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

That going to Mejdan’s bed had been tolerable.

Captain Warre would never believe any of that. All he would see—all any Englishman would see—was the fact of her captivity.

“You need not grieve over my virtue, Captain.” She would explain nothing, to him or anyone else. “I need no one’s pity. As you pointed out yourself, I’ve built a successful enterprise.” The memories of Algiers were her memories—hers alone—and she would guard them the way a shipwreck guarded its treasure. Already she could feel her homeland trampling on them.

“And yet now you are going home.”

“This ship is my home,” she snapped.

“To Dunscore, then.”

“Which, were it not for your ineptitude, I would have done years ago.”

But the fatigue and weariness he’d once spoken of colored his voice, and doubts about him began a subtle attempt to lure her away from her outrage. The breeze blew a strand of hair in his face, and she clenched her fist against the urge to reach for it. “I shall leave you to your watch, Captain,” she said tightly. “Good night.”

* * *

SOMETHING RAW AND alive and terrifying surged through James’s veins as he listened to her walk away. It burned through him, a hot and painful imposter of the life that had once animated him, reminding him that he’d once had a fire. A passion. That he’d once felt that glory of the sea she spoke of.

He gripped the railing and inhaled the cold sea air, gaining a little relief when the sound of her footsteps finally disappeared.

Where had that passion gone?

Perhaps she was right, and all he’d ever had was the brutality that characterized life at sea. Ruthlessness masquerading as honor.

The guilt of not having been able to save her gnawed at him like a lion tearing into fresh prey. Countless times he’d gone over it in his mind. If he’d only moved in a hundred yards closer, turned more sharply to starboard. Come around their bow a bit farther to cut them off and avoid the line of fire from their cannon. If he’d held off his own orders to fire by another minute or two. Judged the current differently.

Something. There should have been something he could have done.

He couldn’t even chalk it up to youth and inexperience. He’d already been on the sea ten years before it happened. He simply hadn’t known until weeks later that the Merry Sea had been anything but an ordinary merchant ship. Bloody hell, it was an ordinary merchant ship—one that just happened to be carrying Lady Katherine of Dunscore on a passage from Italy, where she’d been stranded after her chaperoning aunt had died, to Gibraltar, where family friends awaited.

If she’d made it to Gibraltar, she would have returned to Britain, married and borne children like any other woman. She would have attended soirees and discussed the merits of French lace over Spanish or whatever it was ladies discussed. If he’d been successful in his attempt to save the Merry Sea, her life would have been normal.

Instead, she had become one of the most adept sea captains on the Mediterranean. She would never have an ordinary life now. She would likely never marry—who would have her? She would never plan garden parties or fret with other ladies over the introduction of a daughter into society, because Anne would never be introduced into society.

Anne. His chest tightened, and he fingered the beads around his neck. They were not mismatched, after all, but rather, symmetrically placed according to size and shape. She could not match them with her eyes, but she matched them with her fingers.

A part of him wanted to yank the necklace away and toss it into the sea in defiance of the sweetness that was beginning to collar him as surely as the twine on which the beads were strung. Her trust in him made him feel when he didn’t want to feel. Care when he’d given up caring.

And Captain Kinloch—

God. He’d come so bloody close to pushing her against that railing and doing everything he’d been imagining, never mind who else was on deck. But his guilt for failing her stopped him.

Even now his chest felt tight. Raw. Damn it to hell—he didn’t want to care what she’d endured. Didn’t want to care what happened to her once they reached London, or whether she would manage to secure her title.

The only thing he wanted to care about now was the wine reserve at Croston.

CHAPTER TWELVE (#ulink_71baa0c3-30e9-5340-b97a-a373cc40af57)

AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT STREAMED into Katherine’s cabin. She stood at her chest, waiting for Captain Warre to respond to a summons, remembering their conversation from the night before.

Dunscore was hers by right. Did he imagine she would allow it to be stolen, when it could be used to Anne’s advantage?

