Читать книгу 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 - Julia London, Alison DeLaine - Страница 26

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dear Sirs,

Observed Lady Dunscore during morning visits. Cat-o’-nine-tails apparently left behind; ladies escaped unscathed. No Englishman pressed into service.

Yours, etc.,

Croston

“HOLY GOD, CROSTON, are you out of your mind?”

“She’s an intelligent woman.” In a quiet corner of White’s, James kept his voice practically inaudible as he made his pitch to Hollyroot.

“Forgive me, but that kind of intelligence is a quality I could do without. Old Dunscore was sporting good fun, though. Such a shame.”

Old Dunscore was a libertine, and everyone knew it. “I think you’ll find that Lady Dunscore has any number of qualities that would make her well suited as a wife,” he said and hoped Hollyroot wouldn’t press him for details.

“Seems more suited to someone like Ingraham, if you ask me.”

“Ingraham.” If Ingraham so much as imagined himself marrying her, James would kill him. “Listen here. Lady Dunscore is an agreeable woman.” In a certain sense. “Practical. Well-meaning. She needs someone decent. Sensible.” Someone like Hollyroot, with a harmless demeanor and an estate that could use an infusion of resources. It was the most efficient way. That bill would have almost no chance of advancing if she married.

It was the logical answer.

A few swallows of liquor sat cold in his gut, along with the full implications of what he was suggesting if this conversation was successful. Hollyroot touching her. Bedding her.

James gripped his glass so hard he felt a twinge in his thumb.

“Suppose I ought to be flattered,” Hollyroot said, “but this is a devil of a thing to spring on a fellow.” He knocked back a swallow of bourbon and set his glass down, leaning heavily on one forearm propped on the table. “I mean, there’s no denying her beauty—”

“She’s got more than mere beauty.”

“Indeed,” Hollyroot agreed grimly. “Rumor has it she’s got a child.”

Every muscle tensed. “Anne is a sweet girl. Would make an excellent daughter.”

“Daughter!” Hollyroot shook his head. “All due respect, Croston, but I think the sea’s gone to your head.”

Christ. “Very well. Forget I said a word about it. And if you breathe a word of this conversation to anyone...”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Holy God. Do you think I’d want anyone to suspect, to even imagine— Holy God. I admire the hell out of you, Croston, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

* * *

“HOLD STILL IF you please, my lady.” A painful tug had Katherine second-guessing her decision to appropriate Clarissa Holliswell’s lady’s maid. The girl had developed methods of torture more suited to a medieval dungeon. But piece by piece, Katherine’s hair was shaping into a deceptively simple coiffure that involved numerous rolls and braids woven through with copper ribbon.

“A man like that wants his balls removed,” Katherine said derisively over her shoulder to Phil, who sat by the window in Katherine’s dressing room, reading aloud from the papers.

“I should have warned you about the duke.”

“With so many men who require warning off, it’s little wonder you overlooked it.”

Another tug forced Katherine to face the looking glass. “My lady!”

“‘Adventures in the Mediterranean’?” Phil read aloud. “Insulting. I prefer to think of us as having been engaged in business.”

“We were engaged in business,” Katherine snapped. “And I have the fortune to prove it. I tell you now, if His Grace tries to strengthen his acquaintance with me tonight in any manner—traditional or otherwise—I shan’t be responsible for my actions.” The maid cast her an uneasy glance in the looking glass. She had no way of knowing how severely Katherine’s words contradicted her thoughts.

The morning’s disastrous round of visits had made one thing clear: she would need to strengthen her acquaintance with as many lords as she could, in any manner she could.

“I can think of any number of ways to ensure the duke does not misunderstand me,” she added anyhow.

Phil set aside the papers. “Sometimes you positively frighten me. You need to win over the natives, not alienate them.”

“At least indulge me some measure of aggravation. Men are such fools.” Except one man, but she would not think of that now. Worse, Phil was right. “I’ve got half a mind to go to Westminster, bare my breasts and see this whole business finished.”

Phil laughed. “The situation may be a bit more complicated than that, dearest. Though I daresay if you can gain the attention of a man’s cock, you’ve won three-fourths of the battle. All that’s left is to influence him in the proper direction. Tonight’s party will be an excellent start. Tomorrow night we shall go to Vauxhall, and to the theater the next, until they cannot possibly ignore you.”

No, they would not ignore her. She would make sure of that. “I hate that they amuse themselves so well with their impertinences.”

“Which you must laugh off as though you haven’t a care in the world. All of London is fascinated with you—”

“As they would be with a two-headed ape.”

“—and that can’t help but work to your advantage, especially with Captain Warre’s endorsement. I saw Lady Mullen after I passed you going into Lady Derby’s this afternoon, and she had so many questions about how we managed aboard the Possession I swear she has a notion of going to sea herself. And she wasn’t the only one. And of course, they are all over the moon about Captain Warre.” Phil’s blue eyes sparkled wickedly at Katherine in the looking glass. “But of course, that wouldn’t interest you.”

Katherine smiled at her. “No. It wouldn’t.” But the smile faded almost immediately. “Captain Warre believes there will be a second reading.” It was a struggle to keep the fear from her voice. “After that, will it not be put to a committee? What do you know of committees?”

“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.