“Favorable currents were his savior, I’m afraid,” Katherine replied, “I merely pulled him from the water.” Finally there was no avoiding McCutcheon, and she found him regarding her with a mixture of horror and pity. The face that had sent her fifteen-year-old self into raptures seemed pasty and vapid next to Captain Warre.
“Merely!” cried Lord Deal.
“How fortunate that you possessed the necessary resources to help when needed,” McCutcheon said stiffly to Katherine.
Katherine—no longer the blushing debutante—looked him directly in the eye. “I gave the order to lower the nets the moment my crew spotted him floating on a piece of debris against the hull.” Stop looking at me that way, she wanted to snap. “We had him on deck in a matter of minutes. He was soaked through and nearly lifeless—we pulled him from the water just in time.”
“Lucky thing!” Lord Plumhurst declared. “Positively dreadful.”
Katherine nodded gravely. “You can imagine our distress.”
“And my relief when I realized I had run into the Possession,” Captain Warre added with a hint of sarcasm intended for her ears only.
She smiled. “I am only grateful we did not know his identity, or the moments before his rescue was complete would have been all the more tormenting.”
“When I saw her colors, I knew I would be well cared for and that my ordeal was over.” He turned his lying green gaze on her in a false display of the gravest appreciation. “It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that I owe Lady Dunscore my life.”
One might even say it was a boon.
“What an irony, after your attempts in Salé proved so fruitless,” McCutcheon said, turning to Captain Warre.
Salé. Katherine’s attention glanced off McCutcheon, fixed on Captain Warre. A chill ran down her spine.
“Isn’t it?” Captain Warre said mildly.
“The would-be rescuer becomes the rescuee,” Lady Plumhurst said, fanning herself vigorously. “Astounding.”
Rescuer. Captain Warre refused to meet her eyes. But she’d heard all she needed to—she could piece together the rest. Have you spent any time in the Barbary states, Captain? Oh, yes, he’d been there. Once. He’d simply omitted that it had been in an attempt to free her.
Her hands began to tremble. “Irony aside,” she said to McCutcheon, “you can only imagine how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to repay Lord Croston’s earnest efforts.” The full weight of what McCutcheon had just revealed bore down on her. She felt herself shrinking, reeling back to those first terrifying days in the dey’s palace, hoping she would be ransomed but hearing no news. “Although I daresay my attempts required less effort than his, and certainly met with less opposition.”
Lord Deal clapped his hands together. “Oh, but let us not delve into the melancholy past, shall we? What a blessing these two fine young people are both home safe and sound at last. And to think our dear Lady Dunscore was so providently used in such a miraculous rescue... It all smacks strongly of a divine hand, if I may say.”
“Divine indeed.” Captain Warre smiled at the crowd, still avoiding her gaze. “Lady Plumhurst, your daughter was recently married, was she not?”
He had been there. In Salé. And she was bloody well going to find out why he hadn’t told her.
Dear Sirs,
Observed Lady Dunscore at Lord Deal’s musicale. Confectionery ship on display. Remained on display after Her Ladyship departed. Perhaps too messy a prize.
Yours, etc.,
Croston
“JAMES, YOU’VE BEEN at sea far too long if you think there is anything acceptable about paying a call at this hour, even to your sister.” Honoria stood staunchly in the doorway to her dressing room, but James was in no mood for resistance. “You could at least have waited for me to dress and come downstairs,” she complained.
“I’ve got appointments this afternoon I can’t cancel,” he said, pushing past her.
“So amusing. You’re impossible, James. You’ve always been impossible.” All false outrage in a peacock-blue dressing gown covered in ribbons, she followed him into the room. “You may leave us, Mary,” she said to her lady’s maid. “And have a light breakfast sent up.”
“I can’t stay,” James told her.
“The breakfast is for me.” She went through to her bedchamber, and he followed as far as the open doorway. “I haven’t been out of bed half an hour yet.” Indeed, the bed lay rumpled behind her, and there was a pillow on the floor, and he suddenly wished he had waited for her downstairs. It was likely the same bed she’d shared with Ramsey before he died, and the idea of Ramsey touching his little sister—of anyone touching her, even within the bounds of marriage—was more than he could take on an empty stomach. He retreated to the dressing room.
A moment later she returned. “Are you really retiring?” she asked, putting her arms around him and looking hopefully into his face.
He looked down into a sea of misplaced adoration. “Where did you hear that?”
“This is London, James. Oh, please, say it’s true. I’ve missed you so much.”
“It’s true.”
“Oh, I’m overjoyed!” But looking into his eyes, she frowned. “What’s the matter?”
Katherine Kinloch was the matter. Nick was the matter. The Lords were the matter. His own bloody conscience was the matter. “Nothing’s the matter,” he said, and extricated himself from her embrace. “In thirty minutes I shall be taking Lady Dunscore on a strategic round of visiting instead of lingering at my breakfast table with the papers.”
And when he did, there would be no more avoiding a private moment with her as he’d successfully done last night. They would be together alone in the carriage, and there was no doubt that he would get an earful thanks to McCutcheon and his wagging tongue.
“James, I’ve never once known you to linger at the breakfast table. But in that case I forgive you for calling so early—if you tell me every detail about last night’s musicale. What an aggravation that I’d already accepted that invitation to dine with the Misses Cavely! But I never attend Lord Deal’s musicale. The average age of the attendees is above eighty, I daresay.” She turned a sly look on him. “I heard Lady Dunscore was fairly well received.”
“As well as could be expected.”
And now Captain Kinloch knew he’d taken her captivity far more personally than he should have. That he’d thought about her, argued for her, gone out of his way on her behalf. There was no reason he should have done any of that—except that once he’d learned her fate, his mind had conjured up an image of an innocent and terrified young girl in the hands of Barbary captors, and he couldn’t let it go.
Last night, on her stricken face, he’d seen that girl as though she’d risen from the dead. He never wanted to see her again. Sooner give him the fury that had burned in her eyes the rest of the evening. That he could deal with.
“Lord Deal ought to have some influence in the matter, I should think. But rumors run wild, James. La, you cannot imagine the stories I’ve heard, even just this morning!”
“I thought you’d only just risen.”
“There’s nothing remotely appealing about pretending to be thickheaded, James. I’ve had hardly any sleep at all. I received a note from Lady Effy at two o’clock this morning saying Lord Winston seemed quite taken with