“I gave the order to do it.”
“You are an experienced sea captain, Katherine. Unlike the committee, you don’t need me to explain what that entails.” His tone was dark. Rough. “The kinds of decisions one has to make.”
She could see what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d told her. “Such as whether to engage the corsairs over the fate of a small merchant ship,” she said. The two decisions—his and hers—should have made them even, except that she had changed her mind about hers, and nothing he could have done differently would have changed the outcome of his. “Your regret is wasted on that. My experience would have been the same had you never happened upon us.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. It was a perfect time to tell him the truth about life with Mejdan al-Zayar—about crowded market vendors hawking bright scarves and sparkling bangles, about screaming with laughter as the dogs snatched Tamilla’s new silk slippers from the harem and left the slobbery pieces beneath the tangerine tree in the courtyard, about Mejdan’s daughter Kisa and her telescope. His torment would be better directed toward any number of English girls married off to men of their fathers’ choosing, who ended up slaves to a marriage bed that brought only pain and disgust.
“I am sorry I gave that order,” she said instead.
“You shouldn’t be,” he whispered harshly. “I am not sorry I gave mine. Only that I failed to execute it properly.”
“You nearly killed me, and I you. The score is even, Captain—” his eyes blazed at that “—and now that there is a solution, we may finally be free of each other.”
“YOU’RE GOING TO marry her?” Nick’s outrage exploded into James’s library at half past nine the next morning.
James didn’t bother to look up from the desk. He’d returned from Katherine’s at four, and a few hours’ restless sleep left him in no condition to deal with an outburst. “Marry whom?”
“Katherine Kinloch.” Nick walked right up to the desk and braced his hands on the surface. “You could at least have told me before you let it fly all over London.”
“I assure you, I have no plans to marry Lady Dunscore.” He kept his voice cool, but a hot sensation snaked down to his loins.
“No? Everyone at Lady Effy’s was agog with the news—and the fact that neither you nor Lady Dunscore were present. I don’t suppose that was a coincidence.”
An excuse not to be at Lady Effy’s last night was possibly the one good thing to come of all this. “No, it wasn’t. We were both needed in aid of a mutual friend.”
Nick glanced at James’s crotch and snorted. “Mutual friend.”
Quick as that James reached across the desk and grabbed Nick by the lapels. “Do not insinuate where you are not informed,” he bit out.
“Damn you,” Nick shot back without flinching, and shoved James away. “I need some kind of leverage. If you marry her, I’ll have none.” Nick glared at him. “I’ve tried every bloody thing I can think of. I’m running out of options. She won’t go to Scotland.”
“Scotland. And you fear my marriage to Lady Dunscore? For God’s sake, do let’s get Honoria involved in some bloody scandal and drag the whole family into the mud.”
“You have no idea what this means.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“Of course I’m in love with her. What man wouldn’t be? She’s a goddamned angel. Every time I so much as think about her with Adkins or Oakley or Stalworth— It simply can’t happen.”
James watched his brother wrestle with the fact that there could be no way to protect Miss Holliswell from her father’s aspirations. “My previous offer still stands,” he said. Forty thousand to resolve this—it would be worth the price.
“Bloody lot of good it would do me, even if I could accept it, which you already know I can’t. He’d never consent.” Nick paced the length of the room and turned back. “Why in God’s name won’t she go to Scotland?” He exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “All right. If the rumors are false and you’re not planning to marry Katherine Kinloch, then there’s still a possibility of my securing a second hearing. Or—God help me—putting a new bill on the table.”
“For Christ’s sake, Nick, I can’t let you do that.”
“Do you or do you not have intentions toward Lady Dunscore?” Nick demanded.
“I do not.” Liar. “But I do owe her my life, and as long as her future is uncertain I shall do every bloody thing I can to help her. As for my intentions...I’ve all but settled my mind on Miss Underbridge.”
“Pinsbury’s niece?”
James nodded, wondering when the hell he’d settled on any such thing. Just now, apparently. And why not?
His mind answered the question with an erotic image of Katherine with her breasts pushed over the top of her stays, and he cursed silently. Vilely.
“God.” Nick sank into an armchair and rested his forearms on his knees, staring holes into the carpet. “There must be something I can do for Clarissa. Something.”
“Are you absolutely certain she isn’t pretending a greater naiveté than she possesses?”
For a second it looked like Nick might lunge across the desk. “If she is,” he said tightly, “then she’s a masterfully accomplished actress.”
They looked at each other. Plenty of women were accomplished actresses. “I have no doubt Miss Holliswell is exactly what she appears to be,” James said for Nick’s benefit. “And I can’t think of one damned thing you haven’t done. Perhaps it’s time to be sensible.” He rose and stalked to his brandy snifter, grabbing hold of this liberating idea, and poured two glasses.
“Sensible.” Nick muttered the word. “I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.”
James handed Nick a glass and ignored the uncomfortable feeling wriggling in his chest. “Then here’s to finding out,” he said.
* * *
THREE DAYS LATER Millicent was out of danger, and James decided that being sensible started with refusing to concern himself with Katherine’s plans. To simply forget her.
Forget what happened in the coach.
Forget whatever the hell al-Zayar might have done all those years ago.
Forget her infurating attempt at forgiveness. Damn it all—forget he needed forgiveness.
It was time to move forward, and moving forward started with finding a bride. The sooner he could come to an understanding with someone, the better.
“Forgive my bluntness, my lord,” Miss Underbridge said as he drove her through the park in his open carriage the next day, “but I was led to believe that you have an understanding with the countess of Dunscore.”
“And you believe, despite such an understanding, that I would ask you to accompany me on an outing?”
“Would you?” The blasted woman regarded him calmly with the most direct pair of brown eyes he’d ever had the discomfort of meeting.
“Perhaps, Miss Underbridge, you would fare better during the social season if you honed your skills of discernment,” he said with an irritable flick of the reins. “There is no such understanding.”
“Hmm. Thank you, my lord—I believe my skills are being honed even as we speak.” That calm expression did not so much as falter. “I would like to go