An Improper Proposal (39 page)

The guard very obligingly agreed to allow her a brief visit with his prisoner, but only after gravely informing her of his charge’s extreme dangerousness. Payton was not to be deceived by the prisoner’s outward appearance, which was deceptively innocent.

And with that final warning, and the assurance that he would be but on the other side of the door, and that she had only to call and he would come, the guard opened the stall door, and Payton entered the straw-strewn and sunny enclosure.

Miss Rebecca Whitby, who had surely overheard everything that had been said outside the door to the stall in which she was locked, had risen from the pallet someone had thoughtfully provided for her, and stood staring at Payton with no attempt whatsoever to hide the contempt she felt for her.

“Well,” she said, in a hard voice that was very unlike the fluty one Payton was used to hearing her use, “if it isn’t the Honorable Miss Payton Dixon, back from the dead. You must be very popular. They don’t often see resurrections in this part of the world.” She tossed her cinnamon-colored hair. “I’m terribly flattered you were able to find the time to pay a social call on a lowly creature like myself, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you any refreshment. They have a deplorable lack of amenities at this particular establishment.”

Payton pushed back the white muslin veil so that she could get a better look at this woman she’d spent such an awfully long time despising. It had been necessary to jail this particular prisoner in a facility that kept her separate from her fellow miscreants, and Payton could easily see why. Eight weeks of incarceration had done nothing to dim the glow of Becky Whitby’s beauty. If anything, she was lovelier than ever, with the sun spilling in through the barred window at her back. It set that thick auburn hair aflame, and brought out the creaminess in the prisoner’s skin. Her pregnancy was noticeable now, but rather than simply thickening her body, it brought a certain buoyancy to her figure, a ripeness that even the shapeless cotton gown she’d been given by her wardens could not hide.

She was, in every respect, still the most beautiful woman Payton had ever seen. A fact that had nothing to do with Payton removing her bonnet and passing it, expressionlessly, to her.

“Here,” she said.

Becky Whitby looked down at the hat. It was a frothy creation, far better suited to Georgiana than to anyone else Payton knew, and had probably been purchased for a handsome sum, and over Ross’s strong objections. Becky Whitby, however, did not look all that pleased to be presented with it.

“And what,” she demanded, her rose-colored upper lip curling, “am I to do with this?”

Payton, busy undoing the mother-of-pearl buttons to her sister-in-law’s pelisse, said simply, “Put it on.”

Becky Whitby laughed. It was a brittle sound, like glass breaking.

“Are you dense? They’re hanging me, Payton. This might serve to disguise my neck from the ax-man, but that is not, I understand, to be the mode of my demise. And while I certainly borrowed a good many of your things back when I stayed with you in London, this particular accessory does not exactly suit my coloring. I’m much obliged to you, but—”

Payton said, “You know, I always thought you were a great many things, Becky. Selfish, vain, manipulative, shallow—”

“Thank you kindly,” Becky interrupted sarcastically. “As long as we’re being honest, allow me to return the compliment by saying that I found you excessively irritating, with your ridiculous frankness and your mannish obsession for all things nautical. Most pathetic of all, however, was your little obsession with Connor Drake, whom, I might add, told me in confidence—I hope you don’t mind my saying it—that he always thought you quite unfeminine, to the point of being physically repellent to him.”

Payton lifted an eyebrow at this—really, the last time she’d seen Connor Drake, he’d seemed anything but repelled by her, but she certainly wasn’t going to stand there and argue the point—and then said calmly, as if Becky hadn’t spoken at all, “The one thing I never thought you, Miss Whitby, was stupid. But that’s what you’re being now. Stupid.”

“Oh? Stupid, am I? Because I won’t accept this idiotic hat as a gift?” Becky threw the offending bonnet down upon the floor. “I don’t need a hat, you ignorant girl. I need a decent attorney.”

