One Night of Passion (37 page)

Not that she was a dab hand with a needle and thread, or an iron for that matter, but she felt the urge to make the attempt.

Digging around in the bottom of the battered sea chest, she found a piece of paper that whisked away every dream, every cherished moment she’d spent over the last three months in Colin’s arms.

As she looked down at the sheet, she could only gasp.

A Special License to Marry is hereby granted to Colin, Lord Danvers, to wed . . .

She read it twice, then a third time searching for the name of his intended, but for some reason the bride wasn’t named. Not that it mattered to Georgie, for the truth was there before her eyes: Colin had meant to wed another.

And it was dated the day of the Cyprian’s Ball. The day they met.

She dug around a little more in the sea chest and found a miniature wrapped in a small silk pouch. It slipped into her hand, the cool silver frame chilling her to her very soul.

The face looking up at her was everything an elegant miss should be, delicate and demure. Whoever she was, the lady was a beauty, fair of feature, her blond hair framing her face in an array of perfect curls. Bright blue eyes stared out from beneath perfectly curled dark lashes, while her smile was both wistful and modest. A pearl necklace decorated her throat, while her dress bespoke rich style and infallible good taste.

Georgie knew immediately she was looking at the woman who was meant to be the next Lady Danvers.

Suddenly so many things fell together . . . the flowered boudoir at Bridwick House . . . the absence of servants . . . his reluctance to bed her at first . . . something one of the trio of officers had said. Hinchcliffe, she believed it was.

Perhaps I’ll start calling on Lady Diana. I hear she’s no longer engaged . . .

She had wondered who the lady was that night when she’d heard the name. Now she guessed she knew. And as she turned the miniature over, there lay her answer.

Lady Diana Fordham, 1798.

Georgie swallowed back a throatful of fear and anger.

Colin had been betrothed. He might well still be, for all she knew.

No more secrets,
he’d said.

“No more secrets, my dead Aunt Sarah,” she muttered. “We’ll see about this.”

She marched up the ladders and onto the quarterdeck. They were already well into the pool, the London cityscape passing by in all her glory of grime, haze, and hum of activity.

“There you are,” Colin called out. “What have you been about? Nothing that should be keeping you from this.”

He grinned and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her to his side.

They were moving closer to a slip now and there was a crowd of people at the dock, even a carriage or two nearby.

Possibly even this Lady Diana, Georgie thought. At that, she shook off his unwelcome touch and took a couple of prudent steps away from him.

Colin shot her a sidelong glance. “Whatever is the matter?” But before she could answer, something across the deck caught his eye and distracted him. He strode over to the railing, shouting orders, and even lending a hand, until everything was back in the meticulous order he expected aboard the
Sybaris.

Too bad he didn’t apply the same painstaking regard to his personal life, Georgie fumed.

He came back alongside her, grinning. “Now what has you in a state? And don’t try to deny it; I can see you are vexed. Is it that nonsense about you staying at Lady Finch’s again? I’d have you in Bridwick House tonight, but there will be questions enough until I can get our marriage in order—”

“Would that be before or after you inform your betrothed that you’ve changed your mind?”

“My what—” he stammered.

“Your betrothed. Lady Diana? Obviously, somewhere between the Straits of Gibraltar and the Italian coastline you seem to have forgotten her.” She held up the special license in one hand and the miniature in the other. “Do these help?”

Colin felt his heart sink. “Georgie, I can explain,” he began. “Yes, I was betrothed to that lady, but she cried off.”

“When?”

He cringed. Oh dammit. He’d meant to tell her about Lady Diana for the past three months, but there had never seemed a good time. And now . . .

“Are you certain she cried off, Captain Danvers?” Georgie was asking from her spot near the railing.

“Of course I’m certain,” he told her. “She told me she never wanted to see me again.”

Georgie had straightened and was staring down at the dock as the
Sybaris
moved into the slip. She glanced back over her shoulder at him and said, “Then you had best remind her, for she is here to greet you.”

“What?” Colin crossed the deck in a flash, his hands grabbing at the rail as he nearly went over the side.

