Julia London - Regency Vows - A Gentleman 'Til Midnight / The Trouble with Honour / An Improper Arrangement / A Wedding By Dawn / The Devil Takes a Bride / A Promise by Daylight

Katherine went to the bed and gathered Anne in her arms, suddenly fighting back tears. “A small disagreement. Nothing to worry about.” She imagined the servants streaming into Anne’s darkened room in the middle of the night to pack her things, waking Anne to dress her quickly and whisking her away to the ship...

What on earth had she been thinking?

“Is something happening?” Anne asked.

“No, sweetling. I’ve just returned home later than expected.” She smoothed Anne’s hair from her face and held her close, breathing in her comforting little-girl scent. No sound came from the hallway now. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“It’s all right, Mama.” Anne sighed. “I had such fun today. Do you think Lord Deal will really take us in his phaeton when we get to Scotland?”

“I’m sure he will, darling.” Anne had loved the phaeton ride they’d taken with Lord Deal earlier a bit too much, but it was the first time Anne had laughed since leaving the ship. Just like her grandpa, she’d wanted to go faster and faster. It made Katherine want to take her in a phaeton every day, just to see the light on her face.

Katherine’s chest felt so tight it was hard to draw breath. She would do anything for Anne. Anything in the world.

Even marry?

“Miss Bunsby says a phaeton is dangerous, but I think it is such fun.” Anne snuggled against Katherine’s side. “Miss Bunsby always worries.”

“I know she does.” And thank God for it. Katherine had come so close to failing Anne again with her impulsive decisions. So close. But this was the end.

Tomorrow she would go before the committee. There was a small chance they would simply dismiss the bill as ridiculous and allow her to keep her birthright. But more likely, they would exact some kind of price in exchange for dismissing the bill. They wanted to control her, and they thought they knew how to do it.

Marriage. The word ripped her like a cannonball tearing through wood. Everything inside her rebelled at the idea of willingly entering captivity again.

But the time was past when she could simply abandon whatever could not be had on her own terms. For Anne’s sake it was time to accept what needed to be done in order to keep Dunscore and secure Anne’s future.

If they wanted her to marry, then she would—but she would bloody well do it on her own terms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“‘LADY DUNSCORE HAS become a dire threat to London male ego at large. Recommend gentlemen button coats in public. Lady Dunscore’s threat expanding in scope—seems a matter more suited to the army.’” Admiral Wharton looked up from the letter and glared at the committee. “That, your lordships, is the kind of report Captain Warre, Lord Croston, has seen fit to give us.”

James looked from the committee toward Katherine and knew it was only by the grace of God that she was here and not sitting in gaol, which was exactly what the admirals would have ordered if she had attempted to follow through with her plan last night.

Thank God—thank God—this would end today.

All nineteen lords to whom the bill had been committed for consideration were gathered around the table, backlit by a tall bank of windows that arched all the way to the high-vaulted ceiling. Others crowded into the room—the Scottish contingent of peers, a few lords he knew were hopeful they might somehow secure Dunscore for themselves and a handful of members from the Commons. Jaxbury had been summoned as a witness, along with several others of the Possession’s crew.

Against a side wall, standing a foot shorter than the paneled wainscoting, Holliswell, the greedy bastard, watched the proceedings stone-faced.

From the committee’s table, Edrington raised a brow at Admiral Wharton. “Pray, what did you expect Croston to learn from his assignment? That Lady Dunscore was pirating barges on the Thames?”

Wharton shot James a thunderous look, and James nearly smiled. “We do not perceive Lady Dunscore to be a threat to His Majesty’s realm at this time, your lordship,” Wharton said.

“Indeed,” Edrington said sarcastically. He turned his attention to Katherine. “Tell us, Lady Dunscore—when exactly did you make the decision to return to England?”

James caught Nick’s eye and sent him a silent message. Withdraw your support.

Nick looked away.

“When I received news of this bill,” Katherine answered.

“Why did you not return sooner?”

“There was business to attend to.”

“Why not return the moment you were able, Lady Dunscore?” De Lille asked sharply. “Before you had any ‘business’ to attend to?”

James tensed and fixed his eyes on Katherine.

“I had just spent four years in captivity, your lordship. I preferred to have my ostracism on my own terms.” She smiled, but mirthlessly. “I do not play the pianoforte and I’ve never been good with a needle, and there are only so many books a young woman can read.”

Her answer was met by scowls and a few raised brows.

“I know at least one young woman who would beg to differ with you on that point,” Linton remarked wryly, bringing a grunt from Marshwell and a sharp look from De Lille.

“How remarkable that you’ve never mastered the pianoforte, Lady Dunscore,” De Lille said, “yet you’ve apparently grown proficient at captaining a sixteen-gun brig.”

Katherine raised a brow at him. “Is it, your lordship? I suspect if you ask Captain Warre, you’ll find he has the same affliction.”

Good God. “Indeed,” James told them. “I confess I couldn’t plunk out a minuet even on my best day.”

At one side of the table, Winston sat casually in his chair. “So instead of returning home to your family,” he said to her, “you chose to captain a ship.”

“Yes.”

“What funds did you use to purchase the ship?”

“I had a trade route between Egypt and Venice. I bought the Possession with the proceeds.”

Ponsby sat forward. “The Possession was not your first ship.”

“No.”

“Lady Dunscore,” Gorst said evenly, “it does not help this committee if you do not explain yourself fully. Tell us how you came into possession of a ship after escaping from captivity. You did escape, did you not? You were not released?”

She didn’t answer immediately. James stretched his fingers. Forced himself to relax. It wasn’t as though he didn’t already know she’d been through hell.

“My captor passed away in the nighttime,” she finally said. “Chaos went up in the household, and I went into the city.”

“Alone? Unseen?”

Her nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, and a delicate cord in her neck tightened. “Forgive me, Lord Gorst,” she said, “but I fail to see what the details of that night have to do with the issue at hand.”

“Agreed,” Edrington said, and a few others muttered a general concurrence.

Gorst scowled across the table. “I am trying to ascertain how it could be possible that a woman held captive in a Barbary state could find her way aboard a ship.”

“There were ships anchored in the harbor,” Katherine told him evenly. “Ships the corsairs had taken as prizes. It was simple enough to take one of the longboats tied to the docks and row out.”

James frowned. There could have been nothing simple about that at all. The currents would likely have been strong and the harbor far from empty.

“Row out in the harbor at Algiers?” Ponsby asked incredulously. “A woman alone?”

“I was dressed in men’s clothes. And it was after midnight.”

Good God.

“And in fact, you were not alone, were you, Lady Dunscore,” De Lille said. “You were with Sir William Jaxbury.” He shifted his attention to the back of the room, where Jaxbury stood with a group of onlookers. “I presume you were the force behind such a suicidal escape?”