she let out a squeal and tried to turn to stab the person.

Enveloped in a bear hug from behind, a male voice said, Don’t run from me, Brandy. It won’t do you one bit of good. You’re mine. Now and forever. You might as well accept it.

Chapter Two

Daniel

Captain David Jones leaned on the railing of his ship taking it in turns at gazing up at the predawn stars and down at the calm seas. It was only a matter of time before the storm he could feel in his bones arrived to splash his ship, him, and his crew with roiling waves. A good storm could clear his head, but this one did not bode well—if the ache in his leg was any sign of the trouble to come. Hoping they would be in Portsmouth before the worst of it hit, he silently urged the winds to move the ship faster.

He missed the days of the short channel crossings—not that those couldn’t be rough and fraught with danger—when he ran illegal French goods to the cliffs of Dover and made his living smuggling the brandy, wine, and other French delicacies the English population craved. With Napoleon safe on Elba, the captain had turned his attentions to other markets to plunder. The sugar trade with the West Indies was lucrative, but he did not like going back to the Americas often. Too many bad memories.

His hand went involuntarily to his cheek as it usually did when he thought of his time in the country his king did not want to let go of. The second war for independence that was called the War of 1812 was what haunted him. The time he was betrayed by first his country and then his family. The time before he became a smuggler. And changed his name from Charles Daniel Jameson to Captain David Jones in order to leave behind his aristocratic background.

Forcing himself to stop thinking about the heartbreaks he suffered, he pulled a braided silver chain out of his frock coat pocket and stared down at it. He’d bought it on impulse