Gentle Rogue (30 page)
“I’d say that was the other way around, but that’s neither here nor there. Kindly shut up, Warren, if you can’t contribute anything constructive. And stop being so blasted touchy, Drew. You’re not helping matters any.”
“Well, I don’t believe it anymore than Boyd does.” James was beginning to distinguish voices, and this one from the hot-tempered Warren grated along points already throbbing. “The blockhead doubts it, too, so—”
More scuffling ended that revelation. James sincerely hoped they killed each other—after he found out what they were so doubting of. He was about to sit up and ask when they crashed into his feet, jarring his whole body. His groan was telling enough.
“How are you feeling, Malory?” he was asked by a surprisingly amused voice. “Fit enough for a wedding?”
James cracked his eyelids open to see the baby-faced Boyd grinning down at him. With all the contempt he was capable of, he said, “My own brothers have done a better job on me than you puling pups.”
“Then maybe we should give it another go-round,” said the one whose name ought to be cut in half. War suited him so much better.
“Sit
down
, Warren!”
The order came from Thomas, surprising them all, except James, who had no idea this Anderson brother
rarely raised his voice. And he really couldn’t have cared less just then. Determinedly, he concentrated everything he had on sitting up without flinching.
And then it hit him, “What the bloody hell d’you mean, wedding?”
“Yours, Englishman, and Georgie’s. You compromised her, you’ll marry her, or we’ll very cheerfully kill you.”
“Then smile away, dear boy, and pull the trigger. I won’t be forced—”
“Isn’t that what you came here for, Malory?” Thomas asked enigmatically.
James glowered at him, while the brothers all reacted in different degrees of amazement.
“Have you gone crazy, Thomas?”
“Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it?” This, sarcastically.
“Where are you getting these ridiculous notions from, first about Georgie, now this?”
“Would you like to explain that, Tom?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thomas replied, watching James. “The English mind is too complicated by half.”
James wasn’t going to comment on that. Talking to these imbeciles was a headache in itself. Slowly, with extreme care, he got to his feet. As he did, so did Warren and Clinton, who had been sitting down. James almost laughed. Did they really think he had anything left in him that they need worry about just now? Bloody giants. Little George couldn’t have a
normal
family, could she?
“By the by, where is George?” he wanted to know.
The young one, who’d been pacing the floorboards
in agitation, stopped in front of him to glower hotly. “That’s not her name, Malory.”
“Good God, indignation over a name, now.” And with a lack of the indifference James was known for, “I’ll call her any bloody thing I like, puppy. Now where have you put her?”
“We haven’t
put
her anywhere,” Drew’s voice came from behind him. “She’s right here.”
James swung around, winced at what the sharp movement did to him, saw Drew first, standing between him and the sofa. And on the sofa, stretched out and looking as pale as death, and quite unconscious, Georgina.
“What the bloody hell!”
Drew, the only one to actually see the murderous expression that crossed James’s face as he started toward the sofa, tried to stop him, but wished he hadn’t as he landed with slamming force against the wall. The impact tilted every picture on the wall, and a crash was heard out in the hall, where one of the servants was so startled by the sudden loud noise that she dropped her tray of glasses.
“Let it go, Warren,” Thomas cautioned. “He’s not going to hurt her.” And to James, “She merely fainted, man, when she got a good look at you.”
“She never faints,” Boyd insisted. “I tell you she’s playing possum so she won’t have to listen to Clinton yell at her.”
“You should have beat her when you had the chance, Clint,” This bit of disgruntlement came from Warren, which got him exasperated looks from each of his brothers, but something altogether unexpected from the only non-family member in the room.
“You lay a bloody hand on her and you’re dead.”
James didn’t even turn around to snarl that warning. He was on his knees beside the sofa, gently patting Georgina’s ashen cheek, trying to bring her around.
Into the pregnant silence that followed, Thomas looked at Clinton and said calmly, “I told you.”
“So you did. All the more reason we don’t drag our feet about this.”
“If you’d just let me turn him over to Governor Wolcott for hanging, there’d be no problem.”
