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

Was she really going to subject Anne to this now after protecting her from it all this time?

Earlier today she’d almost been able to forget all this, riding with Anne in Lord Deal’s phaeton, hearing Anne squeal with delight. Feeling Lord Deal’s reassuring gaze on them both. For a short time, it had seemed as if everything might turn out all right.

She stared into the darkness as she might have done aboard the Possession, except this railing was stone and the only view was a shrouded garden at the back of the house. Instead of crashing waves, small crescendos of laughter reached her ears. Everything was not going to be all right.

She imagined Captain Warre stepping onto the balcony behind her. Taking her hand and sweeping her away—her and Anne both, to a magnificent ship that they would sail to an exotic land, perhaps the West Indies or China, where they would—

She inhaled sharply. Good God.

Honoria’s voice lilted through her mind. Suppose a man did show honorable intentions—a tolerable man, naturally.

No. Honoria was a fool if she thought Captain Warre had anything like honorable intentions—or that Katherine wished he had.

A shiver feathered her skin. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied by tomorrow’s hearing, would she have thrown caution to the wind and made love with him in that room?

The answer flamed through her blood, and her skin flushed hot in the cool air.

“Pray tell, Lady Dunscore...” A male voice startled her from the shadows between the great columns that lined the outside of the house. “What has given you such an air of agitation?” The Duke of Winston stepped into view, accompanied by another man she recognized as Lord Wenthurst.

She faced them with her chin high. “Good evening, Your Grace. Lord Wenthurst.” She didn’t bother to curtsy. This was the man James had been prepared to duel for the sake of her honor. She raked him with her eyes. One flash of her cutlass would send the poor earl scurrying back to his wife.

The duke, however, was another matter entirely.

The earl cleared his throat. “A pleasure, as always, Lady Dunscore. I, er...” His gaze shot past Winston in the direction of the ballroom. “If you’ll excuse me.” He gave a quick nod of his head and ducked past Winston.

The duke remained, observing her, demonic in a coat of such deep red that it looked as black as his hair.

“Tell me what can I do to ease your distress,” he said smoothly.

“Your powers of observation deceive you,” she told him. “I am not distressed. You are free to return to the festivities.”

“And leave you here alone? Forsooth, madam.” He moved in next to her. “I was sorry not to receive a response to my invitation.” The breeze toyed with the queue at the back of his neck.

“I have received so many such invitations, Your Grace. I confess they have become a blur.”

He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the shadowy night. “Have they? Then please—allow me to refresh your memory.”

She could allow him to do more than that. He chaired the committee. His influence would be enormous. The scent of his cologne reached her and for a crazed moment she imagined offering a smile instead of scorn. Inviting him to pay a call. Taking him to her bed.

The thought had barely formed before it made her want to be sick. “I will save you the embarrassment of propositioning me again by issuing a standing ‘no,’” she said, furious with herself. “Let me be perfectly clear. I will be no man’s mistress.” A brisk gust of wind stripped the heat from her skin and gave her a sudden chill.

“Such directness, Lady Dunscore. You shock me.”

“I very much doubt that anything could shock you, Your Grace.”

His laugh was a rich sound in the night that had probably melted the knees of dozens of romantically misguided girls. He leaned one hip casually against the thick marble railing. “Perhaps not, but I’m always up for a challenge. I have a feeling that you could shock me most extraordinarily given the right circumstance.”

“What a pity you will never find out. Good evening.” She needed to leave this ball. Now.

“You do realize, of course,” he called after her quietly, “that I chair a committee that may hold a very particular interest for you.”

She froze. Slowly she turned back. “Am I to understand,” she began coldly, “that you are using your influence on the committee to blackmail me into a seduction?”

“Perhaps to bargain for a kiss, if that’s what it takes. One touch, Lady Dunscore—” he laughed even more wickedly, lowering his voice to a near-whisper and leaning toward her “—or shall I say, one stroke, and after that there won’t be any bargaining necessary, I assure you.” His eyes burned across her breasts.

“Such confidence, Your Grace.” Voices drifted behind her from the crowd gathered outside the ballroom. “You must be very sure of your skill.”

Apparently sensing victory, he pushed away from the railing and took a step toward her. “I’m very sure when I meet a woman who would appreciate my strengths.” There was just enough light filtering from the windows to see his strengths bulging hard inside his breeches.

“Oh, yes. I certainly can appreciate them.” She feinted with her left hand as though she meant to touch him.

“Then by all means, let us— Bloody hell!” The duke jumped back three feet when she whipped her cutlass from its hiding place in her skirts.

She smiled. “Tell me again about your strengths, Your Grace. I want to be able to appreciate them fully.” A few startled voices grew louder behind her as people began to notice something out of the ordinary was happening. They would draw a crowd, of course. She didn’t care.

“For God’s sake, woman, put that thing down!” he bit out.

