One Night of Passion (21 page)

Colin did his best to keep his features neutral. It had been Georgie he’d seen in Naples with Lady Hamilton. But he wasn’t about to tell Pymm that and give the man more fuel for his witch hunt, nor did he believe she was the traitor they sought.

She couldn’t be. Yet . . . he had met Georgie right after his court-martial and before he’d sailed. Suddenly his mind ran wild—her unrelenting desire to gain access to his apartments, her interest in his sailing trunk and where he was heading. Her almost calculated seduction . . . he’d certainly had questions about her that night, for nothing about her had rung true, and now . . .

“Any more reasons on which to base your conjectures?” he asked. He wasn’t about to hand Pymm his case, not until Colin had a chance to gain the truth from the lady herself.

“Theory. A provable, irrefutable theory,” Pymm argued. The man pursed his lips, then finally a third finger came up. “She knew enough to follow me to the beach.”

“Good Lord, Pymm, she already pointed out your problem with that one. With those bloody lamps you insisted we use and your cursing, you all but took her hand and led the way.”

“Well, it was dark and I detest field assignments,” he muttered in his defense. He scratched his chin, his devious mind plucking and discarding facts, until suddenly he brightened. “The evidence is on your face.”

“My face?”

“Yes, Captain. Have you looked in a mirror? Why, she blackened your eye like a first-rate pugilist.” His eyes widened at that notion. “She might not even be a woman, but a man in disguise. Oh, leave it to the French to send a man posing as a—”

Colin laughed, halting any more of Pymm’s fantastical speculations. “Rest assured, Mrs. Bridwick is a woman. Of that I have no doubts.”

Mr. Pymm’s eyes widened.

If Colin didn’t know better, he’d say the man was scandalized.

“Oh, this is most irregular,” the man finally sputtered. “Highly so.”

Ignoring him, Colin said, “Yes, well, that matter aside, I don’t see that you have any proof of her guilt.” Even as Pymm opened his mouth to protest, Colin held up a hand to stave him off. “And until you can offer me evidence, hard evidence, there will be no interrogations of”—he started to say
Georgie
but caught himself—“this Mrs. Bridwick.”

“This is what comes of associating with women,” Mr. Pymm said in a ruffled manner. “The lady is certainly hiding something, and I see no reason for cosseting.”

Colin smiled. “While I concede the lady has her secrets, I disagree she’s a French agent. And I mean to prove your assumptions wrong.”

Given Mr. Pymm’s reputation as a renegade agent, one who often operated outside the regular course of business and who liked to give his superiors at the Foreign Office a “hell of a time,” as Colin’s father used to say, he wasn’t about to risk the chance of Mr. Pymm taking matters into his own hands.

A good head taller than Pymm, Colin towered over the man and used his most menacing tones, the ones that had made him the scourge of the Mediterranean. “Hear me well, sir.
I
will get to the bottom of this, but by my own means, not yours. That means no poisons, no powders, no extortion, and especially
no accidents
.”

“Harrumph,” Pymm replied, his skepticism written all over his features. But one good sign—he took a step or two out of Colin’s shadow, smoothing his coat and straightening his spectacles before he spoke again.

“We’ll use your methods,” he conceded with a decided sniff. “For the time being. But eventually you’ll see I’m right. I just hope it isn’t too late.” He held up the packet of papers again. “In the meantime, I want these documents secured and guarded. Day and night. I’ll not take the chance that her midget is a cutthroat and thief, and have them stolen right from under my nose.”

Shaking his head, Colin could see that he was going to have his work cut out for him, both getting to the bottom of Georgie’s mysteries and keeping her out of Mr. Pymm’s path. “There is a hidden compartment in my cabin. Your papers will be safe there.”

Pymm’s mouth drew into a tight line. “Oh, that will never do. Not as long as you allow her to share your bed.”

“The lady is not sharing my bed,” Colin told him.
Not yet.
“I’ll see her moved to other quarters. I assure you, no one on the ship knows about the compartment but you and I. It is the most secure place aboard. Will that satisfy you?”

