Buch lesen: «A Wedding By Dawn»

CHAPTER TWO

BETROTHED.

India whipped around and looked up into heartless green eyes set like flints above an arrogant nose and grim mouth. They were eyes so cold they could have belonged to an executioner, in the kind of face that could command the attention of an entire ballroom.

And he wasn’t alone. Next to him stood—

“William!” Freedom collapsed like a sail in a dead breeze.

William grinned and crossed his arms. “Such a disappointing welcome, Indy. Not happy to see us?” India thought she might end up vomiting with her virtue still intact. William shifted his laughing blue eyes to Millie. “Why, Millicent, you’ve gone pale. At least, I think you have. Difficult to tell beneath all that—what is that on your face?” He reached a finger toward her cheek, but Millie swatted it away.

India glanced away from them at the Egyptian sailor. At Millie, whose eyes had grown sharp with alarm—and that bloody pessimism that was the bane of India’s existence. There was no question what Millie was thinking: They would never escape William, the man who had taught their own mentor to survive on the high seas.

But India wasn’t above trying. “We’re overjoyed to see you, aren’t we, Millie?” she said brightly. “We absolutely are. What a stroke of good fortune— Millie, was I not just saying how much I wished we had friends in town? And now here you are. Join us, and let’s toast your return to the Mediterranean.” It took all her willpower not to look at William’s companion.

William laughed. “Very well. We’ll play that game if you wish.”

Game? Millie and India had sailed with William on the Possession. He knew how important their freedom was to them. Yet he thought this was a game?

“For God’s sake, Jaxbury,” the betrothal-announcer muttered irritably.

From the corner of her eye she could see he was dressed impeccably, conservatively, as though he’d just emerged from Westminster. Except no respectable man would be desperate enough to enter into an agreement to marry her, which meant he was what—a slave to the gaming tables? The holder of an empty title? A merchant with a mountain of debt?

Even now she could hear her father’s voice. You will choose one of these men, India, or I will choose for you.

The tavern seemed to close in on her. It would take seconds to dart across the room to the Egyptian, seconds more to reveal that she was a woman, a moment or two to convey what she needed. They would need to leave the tavern and go—where? Where would they go?

“Forgive me.” William laughed. His gold earrings glittered terrifyingly in the light from candles sputtering in an iron chandelier. “I see my new shipmate is growing impatient. Introductions and all that—terrible manners on my part. Lady India, may I present Nicholas Warre, Lord Taggart.”

Millie’s eyes snapped up from the table.

Nicholas Warre! In an instant India surveyed everything from the top of his greedy head to the toes of his debtor’s shoes. Father had betrothed her to a man so desperate to save his own estate he’d tried to steal someone else’s?

“Pillock!” she spat.

That grim mouth did not so much as twitch. “Be that as it may, Lady India—” he calmly reached inside his waistcoat, let her catch a glimpse of a small sheaf of papers and tucked them safely away “—it is incumbent upon me to inform you that we are contracted to wed, pursuant to an agreement I’ve made with your father.” Now the corner of that mouth curved slightly, and those heartless green eyes wandered briefly over the front of her coat. “Which means the only recipient of your virtue will be me.”

India looked him straight in the eye. “Dead men take no one’s virtue, Mister Warre.” He did not deserve the respect of his title. All her senses homed in on the Egyptian, but she didn’t dare glance his way. Didn’t dare look at Millie, who would surely be able to escape amid the commotion India was about to cause.

Before anyone could stop her, she dashed away from the table, barreling blindly through the crowd toward the Egyptian.

“India!”

The tavern noise swallowed William’s shout. She whipped off her hat and felt her braid tumble down her back. Her pulse thundered and she lunged for the sailor, gripping his arm. “Sir, you must help me. I beg you. I need you. I need you to—” devil take it, words! words! “—compromise me. Carnally.” The mix of interest and confusion in his eyes told her he didn’t speak English. Desperately she switched to Italian. “Come with me. I need you. My body—” now there were even fewer words “—my body needs you.” Her frantic fingers fumbled with the buttons on her waistcoat, her vest. But now it was clear he understood. That gold tooth flashed with his grin. His arm snaked around her, and his hand took possession of her left breast. There was a light in his eye—no, she didn’t like that light, but it was better than—

“India!” William’s voice bellowed above the crowd.

