Kathryn Caskie (16 page)

“Calm yerself, man. There have been no loss reports on
The Promise.
Until we know more, we must assume all is well.”

Once certain Dunsford’s temper was diffused, Lambeth slowly lowered the chair to the worn wooden floor. He set his hands upon the top rung and leaned against its worn back, dropping his chin to his chest.

Dunsford rested his head in his hands. “I’ll be ruined, you know.” His voice was thin and shaking. “If this ship is lost, I’ll be ruined.”

“We’ll
all
be ruined, Dunsford.” Magnus gazed out the window at the rocking ships in the basin. “Each of us knew the risks when we laid our guineas on the table. And with that risk came the possibility of tremendous profit—which might still be ours. If we dinna lose our heads, that is. Even if the cargo is gone there’s always the insurance.”

Dunsford shrugged. “At least we have that.”

Lambeth turned away from them then, and without a word, simply gazed out of the small casement window.

Muted shouts from the wharf workers outside joined the creak and groan of docked ships, as each man silently dealt with the gravity of the situation in his own way.

Finally, Dunsford dragged himself to his feet and extended his hand to Lambeth. “Accept my apologies, my good man. It’s just—”

Lambeth nodded and reached for Dunsford’s outstretched hand. “I know. I am worried as well.” He clasped Dunsford’s hand between both of his own and shook it.

This simple gesture seemed to ease Dunsford’s mind, but Magnus was not so oblivious to the barely controlled anger still seething behind Lambeth’s eyes.

Dunsford contritely offered a watery smile, then turned to Magnus. “Share a hack, Somerton? Might as well conserve what coin we have left, eh?”

Magnus exhaled a small laugh. “Indeed.” They moved toward the door and he looked back at Lambeth. “Ye’ll let us know if there is any news?”

“You know I will.” Lambeth pressed a compassionate smile on his face and followed the two men to the door.

Magnus walked along with Dunsford toward his awaiting carriage, worry weighing like ballast in his heart. If
The Promise
did not make port soon, he could see only one other way to save Somerton. Lord, he didn’t even want to consider it.

How could he even think of wedding another? A sudden shiver swept up his neck and over his scalp as he finished his thought—when he was falling in love with Eliza.

As they readied to board the hack, a pale-haired man tipped his polished beaver hat as he passed.

Magnus responded likewise. Though the man’s face was partly concealed by the hat’s brim, he seemed familiar somehow.

Once the two men had settled inside the carriage, Magnus leaned forward and peered through the small cabin window. A gleaming black carriage emerged from a shadowed alleyway. He watched as the blond man boarded it.

A carriage had paced his hackney during the night. And now a gentleman, clearly out of his element, appears at the basin. This was all too smoky by half. Or, just a coincidence. Still, Magnus was sure he knew the man from somewhere. But from where?

Later that morning, William Pender set his teacup on its saucer and pushed his breakfast plate aside with such force that bits of bread sailed from the plate and broadcast across the table. “So the ship is missing.”

Magnus said nothing, knowing exactly where the conversation was leading.

The disappointment in his uncle’s eyes was raw and barely tempered. “It’s missing and still you have not found a bride.”

“The ship is not missing.” Magnus, who had not yet put head to pillow, was in too dark a mood to have this discussion. “She simply has not yet
arrived.
The storm has crossed the western shipping lanes, and she’s delayed by the foul weather. Simple as that.”

His uncle leaned his bony elbow on the dining table and twirled the wild hairs of his shaggy gray eyebrow between thumb and index finger. “I vow you’ll be the death of me yet. Why will you not heed my advice and marry Miss Peacock?”

Magnus nodded to the hovering footman, who filled his cup with the steaming, rum-splashed fruit tea his uncle was so fond of drinking.

“I dinna intend to rush into an ill-advised marriage just to hedge my bet. If I am going to bind myself to another for life, it will be to a woman of my choosing. Anything less is naught but a receipt for years of misery. I’ve seen it more times than I care to recall.”

“What about that Merriweather gel?” his uncle asked. “You seem to be quite taken with her. Though, I must warn you, Somerton, her social position is not quite the thing. Rather an odd one, she.”

Magnus glared at that. “Watch where ye tread, Uncle.”

