“I know, one big happy family.” Drew chuckled. “I married into it, didn’t I?”
“You’re the one with a big family who married into an even bigger family. And your brother-in-law might have ignored Richard when they last met, but James had other things on his mind at the time, like rescuing my father from that horrible dungeon. Which doesn’t mean that James has forgotten the promise he made that day when he saw his wife slap Richard in their garden for making an inappropriate overture toward her. James told me without mincing words that if Richard ever came near his wife again, he was going to have to hurt him. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he meant it. You know him better than I and you confirmed he was most likely dead serious.”
“Of course he was, same as I would be if I saw another man trespassing with my wife. I think you’re worrying over nothing, sweetheart,” Drew added as she snuggled back against his chest. “Richard isn’t stupid. And anyone in their right mind would have to be damn stupid to trifle with that particular Malory.”
“Umm, didn’t you and your brothers do exactly that when you forced him to marry your sister? After you beat him unconscious?”
“Sweetheart, it took all five of us to administer that beating. We tried it one-on-one and it just wasn’t working! And I told you, James forced our hand deliberately. It was his bizarre way of getting Georgie married to him without his having to ask her or us, because of some silly vow he made never to marry.”
“I think it was rather romantic.”
Drew chuckled. “You would. But only a stubborn Englishman would go to those lengths to keep his sworn word—about marriage. Had it been about honor, or country, or—well, you know what I mean, it would have been reasonable. But marriage? Remember, that’s privileged information I shared with you, since you’re my wife. Don’t ever let James know that my brothers and I have figured that out. He still thinks he put one over on us. And believe me, he’s much more tolerable when he’s silently gloating than when he’s annoyed and going for blood.”
“I’m sworn to secrecy,” she assured Drew with a grin. “But you’re quite right about Richard. He’s not stupid. But you know how he is. He’s a charming man, humorous, teasing, always smiling—”
“Stop singing his praises!”
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, until he remembers Georgina. Then he gets so melancholy it could break your heart.”
“It’s not breaking my heart.”
“Oh, come on, you like him, you know you do. How can you not?”
“Possibly because he’s in love with my sister. He’s lucky I don’t swab the deck with his face.”
She ignored her husband’s growl. “Ohr says Richard doesn’t really love Georgina. I believe that, or I wouldn’t have let him come along.”
She’d been skeptical about Ohr’s contention until she found out that Richard had had at least three affairs in the last year. That had pretty much been the deciding factor in allowing her friends to enjoy this trip with them.
“That might well be true,” Drew said, “but what difference does that make if Richard thinks he’s in love with my sister?”
“Yes, but Ohr said Richard is a man who wants to be in love, that he wants it so much that he easily mistakes lust for love. And he doesn’t even know that’s what he’s been looking for. But maybe because he’s never experienced real love, he can’t recognize the difference between the two.”
Drew had experienced the same dilemma and indicated as much when he said, “Exactly, but now you’re suddenly doubting it?”
“No, but I can’t help remembering the things Richard said about Georgina. When I reminded him that she’s a happily married woman, that he ought to forget her, he told me he’s tried, but he just can’t forget about his ‘one true love.’ How often does a man call a woman that?!”
“I can count on two, three, a dozen hands how many times I’ve said or thought it—about you.”
She barely heard his reply, though she did swing around again to hug him. But she was remembering a conversation she’d had with Richard back when she’d first realized she loved Drew—and was so sure he didn’t return that love. Richard had put an arm around her shoulder and told her, “It will work out, chérie. He adores you.”
“He adores all women,” she’d replied.
Richard had chuckled. “So do I, but I would give them all up for—”
“Shush!” she had told him in earnest. “Richard, please, stop pining for another man’s wife. Malory won’t tolerate another trespass. You make me fear for your life by not being reasonable about this.”
“Who said love was reasonable?” had been the reply, which had stuck in her mind. She repeated that phrase now for her husband.
“And look how true that is,” she added. “In your own case, you were an absolutely confirmed bachelor with a sweetheart in every port.”
He didn’t reply and she glanced up to see the steady “waiting” look he was giving her and realized it had nothing to do with her last comment. She grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Yes, I heard you,” she said. “You can really count on a dozen hands the number of times you’ve called me your ‘one true love’?”
Mollified, he hugged her back as he replied, “No, I was being conservative in that number. But as to your last comment, there was a good reason I was a confirmed bachelor. I was determined never to put a woman through the agony my mother experienced, always staring sadly out to sea waiting for a ship that rarely came home. Not once in all those years did I think I’d find a woman happy to sail by my side. I know my brother Warren’s wife sails with him, but I didn’t expect to get that lucky. But you’ve made your case about how unreasonable love can be. It broke down those very firm convictions I had. In fact, it can be so unreasonable that I have no doubt I would have given up the sea for you. God, I can’t believe I just said that, but you know it’s true.”
He crushed her with his next hug, he was suddenly feeling so much emotion, which made her quickly assure him, “You’ll never have to! I love the sea as much as you do.”
