Sins of a Duke (26 page)

S
ebastian glanced at his pocket watch as their waltz ended and he escorted Josefina back to her parents. Last year, when Shay had been courting Sarala, the family had united in defense of her and to thwart a man who would have done harm to her reputation. Tonight, though, they weren’t attempting to fool one self-serving, ambitious half-wit. Tonight they needed to fool everyone—his own sovereign, all of his peers, every man and woman in the country.

With Josefina’s hand over his arm and the Embrys beside them, he gave a slight nod to Caroline. His sister-in-law strolled forward to where her mother and two unmarried sisters stood watching, and at least in Joanna’s case, lamenting the scarcity of dance partners.

“Anne, are you ever going to tell Mama about John?”

“John?” Joanna repeated, her face reddening. “Who is John?”

Anne fanned her face. “He’s a professor at Eton,” she
returned, doing a fair impression of shyness, considering that she didn’t have an ounce of that to her name. “I met him at the British Museum.”

“Mama, that is not fair!” Joanna stomped her foot, garnering them the attention he’d been counting on. Considering that Joanna’s man-hungry demeanor had once prompted her to attempt to trap Zach into marriage, he didn’t have much sympathy for her. “Now even Anne has a beau?” she continued plaintively.

“He’s an explorer,” Anne continued brightly, “or he used to be, before he accepted the teaching position. I asked him to come here tonight, so you and Papa can meet him.”

Sally Witfeld clapped her hands together. “Another daughter with a beau. We are truly blessed.”

“I knew I should have gone to the museum,” Joanna snapped. “You said it would be dull.”

“I said that
you
would find it dull,” Anne countered. “I rather enjoyed it.” She laughed.

The rey chuckled. “Ah, to be young again.”

Good. He was listening. “I’ve met the fellow,” Sebastian commented. “He seems a good sort. A bit earnest, but that makes him a good counter for Anne’s high spirits.” Actually, it did.

He glanced from his quarry to his young sister-in-law. She made a good actress, but even with that in mind her color was high. Hm. Interesting. She’d been after a man who liked to travel. Perhaps in John Rice-Able she’d found him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Tuffley’s butler enunciated, “His Highness, the Prince Regent.”

The crowd bowed in an undulating wave spreading out from the doorway. Prinny strolled into the room, thankfully without one of his ubiquitous mistresses. Even so half a dozen footmen and retainers accompanied his rotund, sapphire-colored Eminence, like planets around their sun.
Embry was probably taking mental notes on how to make a royal entrance.

“Melbourne,” the Regent called, gesturing him over.

Keeping Josefina with him, Sebastian approached. “Your Highness,” he said, “if you mean to chastise me for not coming to you first with my news, pray do so quickly so we may drink a toast in honor of my wife-to-be.”

Prinny clapped him on the shoulder, offering a pleased grin. “There’s no amusement in chastising the contrite, my boy. Tuffley, let’s have some champagne!”

“Right away, Your Highness.”

In a remarkably short time everyone in the room had been armed with glasses of champagne. Hopefully Tuffley had been prepared for the extravagance; later Sebastian would take him aside and offer him a replacement case of the stuff. Prinny lifted his glass, angling it at Josefina. “Ladies and gentlemen, to Josefina, Princess of Costa Habichuela, and soon I hear, to be the Duchess of Melbourne.”

“To Josefina.”

Her hand trembled a little on his arm as everyone drank to her health, but that was the only outward sign she gave that she was anything but exactly who Prinny proclaimed her. She truly was a princess at heart.

“To Josefina,” he echoed in a whisper.

“Now let’s have a waltz!” Prinny continued, finishing off his glass and tossing it to a waiting footman. “We Highnesses must dance a waltz!”

A second waltz so close to the first bordered on scandal, but no one in attendance so much as batted an eye. With a squeeze of her fingers he released her to Prinny.

