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

“Only that they are full of men, which leads back to our original premise. You must bewitch them, Katherine. Once you have them all in hand—and I do not mean that literally, as that would be counterproductive—they will be falling over themselves to please you.”

“With the singular goal of foraging beneath my skirts.”

“Of course. That’s what men do. And it is astonishing what they will sometimes agree to in pursuit of that goal.”

“Indeed.” More than one crew member over the years had followed her not out of respect but sheer fascination. Lust akin to slavery. She never kept those crew members long, but she knew very well how to use such motivation to her advantage.

She would bring the men around as if she were maneuvering at sea, using every tactic to keep another ship precisely where she wanted it—and then grappling on with her hooks to take it. She would use their own weaknesses against them.

Fools.

“Your ladyship?” came a voice from behind, and Katherine shifted her gaze in the looking glass. “Pardon me.” Miss Bunsby—Miss Bunsby!—poked her head into the room. “Lady Anne keeps asking about a gentleman named William, and I don’t know what to tell her. I cannot persuade her off the subject.”

Katherine stood abruptly.

“Your ladyship!” The motion pulled the ribbon from the maid’s hands.

“You haven’t seen William?” Phil asked.

“What are you still doing here?” Katherine demanded.

“At the moment,” Miss Bunsby said defiantly, “looking after Lady Anne.”

“You have been dismissed.”

“And I fully intend to leave—” a lie, clearly “—but I cannot go in good conscience if there is nobody to look after young Lady Anne.”

“Anne! Where is she? Why is Millicent not with her?” And how could Katherine not have known? Already she was rushing toward the door.

“Miss Germain has been in her room all day feeling poorly. I’ve been looking after Lady Anne in her stead.”

Good God. How could she not have been aware? How could she have sat there having her hair dressed while Anne was unattended? She pushed past Miss Bunsby with half her hair hanging over one shoulder and the maid’s outraged protest following her into the hallway.

“Anne!” she called out before even reaching the pink room. “Anne!”

“Mama?”

Katherine rushed through the door and found Anne on the center of an oval rug done in pink and white flowers, playing with the doll she’d received for her birthday. The room smelled strongly of a perfume she recognized from years ago.

“Mama,” Anne said anxiously, “when will we hear from William? Why has he not visited?”

Katherine pulled Anne into her arms and kissed her forehead while Mr. Bogles observed them from the windowsill and the wretched Miss Bunsby watched from the doorway. Anne was all right. Thank God. “There is much business to attend to in London, dearest, and William knows a great many people.” It sounded reasonable, but there was little chance it was true. It had been a day and a half, when he’d sent word he would call yesterday. It wasn’t like him. She smoothed Anne’s soft hair. “I shall tell you the moment I hear from him. I promise.”

“But I want to hear from him now, Mama.”

“I’m sure he’ll visit soon.”

Anne dropped her head on Katherine’s shoulder. “I don’t like London, Mama. It smells awful. Miss Bunsby sprayed perfume and had them bring roses, but it only helps a little.”

Only now did Katherine notice a pitcher overflowing with pink, white-and-red roses on the floor nearby. She looked at Miss Bunsby.

“There are any number of good smells in the park,” Miss Bunsby suggested. “Flowers, fresh grass, loamy soil.”

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Anne complained. “Mama, when will we go back to the ship?”

Anne already knew they weren’t going back to the ship. As for the park, or anywhere else in public...that was out of the question. She thought of Dunscore and wished they could leave London now. Today.

“When will Captain Warre visit us?” Anne asked now.

“He is very busy, dearest.”

“But I want to see him. I miss him.”

“I know. But just think—Lord Deal has offered to take us into the country in his phaeton. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Anne wanted to know what a phaeton was, and what Lord Deal was like, and whether he was as nice as Captain Warre.

“Much, much nicer, dearest. You will adore Lord Deal, I promise. He will be like having a wonderful old grandpapa.” She would not think of Mr. Allen’s suggestion.

“I’ve never had a grandpapa,” Anne said doubtfully.

“I know, sweetling.” A stab of grief for Anne’s true grandfather made it hard to breathe.

“Maybe Captain Warre could be my grandpapa, too. Could he, Mama? Would you ask him? I’m sure he will say yes, because he is the nicest man in the whole world!”

