“What furniture is this?” she demanded.
“Miss Holliswell has been...redecorating, your ladyship,” Mr. Dodd said faintly.
Her hands fisted at her sides. “I want the Holliswells’ things thrown into the street.”
And wouldn’t the gossips have a frenzy with that. “Where are the Holliswells now?” James asked irritably. He would explain the folly of her plan later.
“They are out for the evening, sir.” Dodd eyed him with mistrust. “I believe they went to dine with Lord Croston.”
Devil take it. “I am Lord Croston,” he said sharply. By God, he would find Nick tonight and put an end to this.
“But...” Dodd’s eyes grew wide, and he paled.
There was nothing pleasant about the tight smile curving Captain Kinloch’s mouth as she turned her back on Holliswell’s painfully distasteful furnishings. “I daresay this would be an excellent time for you to effect your miraculous return,” she said, stopping in front of him. “And when you see Mr. Holliswell, you may tell him not to step foot in my house again unless he wishes to be gelded.”
“I fully agree with the first.” The fact that hearing her speak of gelding aroused him even the tiniest bit made it even clearer this business could not end quickly enough. “As to the second, I may not phrase it in exactly those terms.”
“I will find it very hard to stand paralyzed by the strictures of politeness while Holliswell steals my estate,” she warned.
Meow! Mr. Bogles agreed.
This, from the woman who thought he was ruthless. An accusing voice reminded him this was all his fault, but the fact that he owed her did not make her any less impossible. “If you don’t grasp some concept of the strictures of politeness, Parliament will hand your estate to him on a silver platter before you can toss a single gilded footstool into the street.”
* * *
COME MORNING, KATHERINE fully intended to throw an entire sitting room suite into the street. She tried relaxing her fists, but curled them tightly again to keep Captain Warre from seeing how badly she was shaking. “It would seem he’s already been handed my estate on a platter. But if he does return tonight, he’ll not step through the door.”
The door. It rose high, topped by a sweep of carved marble and flanked by great stained-glass panels whose lead canes she used to trace with small fingers. The last time she’d been here, servants had streamed out that door with her trunks as she bid a numb farewell to Papa and his new wife.
The adventure will do you good, Katie. And when you return, I’ve no doubt you’ll trounce us all at hombre.
The cold chill of powerlessness iced through her and settled in her stomach.
“As long as there’s no bloodshed,” Captain Warre said with irritation, “I don’t care what kind of reception you give him. But I’ll thank you not to make my task more difficult by losing control of your temper when I’m not present to tame you.”
Her attention shot to him. Tame her. She forced a smile. “Find your brother tonight and solve the problem, Captain, and you need never concern yourself with my temper again.”
“Nothing would please me more, I assure you.”
She glared at him, tempted to continue goading him simply as a distraction. But behind him a wispy memory lighted on the staircase—Mama with her hand on the banister, glittering and laughing before an evening on the town. One more hug, Katie, but then I must go or your father will throw me over his knee.
The great entrance made her feel small. She could not do this. She was not like Mama, sparkling and polished to London perfection. She was more like the wood the Possession was made from—burnished and solid, but showing the effects of many storms.
London would tolerate nothing less than sparkle and polish.
“Then by all means, Captain,” she said, “be on your way. We have no further use for you here.” One word and their trunks could be loaded back onto the hack and returned to the Possession. Everything inside her screamed to give the order.
He stood watching her, tight-lipped, studying her too closely. “I shall go speak with Nick and Holliswell. I’ll send word of the result.”
“Excellent.”
“Do try to refrain from anything rash in the meantime.”
“I have no idea what you could mean, Captain.”
“It’s too soon to go careening back to the ship and sailing away in the night.”
“What an imagination you have. I—”
“Mama?” came Anne’s small voice through the hall.
Katherine’s attention snapped to the bench, where Anne clung to Millicent with her feet dangling to the floor, trying to stand. “What is it?”
“I don’t feel well.”
Just that quickly, Katherine abandoned any fantasy of returning to the ship. She rushed to Anne’s side with Captain Warre a step behind her, a heartbeat away from ordering Dodd to send for a doctor.
“What hurts?” she demanded, finding Anne’s forehead and cheeks cool to the touch.
“She has no fever,” Millicent said.
“The ground feels strange, Mama.” Fatigue and distress mingled in Anne’s plaintive voice. “There’s no up and down, but I still feel the waves.”
Katherine had barely breathed a sigh of relief when Captain Warre reached past her and lifted Anne into his arms. “That’s only natural,” he told her. “Just as a sailor must find his sea legs when he first boards a ship, you must find your land legs.”
Anne made a small, whining sound and looped her arms around his neck, letting her head fall into the curve of his shoulder.
It was on the tip of Katherine’s tongue to order him to put Anne down, but Anne looked so content she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she brushed delicate wisps of dark hair from Anne’s cheek. There was no sense reminding Anne that they went through this every time they went ashore. Already her eyes were closing as Captain Warre rubbed slow circles over the back of her shoulder. She was too tired for reason.
The intimacy of Captain Warre’s touch stirred a dangerous feeling inside her. “I’ll take her up to bed,” Katherine said, reaching for Anne, but Captain Warre started toward the stairs.
“I’ve got her.”
That temper he was so anxious to escape sent up a lick of flame, but she tamped it down and beckoned Millicent to follow them up the staircase. Soon enough he would be gone.
Halfway up the stairs, her feet slowed. That old, giant portrait still hung where the staircase turned—a windswept moor cradling a massive graystone fortress at the edge of a roiling sea. It was a fortress as familiar to her as her own flesh, and the longing to go there—to walk its ramparts once more—poured up from the deepest parts of her soul.
When you are countess of Dunscore, Katie, every stone in these walls will cry out your name.
She tore her gaze away from the painting. She may have been foolish enough to believe Papa then, but she had no illusions now. The Lords could snatch Dunscore from her just as quickly as Papa had married Lady White. Just as suddenly as Mejdan had died in the night.
But Dunscore could secure Anne’s future. As soon as Anne was settled and comfortable upstairs, Katherine would begin a list of everything that would need to be done tomorrow.
Deep