Payton looked surprised. “I thought surely your father would provide that for you. Sir Marcus has always had such powerful friends—”

“He did have, until he chose to tangle with you lot. Apparently—don’t ask me how—you Dixons have assembled quite a powerful bank of friends back in England. The kinds of friends who do things like exert pressure on public officials, and keep them from stepping forward on the behalf of the innocent men like my father—”

“Oh, please,” Payton said. It was her turn to laugh. “You forget. I was there, Becky. I heard it all. I know everything. I’m to testify, you know, at your trial, as well as at your father’s.” She shook her head. “You’re wrong, you know. They won’t hang you. They can’t hang a pregnant woman. Besides, you never killed anyone … that I know of. It’s your father they’ll hang. And you know where.”

Becky flinched. Well, Payton hadn’t wanted to remind her of it, but really, there was no call for the girl to be so cocky. Her father was going to endure the same fate as any pirate who’d been found guilty of his crimes: he’d be chained to a post at low tide on the sand bar in the bay. And there he’d be left, to dangle
intra infra fluxum et refluxum maris
, between high and low tides, until his trussed bones, picked clean by gulls and fish, finally crumbled into the sea.

Not a pleasant way to die. Becky might, perhaps, be forgiven her foul temper.

Not, of course, that she was going to suffer a similar fate.

“They’ll transport you, you know, Becky,” Payton said. “After the baby is born. Probably to Australia. Or possibly to the Americas.”

Becky Whitby stared at Payton, hard. “Where I’ll certainly be the most stylishly garbed convicted felon in history,” she said bitterly. “In your fancy hat.”

Payton shrugged, and the silk robe that she’d unbuttoned fell a little down her arms. “And my pelisse,” she said.

Becky narrowed her eyes. They were very blue, almost the same blue as the bay her father was going to drown in. “What,” Becky demanded suspiciously, “are you talking about?”

Payton let the pelisse fall to the floor. She had only a thin white lawn dress on beneath it, a dress far too young for her, and a little tight, besides. Since her family had thought her dead, they had not brought any clothes for her from England, and so Payton had been forced to wear what she’d left behind during her last stay in Nassau: a good many white dresses far better suited to a fourteen-year-old than a nineteen-year-old who’d just spent two months marooned on a tropical island with a baronet.

“Put on the hat,” Payton said, speaking through gritted tee
t
h[*
]not so much so that the guard wouldn’t[
]hear her, but because she was rapidly losing her patience. “And the pelisse. They should fit[
.
]They’re Georgiana’s[
*]and she’s about your size. Tuck up your hair and pull down the veil. Then go.”

“Go?” Becky shook her head bewilderedly. “What … ?”

“Go. Your Frenchman is[* *]out there, somewhere. Go and find him.”

Becky’s[* *]ruby lips fell open. “You’re mad,” she murmured. “Absolutely mad.”

Payton shook her head. “Not at all. You love him, don’t[* *]you?”

“Who?”

“The Frenchman.” Payton rolled her eyes at the older girl’s[*
]slowness.” Captain[
]La Fond. Don’t[
*]you love him?”

Becky could only nod, a good deal more stupidly than Payton might have expected from a young lady so skilled in the art of[* *]manipulation.

“Well, there, then. I know he loves you terribly. You two[*
]are better off together than apart. I know if[
*]I were having a man’[*s
]baby, I’d want to be with him, if[
]I could.” Payton m a de a shooing[
*]gesture. “You’d better hurry, before they suss it out.”

Becky looked down at the pelisse, and then at the hat. Then she looked back at Payton. “You’re serious,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, I’m serious,” Payton said. “You’d better give me that brown thing you’ve got on. I’ll hold them off as long as I can, but—”

In a flash, the dress Becky wore was over her head. Beneath it, she was clad in a rather surprisingly daring pair of pantaloons, and a hand-embroidered silk camisole. “Here,” she said, practically throwing the shift at Payton, as if she feared she might change her mind at any moment.

Payton calmly donned the smock. It was still warm from Becky’s body, and hung on Payton’s smaller frame like a sack. She knew she did not look either buoyant or radiant in it.

And that, she had decided at long last, was all right.

Becky, of course, was a vision of loveliness in her borrowed clothes—the pelisse fit her to perfection, its high waist hiding her pregnancy, and the turquoise of the silk brought out all the ivory tones in her skin. Skin that was, unfortunately, hidden a moment later by the muslin veil. Looking at her, Payton knew that any woman would have been able to tell the difference between the woman who’d gone into the stall, and the woman who was exiting it, in a second. But none of the people they had to fool were women, so that was all right.

