LITMIR.BIZ

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you, Croston?”

      It was impossible to take his eyes off the copper creation she wore tonight. It shimmered in the light of hundreds of candles and exposed her breasts nearly to the critical point. Points. God.

      “Very nearly so,” he said tightly. “There would have been a different result had Lady Dunscore not acted immediately.” Lilting strains of a string quartet barely floated above the din of a hundred conversations. The cloying scent of a million flowers filled his lungs. The lustful stares of Marshwell, Werrick, Foxworth and Blaine fixed on Katherine’s cleavage, and it was a good bet not one of them had marriage on his mind—except Blaine, who likely salivated equally over Dunscore’s wealth.

      That bloody gown was going to kill him. Or he was going to kill them. Someone needed to kill something, and right now he would be happy to oblige.

      “We all feared the worst until we had him safely aboard,” Katherine told them smoothly, moving her shoulder in a barely perceptible way that drew all eyes to the curve of her neck. “Pulling an unconscious person from the water is a complicated maneuver.”

      Not half as bloody complicated as the subtle way she stretched her waist. He remembered putting his hands on that waist—on her bare flesh beneath her tunic—and felt himself come alive in a place that needed to stay dormant.

      “Indeed?” Werrick said, wetting his lips a little.

      Katherine leveled those topaz eyes at Werrick and shifted them to Foxworth, who had a hundred disgusting hopes dancing behind his slate-gray eyes. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so relieved to see a man draw breath as the moment I realized Captain Warre was alive,” she told them.

      “Naturally!” Blaine agreed heartily.

      Oh, yes—they were deep in the mire now. “Blessedly the worst was avoided,” James said, “thanks to the care and hospitality of Lady Dunscore and her excellent crew.” He tried for a pleasant smile, but it felt more like a death grimace. “They set about tending to my needs immediately.”

      Finally she met his eyes. “Captain Warre’s care and comfort were our greatest concerns,” she assured them gravely.

      “Indeed.” He held her gaze in a silent vice. “I could not have received closer attention had I been at home with my own physicians.”

      “You can imagine how pleased we were to see that he responded to our attentions almost immediately—” her eyes sparked “—and quite markedly.”

      Two moments alone and he would rid her of that smug expression and perhaps sample what her low-cut décolletage offered while he was at it.

      “Such a miracle,” Werrick declared. “You must be immensely...grateful...to your rescuer, Croston.” His eyes, full of calculating imagination, slid from James’s face to the cutthroat beauty at his side.

      “I would be grateful to anyone who saved my life, Werrick.” James inhaled silently and schooled himself. The last thing he needed was that kind of rumor flying around London while he was under orders to secure her a husband.

      A decent husband. Who would treat her—and Anne—with the respect they deserved. Who might need Katherine’s wealth, but would nevertheless appreciate her qualities.

      At that precise moment, Honoria appeared with a fifth matrimonial offering. “Do excuse me,” she interrupted brightly, “but I’ve got someone Lady Dunscore must meet.” This time it was Cashen—a middle-aged rakehell Honoria knew damned well worked his way through mistresses faster than most men drank Port.

      “Desist,” James ordered her under his breath after she made the introductions.

      Honoria ignored him. “Why, Lady Dunscore, I am convinced you and Lord Cashen must have a great deal in common. He was just describing the most magnificent pair of Ottoman sculptures he recently acquired.”

      “Fascinating,” Katherine said warmly. “I can’t wait to hear about them.”

      James stared at her. This sensual snake charmer bore little resemblance to the sharp-tongued, cutlass-wielding sea captain who had stood laughing while he swept rats’ nests and emptied slop buckets. It was obvious the game she was playing, and it needed to stop immediately.

       CHAPTER TWENTY

      THE NEW STRATEGY was working beautifully. Fools. She would not have survived one day at sea if she was as easily distracted as these men. Finally free from their cloying gazes—even if only for a moment—Katherine took aim for the shrubbery, where an inviting arbor promised a few moments of solitude.

      It was not to be.

      “I seem to recall a marked response on your part, as well,” came Captain Warre’s growl at her side, “a bit later in the voyage.”

      “Do you? I don’t recall.” She plunged into the arbor with the captain on her heels and turned on him just in time to see the entire encounter replay itself in his eyes. A nerve pulsed wildly in her belly.

      All night those eyes had been on her, touching her the way he so clearly wanted to do with his hands. The way every man here so clearly wanted to do.

      But there was only one man whose hands her body remembered too well.

      “You must thank your sister for me,” she made herself say. “She has been instrumental in introducing me to any number of men whose influence may serve me.”

      “Has she.” The heat in his eyes defied the chill in his tone.

      “One must use the resources at one’s disposal, after all.” It made her sick that everything she had worked to become counted for nothing here. The power she had as the Possession’s captain was gone, and now the only power to be found was pushing dangerously from the top of her stays.

      It was a bloody poor substitute.

      “Resources,” he said coldly.

      She smiled. “Phil places great store on them.”

      “It would seem Lady Moore’s comment about Covent Garden wasn’t too far off the mark, after all.”

      “Bastard!” The temper she’d been holding in all night snapped, and she raised her hand to slap him. He grabbed her wrist.

      “What will you do if a committee is appointed? Bed them all?”

      If she could have drawn on him right here in this arbor and cut him to shreds, she would have. “Perhaps I shall,” she scoffed, and yanked her hand from his grasp. “Forgive me if I feel uncomfortable leaving my fate entirely in your hands. I’ve tried that before, if you’ll recall.”

      His eyes flashed dangerously. “You will cease your flirtations immediately, Captain.”

      “Or else what? Will you ram your cannons and sink me with a full broadside?”

      His mouth tightened. “You need to appear sensible.”

      “As if any of these men gives a bloody damn for my senses.”

      “For God’s sake, Katherine. You need to appear intelligent. Agreeable. Well-meaning.”

      Now she smiled. “When have I ever not appeared agreeable, Captain?”

      He pointed a finger in her face and, though it seemed impossible, moved even closer. “Now, you listen here, and listen well. The success of this entire effort depends on your full and complete cooperation. Is that understood?”

      The tension in his posture screamed of something besides frustration at her behavior. A hot pulse shuddered through her body. “Explain what you mean by cooperation.”

      He jabbed that finger at her. “I mean that you do every—” jab “—single—” jab “—blasted—” jab “—thing I tell you—” jab “—precisely the way

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