* * *

JAMES HALF LISTENED to Katherine relate the tale of his rescue to a quartet of baboons especially chosen by his dear sister as perfect matrimonial matches and decided the ideal solution for everyone would be to bind Katherine with rope and stow her in the hold of a ship bound for China.

“My heavens,” Marshwell said congenially. “Quite at death’s door, were you, Croston?”

It was impossible to take his eyes off the copper creation she wore tonight. It shimmered in the light of hundreds of candles and exposed her breasts nearly to the critical point. Points. God.

“Very nearly so,” he said tightly. “There would have been a different result had Lady Dunscore not acted immediately.” Lilting strains of a string quartet barely floated above the din of a hundred conversations. The cloying scent of a million flowers filled his lungs. The lustful stares of Marshwell, Werrick, Foxworth and Blaine fixed on Katherine’s cleavage, and it was a good bet not one of them had marriage on his mind—except Blaine, who likely salivated equally over Dunscore’s wealth.

That bloody gown was going to kill him. Or he was going to kill them. Someone needed to kill something, and right now he would be happy to oblige.

“We all feared the worst until we had him safely aboard,” Katherine told them smoothly, moving her shoulder in a barely perceptible way that drew all eyes to the curve of her neck. “Pulling an unconscious person from the water is a complicated maneuver.”

Not half as bloody complicated as the subtle way she stretched her waist. He remembered putting his hands on that waist—on her bare flesh beneath her tunic—and felt himself come alive in a place that needed to stay dormant.

“Indeed?” Werrick said, wetting his lips a little.

Katherine leveled those topaz eyes at Werrick and shifted them to Foxworth, who had a hundred disgusting hopes dancing behind his slate-gray eyes. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so relieved to see a man draw breath as the moment I realized Captain Warre was alive,” she told them.

“Naturally!” Blaine agreed heartily.

Oh, yes—they were deep in the mire now. “Blessedly the worst was avoided,” James said, “thanks to the care and hospitality of Lady Dunscore and her excellent crew.” He tried for a pleasant smile, but it felt more like a death grimace. “They set about tending to my needs immediately.”

Finally she met his eyes. “Captain Warre’s care and comfort were our greatest concerns,” she assured them gravely.

“Indeed.” He held her gaze in a silent vice. “I could not have received closer attention had I been at home with my own physicians.”

“You can imagine how pleased we were to see that he responded to our attentions almost immediately—” her eyes sparked “—and quite markedly.”

Two moments alone and he would rid her of that smug expression and perhaps sample what her low-cut décolletage offered while he was at it.

“Such a miracle,” Werrick declared. “You must be immensely...grateful...to your rescuer, Croston.” His eyes, full of calculating imagination, slid from James’s face to the cutthroat beauty at his side.

“I would be grateful to anyone who saved my life, Werrick.” James inhaled silently and schooled himself. The last thing he needed was that kind of rumor flying around London while he was under orders to secure her a husband.

A decent husband. Who would treat her—and Anne—with the respect they deserved. Who might need Katherine’s wealth, but would nevertheless appreciate her qualities.

At that precise moment, Honoria appeared with a fifth matrimonial offering. “Do excuse me,” she interrupted brightly, “but I’ve got someone Lady Dunscore must meet.” This time it was Cashen—a middle-aged rakehell Honoria knew damned well worked his way through mistresses faster than most men drank Port.

“Desist,” James ordered her under his breath after she made the introductions.

Honoria ignored him. “Why, Lady Dunscore, I am convinced you and Lord Cashen must have a great deal in common. He was just describing the most magnificent pair of Ottoman sculptures he recently acquired.”

“Fascinating,” Katherine said warmly. “I can’t wait to hear about them.”

James stared at her. This sensual snake charmer bore little resemblance to the sharp-tongued, cutlass-wielding sea captain who had stood laughing while he swept rats’ nests and emptied slop buckets. It was obvious the game she was playing, and it needed to stop immediately.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE NEW STRATEGY was working beautifully. Fools. She would not have survived one day at sea if she was as easily distracted as these men. Finally free from their cloying gazes—even if only for a moment—Katherine took aim for the shrubbery, where an inviting arbor promised a few moments of solitude.

It was not to be.