“Only if you put yours down, as well.” She lowered the tip of her cutlass to his crotch, and someone behind her gasped. Her blood sang with satisfaction. “Oh, but look how quickly you comply,” she added.

“Good God, she’s going to emasculate him,” someone muttered.

The duke gave her that smile again and held his hands up. “You have me entirely at your mercy, Lady Dunscore. Only have a care for my future family.” A few nervous laughs erupted.

“You’ve made such a point of telling me how eager you are to share your family assets with womankind, Your Grace—”

“Katherine!” Captain Warre called out from somewhere behind her.

“—that I would feel remiss if I didn’t help you.” Lightning-quick she moved her cutlass to a chorus of gasps and cries of alarm, and in the blink of an eye two delicate cuts left the duke’s manhood on the edge of being exposed to the world. To his credit, he didn’t flinch.

“Well, now,” she said, smiling. “It looks as though I can shock you, given the right...circumstance. Say the word, and I shall deliver the coup de grâce.”

Behind her, the crowd was in an uproar. A hand curled tightly around her wrist. “Put that away,” Captain Warre growled in her ear.

Winston calmly held the gaping fabric in place. “I should have heeded your warning, after all, Croston,” he said lightly. “The lady is certainly a threat to one’s anatomy.”

“I rather suspect you are your own worst enemy, Winston.” Captain Warre’s voice was flinty.

Katherine tore from his grasp and dove through the crowd.

“Wait!” Captain Warre’s command barked behind her, but she didn’t stop. This was it—she’d had enough. Knots of people backed out of her way in a chaos of talking and questions. She heard him calling to her but kept going, hurrying faster, running now as people scattered to her right and left, until finally she realized that she did not hear his voice anymore. She made it to the entrance and ordered the footman to get her a hack instantly. There wasn’t time to wait for her coach. Within moments she was clattering toward her house.

She had actually considered him. For a moment she had actually considered taking the duke to her bed in exchange for his support.

This entire business had gone too far. There was no reason for this desperation, no reason that she should consider debasing herself, no reason for any of this. It was time to end it—now, before the Lords ended it for her.

* * *

“THERE IS A gentleman waiting for you in the salon, your ladyship,” Dodd announced in a hushed voice the instant she walked through the door.

“Send him away. And have our trunks brought from the attic. Anne and I will be returning to my ship. I want our things packed within the hour.”

Dodd’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth but wisely shut it again. “The gentleman has refused every request to leave, your ladyship.”

There was no time for this. Whoever it was, she would show him that the spectacle was over. “Then he shall meet with my cutlass.” She veered from the staircase and headed for the salon.

“I think it important to advise your ladyship that the man is intoxicated,” Dodd said with great disapproval, hurrying at her side. “Extremely so. Although perhaps, by now—”

“William!” Relief slammed through her when she saw him sprawled on a sofa.

He sat up. “Good evening, Captain.”

“That will be all,” she said to Dodd. One look told her everything about why William hadn’t called before now. “You’re drunk.”

“Maybe a little.”

More than a little. His hair stuck out at all angles. His clothes were disheveled. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was as unshaven as his worst day at sea. “I’ve been worried, and Anne has been beside herself.” Fear warred with fury at the sight of him.

“I’ve bought a house,” he said, running a hand through his hair, looking at the sofa as though he was trying to decide whether to flop back down.

“You could have sent a note.”

“Could have,” he said. “Too drunk to write.”

The only other time this had happened—it had to have been at least four years ago now—she’d spent three days alone in Valencia with no idea where he was. “A house?”

“Figured I ought to do something with all that money.” He gave a laugh. “Hardly made a dent in it.”

A whiff of tawdry perfume reached her nose. “You’ve been whoring.”

He paced away, and she let him go. “I’m told it’s in excellent condition.” He sank into a chair and dug his fingers into his hair. “Old country estate—got a mind to go look at the place.” He looked up at her with haunted blue eyes. “Marry me, Katherine. Be my wife and come live with me in my godawful house.”

“William, please don’t do this.” It was Valencia all over again, and her heart ached for him.

But pain ripped across his face—that same pain she knew was always there, lurking just below the laughing surface, just out of sight where nobody could see it. He stood up, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I shall never be free of what happened in Barbary. Never. Bloody Christ, Katherine, you’re the only one who’ll ever understand.”

He was wrong. Even she couldn’t really understand, because his captivity had been so much different from hers. She’d become a member of a household, made friends, been cared for. Not so for William. He’d told her of the underground prisons, the crushing labor, the beatings. But she couldn’t begin to imagine the hell he’d been through.

He needed the freedom of the sea as much as she did.

“I’m taking Anne away from here,” she told him. “Tonight.”

“Away!” He faced her abruptly.

“Will you help me gather the crew? Ready the ship?”

“What’s happened?” he demanded.

She told him briefly about her failures, the outrages, and fresh anger flared up. “They will never give me Dunscore. I’ll not allow the committee to humiliate me, only to strip me of Dunscore, anyway. Anne and I will return to sea where we belong.”