Payton went to the pallet Becky had abandoned upon her entering the stall and lay down upon it, making sure her back faced the door. She was about to call to the guard, “Please let me out now, sir,” when Becky held up a hand to stop her.

“I just have to know,” she said in a lilting whisper. “Why?”

Payton had known the question would be put to her eventually. The problem was, she was as unprepared to answer it now as she had been in the wee hours of the night, when the scheme had first occurred to her, and she had asked herself the very same question. Why, indeed? Why go to so much trouble for a woman she had despised for so long?

“Really,” Becky whispered. “I’ve got to know. Why are you doing this for me?” Then, before Payton could open her lips to make any sort of answer, Becky went on breathily, “It’s because he’s in love with me, isn’t it?”

On the pallet, Payton leaned up on her elbows and said, “What?”

“He’s in love with me.” Payton could see only the faintest outline of Becky’s head beneath the veil, and couldn’t see her face at all, but she saw the hat move, and could only assume the older girl had nodded. “I knew it. He put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

“Why, Captain Drake, of course.” Becky laughed, a sound that had thrilled many a man’s veins, but that Payton nevertheless found hard to discern from the neighs of the occupants of the adjoining stalls. “He was always in love with me. I suppose he couldn’t stand to think of me locked up in here, and put you up to this. And you’re such a stupid little thing, you agreed.” The veil swayed from left to right. Becky was shaking her head. “Poor, poor Payton.”

Payton smiled. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t funny, really, except that … except that, well, it was.

“That’s right,” she said to Becky Whitby. “That’s exactly right.”

The veil jerked. Becky was tossing her head in triumph. “I knew it,” she said. And then she was calling for the guard to open the door.

Payton had plenty of time, during that long afternoon she spent imprisoned in Becky Whitby’s stead, to reflect on the reasons behind what she’d done. Was it, she asked herself, because of Mei-Ling’s assertion that women must be supportive of one another? Or was it because she hadn’t liked to see a pregnant woman in jail? Or was it because of the expression the Frenchman had worn that morning she’d brought his breakfast, when he’d been so concerned for the health of his mistress and their unborn child? Payton hadn’t known then the identity of that mistress—she had seen only that Lucien La Fond, the self-proclaimed scourge of the South Seas, was a man every bit as violently in love with someone as she herself was in love with Connor Drake. And could a man who loved like that be all bad?

Then she’d shaken herself. But of course he could! He was Lucien La Fond, the man who had killed Drake’s brother! What had she done? Oh, what had she done?

By the time she was finally discovered—she feigned unconsciousness when the guard opened the door to bring in the prisoner’s supper, and then, when roused, claimed that the wicked Miss Whitby must have struck her from behind, and stolen her clothes—she had a headache that was every bit as painful as if she really had been struck from behind. But her headache wasn’t from any blow delivered by Miss Whitby, unless one counted the blow to Payton’s conscience over what she’d done. What was Drake going to say when he found out? He would despise her—if he didn’t hate her already, for refusing to see him all week.

It wasn’t until the magistrates finally—and reluctantly—released her, frustrated by her lack of answers to their many questions, that Payton walked out into the evening air, saw her brothers waiting for her, and knew. She knew, right then and there, exactly why she’d done it.

Now her only problem was how—how in the world
—
was she going to explain it to Drake?

It was only Hudson and Raleigh who came to retrieve her from the offices of the magistrates. When she asked where Ross was, they only glanced meaningfully at one another, and then Hudson replied lightly, “Well, when he’d found out you’d gone, and we didn’t know where, he started drinking—”

“Because of the shock, you know,” Raleigh put in. “He never expected you’d disobey him quite so … blatantly.”

“Right. And then when the messenger arrived a little while ago, to tell us you were down at the jailhouse—”

“Well, he was a little angry.”

Payton, seated between her two brothers in the chaise, glanced from one to another. “How angry?” she asked resignedly.

“Well,” Hudson said, after giving the question serious consideration. “Angry enough to try to put his fist through a wall.”

“Right,” Raleigh said cheerfully. “Only he forgot we aren’t in England. The walls here are made of stone, not plaster. He’ll be all right in a few weeks, I expect.”