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

Inside, he found Deal comfortably seated in his breakfast room. A copy of the Edinburgh Courant lay open with a scattering of crumbs dusting its pages.

“Had an uncanny feeling I might be seeing you,” Deal said.

“Oh?”

Deal only smiled and gestured to the empty chair at his small table nestled in a bay of tall windows. “Please, be seated. I’ll call for an extra plate.”

James preferred to stand, but there was no need to be an ass. “No need for the plate. I’ve already eaten.” It was a lie. Food was the last thing he could stomach this morning. A maid poured him a cup of coffee before being dismissed by Deal, and James sipped the brew even though he would have preferred something stronger. Good Scotch whiskey, for example.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” James said. “Whatever your understanding with Lady Dunscore, I want you to break it. I am prepared to negotiate an incentive.”

Deal took a bite of some dark bread, unperturbed save for a slight raising of his bushy brows. “And if the promise of an incentive doesn’t tempt me, you’ll resort to stronger measures, I suppose.”

James tamped down a flare of anger. “I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

Deal chewed his bread and took a sip of tea. “I can see now why Katherine said you were unsuitable.”

James’s gut pitched sharply. “Katherine thinks anyone in breeches is unsuitable.”

“But she has too volatile a nature to hide her emotions well, and when we discussed marriage it was clear her love lay elsewhere.”

Her love. James squelched a callow urge to embark on a fishing expedition.

“I asked her if she’d left someone behind in London—someone who’d broken her heart, perhaps—” Deal gave him a pointed look “—but she said no, that there was nobody appropriate. Now I can see perhaps she was right. Do you really think to win Katherine by threats and bribes?”

“I will have Katherine by whatever method it takes. Have you come to an understanding?”

“That, Croston, is a question you should be asking her.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I certainly won’t deny Katherine my help, though I’ll admit I haven’t yet decided what form it should take.” There was a stubborn set to Deal’s face that James didn’t like.

“Perhaps I can help you decide,” James said coldly. “Katherine may be carrying my child. And even were that not the case, there’s a good chance that after last night it would be.”

Deal set down his bread and looked James in the eye. “Impertinent bastard. I would call you out for besmirching her if it wasn’t plain as day you’re besotted. A man in love deserves a measure of mercy, I suppose.”

In love. The idea grabbed him by the throat and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

Deal gave James a look he hadn’t received since school days. “My only question is how you plan to make her say the vows. Will you hold a pistol on her?”

Somehow he managed to inhale. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You think to leave her no choice, is that it? Make yourself the only option? A faulty premise, my boy, as you well know. A rich estate and a beautiful countess—even a seafaring one—is bound to be a powerful lure. Been thinking of a few suggestions these past days. McGowan, for example. He’s young enough. Solid estate. Weogh wouldn’t be a bad choice, either.”

“I’ll tell any man that tries exactly what I told you,” James said darkly.

Deal narrowed his eyes. “You’ll ruin her in your attempt to have her?”

He was in love.

In love. The certainty of it snaked down on the inside of him and curled up tight.

“I’ll do anything to have her,” he said flatly.

Wasn’t that what a man in love was supposed to do?

* * *

KATHERINE STEPPED OUT of her carriage in front of Lord Deal’s house, where dozens of hoofprints in the dough-soft mud made the ground uneven and hard to walk on in her slippers. Obviously hers was not the first visit of the morning. There were muddy footprints on the steps and in the entranceway.

“My dear, what a lovely surprise,” Lord Deal said, meeting her in the entry. “Come, come—I’m just finishing my breakfast.” A few crumbs on his mustache attested to the truth of it. “Will you have anything? A bit of fruit, perhaps? Tea?”

Brandy, more like. “Tea would be nice, thank you.” He guided her into the sitting room where his breakfast table was set up by the window. His gait was more shuffly this morning than it had been before, and he nearly lost his balance when they walked from the floor to the carpet. She put out a hand to help him.

“There’s a good girl. My bones just aren’t what they used to be. Been having some trouble this morning—weather must be changing.” He gestured her to a chair at his table and sat down. A maid hurried over and whisked away the cup from his last visitor and replaced it with a fresh one. “Has something happened? Is everything all right with your guests?”

