Sea Scoundrel (33 page)

“She fainted dead away,” a man said.

“Too much smoke,” another replied.

“Wil she make it?”

Patience did not recognize any of the voices coming from a distance. If only her head would stop spinning, she could open her eyes. She tried to raise her leaden lids, but couldn’t.

“Thank the Lord.”
That
was Aunt Harriette.

“Amen.” Grant’s voice.

She managed, final y, to open her eyes. Dear concerned faces bent over her, Sophie, Rose, Grace and Angel. Aunt Harriette with tears in her eyes. Grant scowled down—or was he the Captain just now?—and yes, as she suspected, his hand held hers. “Why is everyone watching me?” Grant’s scowl cracked as he raised her hand to his lips, to hide the chink in his armor, Patience imagined.

“You’ve been unconscious since I brought you home,” he whispered. “You pul ed me out of the fire and saved my life.

Then you fainted.”

Her turn to scowl. “I never faint. I was tired. I must have fal en asleep.”

“And a long sleep it was,” a weasel of a man with beady eyes said, stepping near. “Six hours. I feared the smoke had fil ed your lungs and you wouldn’t be long with us.” Grant squeezed her hand, again, his own shaking. The Weasel packed his bag, giving Aunt Harriette a set of dubious instructions. After bending to kiss her cheek, Rose shooed everyone out and fol owed.

Grant sat on her bed, his half-smile-half-frown a sign the Captain might return. Patience hoped not; she liked Grant’s protective demeanor, but she knew from experience that vulnerability usual y brought the Captain.

“Aunt Harriette let you stay in my bedroom alone with me. Is she il ?”

Grant looked rueful. “When the doctor wanted me to leave so he could examine you, I tried to plant him a facer. I expect no one dares tangle with me right now.” Patience hid her wonder, lest he note her perception. If he’d been Grant and fit to kil , his motives bore consideration.

But if he’d been the Captain, he ran true to form.

Stil , with her unconscious and unable to draw out the Captain, he was likely Grant.

Patience touched her head, which hurt for thinking, the answer so far out of reach as to be unattainable. She sighed and brought on a fit of coughing.

Grant raised and offered her a drink with a shaking hand.

Sipping helped. After a second, she calmed, closing her eyes and swal owed painful y.

Grant moved her hair from her eyes. “Throat better?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“Good. That drink wil also help you sleep so your throat and lungs can heal.” He raised her pil ows so she could sit up a bit, to make it easier for her to breathe. Then he gave her a chaste kiss. Though barely a touch, it spoke more of emotion than he’d ever expressed. She wished she had the strength to examine his contradictory actions.

Grant opened a jar of balm, the spearmint scent alone soothing. She closed her eyes as he smoothed the cool ointment on her cracked lips. He must have thought she’d fal en asleep, for as he touched the balm to several sore spots on her face and neck, he swore a colorful oath beneath his breath, as if he were cursing himself.

Patience hid her smile as contentment seeped into her bones and she began to drift.

Grant smoothed her brow with a touch light as butterfly wings. “Sleep, my love,” he said. “Heal. And perhaps someday you’l find it in your heart to forgive me.” Was she his love? She wished she wasn’t too sore and sleepy to ask.

Grant examined her parchment dry skin, her burns wounding him anew, and swal owed hard. His fault for turning to drink.

Patience’s eyes opened.

“Close your eyes, Sweetheart. I’l wake you in time for Shane and Rose’s wedding, and not a moment before.” Through his own selfish actions, he might have lost her.

Forever. A thought not to be borne.

There was much for him to consider as he kept vigil, for he would not be sent away. If Aunt Harriette had it in her mind to sit by Patience, wel , then she’d met her match in him.

* * *

Hothouse tulips breathed spring into the smal chapel.

Grant could not believe Shane was about to take a wife. He did not believe he had ever seen such a look of pride on his father’s face. Hel , he did not believe
he
had ever been so proud.

Standing up for Shane and Rose, he and Patience stood at the front, Grant with his arm around her, since she had just risen from a sickbed. As if she needed him, when the Lady Patience Kendal had become the strongest adversary Grantland St. Benedict Garrick, Marquess of Andover, had faced his entire life.

The organ began to play.

Shane and Rose marched up the aisle side by side. Rose wore a silver gown and carried lilies. His brother wore black and carried Amy. They spoke their vows with certitude.

