LITMIR.BIZ

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threshold of her childhood apartment—

      Christ. If he did not end this tonight, she would be his undoing. She drove him mad, made him furious, enslaved him to that baser nature she scorned so mightily, reminded him of the man he should have been but wasn’t.

      Where Captain Kinloch was concerned, he clung to control by an unraveling thread.

      The hack lurched to a stop in front of his town house. It was a devil waiting for admittance at his own door, but Bates opened quickly, and James headed straight for the dining room, leaving Bates standing slack-jawed. He thought of his borrowed breeches and jacket and his wigless, sea-ravaged hair, and he curled his lip. Let them be shocked. That bill would receive its deathblow right here. After tonight, there would be no question who held title to the Dunscore estate and who didn’t.

      And, for that matter, who held title to Croston.

      By the time Bates recovered his senses enough to follow, James was nearing the dining room. From the sound of things, it was a small party.

      “May I just say, it’s very good to see you, my lord,” Bates said from close behind him.

      “Thank you, Bates. It’s good to see you, as well.” That wasn’t at all what Bates meant, of course.

      He walked into the dining room.

      Voices fell silent. There was a heartbeat, then a shriek. “James!” Honoria launched herself out of her chair and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing into his shoulder. “James!”

      He closed his arms around his little sister, and his throat constricted. There was an uproar of disbelief and the clatter of silverware hitting china as the guests realized what was happening.

      “Good God.” Nick came ashen-faced around the table, gaping as though James had just emerged from the tomb in his burial linens. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

      James inhaled deeply past the tightness of his throat, taking in Honoria’s tears and Nick’s damp eyes. Their mourning clothes. Their grief was part of the equation he hadn’t factored in.

      The moment he set Honoria aside, Nick hugged him fiercely despite the onlookers. “My God!” Nick said, nearly squeezing the breath from James’s lungs. “It can’t be!”

      “I say!” one of the guests exclaimed. “Extraordinary!”

      So this was what resurrection felt like.

      Nick stepped back, and Honoria quickly took his arm. “Sit! Eat! La, you look an absolute fright. Tell me you didn’t sail all the way home on some awful merchant ship—”

      A jumble of speculation went up as everyone began to fire questions at once. James held up his hand. “Enough!” Under his breath to Nick, he said, “I need to speak with you privately.” And then, to Honoria, “I have business to take care of, Ree. As soon as it’s done, I shall be entirely yours. I promise.” He offered a slight bow to the guests. “My apologies. If you’ll excuse me.” On his way out, he paused to whisper to Bates. “Tell Lord Pennington not to let Mr. Holliswell leave.”

      In the library, Nick gave him another rough embrace. When they broke apart, James felt a stab of raw emotion that matched the look on Nick’s face. It was a face much like his own—hard mouth, sharp cheekbones, dark brows over Mother’s green eyes. Nick’s wig hid whether the Croston gray had begun to plague him, and there was no trace of the dimple Mother said Nick had inherited from her paternal grandmother. They were all so fragmented now—James at sea, Nick and Ree here, none of them with children. For a moment his throat was too tight to speak.

      The slightest change in events, and he might have perished and never seen Nick again.

      “By what miracle did you survive the wreck?” Nick asked thickly.

      By the miracle of Captain Katherine Kinloch. James inhaled deeply, shoving away thoughts of waves and wreckage.

      “The reason I survived,” he said carefully, watching for Nick’s reaction, “the only reason, is because I was pulled half-dead from the water by Katherine Kinloch.”

      Nick’s eyes widened, then narrowed as he made the connections. “Bloody hell.”

      James stared at him. He tried to keep his voice calm. “It was an amazing coincidence of timing, really. I had been drifting for days on a piece of decking, you see, and she happened to be sailing for Britain to defend her estate against a bill of pains and penalties.”

      “Bloody hell.” Nick turned away, bracing his hip with one hand and his forehead with the other.

      “I would have thought ‘It’s a miracle’ would be the more appropriate phrase,” James said sharply.

      “You think I don’t know that? Bloody hell!” He raked his fingers into his hair and came away looking as if he were the one who had just spent weeks at sea. “Katherine Kinloch? Are you certain?”

      James raised a brow. “After four weeks—”

      “Christ, never mind.” Nicholas gestured away the inanity of his question. “And so now I have her to thank for your return. This gets more bloody entertaining by the day.” He gave a mirthless laugh.

      “Explain to me what ‘this’ is. A debt to Holliswell, I presume.”

      This time Nick’s laugh sounded more like a strangle. “A hurricane in the West Indies, pirates off the horn of Africa, an entire cargo’s worth of repairs paid on bottomry to some opportunistic Boston shipwright—the value of nigh on our entire operation and investment, gone in one perfect coalescence of disaster.”

      James stared at him in disbelief. “And in the time you’ve believed you had the title you haven’t paid him off?”

      “You know me better than that,” Nick snapped.

      “Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all. You’re part of the Croston lineage, Nick—not some yeoman’s son. Christ. Solving a problem in the most convoluted way possible—never mind throwing an innocent to the dogs in the meantime.”

      “An innocent!” Nick stalked up to him. “Look here, James. If Katherine Kinloch made a successful escape from Barbary, why did she not go to our consulate? Why did she not write her father? Come home to Dunscore? Not only are her escapades in the Mediterranean disloyal to the Crown, they’re disgraceful to society and a downright bad example to our young ladies.”

      James barked a laugh and hoped it was enough to hide his sudden urge to grab Nick by the throat. So much for the maudlin homecoming. “I hardly think captaining a ship will become society’s next vogue for young ladies. Are you trying to repay a debt, or have you launched a crusade for female propriety?” He cut to the chase. “I want you to end this business you’ve brought up with the Lords. Withdraw your support for the bill and find another way to repay Holliswell.”

      “Drop my support for the bill?” Nick’s eyes darkened with raw emotion, then hardened. “Very well. Just as soon as you find another way to convince Holliswell to allow me to marry Clarissa.”

      “That had bloody well better be a joke.”

      “I’d planned to talk to him tonight—” He broke off. The rest of the sentence, before I learned I didn’t hold the title, hung in the air. But it was clear the cold single-mindedness in Nick’s eyes had nothing to do with the title and everything to do with Clarissa Holliswell.

      “If Holliswell’s consent depends upon you being an earl, then there’s little I can do. I’ll not snuff myself out to further Miss Holliswell’s cause.” He went to the door and called Bates. “Send Holliswell here,” he ordered.

      “Don’t be an ass. Damn it all, James, I don’t want to fight with you. Ten minutes ago I thought you were lost forever, and now—” He closed his eyes and cursed again. “If it’s a choice between Miss Holliswell’s future or Katherine Kinloch’s, I don’t have to tell you which I’ll choose.”

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