“I seem to recall a marked response on your part, as well,” came Captain Warre’s growl at her side, “a bit later in the voyage.”

“Do you? I don’t recall.” She plunged into the arbor with the captain on her heels and turned on him just in time to see the entire encounter replay itself in his eyes. A nerve pulsed wildly in her belly.

All night those eyes had been on her, touching her the way he so clearly wanted to do with his hands. The way every man here so clearly wanted to do.

But there was only one man whose hands her body remembered too well.

“You must thank your sister for me,” she made herself say. “She has been instrumental in introducing me to any number of men whose influence may serve me.”

“Has she.” The heat in his eyes defied the chill in his tone.

“One must use the resources at one’s disposal, after all.” It made her sick that everything she had worked to become counted for nothing here. The power she had as the Possession’s captain was gone, and now the only power to be found was pushing dangerously from the top of her stays.

It was a bloody poor substitute.

“Resources,” he said coldly.

She smiled. “Phil places great store on them.”

“It would seem Lady Moore’s comment about Covent Garden wasn’t too far off the mark, after all.”

“Bastard!” The temper she’d been holding in all night snapped, and she raised her hand to slap him. He grabbed her wrist.

“What will you do if a committee is appointed? Bed them all?”

If she could have drawn on him right here in this arbor and cut him to shreds, she would have. “Perhaps I shall,” she scoffed, and yanked her hand from his grasp. “Forgive me if I feel uncomfortable leaving my fate entirely in your hands. I’ve tried that before, if you’ll recall.”

His eyes flashed dangerously. “You will cease your flirtations immediately, Captain.”

“Or else what? Will you ram your cannons and sink me with a full broadside?”

His mouth tightened. “You need to appear sensible.”

“As if any of these men gives a bloody damn for my senses.”

“For God’s sake, Katherine. You need to appear intelligent. Agreeable. Well-meaning.”

Now she smiled. “When have I ever not appeared agreeable, Captain?”

He pointed a finger in her face and, though it seemed impossible, moved even closer. “Now, you listen here, and listen well. The success of this entire effort depends on your full and complete cooperation. Is that understood?”

The tension in his posture screamed of something besides frustration at her behavior. A hot pulse shuddered through her body. “Explain what you mean by cooperation.”

He jabbed that finger at her. “I mean that you do every—” jab “—single—” jab “—blasted—” jab “—thing I tell you—” jab “—precisely the way I tell you to do it.”

“I am not under your command.”

“You came under my command the moment I agreed to help you.”

“That is quite a fantasy, Captain.” Except that it wasn’t. In the golden light of a single torch flickering through a jumble of wisteria leaves, his shadowed gaze drilled into her.

Things were no different than they’d been ten years ago. The situation may have changed, but he enjoyed the freedom of his acclaim while she remained imprisoned by her fate.

Voices drifted closer. People were coming. Captain Warre cursed and pulled her deeper into the arbor.

Through the leaves, she saw two men stop near the front of the arbor. “...Holliswell has his way, Dunscore will be off the market,” one of them said.

She stood perfectly still, listening, alive to the press of Captain Warre’s every fingertip against the small of her back.

“Ingraham,” he whispered near her temple.

The other man chuckled. “In the market for that, are you? Can’t say I blame you—Dunscore is no mean estate.” In the shadowy light, Captain Warre’s expression turned murderous.

“I’d never have to bow out of a game again,” the first man said.

“And you’d go home to the spiciest quim in London. Wouldn’t mind a piece of that for myself.”

Captain Warre’s hand tightened against her back.

“...think she’s better than Miss Betsey at Mrs. Blake’s?”

The other man snorted. “Gawd, you’re a cheap one. Tell you what—when I’m Earl of Dunscore, I might be persuaded to turn a blind eye if you want to have a go.”

“I’m going to kill Ingraham.” Captain Warre’s voice was deadly in her ear.

“Shh!” A sick feeling curdled her stomach.

“...knows what the committee will recommend.”

“If somebody marries her, be nothing to recommend. Won’t take away a man’s rightful property. Besides, we’d start another war attainting a Scot’s estate of that size.” His voice grew fainter. They were walking away.