For God’s sake, this plan had to work. If it didn’t, Prinny would never forgive that he’d made a very public display of support for Costa Habichuela and its monarchs. Christ, the Regent was still wearing that damned green cross.
Sebastian took a quick breath as Shay glanced up from his pocket watch. It was time.

A moment later John Rice-Able rushed through the ballroom doors, brushing aside the butler as he searched the room. Anne Witfeld had positioned herself close to the entrance, and after a few deliberate, dramatic seconds the professor hurried up to her.

“Ah, there he is,” Sebastian said from his place beside the Embrys. “That’s Anne’s beau.”

“He is a bit earnest-seeming, isn’t he?” the rey noted politely, then took Sebastian’s arm to turn him away. “We need to discuss something.”

“I’m not renegotiating my payments to you, Embry. Ten thousand a year and my silence is quite enough, I think.”

“It’s not about money,” Josefina’s father returned in a low voice. “It’s about your residence.”

“My resi—”

“In the next few weeks we might find it judicious to do a bit of traveling. I suggest that you join us.”

“I am not—”

“Your Grace,” Anne’s voice interrupted, her tone serious. “Melbourne? John needs to speak with you.”

“We’ll discuss this later, Embry,” Sebastian hissed, facing his sister-in-law. “Can’t this wait, Anne?”

John Rice-Able pushed in front of her. “I don’t mean to overstep, Your Grace,” he said in a rushed, urgent tone that caught the attention of everyone around them, “but my friend Mayhew Crane is first mate on the
Barnaby
—it’s a frigate that traverses the Southern Atlantic. He—”

“I am at a soiree, John,” Sebastian interrupted, feeling Embry’s attention abruptly sharpen.

“Yes, I know. And—” John seemed to notice the rey for the first time. “Oh. Your Majesty. I beg your pardon. I’m so sorry to be the one to deliver the news.”

Hiding his growing admiration for the professor behind a frown, Sebastian took Rice-Able’s arm. “What are you talking about? And keep your bloody voice down.”

As soon as he said that, everything around them quieted. He’d learned long ago that the best way to spread a rumor was to publicly ask that it be halted. On his other side, Embry took a step closer.

“That’s what I’m attempting to tell you, Your Grace. Mayhew wrote me from Belize. It’s all gone.”

“Belize is gone? What—”

“No! Costa Habichuela. The rains, a terrible flood. It’s all been washed away!” He produced a letter from his pocket, and Sebastian snatched it a second before Embry could.

“This is not amusing, John. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m marrying Princess Josefina of Costa Habichuela.”

“Yes, Your Grace. I know. That’s why I had to tell you. When…when I traveled through Costa Habichuela a few years ago, I noticed that the land was very fertile, but I also saw that the reason for its richness was that most of the country sits on an ancient river mouth. A flood plain. And with the awful rain and the storm off the coast, it’s—”

“Wait a moment,” Embry broke in, glaring at the clearly upset gentleman. “What the devil do you think you’re—”

“Listen to this, Your Majesty,” Sebastian broke in.

The music trailed raggedly to a stop, and Prinny, Josefina on his arm, approached them. “What’s this news, Melbourne?”

“We’re just discovering, Your Highness.” He gestured at the letter. “If you’ll allow me?”

“Yes, continue.”

He sent Josefina a quick glance, then looked down again.

“Oh, no,” Josefina choked, putting a hand across her mouth.

“Stephen,” Prinny said, his face contorting in sorrow. “You have England’s deepest sympathy.”

“There is some good news,” Sebastian noted, turning the letter over. “It seems that Belize has opened its arms to the survivors.”

Shay moved up to join their enlarging circle. “Thank God for that.”

“We have to do something.” Slowly Sebastian handed the letter over to Embry.

“We have to accept that it’s over,” Josefina said firmly, in a sad, carrying voice.

Her father whipped his head around to face her. “You,” he snapped, white-faced. “How could you—”

“We must accept that our place is now in Belize,” Queen Maria interrupted. Sebastian looked at her in surprise as she took her husband’s hand in hers. “I can only be thankful that those who purchased land in Costa Habichuela have not yet sailed.”