“I know, and I know exactly how lucky I am that you do. Now you’ve worried about your friend enough for one day, don’t you think?”
She sighed. “I wish I could stop. I’m just so afraid that when he sees your sister again, he’s going to throw caution to the winds and—”
“He wouldn’t just have James to contend with,” Drew warned. “You do realize that?”
“Yes.” She sighed again.
“I could always throw him and Ohr overboard—with a dinghy, of course. By the time they row to England, we’ll be ready to leave again. Problem solved.”
She knew he wasn’t the least bit serious and was just trying to ease her out of her concern, but she couldn’t shrug off the sense of foreboding she felt. Whether from deeds in Richard’s past or threats he’d provoked over a woman he thought he loved, she was afraid something bad was going to happen, and it would be her fault for bringing Richard back to England.
Chapter Four
RICHARD PULLED HIS HAT down low. It wasn’t that he was worried that he might be recognized. On the London docks? Not a chance. But it would be foolish to flaunt his presence just to tempt fate. Why take the chance that this might be the one day out of a thousand that an old acquaintance might be returning from a trip abroad and be on these very same docks?
He’d put away the greatcoat now that it was too warm for it and was wearing his usual shipboard garb, clothes that were easy to work in. His long-sleeved white shirt was loose for ease of movement, deeply V-necked, and belted on the outside. His black pants were tucked into his boots. He blended in rather well with the common dockworkers, except for his highly polished Hessian boots.
It was highly unlikely that he would be recognized after all these years. He’d left England a skinny seventeen-year-old who hadn’t yet reached his full height. He’d sprouted up a few more inches rather late, which had kept him slim longer
than he would have liked, but then he’d finally filled out so he could no longer be called skinny. His long black hair even added to his disguise, since it was about as far from fashionable as he could get—in England, that is.
It was a popular style in the Caribbean, so he’d adopted it to blend in. He didn’t braid his hair the way Ohr did, but it was so long now that he definitely had to keep it queued at the back of his neck or it became a nuisance aboard ship.
He ought to cut it while he was in England. He’d thought the same thing when he was here last year. But why? He wouldn’t be staying and he liked his hair long. Besides, it was a symbol of the rebellion he’d started before he’d left home for good. He would never have been allowed to wear his hair this way while living under his father’s iron thumb.
“Lord Allen?”
Richard hadn’t seen the man approaching, but now as he quickly scrutinized the man’s face, he recognized him. Good God, one of the rakehells he’d been chummy with before he left home? That one-in-a-thousand chance of being recognized? Bloody hell.
“You are mistaken, monsieur. I am Jean Paul from Le Havre.” He bent respectfully, but was actually letting his long hair fall over his shoulder to better confirm his lie. “My ship, she only just arrived from France.”
Every muscle in his body was primed for flight if his bluff and his thick French accent didn’t work, but the rake simply looked disgusted at what he apparently thought was a mistake on his part. “Too bad. That would have been a juicy morsel for the gossip mills.”
Indeed it would have—and it would have let Richard’s father know he was still alive. But the man rudely walked off. It took a few moments for Richard to breathe easily again. That had been too close. And unplanned for. But at least the man wasn’t someone Richard had been well acquainted with, and the fellow hadn’t been sure that he was Lord Allen, either. And he had changed enough, Richard assured himself, that no one would really be sure except his family.
“I told you I’d do better at getting us a ride than you would,” Margery gloated as she returned to where their baggage was piled and directed the hack driver to wait right there. “Now where’s Gabby? Still on the ship?”
Gabrielle’s maid glanced out to where The Triton was anchored in the middle of the Thames. The ship wouldn’t be given dockage space anytime soon, and with summer upon them, the docks were more crowded than usual, so it was quite possible that the ship might not even get a space before they were ready to depart again!
Richard took a deep breath, shook off any remaining tension, and gave the maid a jaunty smile. “She’s waiting for Drew. You know how captains are, always a dozen last-minute details to attend to before they can disembark.”
Ohr was rowing toward the docks in a dinghy piled high with the rest of their baggage. You’d think they would be visiting for a month, rather than the two weeks they were planning on, they’d brought so much along with them.
“Can you smell it?” Margery said quite ecstatically. “Doesn’t it smell wonderful?”
Richard eyed the old girl as if she were daft. “What the deuce are you smelling? All I smell is—”
“England!”
He rolled his green eyes. “It stinks here and you know it. The docks at home, with the trade winds always blowing, smell like a garden compared to this.”
She snorted at him. “Gabby must be wrong in guessing this is where you were born and raised. You’d have more appreciation for the homeland if it was. Admit it, the English accent you’re using now is as fake as the French one you were using before. You’re just much better at this one.”
With a wrinkle of his nose that was meant to tease her, Richard merely replied, “One of these days this town is going to pass a law about dumping garbage in the river.”
But Margery hadn’t expected him to open up to her just because she’d speculated aloud about his past and merely addressed his remark. “Maybe they have. It’s not exactly the most law-abiding area of London and never has been. Not that I’m complaining. It’s wonderful to be home again even if only for a visit.”