“I’d lay money old Rayford will— Hell, there’s the wife. She’s spotted me. Devil take it, she’s waving me over.” The sounds of the party swallowed their conversation. Katherine stood with her heart pounding and Captain Warre’s fingers biting hotly into the fabric of her gown. Her own fingers dug into his shoulder.

He turned his head, and suddenly she was inches away from those murderous green eyes. “Ingraham is a dead man.”

It struck her that he was the only person here except for Phil who looked at her and saw the woman she had become.

Tell me what else to do. How to convince them.

“They can’t possibly believe I would consider marriage,” she managed harshly, hoping he wouldn’t hear the fear in her voice.

“Not to the likes of Ingraham.”

“To anybody.”

He cursed under his breath. “Katherine, surely you realize—” His eyes met hers, those eyes that were green like the Mediterranean on a stormy day. They flicked to her mouth. Darkened.

“Realize what?” His sword handle pressed into her, jabbing through her stays. Beneath her fingers, his shoulder felt like rock.

“That it may become inevitable.”

Her hands tightened on him. “It can’t.”

“Katherine—” Whatever he’d been going to say died on his lips. He touched his mouth to hers, and she was lost.

She opened her lips and tasted fire. Touched his face and wanted to melt into him. He turned her in his arms, and already she felt him losing control again.

Oh, God. They couldn’t do this here.

Voices. More people were coming.

But she couldn’t stop touching him. His face, his neck, his shoulders. She clung to him as if she were drowning, lost herself in the taste of him and the strength of his arms around her.

No. They couldn’t—

Voices!

She tore herself away, but not soon enough. Holliswell and a lady had already stepped into the arbor, laughing. He stopped short when he saw them, and the laughter died on his face.

Damn, damn, damn.

Captain Warre took a measured step away and offered the slightest bow. “Lovely evening.”

Holliswell returned the bow while his calculating gaze shifted from her to Captain Warre. “Your lordship. Cousin.” His smile was a razor’s edge. “Excellent to see you are enjoying the party.”

Katherine reached deep for an air of disdain and somehow clothed herself with it though everything inside her throbbed and ached from Captain Warre’s kiss. She glanced at Holliswell’s companion and curled her lip ever so slightly. “Likewise, Mr. Holliswell.”

Holliswell’s companion looked aside awkwardly and, when Holliswell stalked away, followed him into the shrubbery.

* * *

FOOL. KATHERINE STORMED up the staircase after the garden party, rubbing her lips with the back of her hand. Fool!

She should have returned to the crowd the moment she realized Captain Warre had followed her. Should never have let him stand there touching her. Should have at least pulled away before he kissed her. Could she have been any more reckless? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen what he was going to do.

And now—

“Lady Dunscore.”

Katherine’s head came up sharply as she reached the landing. “Why are you still here? You’ve been dismissed—more than once.”

“Miss Germain has left.” Miss Bunsby said shortly, holding out a letter for Katherine to see.

“Left.” Good God. What had Millicent done now? Katherine hurried up the rest of the stairs and snatched the letter from Miss Bunsby’s hand, quickly skimming the contents.

Gone. Home to Bedfordshire to live with her brother Gavin.

Gavin. Millie didn’t even like Gavin.

But Millie was free to make her own choices now. A lump tightened Katherine’s throat. Phil was recapturing her London life, India was languishing in her father’s custody, William was off doing who knew what and now this. The life she’d built with people she loved—people who knew her, who respected her—was as good as gone.

She swallowed, hard, and fixed her gaze on Miss Bunsby. “You will pack your bags this instant and leave my house, or I will have you arrested and we shall see how your impertinence fares in gaol.”

“That is hardly the most efficient course of action under the circumstances.” Below, a footman emerged. “Well?” Miss Bunsby called down.

“Madam. Your ladyship.” He looked from Miss Bunsby to Katherine and back to Miss Bunsby. “I couldn’t find any,” he told her.

“Find what?” Katherine demanded.

“We live in the biggest city in England—perhaps in all the world,” Miss Bunsby called impatiently. “Do not tell me there is nobody who knows how to make kesra.”

“Kesra—” Katherine started.

“Go back out,” Miss Bunsby directed, “and do not return until you find someone.”

The footman’s mouth tightened, but he turned on his heel and left. At that precise moment, Anne’s voice drifted from the pink rooms. “Miss Bunsby? Miss Bunsby, where are you?”