“Yes,” Josefina echoed. “The people must come first. We must return their money. With no land at all, we have no need of it.”

“We can rebuild,” Embry said stridently, pulling his hand free.

“With what, Father? You heard what the letter said. Costa Habichuela has returned to what it was so many years ago—a swampland. There’s no foundation we can build on.”

John Rice-Able cleared his throat. “It says in the postscript that Mayhew sent a copy of my letter to our mutual friend, Robert Lumley. He is on the writing staff of the
London Times
. Mayhew was very anxious that no one set sail for Costa Habichuela without knowing the present conditions.”

“The lad deserves a medal,” Prinny commented, his sentiment echoed by the nods of their audience.

That would be troublesome, considering that there was no such man, and no such ship. “Josefina,” Sebastian said, reaching for her hand. Slowly he drew her closer, enfolding her in a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, I suppose we’re finished here now,” Embry
grunted, his muscles still rigid with fury. “We’ll leave for Costa Habichuela tomorrow. Come Maria, Josefina. We have packing to do.”

Sebastian’s heart stopped. “I understand where your duty lies, Your Majesty,” he said, “and the urgency of your departure. But I also know where my heart lies. If Josefina will stay, I have no wish to postpone our wedding. As you said, you have no country to rebuild. Your daughter, though, has a new life to begin.”

Embry stared at him. Clearly the man had no idea that the duke he’d thought he owned had been anything but tricked into a union. The idea that genuine feelings might be involved, and that they might be significant, had probably never occurred to him. His gaze flicked over to his daughter. “Josefina?”

Her gaze, though, was on Sebastian. “You said you would ask me again,” she breathed.

His nerves skittered as he silently sank onto one knee, taking her hands in his. “Josefina,” he said, “I don’t care whether you are the princess of a paradise, or a soldier’s daughter whose house has been washed out to sea. You challenge me, you amaze me, and you showed me that a place I thought had vanished, was only misplaced.” His voice shook, and he cleared his throat. “You helped me find it again. I love you, Josefina, with every ounce of warmth you’ve reawakened in my heart. Will you marry me?”

Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks, but she was smiling. “I’m very glad I slapped you that night,” she quavered. “I love you, too, Sebastian. Very much. Yes, I want to marry you.”

Blowing out his breath, he removed the Melbourne signet ring from his finger and placed it on hers. It was far too large, but she and everyone else understood the significance of the gesture. Applause erupted, deafening, and at least in the case of his own family and friends, sin
cere.

Sebastian stood up again and swept her into his arms. “Then nothing else matters,” he whispered softly in her ear. “Nothing.”

Prinny himself walked them downstairs and onto the front drive. That in itself was the best assurance they could ask for that Sebastian’s plan had been successful. Josefina sighed again. Everyone had believed the story. And after tomorrow, when the same letter appeared on the front page of the
London Times,
no one would be setting sail for Costa Habichuela.

In one evening they’d unraveled two years’ worth of her father’s plans. She glanced at him again, walking up to their borrowed coach and being consoled by the Regent. She couldn’t imagine how he must feel, how angry he must be with her.

“You’re not going home with him,” Sebastian said in a low voice, her own apprehension echoing in his deep voice. He hadn’t released her hand since he’d stood to hug her.

“I’m not going home with
you,
” she countered in the same tone, then tried a smile. “I’d ruin your reputation.”

“Very amusing. I know you’re anxious. So am I.”

“Don’t expect me to say farewell forever to my parents with three minutes of warning.” Her voice caught. Not everything had been set back the way it was before.

“I’m not expecting that,” he shot back. “But your father was willing to risk other lives. I’m not willing to risk yours.”

While she truly didn’t think that her father would harm her, she also understood quite clearly that Sebastian had lost his first wife and that he would do anything to protect her. “What do you suggest, then?” she asked, conceding to his worry.