“Nothing has happened. William has gone to Edinburgh, and Lord Croston has been out on a morning ride.” She took a breath. “I fear waiting much longer given the uncertainty with the committee. I’ve come to find out what I can do to help you come to your decision.”

“Ah, I see.” He buttered a thick slice of dark currant bread and chewed thoughtfully. “Nothing should be decided before you meet McGowan. I’m certain I can arrange something within the next few days.”

“I do not wish to meet Lord McGowan,” she said sharply, and Lord Deal raised a brow. “Forgive me,” she said. “It’s just that I have my heart set on you.”

The brow lowered, and he reached for his tea. “Tell me, Katherine—” he sipped and set the cup down “—has Lord Croston made you an offer?”

She froze. “No.” The lie rolled off her tongue like a sour grape.

“You’re quite certain? Not even a hint? London is a terribly long journey to bring a bit of news that could have been written in a letter.”

She hesitated a moment too long.

“He did make an offer, then,” he said.

“Anything Lord Croston might have suggested was not meant to be serious.”

Lord Deal laughed. “My dear, if a man like Croston offers marriage, I assure you it is serious. You rejected him, didn’t you. Why?”

“He is unsuitable.”

“Yes, I believe you mentioned that once already. But why is he unsuitable? He seems a solid enough fellow, and his estate is larger than McGowan’s and Arran’s put together. And you’ve got much in common. It seems a perfect match.”

“It isn’t.”

“Why not?”

Because it couldn’t be. Because she felt too much when she was with him. Because she was in love, and everything William said about that was true. “Lord Croston is too demanding. He wants to be in command—of everything.”

“Well yes, I suppose I’ve seen that in him.”

“I won’t stand for it.”

“Forgive me, my dear, but are you not just as commanding?”

She smiled tightly. “As you heard him say in front of the committee, a ship cannot have two captains.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I suppose that’s true enough.” He looked at her hard across the table, letting his false senility fall completely away. “Are you in love with him?”

“Certainly not.” Her cheeks flamed, putting the lie to her words.

“Is he in love with you?”

“I’m sure he’s not.”

“Really?”

She shot to her feet. “Enough of this. Lord Deal, I will not marry Lord Croston. And even if I would, he has not renewed his offer, and—”

“So try accepting the first one.”

She stared at Lord Deal across the table, and he stared back with knowing brown eyes. God help her, this was not going the way she planned. After a moment, he pushed his chair back and stood. “My dear—” he came around the table and stood looking down at her “—I cannot in good conscience proceed with an engagement to you under anything less than the direst exigency.”

“Then let us proceed.”

He put a finger against her lips. “Why are you so afraid of him? You, who seem afraid of nothing.”

She was a rabbit caught in the open, staring at him with the pressure of his finger keeping her silent. I love him.

“I’ve seen love change more than one man, Katie.” He removed his finger, and his eyes turned deadly serious. “Tell me right now that he’s been unkind to you, that he’s used you badly, that he’s been violent—tell me right now, in all possible honesty, that you truly wish to marry me and not him, and God help me, I’ll do it.”

She couldn’t find a single word.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

IT WAS A BLOODY close call. James had seen Katherine’s carriage trundling toward Deal Manor and quickly turned his horse down a side road through a thicket of alarmingly sparse vegetation. It was almost certain she hadn’t spotted him.

All afternoon he waited for the opportunity to renew his proposal, to argue his case, all the while expecting every moment to see a rider approaching the castle with news of the vote.

It didn’t arrive.

And the opportunity he sought remained elusive.

The afternoon clouds burned away, and the sun shone brilliantly over the damp moors. They took Anne to the barn, sat her on a shaggy pony named Bess and walked her around the meadow. Katherine had put wildflowers in Anne’s hair, laughed freely—more freely than before?—and turned her face to the breeze. James tried to guess what Deal might have said to her that morning, whether he might have said anything that would assure James’s success.

It was impossible to tell.