There indeed on the wharf stood Lady Diana, flanked by her father, the Earl of Lamden, and Colin’s grandfather, the Duke of Setchfield. Behind this trio stood Temple, leaning negligently against their grandfather’s well-appointed and polished carriage.

Colin couldn’t believe his eyes. Lady Diana was shocking enough. But his grandfather? Temple had told him that the duke had ordered Colin banned from the Setchfield
estates, his name stricken from the family annals after word of his court-martial had spread like wildfire through the London
ton.

And now here the old codger was in all his regal glory, along with Lamden and Diana, like a happy wedding party.

What rattled Colin to his very core was the sight of his grandfather . . . smiling. The Duke of Setchfield smiling?

This did not bode well.

After a nudge from her father, Lady Diana began waving a handkerchief at Colin, albeit with little enthusiasm.

“Harrumph,” Georgie snorted, turning on one heel and stomping across the quarterdeck. The crew scuttled out of her path, for now having sailed with the lady for several months, they knew well enough to steer clear of her when her face set like granite and her shoulders straightened with taut and unerring resolve.

Colin went after her, amidst more than a few muttered “a braver man than I” comments from his men. “Georgie, hold up there. Stop right this minute. This isn’t what it seems.”

“That your beloved and legally betrothed is standing on the docks, happy and ready to wed you at a moment’s notice?” Georgie glanced back at his welcoming party and frowned. “I can see how I was confused. Now if you will excuse me, I must finish my packing.”

“Cap’n?” Mr. Livett called out.

“Not now,” he said.

“But I fear you must,” Mr. Livett said, casting a speculative glance at Georgie’s retreating figure, but not venturing any closer. “It’s the excise man and the harbormaster to see you.”

Colin muttered a curse under his breath and went over to the railing to meet with the dockside officials. Every once in a while he glanced over to see his grandfather beaming up at him with pride, while the Earl of Lamden looked more pleased than if he’d just been given the keys to the Treasury.

By the time he’d finished with the harbor officials, he turned around to find Georgie, Kit, and Chloe disembarking, along with Mr. Pymm.

“Georgie,” he called out. “Where the devil are you going?”

“I don’t think that is a matter of your concern any longer,” she said, with all the wounded air of a martyr.

“Like hell it isn’t. I’m going to marry you, not her. The minute I get this straightened out.”

“Are you going to toss her over to wed me?” Georgie shook her head. “And when you tire of me, then what?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her, trying to catch her by the arm, but she shook him free.

Turning to face him, she glared at him. “Tell me this, Captain Danvers. Are you still legally betrothed to that woman?”

Colin took a deep breath. “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking, but—”

Georgie held up her hands to stave off any further explanations. “That is all I need to know. Good day to you, sir. And good-bye.” With that, she went stomping up the dock, past his grandfather, Lady Diana, and the earl, without a second glance at any of them.

As she marched by Temple, his errant cousin did a double take, first at Colin then at Chloe, who was now wailing unhappily in her mother’s arms, and finally his glance fell back on Georgie. His eyes narrowed, then his mouth fell open in shock.

Meanwhile, Georgie had hustled Mr. Pymm and her sister into a carriage and was instructing the coachman which bags were hers and where she wanted to be taken.

“Georgie!” Colin started after her but found his path blocked by his grandfather.

“My dear boy,” the duke said, not about to surrender his position or be passed by. “Nelson feared you lost, and so did I. But now here you are, well and hearty. I can’t tell you, my boy, how relieved I was when the Admiralty’s messenger arrived not an hour ago with a note saying that your ship was coming into the pool. And see here, I’ve mended things with the earl and his lovely daughter, your dear betrothed.” The crotchety old man grinned widely and Colin thought it might be the first time in his life the duke had dared turn his mouth in that direction.

Meanwhile, Temple ambled up and held out his hand. “That isn’t the one from the—”

“Yes, it is, if you must know,” Colin said. “Go after her. See that she reaches her lodgings safely.”

“Certainly,” Temple said. “But I expect a full accounting.”

Colin cocked a brow at his cousin.

