“You’re right, Mama.” Anne let her hands fall into her lap, and the yarn went limp. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of bitter herbs wafting from fresh compresses Mrs. Hibbard had brought up. “If I get a bruise, I don’t want any compress.”
Katherine touched her nose. “If you get a bruise, I’ll make sure Mrs. Hibbard makes you an extra big compress to make it go away that much faster.”
Anne made a face and a noise and wiggled on Katherine’s lap just as Dodd appeared in the doorway. “Lady Ramsey is downstairs, your ladyship.”
“Send her upstairs,” Katherine told him.
Moments later she and Phil met Honoria in the adjoining dressing room. She swept into the room wringing her hands. “Katherine, I had no idea— I didn’t mean to intrude! Is she going to be all right?” Upon hearing what the doctor had said, she gasped. “Poor, poor thing! I do hope she pulls through quickly. I never would have come if I’d known, except that I had to come, because Katherine—” she gripped Katherine’s arm “—you didn’t tell me we are to be sisters.”
Phil’s brows rose. “Sisters!”
“I was out shopping for ribbons when I saw Lady Ponsby, who said she had it on good authority from her husband after this morning’s hearing that it was so. I was already obliged to drink tea this evening with Lady Kirby and Lady West—the most excruciating thing imaginable—and I wasn’t able to confirm until now! Your house was closer than James’s, so I came here straightaway.”
Things had gone utterly out of control. “Imbeciles! Have the rumormongers nothing better to do than spread lies?”
“In London?” Phil laughed. “Ha! But I am sorry, dear,” she said, taking Honoria’s arm, “unfortunately, the rumor is false.”
“La, I was afraid of that! Forgive me for being indelicate with your friend in such grave danger, but when is my brother going to see reason and ask for Katherine’s hand?”
The sound of Dodd’s scolding carried in from the hallway. “Your lordship, I beg you, you absolutely must not—”
As if on cue, James stalked into the room—heedless, as always, of what he must or must not do. “How is she?” he demanded.
“Lord Croston, your ladyship,” Dodd announced disapprovingly from the doorway.
Yes, she could see that plain enough. “At death’s door,” she told him. In a single heartbeat everything they’d done in the carriage flowed over her like hot water in a bath. Her pulse pounded in her throat. “Apparently her elder brother wasn’t as keen to welcome her home as he might have been. We know nothing more. She arrived at the door barely able to stand— How she made it all the way here, I don’t know.”
With a quiet oath, James crossed the dressing room to the bedchamber and looked in. “What does the doctor say?”
“Very little,” William said with barely concealed disdain as James entered the chamber. “They may be superficial bruises, or they may be life-threatening. Naturally, he cannot tell.”
Katherine scowled at Phil. “I see you’ve occupied yourself with pen and paper.”
Phil merely shrugged. “No need to thank me, dearest. I was already writing to India—it was nothing to dash off one more.”
“Such an awful tragedy,” Honoria said. “Absolutely terrible. I shall go to Lady Effy’s and quell the inevitable rumors that will arise with both you and James absent.”
* * *
IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the night when Katherine opened her eyes to find that she had dozed off on the daybed in Millicent’s dressing room. A figure stood facing the fireplace.
James.
She pushed herself up, and he turned. “William and Philomena are sitting with her,” he said. “She’s still sleeping. There’s been no change.” His coat lay over the back of a chair, and he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to his elbows the way he used to do aboard the Possession.
She fought her way out of the sleep she hadn’t meant to fall into. Memories of the carriage ride exploded into her mind before she could stop them—his mouth on her lips, his hands on her breasts, his body buried in hers. The hasty buttoning, fastening and tucking as the carriage rolled to a stop.
He brought her a glass of water and she took it from him, careful not to touch his fingers. “You needn’t have stayed,” she said, letting a sip of cool water slide across her tongue.
“True enough.” The clock on the mantel tick-tick-ticked. In the fireplace, logs cracked and snapped.
He was so beautiful it was all she could do not to stare. And the more she tried not to think of their lovemaking, the more the memory grew, pulsing and breathing with a life of its own. “There’s nothing more to be done,” she told him. “You’re free to leave if—”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Very well.” Her fingers remembered the hard ridge of his jaw, the solid muscles on his torso rippling beneath his shirt.
His eyes lighted on her, smoldering with what they’d done together. “Was there bad blood between Millicent and her brother before she went to the Continent?” he asked.
“She didn’t like him, but that was all I ever knew.” Katherine stood and paced a few feet away, but the room was too small to offer the distance she needed. “When I met her in Venice she would have done almost anything to join my crew. Three years later, she was determined to stay in Malta and attend surgical school. When she learned we’d sailed from Malta while she slept, I had to order an extra watch for three days and nights for fear she would go over the rail with an empty cask and try to make it back.”
“A fool’s errand that would have left her dead.”
“She wanted to attend that surgical school so badly.”
“Another fool’s errand. Did you learn what made her so desperate to join you at the first?”
Katherine made a noise. “The father of the children she’d been hired to care for. Apparently he didn’t believe her duties should end once the children went to bed. I still don’t know if she was running from a threat or a fait accompli.”
“Christ.” James rubbed his forehead.
“I shall take her to Dunscore with me.” She prayed it would be soon, and not just for Millie’s sake. “I cannot turn her into an acceptable candidate for a school of medicine, but at least there she’ll be safe.”
His gaze shot to her. “Nothing about your plan has changed, then.” After what happened in the carriage, hung in the air.
“I intend to do what I must.”
Marry me, Katherine. The choice she’d rejected taunted her. He did not repeat it.
“You said nothing about your captivity at the hearing. It might have made a difference. It still could. I shall speak with Winston and ask him to reconvene the committee.”
“Good God.” She almost laughed. “Those men cared about nothing more than preventing my return to sea and putting me under the control of a man’s hand. I could have set forth every detail and the result would have been the same.” James stood in front of her now. Secret places she’d hardly been aware of before grew warm and moist beneath his gaze.
He was remembering, too. It was there in his eyes, along with the torment of his wild imaginings about her life with Mejdan al-Zayar.
“It might have elicited sympathy,” he said.
“Nothing could have done that after Lord Edrington’s revelation,” she said mirthlessly. “In the face of which you defended me.” Which only proved the depth of his guilt. It all seemed so ridiculous