They took Anne to the beach, followed by a goldfish feeding frenzy at the pond. Anne stuck her hands in the water and squealed as the small fish nibbled at her fingers. Katherine stuck her fingers in, too, and splashed water at him. He splashed back until they both looked as if they’d been standing at the bow of a ship in a storm, and he’d loved her so much in that moment he’d almost asked her again to marry him, timing be damned.

And now time was running out. If they came to an understanding tonight, they could marry in the morning—blessed be liberal Scottish law. He would waste no time consummating the union, and then if the news did arrive it would be too late. They would set out for London immediately on pretense of ending the whole business by making the marriage known, and he could pretend he’d missed the vote by a hairsbreadth before setting out for Dunscore. She would find out eventually, but by then she would be irrevocably his.

He would make sure she didn’t regret it.

As night fell, James contemplated this with a glass of brandy clenched in his fist and heat from a blazing fire in the great hall scorching his face. She’d gone upstairs to tuck Anne into bed, but soon she would return, and then he would need to finish his plan.

But Katherine would not accept him in marriage as easily as she had accepted him into her bed. Stubborn woman. Hold a pistol to her head and force her to say the vows? If it would have resulted in a binding contract, he would have tried it already.

I’ll do anything to have her. Guilt slithered through the back of his mind, but he shoved it aside. This was the only way. Other men might have tried following her like a puppy, yapping pretty words of love and devotion. Such a man would have had his hopes skewered on the end of her cutlass.

Telling her he loved her—good God. That bloody well wouldn’t work, either.

No, Katherine was like an enemy ship. She would have to be captured.

He was so consumed by his thoughts that he didn’t notice Katherine approaching until she stood next to him. He turned to her, feeling his liquor more than he’d realized. She was beautiful—his very own fantasy in the flesh, standing there in a simple blue gown with all that dark silk falling over her shoulders. God help him, he lost a part of himself every time he looked at her. She commanded his world, whether he wanted her to or not.

She held a glass half-full of wine. In the firelight, the liquid glinted the same dark pink as her most intimate flesh. “Come,” she said quietly, holding out her hand. “I have something to show you.”

His pulse leaped. He was in no mood for surprises, but he would follow her anywhere. He took her hand and she led him out of the main hall, down the main corridor, up a back staircase. They turned down another corridor, climbed narrower staircases and followed narrower hallways. Finally she pushed open an ancient wooden door, and they emerged onto Dunscore’s ramparts.

The view stole his breath. Above them, the night sky glittered with stardust. A slender crescent moon hung over the horizon to the west, where a faint blue glow was quickly fading. To the east, the shadowy ocean surged against the beach in shimmering crashes of froth.

She released his hand and went to the waist-high rampart wall, setting down her glass and laying her hands flat against the stone. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

He stared at her back. Something had changed. “Magnificent.”

“This is where I always came to think. Or sometimes, just to look at the stars.” She tipped her head back and looked up. “Sometimes I would talk to my mother and imagine she was up there somewhere, listening.”

Her mother. James’s pulse ticked hard in his throat. There was only one reason she might be telling him this. Wasn’t there?

“I have no doubt that she was,” he said, and joined her at the rampart wall. His tongue was thick with the need to ask about her visit to Lord Deal. Perhaps—God. Perhaps this was her way of turning to him now that Deal had ended things. He took a drink of brandy and swallowed his questions, keeping his eyes fixed on the sea.

“Do you ever watch the stars?” she asked him.

He didn’t give a rat’s arse about the bloody stars. Not right now. “At sea,” he told her. “On the night watch.”

“Mmm. The stars are beautiful at sea.”

Marry me, Katherine. He would have to say it sometime.

“Sometimes we watched the stars in Algiers,” she said quietly. “Mejdan’s fourth daughter had a small telescope that she would set up in the courtyard, and we would take turns viewing the stars and planets.”

Every muscle tensed. She noticed, and he felt her tense, too. “You don’t wish me to speak of that,” she said.

“You may speak of whatever you damn well please.” Sick apprehension caught him in the gut, but whatever horrors she revealed, he could withstand it.

But why now? Here?

“I declined Lord Deal’s offer of marriage,” she told him instead.

