Not that she would agree. Katherine would never consider marrying him or anyone else if she knew she held Dunscore outright.
But she didn’t know. Had no way of knowing, until someone brought the news.
God.
If he got there in time—even a day in advance of the post or a messenger—he might be able to...
God. He couldn’t really do it.
Could he?
He imagined how she would rejoice in triumph when she learned of the committee’s vote in her favor. How coldly she would smile as she turned away in disdain from all the men who’d imagined they could tame her.
From him.
Resolution impelled him forward, twice as quickly as before. Oh, yes. He could do it. He would leave for Dunscore immediately. Tonight.
He’d gone no more than twenty paces when someone grabbed him around the neck and yanked him into a dark alley.
“Bloody—” James cursed and fought, but the assailant had caught him by surprise and a moment later James felt his back slam against a wall. “Goddamned blackguard,” a familiar voice growled in his ear. “I ought to kill you right here.”
“I would prefer that you didn’t, Jaxbury. I’d always hoped to die in my bed.” James’s breath came hard and his heart pounded out of his chest. He struggled to inhale past the arm pressing into his throat. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“I told you what would happen if you seduced Katherine.” Clearly Jaxbury had the advantage of sobriety. “You thought I was bluffing?”
“I thought you were smart enough to stay out of other people’s affairs. I don’t know what you think you know—”
“Everything! Phil never could keep a secret worth a damn.” Jaxbury’s arm tightened, he sneered. “Bastard. Didn’t know I needed to see Katherine safely home from the hearing. You knew she’d be forced to marry, so you took advantage for your own designs.”
A rush of fury gave James a momentary advantage and he pushed hard against Jaxbury, breaking the hold. He slammed his fist against Jaxbury’s jaw, half-blind with rage, almost welcoming the pain of Jaxbury’s counterattack. He threw another punch. Jaxbury grabbed him again and together they stumbled from one side of the alley to the other. James gave a nasty kick to Jaxbury’s leg and Jaxbury threw James against the wall. James launched himself against Jaxbury, hurtling the man’s body across the narrow alley and against the wall on the other side, but Jaxbury was back immediately with another hook to James’s jaw. James returned the favor, reeling, and managed to grapple on to Jaxbury’s shoulders at the precise moment Jaxbury grappled on to his.
They stood there, locked eye to eye, breathing raggedly. In the faint lamplight coming from the street, James could see fury in Jaxbury’s eyes. “Bloody coward,” Jaxbury spat, “hiding in White’s while Katherine offers herself up in captivity once again. Some gentleman, you, but I’ll make one out of you yet. We’re going to Dunscore. Tonight. You plowed the field, Croston—you’ll damn well bring in the harvest.”
James wrenched himself away. “You want me to marry Katherine?”
“And you’re going to do it if I’ve got to hold my sword to your balls.”
“She’ll never agree.”
“Got to marry someone, but then, you already know that. Sure as hell isn’t going to be Deal. Not if I have anything to do about it.”
Apparently Jaxbury didn’t know about the committee’s decision. James stared into that hard-edged, sea-weathered face and wondered if Jaxbury might prove an ally in his plan.
Perhaps. But more likely, if Jaxbury knew Katherine did not have to marry at all, he would abandon this protective outrage. All hope of marrying Katherine would be gone.
“As it happens,” James said, “I had already come to the same conclusion on my own.”
“Oh, aye,” Jaxbury said sarcastically, wiping at a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “I can see how you’ve spent the evening thinking of her.”
James crushed a fresh surge of temper. “I leave for Dunscore immediately. Good evening, Jaxbury. It’s been a pleasure.” He turned to go.
“Not a chance,” Jaxbury laughed, falling in step beside him. “We’ll go to Dunscore together.”
“I don’t require an escort.”
Jaxbury gave him a friendly slap on the back. “Then think of it more as an insurance.”
* * *
THEY WERE IN James’s stables when a footman arrived, breathless. “Message for Lord Croston!”
James took the message and tore it open. It was from Admiral Wharton. He read the contents and looked sharply at Jaxbury. “You lying bastard. You would have let me go to Dunscore knowing of this.”
Jaxbury narrowed his eyes. “Don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about.”
James thrust the note at him. Jaxbury took it. Read. Visibly paled. “Good God.”
“She’s fled,” James said flatly.
“No. Not Katherine.”
“Of course, Katherine.”
“I’m telling you,” Jaxbury ground out, “she would not have done this.”
But she must have. “Who else would sail the Possession out of London in the dead of night, bold as balls?”
KATHERINE FACED THE wind coming off the sea and tried to pretend its cold bite was what stung her eyes to tears. Damnation. She was stronger than this. She knew better. Clouds churned in the sky, and whitecaps chopped the gray, restless water. A cool, salty breeze whipped her hair and chilled the damp tracks on her cheeks.
“Are you crying again, Mama?” Anne asked.
Sometimes it would be nice if her daughter weren’t quite so perceptive. “A little. But you mustn’t worry.”
“The sound of the waves makes me happy, Mama. If you listen, they might make you happy, too.”
Katherine reached for Anne’s hand and turned, pulling strands of hair from her face to stare at the fortress that was Dunscore. “Perhaps they will at that.” But the sound of waves on Dunscore’s shore only brought the memories back more strongly. Yesterday this place had been a ghost—as lost to her as the girl she’d been the last time she stepped over its threshold. But the moment the coach had rolled to a stop outside Dunscore’s massive doors, what was dead had sprung to life.
Home. Home. Home.
Her heart thundered the word she knew better than to reach for.
“Mama, you’re squeezing.”
Katherine loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, dearest.” Where the east tower once stood, a pile of rubble now sat.
Fortify the east tower! What a silly muffin you are, Katie. That tower has stood for six hundred years, and mark my words, it will stand for six hundred more. Come—let us order the phaeton. I fancy a fast ride and a visit to Deal.
Oh, Papa.
Across the velvety landscape that hugged Dunscore’s walls she spotted the housekeeper Martha marching toward them, her crisp white apron billowing in the wind. Katherine already knew what the message was: Lord Deal had arrived.
One night’s reprieve was all she could afford. Today, she and Lord Deal