“I suppose it must. But mark my words, Captain Danvers,” Pymm said, shaking his finger under Colin’s nose. “That woman is trouble. Trouble, I say.”

With that theory, Colin couldn’t argue.

Georgie turned at the sound of the cabin door opening.

“Sssh,” she whispered, pointing at the small bundle atop Colin’s bunk. “I’ve finally gotten her to sleep. She was quite restless after being tossed about.” Even as she said the words, she regretted her choice of phrasing.

Tossed about.

Colin blanched. “If I had known she was—” he said, his words stumbling over one another.

Georgie shook her head. “I know you wouldn’t have done it on purpose. Let us forget it happened. I know I’d like to.” She edger closer to her daughter.

He nodded in thanks and began to close the distance between them.

As he stepped into the circle of light offered by the lamp overhead, Georgie’s heart sang with recognition. While her body longed for him, ached to melt into his embrace, she took a deep breath and tried to remain calm and objective.

She couldn’t believe the truth that still stung like the storm’s icy spray: her Colin was also Baron Danvers. Her legal guardian. The selfsame man whose machinations she’d fled London to escape.

The irony that she’d landed back into his unwitting care didn’t escape her.

Yet, looking at him, she found it hard to believe he was her guardian, for she’d always envisioned Lord Danvers as a selfish old fool cut from the same cloth as Uncle Phineas. Still, how could a man who wasn’t more than a couple of years older than she be her guardian? None of it made any sense. Colin Danvers remained as much a mystery today as he had a year ago.

Even then, at the Cyprian’s Ball, he’d stood out as different. Oh, his fashionable coat and buff trousers had marked him as a gentleman that night, but there had been something altogether different about his manners. She’d even thought him too honorable for her plans.

Despite the fact that he wore the plain clothes of a sailor, he was so much more than a mere man of the sea. Whatever he wore, Colin Danvers persisted in puzzling her.

Gentleman or rake? Merchantman or pirate?

Though right now it hardly mattered what disguise he chose to cloak himself in—he was dripping wet from the rain, and forming puddles around his feet.

“You’re soaked,” she said, trying not to sound concerned. She hardly cared if Lord Danvers caught his death from a chill. But suddenly this sodden man appeared more Colin than cretin. “Get out of those clothes at once, Captain.”

At this he grinned. “Still rather to the point, aren’t you?”

Georgie felt her cheeks grow hot. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just that you are—”

Now it was his turn to stave off the explanations. “I was only teasing.” He shrugged his coat off to reveal he was indeed soaked through—his white shirt clinging to his chest and arms.

Clearly Colin had changed in a year. He’d grown leaner, his face lined with concerns she wanted to reach up and brush away. His face and hands were deeply tanned from long hours in the brilliant Mediterranean sunshine.

If it was possible, his body seemed even more virile than it had the night of the ball—hardened by long hours of toil and work aboard his ship.

Without so much as a care, he stripped off the wet shirt and grabbed a length of toweling from one of the pegs, dragging it through his hair and swiping it across his bare torso.

She could almost feel the planes the cloth traveled over—for she’d trailed her hands across him time and again in her dreams. As the memories started to warm her insides, Georgie looked away, embarrassed at the direction of her wayward thoughts.

This was Lord Danvers,
she reminded herself.
Not Colin.

Colin was gone. Lost to her for always. And yet . . . She stole another quick glance at the man before her.

He was combing back his wet, tousled hair with his fingers. It was still as dark as a raven’s wing, and just as unruly. Picking up a length of leather cording, he tied it out of his way, taking on an appearance more mercantile than piratical.

Georgie wondered what it would be like to yank the cord loose and set the ruthless rake free once again . . .

Hadn’t he done the same to her? Plucking her hairpins from her hair, letting her unruly curls fall about her shoulders, transforming her from an old maid to a wanton.

Colin,
she wanted to whisper.
How I have longed to
find you. How I have longed to return to your embrace.

She glanced up into his eyes and realized he was watching her. A keen, burning fire blazed there. Suddenly, she felt stripped bare, as if he could read her thoughts and knew she still desired him.