“He’s still compromised her, Warren,” Clinton reminded him. “There will be a wedding to amend that before we discuss anything else.”
Their voices droned on behind him, but James was only vaguely listening. He didn’t like Georgina’s color. Her breathing was too shallow, too. Of course, he’d never dealt with a fainting woman himself before. Someone else was always around to do that and stick smelling salts under her nose. Her brothers must not have any salts, or they’d have used it. Weren’t burnt feathers supposed to do the trick, too? He eyed the sofa, wondering what it was stuffed with.
“You might try tickling her feet,” Drew suggested, coming up to stand behind James. “They’re very sensitive.”
“I know that.” James replied, remembering the time his hand had merely brushed against her bare instep and she’d practically kicked him out of his bed in reflex.
“You know? How the devil do you know?”
James sighed, hearing the belligerence back in Drew’s tone. “By accident, dear boy. You don’t think
I’d participate in such childish antics as tickling, do you?”
“I wonder just what antics you
have
participated in with my sister?”
“No more than you’ve already assumed.”
Drew inhaled sharply before replying, “I’ll say this for you, Englishman. You know how to dig a hole very deep for yourself.”
James glanced over his shoulder. He would have smiled if it wouldn’t have hurt to do so. “Not at all. Would you have me lie about it?”
“Yes, by God, I wish you had!”
“Sorry, lad, but I haven’t the conscience you seem burdened with. As I told your sister, I’m quite reprehensible when it comes to certain aspects of my life.”
“Meaning women?”
“Well, aren’t you the discerning fellow.”
Drew flushed with ire, fists clenching. “You
are
worse than Warren, by God! If you want some more—”
“Back off, puppy. Your heart’s in the right place, I’m sure, but you’re not capable of taking me on and you know it. So why don’t you make yourself useful instead and fetch something to revive your sister? She really ought to join this particular party.”
Drew stomped off angrily to follow his suggestion, but was back in a moment with a glass half full of water. James eyed it skeptically. “What, pray tell, am I supposed to do with that?” For answer Drew splashed the contents in Georgina’s face. “Well, I’m bloody well glad you did it rather than me,” James told Drew as Georgina sat up sputtering, shrieking, and looking around for the culprit.
“You fainted, Georgie,” Drew told her quickly by way of explanation.
“There must be a dozen women in the other room with smelling salts,” she said furiously as she sat up and began rubbing water off her cheeks and upper chest with stiff fingers. “Couldn’t you have asked one?”
“Didn’t think of that.”
“Well, you could have at least brought a towel with the water,” and then, aghast, “Blast you, Drew, look what you’ve done to my gown!”
“A gown you never should have been wearing in the first place,” he retorted. “
Now
maybe you’ll go change it.”
“I’ll wear it till it rots off if you did this just so I’d—”
“Children, if you don’t mind…” James cut in pointedly, bringing Georgina’s eyes to him.
“Oh, James, look at your face!”
“That’s rather difficult to do, brat. But I wouldn’t talk, with yours still dripping.”
“With water, you ass, not blood!” she snapped, then turned to Drew. “Well, haven’t you at least got a handkerchief?”
He dug in his pocket and handed over a white square, expecting her to wipe her face with it. Instead he watched in bemusement as she leaned forward and carefully dabbed at the blood encrusted around the Englishman’s mouth. And the man let her, just knelt there on his knees and let her attend him as if he hadn’t been looking daggers at her earlier, and he hadn’t embarrassed her in front of family and friends, and they hadn’t
just
been snapping at each other.
He glanced around to see if his brothers had noticed this irrational behavior, too. Clinton and Warren hadn’t. They were too busy still arguing. But Boyd met his glance and rolled his eyes. Drew quite agreed with him. And Thomas was shaking his head, though obviously amused. Drew couldn’t find
anything
about any of this amusing. He was damned if he wanted a pirate for a brother-in-law, retired or not. Worse, an English pirate. Even worse, a lord of the old realm. And he damned well couldn’t believe that his sister had actually fallen in love with the fellow. It simply defied reason.