“His offer.” For a heartbeat the world froze.

“It was pure kindness,” she said quietly. “Lord Deal is a dear friend—he would do anything for Papa. For me.”

Despite their conversation earlier. James’s heart thundered in his chest. If she had accepted, he would have killed Deal with his bare hands. But then—

“You declined?” A powerful sense of victory surged through him.

“He wasn’t what I wanted.” Hope flooded him, but then she added, “Not that it wouldn’t have been...tolerable.”

“Tolerable.”

“Living with a kind man is not so awful.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Anne’s father was such a man.”

That quickly, they were back to Algiers. He tried to digest her words but couldn’t. “You describe your captor as tolerable?”

“No. I describe him as kindhearted.”

Kindhearted. James thought about the time he’d spent in Salé trying to negotiate her freedom, only to discover she’d been gifted to al-Zayar.

“Full of smiles and laughter, if not vim and vigor,” she went on quietly. Directly. Softly, with something like nostalgia in her voice. “His physicians said he had a bad heart. But he loved to play in the courtyard with the children, and he treated his dogs like royalty. No creatures were ever so pampered.”

“His dogs.”

“Spoiled. Each and every one.”

“And his slaves?”

Even in the darkness, he saw her eyes flash. “The dreadful tale of ravishment and horror you imagine is the stuff of novels.”

“Anne’s existence says it isn’t.”

Her hand flew up to slap him. He caught her arms and held it firmly. “I meant no insult by that.” Bathed in starlight, her face looked like porcelain. He felt her arm relax, and he released it.

“I need you to understand,” she said desperately, gripping his shirt. “You must understand.”

Ah, God. He framed her face, pushed his fingers into her hair. “I do. I do understand. God knows, we tried to convince al-Zayar to accept a ransom.” The futility of it stung bitterly even now. “I can only imagine how you must have prayed—”

“No—that’s not it at all. Don’t you see? Can’t you see how much better my life was with Mejdan than it would have been if I’d been ransomed and brought home?”

“Better!” He tightened his fingers in her hair, wanting the impossible: to kill a man that, according to her testimony before the committee, was already dead.

“You know bloody well the life that awaited me here. The whispers, the ostracism, the kind of man who would have offered for poor, ruined Lady Katherine.”

He forced himself to inhale. “And the alternative?”

“Studying the stars through Kisa’s telescope.” Her expression softened, and her fisted hands uncurled against his chest. “Savoring pomegranate seeds on a hot day. Trying not to laugh when Mejdan’s mother scolded us for talking too much.” She searched his face. “Please understand, James. I thought I would live there forever. It wasn’t a large household. We all lived together—Mejdan’s wives, daughters.”

Concubines.

“They were my friends. My family, even.”

“Until al-Zayar died.”

A shadow darkened her eyes.

“You grieve for him.” He caught himself before sharper words shot from his lips.

“He never mistreated me. It could have been so much worse. Would have been, if his mother hadn’t helped me that night. James, please—”

“I know. I know.” He struggled to calm himself in the face of something he couldn’t change. “I understand.”

* * *

KATHERINE COULD SEE it was a lie. Even in the near-dark, his murderous expression was clear: he wanted to raise Mejdan from the dead just for the pleasure of killing him. Perhaps it had been a mistake to entrust James with this. But if they were to be married...

Oh, God.

Perhaps this entire thing was folly. He still had not renewed his proposal. Marry me, Katherine. The words were so simple. Why had he not said them?

She needed to make him understand about Algiers. “Without Riuza’s help, I would have been trapped when Mejdan’s son took over the household, and all could have been exactly as you imagine.” James’s chest was taut beneath her hands, rising and falling with his angry breath.

“You should have gone to the consulate.”

“With Anne in my belly?”

“At least you would have been safe!”

“I was safe.”

“Rowing out with William to steal a ship from the harbor? Good God. When I think what you must have endured...” His arms came around her, and he held her tightly against him.

His furious heartbeat thudded in her ear. “Endure is relative. You know that.”

“You never should have had to endure anything,” he said against her hair. “And I intend to see that you never do again.”