The heat in her limbs rushed up to her cheeks. Georgie wondered if her face could burn any hotter. She broke off his mesmerizing gaze and reached down to draw another blanket around Chloe, patting the soft woolen length into place.

“As you know, my name is Colin, Baron Danvers.” He bowed slightly, his strict formality truly a farce in light of the fact that he was half undressed and knew her . . . knew her so very intimately.

He paused, then glanced once again at her. “Now it’s your turn.”

“You already know my name.”

“Yes.
Georgie.
”

He needn’t make it sound like a caress, she thought, wishing she had a blanket to wrap around herself and ward off even the suggestion of his touch.

His voice ran whisper soft and teased her to listen so very carefully. “There have been times when I thought I just imagined you, that our night was nothing but a dream. I see I wasn’t dreaming, Georgie.” He said her name again, so intimately that it sounded like an invitation. And what his words intimated, his eyes echoed, smoldering with the same passion that had ignited between them. “Is that really your name?”

She nodded, unable to speak. Afraid she’d answer to more than just his question.

He smiled and shook his head. “If this were London, and we were meeting as I suspect we should have, meaning that we were properly introduced by mutual acquaintances, I wouldn’t be left guessing the rest of your name.”

Georgie smiled and ignored the pretty picture of civility he was trying to paint. She wasn’t about to reveal her identity to him. Not as long as he was her guardian. And not just hers, but Kit’s and Chloe’s as well.

She’d fight him to her dying breath before she’d see either of them married off to suit some man’s whims. Especially since he’d already considered the Earl of Harris a fine bridegroom for his wards.

The Earl of Harris, of all men!

“But we aren’t in London,” she told him. “So
Georgie
can suffice for now.”

“
Georgie,
it is,” he conceded.

Did he have to say her name like that? Especially when he was standing before her, half-naked, and whispering her name in that smoky voice that beckoned her back to their night. His tone echoed with memories of his lips teasing her ear, her neck, her . . .

Oh, now listen to her. Their night, indeed! What the devil was she thinking? It was his fault entirely—calling it
our night
and trying to convince her that he’d been dreaming of her.

She was the one with dreams, not him. Not this Lord Danvers.

Yet it was her Colin who stood before her, a man waiting for answers.

She turned away from the hypnotic sight of him
en
déshabillé
and stared out the stern windows.

“You’ve changed course again, Captain Danvers,” she said, hoping a change of subject would throw
him
off course, praying as well that he’d do her a favor and put on some demmed clothes. “Does that mean we are headed to Naples?” She hazarded a glance over her shoulder toward him.

Thankfully, he was wrestling on a dry shirt, the white, soft fabric settling over the planes of his chest like an unfurled sail catching the breeze, filling and stretching its boundaries.

As his head poked through the opening, she thought for a moment she spied his eyes narrow at her question, his jaw set in a hard line.

What should he care where she wanted to go?

He’d made it all too clear on the beach he didn’t want them here to begin with.

Whatever she saw, it passed quickly, and by the time he’d tied the strings at the neck of his shirt and looked up at her, that memorable fire had rekindled in his eyes.

But now there were doubts burning there as well.

And she had a feeling he wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of his quest for answers.

“Captain Danvers?” He shook his head. “What happened to
Colin
?” His voice still held the deep timbre capable of ruffling down her spine, as it had when he’d made love to her.

She steeled her heart against such sentiments and struggled to bring to mind why she was there in the first place.

Remember, Georgie,
she told herself,
Lord Harris still
awaits a blushing bride back in London.

A thought that would chill even the most ardent fever.

She took a deep breath and gathered together a defense of proper indifference. “I think it would be prudent if we made every effort to forget that we were previously acquainted,
Captain.”

This time he ignored her deliberate refusal to use his name. “Acquainted? That’s what you call what happened between us?” He laughed. “That child belies any such notion.”

She sucked in a deep breath as he crossed the room to stand beside his bed. He towered over the small bundle there, and suddenly her daughter seemed so very vulnerable, so very fragile. Georgie moved closer, trying to put herself between Colin and his daughter.

Her daughter, she corrected. Not his. Never his.

“I would prefer that we leave her out of this.”