So what was Georgina doing fussing over him right now? And why had she fainted just because they’d messed up his face a little?
Drew admitted the Englishman was a fine figure of a man. An unmatched pugilist, too, that Drew might admire, but Georgie wouldn’t. And he supposed he might even say the fellow could be called handsome, at least he had been before they’d puffed up his face. But would Georgina let such minor things sway her when he had so many black marks against him? Oh, hell, nothing had made sense to him since he’d found her in Jamaica.
“You’re quite handy with your fists, aren’t you?”
Drew’s attention snapped back upon hearing that testy question out of his sister. He eyed Malory for his reaction, but it was hard to distinguish any expression at all under so much damage.
“You could say I’ve trained a bit in the ring.”
“Wherever did you find the time,” Georgina came back with sarcasm, “between running a plantation in the islands
and
pirating?”
“You’ve told me yourself how
old
I am, brat. Stands to reason I’ve had time for a great many pursuits in my lifetime, don’t it?”
Drew almost choked, hearing that. The noise he did make drew Georgina’s attention back to him. “You’re still just standing about, when you could be helpful? His eye needs something cold for the swelling…Yours does, too, for that matter.”
“Oh, no, Georgie girl. Horses couldn’t drag me out of here just now, so save your breath. But if you want me to step back so you can have a word alone with this scoundrel, why don’t you just ask?”
“I want nothing of the sort,” she insisted indignantly. “I have absolutely nothing to say to him”—her eyes came back to James to clarify—“to you. Nothing…except that your behavior tonight has gone beyond your usual unpleasantness to the despicable. I should have realized you were capable of such meanness. All the signs were there. But no, I foolishly deemed your particular brand of ridicule as harmless, a habit as you say, without serious malice. I believed that! But you proved me wrong, didn’t you? That double-damned tongue of yours has shown itself to be viciously lethal. Well, are you happy with what you’ve wrought? Has it quite amused you? Has it? And what the devil are you doing on your knees? They should have put you to bed.”
She worked herself up to a fine rage, and then to end with a note of concern for him! James sat back on his heels and laughed. It hurt like bloody hell, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“So good of you to spare me, George, and say nothing,” he finally said.
She glared at him a moment, then asked quite seriously, “What are you doing here, James?”
With that one question, his humor was shattered. In the blink of an eye, his hostility was back.
“You neglected to say goodbye, love. I thought I’d give you an opportunity to correct that oversight.”
So there was motive to his madness? He’d felt slighted? And for that petty, vengeful little reason, he’d destroyed her reputation
and
what she felt for him? Well, she could be grateful for the latter. To think she’d actually been eating herself up with grief because she thought she would never see him again. Now she
wished
she’d never see him again.
“Oh, well, how thoughtless of me,” she said in a purringly brittle tone as she pushed to her feet, “and soooo easy to rectify.
Goodbye
, Captain Malory.”
Georgina brushed passed him, ready to make the most splendid exit of her life, and came face-to-face with her brothers, all looking at her, and all having heard every word of her heated exchange with James. How
could
she have forgotten they were in the room?
“W
ell now, it’s plain to see that you two are
well
acquainted.”
Georgina frowned at Warren’s snide remark, her defenses rising along with her embarrassment and underlying anger. “And what’s that supposed to insinuate, Warren? I spent five weeks on his ship in the capacity of a cabin boy, as he so
thoughtfully
informed you.”
“And in his bed?”
“Oh, are we finally getting around to asking me?” A single brow rose in a perfect imitation of James’s affectation, and she wasn’t even aware that the royal vernacular “we” she had just used was also his habit, not hers. Sarcasm was not her forte, after all, and in attempting it, it was only natural to draw from a master. “And here I thought you didn’t need any further confirmation beyond an admitted pirate’s word. That
is
why you four pounced on the man and tried to kill him, isn’t it? Because you
believed
his every word? It didn’t even once occur to you that he might be lying?”
Clinton and Boyd were feeling enough guilt over that to give themselves away with red faces. She couldn’t see Drew’s reaction behind her, but Warren was obviously feeling justified.