He absorbed that news. “Yes.” He paced a few steps away. Turned back. His lips curved a little drunkenly. “God, Katherine—excellent idea.”

A nerve pulsed in her temple, and she started toward the door. “Quickly—let us go upstairs. Help me ready Anne for the journey.”

“God,” he repeated as they crossed the entrance hall. “This is perfect. What I wouldn’t give to feel that Mediterranean sun on my face again.”

“To hear the shouts of the linemen when we raise the sails in the morning,” she agreed, already feeling a surge of anticipation. Those shouts were the sounds of freedom.

“The taste of Spanish cerveza.” New purpose fleeted through William’s haunted eyes. “I shall scour the taverns until I’ve found every last one of the crew, else I’ll hire others,” he said as they climbed the stairs. “With luck we shall set sail in the morning.”

“We will set sail in the morning.” Anything less was unacceptable. “In a month’s time, we shall pass through the strait.” And once they arrived in the Mediterranean, she would decide what to do next.

Now he gave a laugh. “Should we free India from her father’s prison and take her with us?”

“Ha. I’ll not have Cantwell sending anyone after me. Poor India will have to make her own way, I’m afraid.” She began to feel a little giddy, drunk like William, but with anticipation. The first order of business would be to strip off this gown and put on her tunic and trousers.

Anne would be so pleased. She hated London. She would never have to wear a stiff dress now.

But when she topped the stairs, there were voices coming from the direction of the rooms. In front of Anne’s chamber, two trunks sat on the floor and Dodd stood arguing with Miss Bunsby, who blocked the door with her arms folded across her chest.

“What is this?” Katherine demanded.

“Anne is asleep,” Miss Bunsby said.

“I gave orders for our things to be packed immediately. Move aside.” Katherine pushed past her and reached for the door. It was locked. The nerve in her temple became a vicious pounding. “Unlock this door at once.”

Miss Bunsby was unmoved. “You’ll not take her to your ship, only to raise her hopes and then realize you’ve made a mistake. It would be cruel.”

“How dare you.” Katherine turned on her. After what had happened tonight she would never, ever change her mind.

The faint ringing of the bell sounded below. “Someone is here, your ladyship,” Dodd said.

“Do not answer.” She held out her hand to Miss Bunsby. “The key.”

“She has hidden the key, your ladyship,” Dodd said irritatedly. “My set is below stairs.”

“Uppity baggage you’ve got here,” William said.

Miss Bunsby scorched him from head to toe with disapproving eyes. “I am Anne’s governess.”

“And I am her mother,” Katherine snapped. Below, the bell rang incessantly. “You will bring me the key, get your things and leave this house at once.”

“With all due respect, your ladyship has tried that before.”

“I shall have you thrown bodily into the street!”

“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Lady Anne,” Miss Bunsby hissed.

Katherine turned on Dodd. “Answer the bloody door and kill whoever is on the other side. And bring your keys.”

“You mustn’t do this,” Miss Bunsby said firmly as Dodd hurried away. “What will she think when you tell her you’re returning to the ship? Anyone can see you’re in a state, your ladyship. Please—wait until morning when you’ve calmed yourself.”

William grabbed her by the arm. “Best show me where that key is—”

“Unhand me!”

“—then I’ll escort you out, bags or no.”

As if the devil himself were orchestrating some hellish play, Captain Warre strode down the hallway with Dodd on his heels. “I’ll be bloody damned if I’ll let you return to that ship,” he said to Katherine, pointing that finger at her. “What in God’s name do you hope to accomplish by this?”

Miss Bunsby was still trying and failing to pull herself from William’s grasp.

“Sailing back to the Med and having done with all this nonsense,” William told him. “Perhaps you have a mind to join us?”

“William,” Katherine said sharply.

Captain Warre looked at him. “You’re drunk, Jaxbury.”

“Perhaps.” William shrugged a little. “Wouldn’t get in her way if I was you.”

“Make her see reason, your lordship,” Miss Bunsby begged. “Do not let her wake Anne for this.”

Captain Warre glared at Katherine. “Is what happened with Winston what’s prompted this? For God’s sake, the man would proposition a stone if he could figure out how to get his cock inside it. It’s nothing to take personally.”

“Mama?” Anne’s faint cry came through the locked door.

“Now you’ve done it,” Miss Bunsby whispered harshly.

“Mama?”

“Get the key.” Katherine’s voice was ice.

William released Miss Bunsby, who disappeared into an adjoining room and returned seconds later with the key. Katherine snatched it from her and shoved it in the lock with shaking fingers. Like night settling over the city, reality slowly chilled her temper. Behind her, Miss Bunsby and Captain Warre and William crowded in.

“Your ladyship, please,” Miss Bunsby begged.

She shut the door in their faces and went into Anne’s room alone.

“Mama?”

“I’m here, dearest.”

“I heard shouting.”

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.”