Margery had elected to follow Gabrielle to the New World, and while she might have adjusted to that very different way of life, she still pined for home. Richard didn’t pine for home, but damn, he did miss his brother, Charles. And being this close to him once again, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should make the effort this time to try to steal a visit with Charles—without their father finding out about it.
“Here now, none of that daydreaming,” Margery said, snapping his attention back to her. “You did enough of that on the ship. Use some of that brawn you’ve developed and start loading these trunks on top the coach. I was warned the driver only drives, he doesn’t load. Uppity man. He knows his hack is at a premium down here. He’s going to charge more the longer he sits here waiting, too.” Then she added with a brilliant smile, “Nothing changes in this old town. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Margery was a chronic complainer, so this bubbly attitude and her gleeful expression were so out of character that Ohr remarked as he came up beside Richard, “Is she going through her ‘everything is wonderful because it’s in England’ routine again?”
“Right on the mark as usual.” Richard chuckled at his friend.
“No different than the last time we were here. When you miss something very much and then finally have it in your grasp, you can become a bit euphoric—though the euphoria will wear off as reality returns.”
Richard winced. Ohr was too perceptive by half, and Richard knew his friend wasn’t just talking about Margery now. Though Richard wouldn’t be getting what he wanted, and they both knew it. But that was what Ohr was subtly alluding to, that it would be a fleeting euphoria—and not worth dying for.
“You aren’t going to start in on me, too, are you?” Richard asked.
Ohr’s intentions were good. So were Gabrielle’s for that matter. If Richard didn’t know that, he’d have got quite annoyed at how much they’d hounded him about Georgina Malory on this trip. Though Ohr was definitely less obvious about it than Gabby.
Richard was tall at six feet, but just like Drew, Ohr had a few more inches on him and probably about ten years, too, though that was impossible to tell from looking at him. An Oriental half-breed born of an Asian mother and an American father who’d sailed in the Far East, Ohr’s face was ageless, and he looked no different today from how he’d looked eight years ago when they’d first met, the day Ohr broke several members of Nathan’s crew out of the jail in St. Lucia and Richard just happened to be sitting in the same cell with them. Richard had been able to talk Ohr into letting him come along. When Richard found out their occupation, he hadn’t had to think long about joining them.
The Caribbean hadn’t been Richard’s choice of a destination. It was simply where the first ship out of England was heading the day he’d decided to leave. With thousands of islands, it had been a good place to hide, though he hadn’t known that at the time. But it hadn’t been a good place for a snobbish young Englishman to work. Seventeen and too fastidious to realize he’d need to adjust if he was going to survive there, he’d been floundering for a year, broke, going from island to island and job to job. He kept getting fired since he’d been too bloody arrogant for menial labor. Nor was it the first time he’d been tossed in jail for being unable to keep up with the rent for even the most wretched of hovels.
He and Ohr had ironically ended up in the West Indies for opposite reasons. Ohr had landed there hoping to find the father he’d never met, while Richard had landed there to escape from a father he couldn’t stand. Meeting Ohr that day in the St. Lucia jail had probably saved Richard’s life. He’d found a new family in Nathan Brooks and his crew, new friends closer than any he’d ever had, and an occupation he actually enjoyed!
“‘Too’?” Ohr said now. “Has Gabby been beating you over the head again with her concern?”
“When does the darling girl ever mind her own business?” Richard rejoined.
/> “There’s only one thing she beats your brow over, and I hate to say it, but—”
“Yes, yes, you’re in complete agreement,” Richard cut in with some exasperation.
“Touchy, you. But answer me this, do you love Georgina Malory because you actually know her, or are you merely enamored of her beauty? Actually, you don’t need to answer, just think about it.”
Did his friends really think his love was that insubstantial? Richard didn’t mind answering. “I spoke with her at length, Ohr. I’ve never come across another woman so easy to talk to—well, other than Gabby. But I know Georgina has a wonderful sense of humor, too. I saw firsthand how devoted she is to her children. She’s brave—look who she’s married to—and adventurous—last year she came along to help rescue a friend. She’s perfect for me in every way!”
“Except that she loves someone else.”
One tiny wrinkle in the life he wanted for himself? The women he usually came into contact with were tavern wenches, delightful romps, but none of whom he could picture as the mother of his children. All these years he hadn’t met a single woman, other than Gabrielle, whom he could imagine giving him the large, loving family he craved—a family completely different from the one he’d been born into. If Gabby and he hadn’t become such good friends, and she hadn’t been his captain’s only daughter, he would have pursued her. He’d met no one else as suitable for him—until he’d met Georgina Malory. She symbolized everything he wanted in a wife. He couldn’t give up on this woman.
But, ironically, the man she was married to didn’t scare him off. On the contrary, he gave him hope. How could she love a brutish fellow such as James Malory? Richard simply didn’t believe that she really could. Because of that he was determined to wait until she came to her senses and left the man. He wanted her to know he’d be waiting for her with open arms.