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

“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.”