Never again. She pulled back a little and tried to read his thoughts, but couldn’t. She made herself take a chance. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life seeing pity in your eyes and knowing you see me as a tragedy.”

“That’s not what I see, Katherine. Not at all.” She saw the moment he realized what she’d said. His hands came to her face. “Then you’ll marry me?” The words might have sounded like a command if not for the uncertainty coloring them.

“I will.” She barely managed the words.

His hands tightened a little on her cheeks. “Immediately. Tomorrow morning.”

It was mere hours away. Her pulse danced wildly. “I suppose that would be wise,” she said, cursing the nerves in her voice. “Under the circumstances. Do you not agree?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, and triumph flashed in his eyes. Instead of answering, he kissed her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

NICK SAT ACROSS the desk from Lord Cantwell, negotiating his own future with all the warmth and excitement of a shipping transaction. In fact, it was a shipping transaction—a bloody irregular one.

“I have good reason to believe my daughter is headed for the Mediterranean,” Cantwell was saying. “You would agree to pursue her all the way there, if necessary?”

For fifty thousand pounds, he would pursue her to the bloody interior of China. “I will.”

“As a condition of this marriage, I shall expect nothing less.”

“Nor shall I.”

Cantwell exhaled. Bushy blond brows dove over bright blue eyes, and he assessed Nick over steepled hands. “It’s not in my interest to say this, but my daughter is a wild harridan. Marriage to her won’t be easy.”

“Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect that it would.” But it would be profitable, and that was all that mattered. “I shall find her and bring her back to England, where I assure you I shall keep her under control.”

Cantwell gave a laugh. “I assure you, Taggart, if it were that easy, I would have kept her under control. In any case, I intend to obtain a special dispensation. Although I expect the marriage to be performed at the earliest opportunity once you find her. I don’t care how you get it done—only that you do. You won’t find any challenge from me on that point.”

“Understood.” Cantwell had no cause for concern. It was either this or lose Taggart to Holliswell, and Nick wasn’t going to risk letting the answer to all his problems slip from his grasp. He would marry Lady India the moment he found her.

“And in the meantime,” Cantwell went on, “I shall speak with Mr. Holliswell.” Cantwell smiled. “You won’t need to concern yourself there.”

Nick might have smiled, too, under other circumstances. Already his thoughts hurtled forward. He was engaged to be married, after all—this time, to save himself.

* * *

THE HASTY WEDDING and hurried coach ride hardly left time to think. At the same time, there’d been too much time to think, staring for hours and hours at the passing countryside, unable to speak of important matters in front of Anne and Miss Bunsby.

Married. To the man who had sunk the Merry Sea.

Now Katherine stood in her new apartment in James’s London house, feeling as if she’d been tossed for days by high seas.

Married. To Captain Warre.

A warm feeling snuck through her—the same warm feeling she’d allowed herself to sample each time she’d looked at him in the coach. Each night at the inns where they stayed, when she watched him climb into bed with her. Each morning when she woke to find herself in his arms.

Every moment she expected to realize she’d made an enormous, irreversible mistake. But then he would look at her with those green eyes full of satisfaction, on fire for the woman she was, with no trace of the pity she feared. And a little more of her resistance would slough away, leaving behind something new and hopeful and alive.

He strode into her room now, all outrage. “Good God—I’ll dismiss every last one of them!” A maid scurried out, and she watched him bolt the bedroom door against the savage hordes masquerading as footmen bringing in their trunks.

“Would you rather the trunks had stayed on the coach?” she asked.

“I would rather not have to think of trunks at all,” he said darkly, coming toward her. “Or footmen. Or—” he waved the letter Bates had given them on their arrival “—emergencies at Croston. I would much prefer to think exclusively—”

“Wait, what are you— Put me down!”

“—of you.” He carried her to the bed and pinned her to it with his weight. “Very well. I shall happily keep you down for as long as you like.” He bent his head for a searing kiss, and she drank it in hungrily.

This was no captivity.

That warm feeling worked its magic again, and she suppressed a bubble of laughter. The Lords would hardly attaint her now.