LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

      NICK SAT ACROSS the desk from Lord Cantwell, negotiating his own future with all the warmth and excitement of a shipping transaction. In fact, it was a shipping transaction—a bloody irregular one.

      “I have good reason to believe my daughter is headed for the Mediterranean,” Cantwell was saying. “You would agree to pursue her all the way there, if necessary?”

      For fifty thousand pounds, he would pursue her to the bloody interior of China. “I will.”

      “As a condition of this marriage, I shall expect nothing less.”

      “Nor shall I.”

      Cantwell exhaled. Bushy blond brows dove over bright blue eyes, and he assessed Nick over steepled hands. “It’s not in my interest to say this, but my daughter is a wild harridan. Marriage to her won’t be easy.”

      “Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect that it would.” But it would be profitable, and that was all that mattered. “I shall find her and bring her back to England, where I assure you I shall keep her under control.”

      Cantwell gave a laugh. “I assure you, Taggart, if it were that easy, I would have kept her under control. In any case, I intend to obtain a special dispensation. Although I expect the marriage to be performed at the earliest opportunity once you find her. I don’t care how you get it done—only that you do. You won’t find any challenge from me on that point.”

      “Understood.” Cantwell had no cause for concern. It was either this or lose Taggart to Holliswell, and Nick wasn’t going to risk letting the answer to all his problems slip from his grasp. He would marry Lady India the moment he found her.

      “And in the meantime,” Cantwell went on, “I shall speak with Mr. Holliswell.” Cantwell smiled. “You won’t need to concern yourself there.”

      Nick might have smiled, too, under other circumstances. Already his thoughts hurtled forward. He was engaged to be married, after all—this time, to save himself.

      * * *

      THE HASTY WEDDING and hurried coach ride hardly left time to think. At the same time, there’d been too much time to think, staring for hours and hours at the passing countryside, unable to speak of important matters in front of Anne and Miss Bunsby.

      Married. To the man who had sunk the Merry Sea.

      Now Katherine stood in her new apartment in James’s London house, feeling as if she’d been tossed for days by high seas.

      Married. To Captain Warre.

      A warm feeling snuck through her—the same warm feeling she’d allowed herself to sample each time she’d looked at him in the coach. Each night at the inns where they stayed, when she watched him climb into bed with her. Each morning when she woke to find herself in his arms.

      Every moment she expected to realize she’d made an enormous, irreversible mistake. But then he would look at her with those green eyes full of satisfaction, on fire for the woman she was, with no trace of the pity she feared. And a little more of her resistance would slough away, leaving behind something new and hopeful and alive.

      He strode into her room now, all outrage. “Good God—I’ll dismiss every last one of them!” A maid scurried out, and she watched him bolt the bedroom door against the savage hordes masquerading as footmen bringing in their trunks.

      “Would you rather the trunks had stayed on the coach?” she asked.

      “I would rather not have to think of trunks at all,” he said darkly, coming toward her. “Or footmen. Or—” he waved the letter Bates had given them on their arrival “—emergencies at Croston. I would much prefer to think exclusively—”

      “Wait, what are you— Put me down!”

      “—of you.” He carried her to the bed and pinned her to it with his weight. “Very well. I shall happily keep you down for as long as you like.” He bent his head for a searing kiss, and she drank it in hungrily.

      This was no captivity.

      That warm feeling worked its magic again, and she suppressed a bubble of laughter. The Lords would hardly attaint her now.

      “It’s late,” he said, resting his forehead on hers, “but I’m determined to see Nick tonight, and a few others, as well.”

      “We probably have ten minutes at the most before your sister learns we’re in London and calls round,” Katherine said.

      “That long? Really? I’d say five, more like, and that’s if your friend the Dowager Lady Pennington doesn’t learn of it first.” He raised a wicked brow. “One can accomplish much in five minutes.”

      “You’re insatiable.”

      “I could say the same of you.” He tugged on her lower lip with his teeth and kissed her again.

      There was a knock. “Bates,” he muttered, rolling off her and stalking to the door. He cracked it open with a terse suggestion for Bates’s permanent holiday destination, and she heard poor Bates announce that Honoria was waiting in the salon.

      James glanced over his shoulder at Katherine. “Six minutes. She’s losing her touch.” And then, to Bates, “Tell my sister we’re not receiving.”

      He closed the door in Bates’s face, but before he’d crossed the room there was another knock.

      “That’ll be Honoria herself,” Katherine said, smiling at the expression on his face.

      James wrenched the door open. “The Dowager Lady Pennington was just admitted below,” Bates apprised them.

      “Tell them both we’re not receiving.”

      “James—” Katherine started.

      “I mean it. I do not wish to be disturbed,” he told Bates, and shut the door again.

      “Refusing them now will only put off the inevitable,” Katherine pointed out, and sat up. “I should go satisfy their curiosity. And you’re going out anyhow.”

      “Their curiosity can wait,” he said sharply, and a firm hand came down on her shoulder. For a moment she thought he might actually order her to stay, and all her defenses flared to life. Instead, he kissed her. A devilish curve tugged his lips when he pulled back, and he hooked a finger inside her stays to peek into her cleavage. “Mine can’t.”

      That warm feeling sizzled, and she hooked a finger inside the top of his breeches. “Then let them wait.”

      She let him push her back onto the bed and stoke that feeling into a blazing fire.

      * * *

      “YOU’VE MADE A deal with Cantwell?” It was enough to make James forget—but only for a moment—that his entire marriage was on the brink of crashing down around him. He stared at Nick in disbelief through the coffeehouse’s smoky haze.

      “A damned profitable one, too. I only hope the girl isn’t such a terror that the money pales in comparison. Even Cantwell admits she’s a bloody harridan. And after two years at sea, there’s little chance her virtue is intact.” Nick’s lip curled in mirthless appreciation. “Could be an enjoyable benefit, though.”

      James looked at him sharply. “I have it on good authority that her virtue is intact. So have a care.”

      “Good God.” Nick took a long drink. “That makes it worse.”

      James smiled a little. “India isn’t such a bad girl.”

      “She

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