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

She was not going to discuss James with Lord Deal. But before she could tell him as much, he softened. “You’ve had your heart broken, haven’t you, my dear?”

“Certainly not.”

Lord Deal’s brows dove. “He’s wronged you, then?”

“No.” This was not the discussion they were supposed to be having. “Lord Deal, please.” Now she’d been reduced to begging. She schooled herself to soften her voice. “Please consider this.”

“Honestly, Katherine, I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that would seem more wrong.”

Marrying one of Lord Deal’s “suggestions” would be more wrong. But it was obvious that continuing to press the issue now might lead to failure, so she just looked at him.

He watched her with tight lips and troubled eyes that sparked with the beginnings of indecision.

After a long moment he let go of her and stepped away. “I can’t give you an answer now.”

Suddenly she could hardly breathe. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“It would be a betrayal of Cullen beyond anything I could have ever imagined.”

“I am convinced he would rather you be the one to save Dunscore than anyone else.”

Lord Deal did not seem to share her conviction. “Give me a few days to at least satisfy myself that I’ve thought of every other possibility, and if you haven’t thought of a better solution by then—” Something outside caught his attention, and he frowned toward the windows. “Are you expecting visitors?”

Visitors. Katherine turned abruptly and spotted two riders coming up the drive—riders she recognized even from this distance. “It’s William Jaxbury.” She clenched her jaw. “And Captain Warre.”

“Croston?” Lord Deal peered harder. “Ach, it is. And from the looks of things, they’ve ridden fast and hard.”

What were they doing here? This could ruin everything.

“Are you all right, Katie? You seem displeased by their arrival. Sir Jaxbury is a dear friend, is he not?”

“My dearest friend. And I am not—”

“Then it is Croston whose presence displeases you?”

“I am not displeased.” She tucked her hand in Lord Deal’s arm and urged him toward the door. “Let us go and greet our visitors,” she said in the most pleasant voice she could manage.

“Mama!” Anne’s voice called delightedly from the staircase in the entrance hall. “Mama, I hear horses! Miss Bunsby says it is William! And Captain Warre! Mama, Captain Warre has come to visit us!”

Her fingers tightened around Lord Deal’s arm before she could stop them.

“Mmm,” he said. “I daresay young Lady Anne has made a friend.”

* * *

IT WAS A full twenty minutes before Katherine had the heart to tear Anne away from her friend and send her upstairs with Miss Bunsby. Something was wrong. Very wrong. When James told them what day they’d left London, there was no doubt they’d hardly stopped at all.

“What’s happened?” she demanded the moment Anne was out of hearing.

“Millicent and India have taken the Possession,” William told her. “Slipped out of the Thames in the dead of night.”

An invisible hand closed over her throat. “That’s impossible.”

“Apparently it’s not,” James said flatly. “We went to your house after hearing the Possession was gone and found no trace of Miss Germain,” James said. “We checked with Cantwell, and India was gone, as well. Snuck away somehow, and in her infinite wisdom, left a note. Wouldn’t be treated like a child, or something to that effect.”

William snorted.

“That is quite an offense,” Lord Deal commented gravely.

Suddenly things made sense—why Millie had been so adamant about not feeling well enough to travel, why she had begged to stay in London instead of accompanying them to Dunscore. With her face so pale and yellowed with bruises, it had been impossible to deny her. Katherine had allowed her the use of the London house indefinitely.

But indefinitely had lasted only as long as it had taken Millicent to put her plan into action. Katherine’s hands began to tremble, and she made fists to keep them still. “You must go after them,” she said to William. “I will commission a ship in Edinburgh and pay for a crew.”

A gleam came into William’s eye. “An easy guess where they’re headed.”

Malta. But what India planned to do with the Possession while Millicent tried to gain admittance to that surgical school was anyone’s guess.

“It’ll be a damned business, bringing up Cantwell’s daughter on charges,” Lord Deal said.

“There won’t be any charges,” Katherine said. Her thoughts churned, struggling to make sense of this development. “I only want the Possession returned.”

“Aye, Captain,” William said.

She did want it returned. Right now. Today. This instant. It belonged to her, with her, where she could see it every day and hold on to its promise. It made her who she was.

“What of the committee? Has there been any word?” she asked.

“I daresay it’s too soon to expect any,” James said. And then he turned to Lord Deal. “Have there been any developments here?”

He was windblown from the ride, looking more like a sea captain than he had for weeks, and it was hard to keep from staring. A lock of his hair curled over his forehead. A shadow of beard roughened his jaw. Those calculating, sea-captain eyes watched her carefully.

She wanted to throw her arms around him the way Anne had done.

Instead, she reached for Lord Deal’s arm. “Indeed, Henry and I have just been discussing the arrangements.”

James’s tight lips curved. “Have you.”

Lord Deal cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. We have indeed been discussing a variety of possibilities—attempting, naturally, to think of some gentlemen who would be appropriate and, of course, to identify those whom Lady Dunscore finds objectionable.” He patted her hand. “And I do believe we have identified at least one of the gentlemen in question.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, a knock sounded at the door of her bedchamber.

The sound caught Katherine standing with her hands pressed against the cool, bare stone of her bedroom wall. In the quiet room with her palms against rock, she could almost feel Dunscore’s heartbeat. It pulsed through her as though they were one.

She ignored the knock and let her hands fall. Went to stab at the fire, watching the sparks fly, calling up memories of her life—her real life. The one she’d built herself, not the one of her girlhood fantasies. William, grinning in the sunshine while porpoises played in the water. Young rigger Danby, dangling from the main yard after slipping from the footrope and nearly causing her to succumb in a fit of apoplexy in the process. That hot rush of anticipation that gripped her when she sighted a corsair xebec through her glass.

The sound of Anne’s screams above the cannonfire, and the knowledge that one small mistake—one single misstep—could change her life forever. Or end it completely.

Jab. Jab. She attacked a burning log until it fell into crumbling, hot orange pieces. That was why she was giving up her freedom. For Anne’s sake. And marrying Lord Deal was the most tolerable answer.

There was a second knock, more insistent this time.

It is the answer only because you refused a proposal from the man on the other side of that door.

Proposal? Ha. What she had refused was a lust-drunk misjudgment that had tumbled from his lips in a moment of passion.

A third knock, and this time, the hushed bark of her name. She unlatched the door and opened it a crack. “You’ve already received all the hospitality I plan to offer, Captain.”

“Open the bloody door.” The hallway was nearly dark, but the glow from her room lit the murderous expression on his face. He stood there in only his breeches and shirt—no waistcoat, no stockings, no shoes. Nerves tangled in her belly even as her ire rose.