Wolfishly Yours (23 page)

And what would happen to Gray?

Her breath hitched at the thought of what Armand would do to Gray. She couldn’t sit still, not while those awful thoughts filled her mind. Livi pushed open the coach door and stepped out into the wintry sunlight. The cold sea air whipped about her skirts, reminding her at once of the day she’d arrived at these very docks. All those weeks ago, she couldn’t wait to stow away on the first vessel she happened past, to sail back across the Atlantic and give Papa and Father Antonio a piece of her mind.
Bon
Dieu
, that seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then.

“Miss Mayeux,” her grandfather’s driver called to her. “Your brother said you were to wait here.”

“My brother can go hang,” Livi replied.

The driver sucked in a shocked breath. But he didn’t try to stop her.

But then she saw Etienne rushing toward her. “There’s a ship bound for home and I just booked passage. We’ll need to board immediately.” He took her elbow in his grip.

Livi jerked her arm free. “I want to stay,” she said.

His face softened. “Livi,” he started. Then he sighed heavily. “If he loved you, he would have been there for you.” He gave her a most pitying glance, one that made her want to punch him between the eyes.

He was right, however. If Gray had wanted to marry her, nothing would have kept them apart. “All right,” she muttered. “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t difficult to pick out Livi’s familiar scent as Gray walked closer and closer to the docks. “She’s here. I’m certain of it.” His heart filled with hope for the first time since the previous night.

Wes just nodded.

“Don’t look so grim. I simply need to find her, explain everything, and she’ll forgive me.” He ventured a look at his twin. “I vaguely remember having to chase Madeline through the rain so you could get her back.” He looked up at the clear sky above. “At least it’s a nice day.” He grinned unrepentantly.

“Just find her, will you?” Wes pushed Gray farther toward the docks.

But just then, a coach emblazoned with Holmesfield’s crest passed them by. Holmesfield? Livi! “Wait!” Gray called to the passing coach.

The driver scowled and kept going.

“Oh, good God,” Wes muttered as Gray started after the coach on foot.

“Driver, stop!” Gray yelled. When the coachman failed to heed, Gray bolted ahead of the carriage with his superior speed, stepped in front of the matched bays, and stood still as a statue. He tried not to wince when the team came to a stop mere inches from his nose. Steamy breath blew from the horses’ nostrils into his face, and Gray had to step to the side to take a calming breath before streaking to the door of the carriage and throwing it open.

“It’s empty,” Gray said to himself when he surveyed the barren coach. His heart sank. Where was Livi? He looked up at the driver, who was holding his whip in his hand as though he planned to protect himself with it. Gray probably looked like a crazed idiot. “Where is she?” he asked the driver.

The man didn’t need any clarification on who “she” was, apparently. He smirked and pointed out over the water. A brigantine stood against the horizon, already moving out to sea.

“She’s on that ship?”

The driver nodded and looked fairly pleased about the entire situation. Damn his hide. Black-hearted coachman.

Gray looked back to the sea and his heart constricted. Livi was gone. She was actually gone. But he could still see the ship. She wasn’t too far away. He could still reach the brigantine if he tried hard enough.

He ran back toward the docks, brushing past sailors and fishermen alike. He reached the edge of the farthest dock and began to tug off his boots. He’d swim all the way across the Atlantic if he had to. It wasn’t too late, but it was damn close.

“Absolutely not,” Wes barked as he caught up to Gray on the dock. “The water is freezing. You’ll die of the cold. No.”

“Don’t tell me no, Wes,” Gray said, almost ashamed of the pleading in his own voice. “I can’t let her leave. I can still catch her.”

Wes clapped a hand on Gray’s shoulder. “Grayson.” He squeezed his brother’s shoulder in a rough, comforting grip. “Put your boots back on before someone thinks you’re mad.”

Gray ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “She’s right there,” he breathed, gesturing toward the brigantine, which was still within sight.

“There will be another ship.”

Another ship. Gray glanced around the harbor. There were dozens of other ships. A shred of hope began to form. “I can follow her to New Orleans.”

Wes nodded. “You could.” He rubbed at the side of his nose as his lips began to quirk.

“Just what do you find amusing about this?”

Finally, a chuckle broke from Wes. “Aside from the fact that you’re standing on the edge of the Bristol docks in your stockings?”

Gray glanced down at his feet and wiggled his toes. He supposed he did look fairly ridiculous, not that he cared what anyone else thought.