Katherine rushed to her daughter’s room, crouching down to where Anne sat with her mandolin on the floor and cupping Anne’s face in her hands. “Dearest, are you all right?”

“Mama, I don’t like it here. I want to go back to the ship.”

Miss Bunsby frowned worriedly. “She wouldn’t take any food.”

“You know we can’t go back to the ship,” Katherine said into Anne’s hair, and saw the untouched tray at the bedside. “Why have you not eaten?”

“I’m not hungry. Millie went to visit her brother, Mama. I miss her.”

“I know, dearest.”

“And I want kesra.” Anne buried her face against Katherine’s arm. “Mama, I don’t like it here.”

Kesra. Katherine looked at Miss Bunsby. Helplessness gripped her. “You will love Dunscore, sweetling.” I promise. “There will be no awful smells, and the sea shall be the only sound, and we shall eat kesra every day.”

“Will Captain Warre be there?”

Katherine’s heart ached a little at the hope in Anne’s voice. “Captain Warre has much to do now that we’re in London,” she said. “I doubt he has much time for visiting, so you mustn’t expect him to call.”

“But I want him to visit. Will you tell him, Mama? Please?”

“I will tell him.” A few more reassurances later, they finally coaxed her to sleep in peaceful exhaustion.

“I tried to stop Miss Germain from going,” Miss Bunsby said outside the room, “but she wouldn’t listen to me. I can’t say I’m surprised. Two days has been plenty to see she wasn’t happy.”

“Devil take that blasted surgical school,” Katherine said, and refolded the note.

“Is it truly impossible for her to attend?”

“If I believed otherwise, I would have helped her do it.” But Millie would try, anyway. There was little doubt of that. She might stay with her brother for a while, but then she would find her way back to Malta. What then? Any number of unpleasant answers flitted through Katherine’s mind. At the same time, she felt Miss Bunsby’s eyes on her. Waiting.

Katherine assessed her in return. Strawberry-blond hair in a simple chignon. Too-pretty blue eyes. Slender build. Chin raised a notch too far to suggest submission.

She’d already proved well enough that she did not understand the word. She almost reminded Katherine of India.

“Yesterday Anne asked about our friend William Jaxbury,” Katherine said, teetering on the edge of indecision. “Has there been no word from him this evening?”

“Not one, your ladyship.”

Perhaps Miss Bunsby had proved herself tonight. Just a little. “If he should arrive while I am out,” Katherine said, “he is to be denied nothing.”

Comprehension—satisfaction—settled over Miss Bunsby’s blue eyes, and she smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dear Sirs,

Encouraging lack of maritime activity at Lady Carroll’s. Reflecting pool perhaps too small a body of water. Lady Dunscore unused to land operations; likely impeded by presence of shrubbery. No gentleman engaged.

In your humble service,

Croston

“CHANGED? WHY SHOULD my cousin’s arrival have changed anything?” A blustering, early morning wind outside Westminster Hall might have threatened to take Holliswell’s peruke with it if the carefully rolled hair hadn’t been petrified with grease, and Nick would have watched with satisfaction as it rolled down the street like a ball across a lawn. “Katherine’s arrival only makes the situation more pressing,” Holliswell went on in an offensively mild tone, “especially considering the circumstances.”

The circumstances. That, of course, referred to James’s miraculous return. Nick’s throat tightened, but he quickly gained the upper hand of his emotions. “The story of my brother’s rescue is already on the lips of every porter and match-seller in London,” he said flatly, “and I doubt if there is a drawing room in all of London that doesn’t echo with the retelling as we speak. If the Lords decide she’s a heroine, the Virgin Mary herself won’t be able to convince them to pass that bill.”

Holliswell’s lips, chapped and pale, curved coldly. “The question will be put this afternoon, will it not?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us hope the second reading is approved.” He paused. “Lord Adkins has expressed an interest in Clarissa. I’m not sure they should suit, but then, what girl couldn’t suit herself to a viscount?”

Adkins.

Nick’s vision hazed over. Just last year Adkins had hosted practically the entire ton at a masquerade in celebration of his sixtieth birthday, but the real celebration had taken place a week later at Adkins’s country estate, where rumor had it the entertainment had included prostitutes playing a unique version of croquet.