After the ceremony, they traveled to Brian’s house for the wedding breakfast, since Patience and the girls had moved there so Rose and Shane could have their new home to themselves.

On Patience’s other side, Sophie leaned toward her. “Have you seen Angel? Sir Harold wishes to be introduced, but she’s gone,” Sophie said. “I checked everywhere.”

“That’s impossible,” Patience said. “Wasn’t she in the coach with you?”

“I thought she was with you. She’s been acting peculiar.” Grant stood. “More peculiar than normal?” Sophie fol owed him and Patience from the room. “We’ve been friends since we were children. We shared everything. But lately she’s been secretive and when I ask questions, she snaps.”

Patience made for the stairs. “Let’s check her room.” Grant was sorry he hadn’t thought of it. They found Angel’s trunk and valises by the bed.

Sophie paled. “One of her bags is gone.” Patience found a note propped against a candle-stand. Her hands shook and tears fil ed her eyes as she read it.

Grant didn’t bother to hide his worry. “I know,” he said when she looked up. “
We
have a problem.” Patience touched her throat. “Angel has eloped.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Who in bloody hel did she elope
with
?” Grant shouted, staring at the seditious note. “I wasn’t aware Angel had formed an attachment.”

Pale and trembling, Patience sat on Angel’s bed.

Grant knelt before her. “What does she say?”

“That she loves Dickon and wil marry him, title or no.” Sophie frowned. “Dickon? Dickon Remington, the shipbuilder? I didn’t know he was in London.” Grant bit back an expletive, remorse fil ing him. “He did come to London. You said you saw a male passenger, remember, Patience? The day we left Rhode Island?” He shook his head. “I said you were wrong, because the man wasn’t a passenger; he was a sailor.”

Patience gasped. “Dickie, the sailor? The man she cavorted with before our eyes?”

Sophie took Angel’s note and read it again. “Angel met him in secret at home, too.” Her lips trembled. “I never met him, but at least she used to tel me about him back then.”

“I have to go after her,” Patience whispered.

Grant shook his head. “No, I’l go.”

Patience stood, her bearing erect, eyes so narrow, he could almost feel the sting of emerald darts. “Angel is my responsibility,” she said, chin raised. “Sophie, go and ask Brian if he can spare his carriage—”

“I’l go,” Grant repeated, glad Patience’s color was returning apace with her determination. “They’ve likely gone to Gretna Green.” He tapped her nose to soften his words. “I order you to stay.”

Her cheeks positively bloomed then, along with the glint in her eyes. Bloody hel . Of course, she wouldn’t let a little thing like near-death stop her. He’d forgotten her penchant for opposing his orders, anyone’s orders. Grant cupped his nape.
Now
he remembered what Harriette said about goading Patience to action. Tel her she couldn’t.

“Damnation,” he muttered. Perhaps if he’d said she must?

No, she worried about Angel and al her girls. She would chase half-way ‘cross country for them, even if it jeopardized her health.

And damned if he didn’t respect her for it. “Blast it, Patience!”

Sophie looked from one to the other. “Patience wins. I’l order the carriage.”

In a token show of displeasure, Grant cleared his throat. “I’d make better time on horseback. Alone.”

“And if she gets abandoned, how wil you bring her home?

Over the back of your horse?”

“I know Dickie Remington, Patience, he’s not going to dump her by the road after fol owing her half way ‘round the world,” Grant said.

Patience shrugged. “Nothing you say wil change my mind.”

“They have two hours on us, no more,” Grant said, giving up the fight. “Angel was at the church. Meet me downstairs. I’l get cook to pack a basket. If we don’t stop for food, we’l make better time.”

Before long, his father’s carriage sped along at a neat clip, until the rains came and it got bogged down in muddy tracks.

Grant swore beneath his breath while the outriders rocked the carriage free, every motion like a ticking clock with time running out.

Patience slept on. He settled her in comfort, while across his arm, her flaming hair seduced him now in the way it had done while the wind whipped it into her face on the dock.

He twirled a stubborn curl between his fingers, the silk anointing his cal uses, and closed his eyes.

As ever with Patience, caution made him want to run, and need made him want to stay. He’d thought she was a child and admired the woman she would become. He was an idiot.