Pender groaned quietly and shifted in his chair. “I only meant… err … does she at least have money? Her aunts certainly have guinea aplenty.”

“I greatly enjoy Miss Merriweather’s company. But our relationship has nothing to do with money.”

His uncle shook his head. “My dear boy, all relationships between men and women of Society have to do with money.”

Magnus shifted in his chair. “Not this one.”

The old man reached across and plucked a heel of bread from his plate. He popped it into his mouth then washed it down with a loud sip from his teacup. “You know, it has been whispered that her father did not adequately provide the gels. True?”

Magnus sighed. “True enough, I suppose.”

His uncle exhaled, making clear his annoyance. “Then why do you continue to romance her? She can offer you nothing. Might even knock you down a rung with the ton, you know. Don’t want that. Don’t want that at all.”

Magnus opened his mouth to speak but Pender lifted his hand. “Now, now. Do not hush me. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s the truth.”

Magnus shrugged off the comment as best he could. His relationship with Eliza was no one’s concern but his own. He brought the teacup to his lips and drank from it, cringing at the tea’s sugary fruit taste. “Really, Uncle, I dinna know how ye manage to drink this swill.”

“I drink it because I enjoy its sweetness. It takes the edge off the morning.” Pender turned and looked pointedly at Magnus. “There is no use trying to evade my question, Somerton.”

“Which is what?”

William Pender grunted with frustration. “Why do you continue to connect yourself to Miss Merriweather when you know you must marry money or lose everything?”

Magnus lifted a brow at his uncle. “Because I enjoy her company.” Magnus’s lips curved upward. “Her sweetness takes the edge off this whole damned mess.”

His uncle chuckled at that. “Ah, a tasty little diversion, is she?”

Magnus did not care to dignify that comment with an answer. Instead he turned a hard eye on the old man.

Pender sneered down his nose at Magnus. “Diversions have a time and place, but now is not one of them. Your family estate is at risk. It is time to find yourself a suitable bride with a very large dowry. Marry Miss Peacock and your financial troubles are over.”

Magnus narrowed his eyes.
“I
will decide when it is time. Not ye, or anyone else.” Slamming his cup to the table, he shoved back his chair and stalked from the room, knowing all the while that his uncle was right.

“Wake up!” Grace shook Eliza roughly.

Folding her fingers around the woven counterpane, Eliza pulled it over her head.

“Finally,
you’re awake. Just how much cordial did you have? I couldn’t rouse you at all last night.”

“Go away.”

“You are in
my
bed, Eliza.”

“Really?” At the moment, Eliza couldn’t quite recall how she came to be in her sister’s bed. All she knew was that her head pounded like a mason’s hammer and her sister’s shrieking was not helping matters in the least.

Grace folded her arms at her chest. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do not toy with me! Lord Somerton put you in my bed last night. I spoke with him, Eliza. I did not dream our conversation. He carried you into my room and laid you in my bed. He asked if you could share it, and I told him you could. What else could I say? A man was holding my sleeping sister in his arms in the middle of the night!”

Eliza tried to shake the drink-induced cobwebs from her mind. Sitting up fully, she noticed she was still dressed in the walking gown she wore to Vauxhall Gardens. Then it dawned on her. “Oh yes, he used the fruit knife to pick the lock and free us from the music room last night.”

Grace blinked stupidly at her. “You were locked in the music room?”

“Our aunts had us locked in, then forgot about us. They had a bit too much cordial, I suspect.”

“Do you mean to tell me you were locked in the music room nearly all night with—
a bachelor?”
She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Lord help us, Sister, if anyone should learn of this.”

“No one will—as long as
you
keep quiet.” Eliza played the evening through in her mind. It took but a moment before she recalled Magnus’s mind-tumbling moonlight kiss at Vauxhall, then again in the music room. Her cheeks burned hot as a taper.

“What are you grinning about?” Grace moved closer and studied Eliza’s face. “Why, you’re blushing!” She gasped. “What happened in the music room, Eliza? He did not try to kiss you, did he?”

Eliza turned away from her sister’s scrutiny.

“You need not even say it. He
did!”
Grace tore the covers from Eliza. Leaping from the bed, her sister raced around to the other side and grabbed Eliza’s shoulders hard. “Answer me!