The man just laughed. “Never mind. I’ll get the real story from Pymm. He’s always a stickler for details. Full reports and all.” With a jaunty bow to his grandfather and the earl, and a tip of his hat and a scandalous wink at Lady Diana, he ambled toward the carriage, greeting Pymm in great style and insisting on accompanying his party into town.

Georgie shot Colin one more bereaved and piqued glance before she accepted Temple’s assistance up into the carriage. Temple joined the party, and the crowded hackney rolled away from the docks.

“Grandfather,” Colin said, “what is the meaning of all this?”

The duke lowered his usually booming voice to a dense whisper. “Lord Nelson wrote a confidential letter to me and one to the earl explaining the reasons behind your court-martial. Upon his word, I realized that you were acting with all the honor I’d expect of my grandson, and Lamden here is of the same mind. Your wedding can continue as planned.” He clapped Colin on the back and turned to Lady Diana. “He’s speechless, my girl. I told you he would be.”

The Duke of Setchfield’s carriage wasn’t the only one waiting for the arrival of the
Sybaris.
For just up from the wharf sat a plain, nondescript hackney. The curtains were parted only slightly, but it offered the occupant an excellent view of Captain Danvers’s homecoming.

“Damn Bertrand’s idiotic hide,” Mandeville muttered. “He let Danvers escape. I should have done away with the man when I had the chance.”

Then as a woman came down the gangway, he nearly came out of his seat. Hardly the prisoner as she had claimed, Madame Saint-Antoine—if that was her name—appeared right at home on the London dock. And with her was the ship’s surgeon, Phillips.

“Pymm,” he whispered. “It must be.”

“Who is it?” Mandeville’s companion asked, straining to catch sight of their quarry.

“Pymm. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him before, but I would never have thought the Foreign Office would send
him
out into the field after all these years.” Mandeville sat back in his seat. “I assume he’ll be off to Lord Sutton with my documents. Sutton is the best cryptographer they have. No matter. By the time they determine what we are about, the deed will be done.” He rapped on the top of the carriage and instructed the driver to follow the other hackney at a discreet distance.

“And what about the woman?” the man beside him asked. “Isn’t she the one in your drawing?”

Mandeville smiled and pulled the sheet out of his coat pocket. “So you noticed her as well. Good eye. And yes, she is. We’ll have to eliminate her. Remember our family motto.”

“No witnesses, Father. No witnesses,” the man said, looking down at the picture of the lady once again, and wondering where he had seen her before.

Not that it really mattered. It wouldn’t be long before she was dead.

Georgie and Kit went immediately to Lady Finch’s town house in Mayfair. After writing their long-time family friend from Italy, Georgie had received a pointed letter from her, advising her that when she and her sister returned to London they were to take shelter at the Finch residence there. Mrs. Delaney, the housekeeper, had been advised to keep rooms at the ready for them, and Lady Finch’s Aunt Estes was available as a chaperone.

Georgie wondered at the need for a chaperone, but Lady Finch was not one to overlook propriety, even for a ruined young lady with a child in tow.

Within hours of their arrival, Aunt Estes made her appearance, bags in hand. Yet after the lady had settled in for a cup of tea and a “chat,” Georgie didn’t mind her presence in the least. The affable old lady was only too thrilled to have new ears to delight with her vast repertoire of gossip, though she was hard of hearing and tended to shout her news with little thought of discretion.

As for Mr. Pymm and Lord Templeton, they had asked permission to use Lady Finch’s library as a meeting place. Apparently the pair were well acquainted, and Georgie suspected that for all Temple’s exaggerated manners and foppish antics, he was no fool.

Not if Pymm considered him invaluable to his efforts to stop Mandeville.

The two had summoned Lord Sutton to join them and the three had remained closeted away for hours, long into the evening. Messengers had come and gone at a furious pace, and Georgie knew they were trying to locate Lord Nelson, who had arrived in England a few days earlier. She only hoped they were able to warn him about the suspected plans before it was too late.

Outside of this hubbub of activity, Georgie found herself in the parlor overlooking the street. She paced about the room, half listening to Aunt Estes’s chatter and pausing at the window each time she passed it, hoping to spy just one more visitor to the Finch house.

But the street remained empty.