The carriage jolted forward, once again, and when Angel was back, safe in Patience’s care, he’d best return to sea, or be lost.

He must not forget that in the name of matrimony, women robbed a man to the bone—baubles, money, home and hearth, then, eventual y, inevitably, they took a man’s pride and self-respect. Grant had seen it played over and over in Society. He’d watched his mother emasculate his father.

He must
not
believe Patience different. He fingered the buttons on her bodice, trying to picture her as a black widow, spinning her web, with him as her intended victim.

“You’re trying to ravish me while I sleep, aren’t you?” she asked. “I like it.”

Grant stared into eyes more potent than poppies. “You never give voice to the expected.” Yet, was not an eagerness for ravishment a lure in itself?

“Oh, Grant. Do you think Angel is al right?”

“Dickie’s a good man. Angel wil be fine.”

“I’m a terrible chaperone; Rose is in the family way, and—”

“Married to the man she loves.”

“Now Angel has run off, God knows where.”

“Dickie fol owed her to England while her mother was her chaperone, before you arrived at the ship.” Patience shrugged. “But Dickie. It was always Dickie. I should have known.”

“Angel is her best friend, and she didn’t know.” Grant opened the wil ow basket on the carriage floor. “You need to eat something. How does soft bread and marrow pudding sound?”

Patience swal owed a smal bit.

Grant shook his head. “I don’t know why my throat isn’t as raw as yours.”

“I cal ed to you and swal owed smoke.” She touched her throat.

“I’m so sorry,” Grant whispered against her hair. “It’s my fault.”

Papa was always sorry after his drinking tormented Mama.

He begged forgiveness in the same manner. Mama always forgave. And so too would her daughter?

No, Patience thought. She needed the strength not to fol ow in her mother’s footsteps.

After two in the morning, the Gretna Turnpike brought them to the river, Sark, near the Scottish border. Patience gazed out as they rol ed into Gretna. It consisted of nothing more than a cluster of white-washed cottages, a church, a farm and two inns.

A gin-soaked bench-dwel er said that it was not to the church Angel and Dickon would have gone, but to The Queen’s Head or Marriage House.

As they entered, Patience’s strength seemed to drain away. A barrel-chested innkeeper, wearing an apron awash with ale and porter, led them to a private parlor. “The Remington’s have come and gone,” said he to their inquiry.

“Remington’s wife said summat of hurrying home for patience.” He shook his head. “Imagin’ not ‘avin the patience for the beddin’” He tipped a non-existent hat to her. “Sorry, Mum.”

“Remington’s wife,” Patience said on a wail. “They’re already married?”

“Right they are, Mum. For good and al .” Grant dispatched the innkeeper with an order for brandy.

“Aunt Harriette wil be beside herself, and the girls were so upset. Grant, what have I done?”

“Your girls have to make their own mistakes. Did you understand what the innkeeper said? Angel rushed home for fear you’d be worried.”

“I’ve been worried since she left.”

Grant smiled. “I think she knew that.”

“We need to go right back, to be certain she’s al right.”

“No. Warm food and a bed is what you need.” Patience made a weak protest, but Grant placed a finger to her lips before she finished. “I won’t be swayed. We’l stay the night and return tomorrow. You’re exhausted.” She was wil ing to admit, at least to herself, that she was.

In response to her silence, Grant made arrangements with the innkeeper, bespoke a bath, ushered Patience upstairs, and left her.

Not more than a half-hour later, he returned with a tray.

Patience was stil in her bath, eyes closed. Steam rose around her face, wilting the auburn coil atop her head, her skin pale in contrast to the curls framing it. He placed the tray on the table knelt, and brushed the hair from her eyes.

Her lashes fluttered. “I feel better.”

“Sure you do.” Grant took a dry towel and offered his hand.

“Come on. Food’s hot.”

She rose, the towel as her curtain, and let him help with her nightrail, to a point. Mashed parsnips in mutton broth slipped easy down her throat. Then he put her to bed.

slipped easy down her throat. Then he put her to bed.

“You’l sleep six ful hours and not a moment less. If you don’t, we’l leave later in the morning.” She gave him a disgusted look. “Where’s
your
room?”

“This is the only one available. I’l sleep in the chair.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

Lord no. Not that
. “We’re not leaving until you sleep,” he said.