“Put your boots back on before someone steals them.”

“Hadley!” a voice called from behind him.

Gray spun quickly, but not quickly enough. A blow hit his left cheek like a hammer across the side of his face. He fell to his arse. Gray leaned on his elbows and looked up at his assailant, working his jaw open and closed. It wasn’t broken, but not through any fault of Armand Mayeux’s pugilistic form.

The man glared down at him. “That’s for ruining my sister.” He planted his booted foot on Gray’s hip and gave it a hard shove. “And this is for making her cry.” His boot shoved him toward the edge of the dock.

Wes shoved Armand back a few steps. Thank God, his twin was there or Gray might have found his way into the sea after all. But Armand advanced just as quickly as Gray lumbered back to his feet. Gray held up his hand as though that action alone could warn the man away.

Armand swung, but this time Gray was ready. He ducked and the American’s fist flew over his head. Armand charged him like a bull and hit Gray in the side with his shoulder.

“Stop it!” Wes snapped. “People are staring.” He pulled Armand off Gray and shoved the American back a step. Standing between the two of them, Wes held one hand on Gray’s chest and one on Armand’s. “Enough.”

Even though he could have done without the punch to his jaw, Gray was never so happy to see anyone as he was to see Armand Mayeux. The earl’s coachman must have been mistaken. Armand was still here, so Livi had to be as well. “Where’s Livi?” he demanded. “I need to see her.”

Armand spoke between heaving breaths. “If my brother did what I asked, she’s far from here by now.”

Gray glanced back at the brigantine, still edging its way out to the open waters. That didn’t make any sense. Armand Mayeux was still in England. “But you’re here.”

“Stayed behind to kill you.” Armand smiled menacingly.

“You wouldn’t be the first to try it today,” Wes grumbled under his breath. Then he shook his head and said louder, “No one is going to kill anyone.”

Gray wasn’t so sure about that. He might very well kill Honeywell for abducting him and shooting him, and then he might very well kill Armand Mayeux for sending Livi away before Gray could reach her.

Armand slowly grinned. “I wouldn’t be so confident, were I you. After what he’s done, I am well within my rights to rid the world of him.”

Gray balled his right hand into a fist. How he would love to crash it into the damned American’s nose.

Wes shot him a warning glance as though he knew precisely what Gray was thinking. “That will hardly help your cause,” he muttered.

Armand snorted. “He has no cause.” Then he glared at Gray. “I’m just glad she’s gone. Away from you.”

“There’s nowhere she could go that I wouldn’t follow,” Gray said quietly.

“Follow her?” Armand charged at him again but Wes shoved them apart once more. “Is it not enough that everyone in England knows you took her innocence? Now you think you’ll follow her home and spread the news there?” Armand shook his head viciously. “Not while there’s breath in my lungs.”

Took her innocence? The accusation made Gray’s mouth drop open. “What’s he talking about?” He glanced at his twin.

Wes shrugged.

“You are forever banned from seeing my sister.” Armand tried to reach around Wes to grab Gray’s jacket, but Wes pushed him back again. “Her virtue might not be intact, but let her have her pride.”

“What the devil are you talking about? I didn’t take her virtue.” Gray snarled the last in the startled man’s face. Not that he hadn’t wanted to. Not that he hadn’t dreamt about doing so. But he’d be married to her first.

Mayeux snorted.

Gray ignored him. His head spun as he tried to sort out a plan. But there was only one option. He had to find her, to make everything right. “I need to book passage to America.”

“The hell you do.” Mayeux lunged for Gray once more.

Gray had suffered enough. He sidestepped Wes and, with both hands, sent Armand Mayeux crashing to the docks on his arse. “See here! I don’t know what you said to make her leave me. I don’t know why the world has suddenly turned mad. But the one thing I am very certain of is Livi’s innocence, and if you impugn her name one more time…”

“But she crinkled her nose.” Armand glared up at Gray, though his eyes lost a bit of their hatred.

What the devil was that supposed to mean? The American made less sense the more he talked. Had the man been imbibing all day? “I beg your pardon?”

Armand shook his head as though to clear his mind. Then he pushed back to his feet.

“Keep your distance,” Wes warned.

But Armand kept his eyes locked with Gray’s. “Give me your word as a Lycan that my sister’s virtue is intact.”

