An invisible hand closed over her throat. “That’s impossible.”
“Apparently it’s not,” James said flatly. “We went to your house after hearing the Possession was gone and found no trace of Miss Germain,” James said. “We checked with Cantwell, and India was gone, as well. Snuck away somehow, and in her infinite wisdom, left a note. Wouldn’t be treated like a child, or something to that effect.”
William snorted.
“That is quite an offense,” Lord Deal commented gravely.
Suddenly things made sense—why Millie had been so adamant about not feeling well enough to travel, why she had begged to stay in London instead of accompanying them to Dunscore. With her face so pale and yellowed with bruises, it had been impossible to deny her. Katherine had allowed her the use of the London house indefinitely.
But indefinitely had lasted only as long as it had taken Millicent to put her plan into action. Katherine’s hands began to tremble, and she made fists to keep them still. “You must go after them,” she said to William. “I will commission a ship in Edinburgh and pay for a crew.”
A gleam came into William’s eye. “An easy guess where they’re headed.”
Malta. But what India planned to do with the Possession while Millicent tried to gain admittance to that surgical school was anyone’s guess.
“It’ll be a damned business, bringing up Cantwell’s daughter on charges,” Lord Deal said.
“There won’t be any charges,” Katherine said. Her thoughts churned, struggling to make sense of this development. “I only want the Possession returned.”
“Aye, Captain,” William said.
She did want it returned. Right now. Today. This instant. It belonged to her, with her, where she could see it every day and hold on to its promise. It made her who she was.
“What of the committee? Has there been any word?” she asked.
“I daresay it’s too soon to expect any,” James said. And then he turned to Lord Deal. “Have there been any developments here?”
He was windblown from the ride, looking more like a sea captain than he had for weeks, and it was hard to keep from staring. A lock of his hair curled over his forehead. A shadow of beard roughened his jaw. Those calculating, sea-captain eyes watched her carefully.
She wanted to throw her arms around him the way Anne had done.
Instead, she reached for Lord Deal’s arm. “Indeed, Henry and I have just been discussing the arrangements.”
James’s tight lips curved. “Have you.”
Lord Deal cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. We have indeed been discussing a variety of possibilities—attempting, naturally, to think of some gentlemen who would be appropriate and, of course, to identify those whom Lady Dunscore finds objectionable.” He patted her hand. “And I do believe we have identified at least one of the gentlemen in question.”
JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, a knock sounded at the door of her bedchamber.
The sound caught Katherine standing with her hands pressed against the cool, bare stone of her bedroom wall. In the quiet room with her palms against rock, she could almost feel Dunscore’s heartbeat. It pulsed through her as though they were one.
She ignored the knock and let her hands fall. Went to stab at the fire, watching the sparks fly, calling up memories of her life—her real life. The one she’d built herself, not the one of her girlhood fantasies. William, grinning in the sunshine while porpoises played in the water. Young rigger Danby, dangling from the main yard after slipping from the footrope and nearly causing her to succumb in a fit of apoplexy in the process. That hot rush of anticipation that gripped her when she sighted a corsair xebec through her glass.
The sound of Anne’s screams above the cannonfire, and the knowledge that one small mistake—one single misstep—could change her life forever. Or end it completely.
Jab. Jab. She attacked a burning log until it fell into crumbling, hot orange pieces. That was why she was giving up her freedom. For Anne’s sake. And marrying Lord Deal was the most tolerable answer.
There was a second knock, more insistent this time.
It is the answer only because you refused a proposal from the man on the other side of that door.
Proposal? Ha. What she had refused was a lust-drunk misjudgment that had tumbled from his lips in a moment of passion.
A third knock, and this time, the hushed bark of her name. She unlatched the door and opened it a crack. “You’ve already received all the hospitality I plan to offer, Captain.”
“Open the bloody door.” The hallway was nearly dark, but the glow from her room lit the murderous expression on his face. He stood there in only his breeches and shirt—no waistcoat, no stockings, no shoes. Nerves tangled in her belly even as her ire rose.
“Devil take you,” she said, and started to shut the door, only to have him shove it open. “Get out!” she hissed, fearful of waking anyone.
“Are you engaged to him?” he demanded.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Everything about you is my concern.”
He grabbed her around the waist and crushed his mouth on to hers. The shock of instant fire in her blood had her gasping against him even as she tried to push him away, but he was immovable and her parted lips only gave his tongue free entrance into her mouth. He smelled like spicy soap and tasted of temptation. She felt him try to push the door closed and she tightened her hand around the latch to prevent him. He turned her back against the door and used their bodies to push it shut.
“Leave,” she gasped, and cursed him. He only kissed her more savagely, and even her outrage could not fight the fire that tore across her skin. She shoved at him and pulled him closer all at the same time, and suddenly it was like the first time they’d touched in her cabin aboard the Possession, except this time there was no reason to stop.
“I ask you again,” he said harshly. “Are you engaged to Deal?”
“I shan’t reveal the intimacies of my relationship with Henry.” His face was so close her lips brushed his when she spoke.
James barked a laugh. “Intimacies.” He kissed her again, deeply. “That man has as much desire to be your lover as he does to tup a wild boar. He looks on you quite as his own granddaughter.”
She couldn’t force him to leave, but she could goad him. “Perhaps. But he’s agreed to help me nonetheless.” She paused. “In every way.”
This time James’s kiss was ruthless. She knew she’d said those words to push him over the edge of control, so he would make love to her and leave her no choice but to give in to what her body desperately wanted. He did not disappoint. He tore away her nightdress, and as his hands took possession of her breasts she imagined how it would be if things were different. She imagined him lifting her gently and carrying her to the bed.
Instead, he pinched her nipples and bit her neck. She swallowed a scream of intense pleasure and fisted her hands in his shirt. Ran her palms down his solid chest, his hard stomach, to the thick bulge at the front of his breeches. Impatiently he worked the placket and freed himself. He was hot—satin and iron in her hands. She stroked his length with both hands and he groaned. She loved the power her touch had over him and she stroked him again and again while he worshiped her breasts, suckled her already-puckered nipples, molded her flesh in his hands.
But