“We must go!” She tried to pull him off his stool, but he wouldn’t budge. He laughed and said something to the men around them—where had all these men come from? Moorish. He was speaking Moorish. “Now!” She couldn’t speak much, but Rafik the boatswain had bellowed that word constantly aboard Katherine’s ship.

Apparently thinking he was obeying her order, he pulled her closer and buried his face against the side of her neck.

“No, not here!” She only knew the Italian. Moorish, Moorish—what was Moorish for—

But then it was too late, because Nicholas Warre was on them. He grabbed the sailor by the arm. The sailor pushed her aside and launched himself at Mr. Warre. A dozen men reached to take the sailor’s place, pulling and yanking on her, groping her breasts and her buttocks. Her own scream pushed bile into her throat.

The sailor’s hollow-cheeked companion threw himself at William, as the sailor landed a solid fist across Nicholas Warre’s murderous face.

William and the other man fell together against a chair. Above the chaos she heard Millie scream. Desperately India fought the men who grabbed her, but there was no escape. Her pistol—she couldn’t let them find her pistol! She used her elbow to jab, defend, keep groping hands from closing around her prize. Its weight dug into the waistband of her breeches. She tried to wedge herself against the table, but the hands and bodies and shouting and stench were everywhere.

The hollow-cheeked sailor struck William on the side of the head. He stumbled into a fallen stool, and she heard herself scream again. They couldn’t hurt William! Oh, God—this had to stop! Her pistol—it would be useless against this mob even if she could manage to draw it out.

Nicholas Warre sent the gold-toothed sailor flying. A hand sneaked between her legs and she tried to shove it away but couldn’t.

William lurched off the fallen stool and threw a right, left, right. Blood spurted from the hollow-cheeked sailor’s nose. The commotion inside the tavern was deafening. Another man took a swing at Nicholas Warre, but he ducked and someone else took the hit. A new fight erupted, and the chaos grew. Hands closed sickeningly around her waist, an inch from the pistol’s grip.

And then, suddenly, Nicholas Warre had her by the arm and wrenched her free.

“This way!” he shouted in her ear.

“Millie—”

“Jaxbury’s got her. Run, damn you!” His hand clenched hers painfully as he dragged her out of the tavern. She stumbled on the cobblestones, trying to keep up with him as they raced down the street. Moments later, he yanked her into a pitch-dark alley and shoved her against the wall.

“Don’t you ever,” he seethed at her, nose to nose and out of breath, “do anything that stupid again.”

“Leave Malta this instant and I guarantee you I shan’t.” She tried to push him away, but he was solid stone.

“Your recklessness could have gotten both me and Jaxbury killed—never mind the fate that would have befallen you.” He drew in a sharp, ragged breath. “Is that how you planned to bestow your virtue? In a tavern with thirty sailors taking turns between your legs?”

She told herself she was trembling out of anger, not fear. “You’d best return to the safety of your London drawing room, Mr. Warre,” she taunted. “It’s clear you haven’t the constitution for Mediterranean life.” Except it was clear he had the constitution for any life he might choose. Faint light from the street caught the white flap of his torn shirt and a gleam of blood near his mouth. His wig was gone, and his dark hair stuck out everywhere.

“Then what a blessing that you and I will be returning to London posthaste,” he drawled.

No. They would not. But arguing that point would get her nowhere. “You are wasting your time here,” she told him flatly, and reminded herself that if not for him the danger never would have arisen in the first place. “I will not marry you. I’ll kill you first.”

“Will you.” His eyes were nothing more than shadowed hollows.

His hands burned through her sleeves. He smelled faintly of cologne—something spicy and aristocratic and much too expensive for someone in his financial condition. Faint light from the street brought his face into chiseled relief, and a renegade nerve flared to life in her belly.

Betrothed. He fancied he had captured her as his prize. Perhaps he wasn’t so wrong after all.

The weight of her pistol sat heavy in the band of her breeches. “Yes. And after what you did to Katherine Kinloch—” India began.

“If bringing a bill of pains and penalties against her was a capital crime, I have little doubt my sister-in-law would have murdered me herself.”