Something Gray never thought he’d have to say to any man. He might not be the most refined gentleman in England, but he was honorable. Still, if he could somehow get Livi to forgive him, Armand Mayeux would be his brother by marriage. It would be better to have the man as an ally than an enemy. Gray swallowed his pride and said, “I give you my word, Livi is an innocent. I love her too much to ever see her sullied.”

A strange smile settled on Armand’s face as though he was still trying to make sense of the situation. “Damn it all, I actually believe you.” He shook his head again.

“A lot of good it does either of us,” Gray said as Livi’s ship began to disappear against the horizon.

Wes heaved a sigh. “Let’s find a vessel willing to take you to your lady.”

Gray looked at his twin expectantly. Wes had to know he had pockets to let. What a sorry state he found himself in. No blunt. No clean clothes. No boots on his damned feet at the moment. But mostly, no Livi.

Wes reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a purse. He tossed it casually in Gray’s direction. “From Dash,” he said with a grin. “Said he thought you might need it.” Then he clapped Gray on the shoulder and said, “What are you waiting for, brother?”

Armand raced to the closest frigate. “You,” he called to someone on deck. “Where are you sailing to?”

“Glasgow!” the sailor called back.

Damn, damn, damn.

Gray scooped his boots off the dock and ran to the next ship, a sloop of some sort. “Where are you sailing for?”

A rather tanned sailor looked over the side of the ship and said with a heavy Spanish accent, “Tomorrow we leave for Cadiz, señor.”

Tomorrow, tomorrow. “What about today?” Gray stepped closer to the small ship and tossed Dash’s purse in the air and caught it. “If you’ll help me reach the brigantine that just left, you can have this whole thing.”

The Spaniard shook his head. “Captain Alvarez is in town. You would have to talk to him.”

Gray didn’t have time to find some Spanish sea captain. He’d like to
borrow
the ship and sail it himself if he knew how. He shook his head and bolted toward a schooner not far away. A young boy leaned over the side, applying some sort of resin to the bow.

“Find your captain for me,” Gray ordered, his heart pounding harder and harder, knowing that Livi got farther and farther away from him with each second that passed.

“
Excusez-moi
!” The boy dropped his bucket of resin into the water below.

Armand was at Gray’s side in an instant. French flew off his tongue at a rate Gray could never have kept up with, though he did pick out the name Philippe Mayeux more than once. The startled boy spoke rapidly in return, and then he scampered off to parts unknown.

Armand heaved a sigh. “They’ll take us.”

But he’d only talked to a cabin boy. “They will?” Gray asked, not willing to let his hopes rise.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice her to begin with, but my focus was elsewhere when I arrived.” Armand gestured to the ship’s name,
Madame
Gracieuse
, emblazoned in gold letters on the side. “The Graceful Lady,” he translated. “A play on my mother’s name.”

A play on Lady Grace Mayeux’s name? Gray blinked at his would-be brother-in-law, who was now grinning ear to ear. “Your mother?”

“You didn’t know my father runs a shipping empire?” Armand chuckled. “I suppose you don’t love Livi for her money, then. What a relief.”

At that moment, a salty old captain with a face full of scraggly white whiskers appeared on the bow. “Monsieur Mayeux?”

Again Armand spoke in rapid-fire French and gestured to Gray several times. The ship’s captain ordered the gangway lowered, or at least Gray assumed he did, as the gangway was lowered after a bark from the old man. Without hesitation, Gray followed Armand up the gangway and onto the ship.

Armand chuckled. “Captain Lafleur actually spoke with Etienne earlier. Do you believe it?”

Gray wasn’t sure he believed anything anymore. “We were very lucky.”

“Luck?” Armand echoed. Then he shook his head. “Destiny. Providence. ‘It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny,’” he quoted.

Gray scoffed; he couldn’t help it. “You are a brave man to quote Napoleon Bonaparte in England.”

The American laughed harder. “Ah, but we are not in England,
mon
frère
.” He gestured to the deck at their feet. “We are aboard the
Madame
Gracieuse.
And if she cannot catch Livi, no one can. So abandon yourself to your destiny, Mr. Hadley, as you no longer have any control.”

That was the damned truth of it. Gray couldn’t make the schooner depart any faster than it was going to. Still, he couldn’t help from pacing the deck as the French crew lifted the ship’s anchor, echoed the captain’s orders, and pulled ropes this direction or that, all very calmly and all very orderly. Their methodical nature made Gray want to rip out his own hair in frustration as he waited to depart Bristol to catch his destiny.