“Yes! Yes, he kissed me. Are you satisfied? He kissed me on the Dark Walk at Vauxhall, then in the music room.”

Grace straightened her back slowly. With her hand cupped over her mouth, she staggered to the tub-chair and sank into it. “The
Dark Walk?
Scandalous. Why, it is one thing after another with you, Eliza. Our family is surely ruined.”

“We are
not
ruined. Lord Somerton and I were not observed,” she said, adding softly, “so far as I know.”

Grace’s lashes flew up. “But you do not know for sure?
Oh dear.
What shall we do now?”

Her sister thrummed her fingers on her lips until her mind seized upon a logical solution—at least logical to Grace’s way of thinking. “I have it,” she exclaimed. “No one could truly fault you too harshly for kissing your
betrothed.”

“What are you saying, Grace?”

“That you must marry Lord Somerton.”

“What? Have you gone mad?”

” ‘Tis the only way. If you were seen
kissing
Lord Somerton, and you do not announce your betrothal, I will have no chance to make a good marriage. Nor will our sister, Meredith. You will have damned us all with your impetuous behavior.”

Eliza looked down at the counterpane, absently tracing its weft with her forefinger. “I do apologize.” She looked up into her sister’s eyes. “But I cannot marry Lord Somerton.”

Grace leapt to her feet. “Why not? You obviously feel something for the man, or you would not have let him
kiss
you.”

Eliza scrunched her fingers in her hair. “Yes, I admit it. I hold a certain … fondness for him.”

“Then why will you not consider marrying him? Is it because of your dreams of becoming an artist? Well, you should have considered that before his lips were hot upon your mouth.”

Eliza flinched at the sting of her sister’s words. She bowed her head. “It is not that at all, Grace.”

“What is it then?”

“He
cannot marry
me.”

Grace folded her arms over her chest. “He cannot or he
will not?
Because if he refuses, even after he has all but ruined you, then we shall have to ask Aunt Letitia and Aunt Viola to pay a call to his uncle, William Pender.
He
is a gentleman and will see that his nephew does the proper thing by you.”

Meeting her sister’s gaze, Eliza sighed. “Lord Somerton did nothing that I did not wish.”

Grace blinked, thrice.

Crawling out of bed, Eliza moved before the hearth. “I wanted his kiss.”
His touch. I wanted… him.

Her sister opened her mouth, quite obviously shocked, but she said not a word.

“Grace, you have to understand. What happened between us was as much my fault as his.” Eliza turned from the bank of graying embers to face her sister. “And I do not regret it.”

Grace began to cough on the words she’d ingested. She pounded her chest until she was able to form sentences again. “But still, you will not marry him?”

“Grace, you know I have no intention of marrying anyone. I will be leaving for Italy soon enough. Besides, even if I changed my mind, and I most certainly have not,
he
cannot marry
me.
His brother left him naught but a penniless earldom walled thick with debt. He must marry a woman of means before the conclusion of the season or he will lose his lands and home to his brother’s creditors.”

“His estate was not entailed?”

“No.” Eliza looked down at her hands. “His father and brother broke the entail years ago.” She looked up at her sister. “So you see, he must marry well in the coming month, or Somerton is forfeit.”

“Oh dear, oh dear …” Grace went to the washstand and filled the basin. She splashed her face with cool water then rubbed it briskly with her hands as if to sharpen her senses.

Fumbling for a linen, she dried her hands then turned to Eliza. “I do not understand. If he cannot marry you, then why does he continue to court you? It makes no sense.”

Eliza drew a deep breath. It was time to confess.

“Because I
asked
him to do it—to keep our aunts from parading me before an endless queue of suitors.”

Grace’s eyes grew wide until Eliza feared they would burst from her head. She was clearly as shocked as she was confused.

“But if he must marry by the end of the season—”

“Well, that’s my end of the bargain. I am to investigate potential brides for him.”

‘No.” Grace’s eyes went round as her wash basin. “I don’t believe it. This whole time … the two of you … your relationship … it has all been a
charade?”

“Well, yes. That’s how it started out anyway. Our arrangement seemed so logical then.”