“I shall happily take on the responsibility.”

“Bold words from one who actually has committed a capital crime against the lady in question. You do realize you could hang for stealing her ship?”

Her pistol would put a quick end to this if only she could grab it and fire before he had time to react. There would be seconds, no more. There might be opportunity for nothing more than to gut-shoot him.

A queasy spell dizzied her head.

“We merely borrowed the Possession, Mr. Warre. Every moment you waste here with me is a moment you could be searching a way to satisfy your debts. You have greed and selfishness enough for ten men. I have every confidence that you will soon find an alternative method of relief.”

“Praise, indeed. Fortunately for me, my search ended the moment I found you in that tavern.”

“Your search, Mr. Warre, will end when your body lies cold at my feet.” She inched her hand toward her pistol. “I demand that you let me go. Now.”

“Nothing in the world would please me more.”

“Then—”

“But I have a vested interest in keeping you.”

“I’ll not give my consent to a marriage with you.” She raked him with disdain and gave a laugh that sounded more like choking. “Not ever.”

“I don’t need your consent.”

“Yes, you do. A marriage requires—”

“The only thing our marriage will require, Lady India, is an officiant and a consummation. The first will be easy enough to find, and it’s clear you are desperately in need of the second. Once all that is complete, I assure you our marriage will not be put asunder—not by me, and certainly not by your father.” His port-laced breath feathered her lips. “Forgive me, but I cannot think who else might be interested in challenging it.”

“I will challenge it.” Closer, closer...she nearly had the pistol now. “If you drag me back to England—which you will never succeed in doing—I shall file suit the moment we return.”

“And may I wish you much success, waddling before the court with my babe rounding your belly.”

Another strangled laugh escaped her. “You are just like all the rest that my father attempted to fob me off on these past months—going at me with their eyes before Father’s money landed in their greedy, fat hands.” Except he did not have fat hands, and he was as handsome as the devil. Perhaps Father imagined he was doing her a favor.

“Spoken as if any of those hands would have been pleased with their catch once they realized what they had captured,” he said.

“Are you disappointed, Mr. Warre? Surely my father did not fail to mention that I am a sailor.”

“He did. And that you are spoiled, hoydenish and a—”

Disgrace.

“—disgrace. All of which can be easily corrected.”

Oh, yes. Father had thought the same, and only look how he had succeeded.

If she was going to be a disgrace, she would be one from the deck of her own ship. There would be no returning to England, no being locked away in isolation, no endless tirades about her shortcomings—and no unwanted marriage.

Her fingers brushed the pistol grip. If Nicholas Warre succeeded in taking her, she may as well use the pistol on herself. The consequences of what she was about to do made her palms sweat. “Whatever my Father has offered you, I will pay you more to leave me be.”

A shadowed brow rose. “If you have more, then I am a lucky man indeed, for once we are wed I shall have both.”

“We are not going to be wed,” she said flatly, and closed her hand around the pistol’s grip. Her stomach rolled. Shooting him would make her a fugitive and guarantee she would never see England again.

So be it. She never wanted to see England again, anyway.

“Enough of this.” He stepped back, keeping hold of her arm. “We shall return to—” His eyes fixed on her hand.

Now!

“We shall return nowhere.” She tried to whip the pistol from her breeches but his hand was already there.

“Give me that!”

“No!” She fought with him to cock the hammer.

“Let go, before you—”

“No!” The pistol discharged into the alley with a deafening roar, and he wrenched it from her grasp. She tried to run, but he caught her easily and shoved her against the wall once again. Now his hands were on her everywhere—inside her waistcoat, searching, groping, skimming over her hips, her buttocks, even between her—

“Stop!”

“And allow you to murder me in cold blood?” he growled, drawing his hand across a place he had no business touching, then shoving it inside her pockets. “God’s blood, I got the sorry end of this bargain.”

“You did indeed. And if you insist on keeping it, you will spend the rest of your life sleeping with one eye open.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind.” His fingers bit painfully into her arm, and he yanked her away from the wall. “Now. We shall proceed to my room at the inn, where we will wait for William and your associate. You will say nothing—not a single word—unless you wish to be bound and gagged. Do I make myself clear?”