The top drawer of her chest held little that was fragile save a few pieces of glass and a porcelain dog with a pale coat, friendly face and inquisitive ears. She took him out, cradling him in her palm. He looked just like the harem dog, Zaki, and a pang touched her heart.

This was not the kind of Barbary dog Captain Warre had meant.

After everything that happened to you...

He imagined she had lived as though in a bordello. Fool. Mejdan’s mother would never have allowed anything so wanton.

She closed her hand around the figurine and squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the harem with a joy so fierce it hurt. The serenity of it on a warm morning with the desert breeze making silk curtains undulate and book pages flutter. Peals of laughter as Mejdan’s daughters speculated about potential husbands. The comforting taste of mint tea in the afternoon, the excitement of comparing new cloth and trinkets and bangles after a day at the market.

They’d given her a home—Mejdan’s mother, Riuza, his wives, daughters, children—when they hadn’t needed to. If Mejdan hadn’t died, she might have stayed forever.

All the reasons she had taken to the sea instead of returning to Britain after escaping Algiers coiled in a painful urge to order the ship back to the Mediterranean. All those reasons still existed. Nothing had changed. Captain Warre’s words proved that much.

Nothing, except one very crucial truth: Dunscore was hers.

She replaced the figurine, shut the drawer and listened. No footsteps yet.

Her accession to Dunscore changed everything because of what it meant for Anne. Unlike the Possession, Dunscore could never succumb to pirate attack or wreck on a dangerous shoal. Unlike a house Katherine might purchase in France or Italy or the West Indies, Anne had roots at Dunscore that would lend legitimacy—however small—to her illegitimacy. Anne would be safe there, even after Katherine was gone.

But only if Baron Taggart’s bill of attainder did not succeed. Which was why Phil was right—Captain Warre could be very, very useful.

The glory of the sea. His bitterness whispered a quiet testimony she did not want to acknowledge. The great Captain Warre was not the man she’d expected.

Thanks to my failures...

She could not afford to think of what he considered his failure. That he apparently blamed himself for her fate only worked to her unexpected advantage. It was far easier to extract a debt from a man who understood that he owed one. That he appeared almost tortured over it only made exploiting him that much easier.

She stopped in front of the looking glass, remembering the fury in his eyes. On an entirely different level, his remorse made everything more difficult. She watched herself lift a strand of her hair and caress it between her fingers.

She dropped it as quickly as he had.

For a long moment she simply stared at herself—her gold-brown eyes, her straight nose, her too-pinched mouth. The sea had weathered her skin so it was far from the creamy ideal expected in London. She leaned closer, examining a few fine lines around her eyes and the little crease above her lip.

You’re so beautiful, Katie. Just like your mama. Papa’s opinions had always been biased. Mama had been exquisite. Everything a lady should be.

On impulse Katherine unwrapped her turban and lifted her hair into her hands, twisting, holding the mass of it atop her head. In London there would be no more wearing her hair loose. A maid would concoct elaborate coiffures decorated with jewels and ribbons befitting a countess. She turned her head to one side, then the other, imagining the effect. She let her hair fall and picked up the shimmering ocher cloth, but dropped that, too, when a knock sounded at the door. She hadn’t heard the footsteps.

She turned her back to the looking glass. “Come in.”

Captain Warre opened the door and stepped inside. His gaze swept over her, darkening. “You asked to see me?”

“Yes.” And her cabin was the only place that would assure privacy. She gestured him inside and shut the door behind him, ignoring a frisson that snuck up her spine. His gaze lingered on her more intensely than usual, and she cursed herself for removing her turban when she’d known he was coming. “I’ve thought of a way you can repay your debt to me,” she told him.

“Oh?” A trace of humor on his lips told her his control would not slip today as it had last night. That was good because she didn’t want his pity or his remorse. She also didn’t want the desire smoldering in his eyes, but by now she knew better than to think it would disappear.