out of you yet. We’re going to Dunscore. Tonight. You plowed the field, Croston—you’ll damn well bring in the harvest.”
James wrenched himself away. “You want me to marry Katherine?”
“And you’re going to do it if I’ve got to hold my sword to your balls.”
“She’ll never agree.”
“Got to marry someone, but then, you already know that. Sure as hell isn’t going to be Deal. Not if I have anything to do about it.”
Apparently Jaxbury didn’t know about the committee’s decision. James stared into that hard-edged, sea-weathered face and wondered if Jaxbury might prove an ally in his plan.
Perhaps. But more likely, if Jaxbury knew Katherine did not have to marry at all, he would abandon this protective outrage. All hope of marrying Katherine would be gone.
“As it happens,” James said, “I had already come to the same conclusion on my own.”
“Oh, aye,” Jaxbury said sarcastically, wiping at a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “I can see how you’ve spent the evening thinking of her.”
James crushed a fresh surge of temper. “I leave for Dunscore immediately. Good evening, Jaxbury. It’s been a pleasure.” He turned to go.
“Not a chance,” Jaxbury laughed, falling in step beside him. “We’ll go to Dunscore together.”
“I don’t require an escort.”
Jaxbury gave him a friendly slap on the back. “Then think of it more as an insurance.”
* * *
THEY WERE IN James’s stables when a footman arrived, breathless. “Message for Lord Croston!”
James took the message and tore it open. It was from Admiral Wharton. He read the contents and looked sharply at Jaxbury. “You lying bastard. You would have let me go to Dunscore knowing of this.”
Jaxbury narrowed his eyes. “Don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about.”
James thrust the note at him. Jaxbury took it. Read. Visibly paled. “Good God.”
“She’s fled,” James said flatly.
“No. Not Katherine.”
“Of course, Katherine.”
“I’m telling you,” Jaxbury ground out, “she would not have done this.”
But she must have. “Who else would sail the Possession out of London in the dead of night, bold as balls?”
KATHERINE FACED THE wind coming off the sea and tried to pretend its cold bite was what stung her eyes to tears. Damnation. She was stronger than this. She knew better. Clouds churned in the sky, and whitecaps chopped the gray, restless water. A cool, salty breeze whipped her hair and chilled the damp tracks on her cheeks.
“Are you crying again, Mama?” Anne asked.
Sometimes it would be nice if her daughter weren’t quite so perceptive. “A little. But you mustn’t worry.”
“The sound of the waves makes me happy, Mama. If you listen, they might make you happy, too.”
Katherine reached for Anne’s hand and turned, pulling strands of hair from her face to stare at the fortress that was Dunscore. “Perhaps they will at that.” But the sound of waves on Dunscore’s shore only brought the memories back more strongly. Yesterday this place had been a ghost—as lost to her as the girl she’d been the last time she stepped over its threshold. But the moment the coach had rolled to a stop outside Dunscore’s massive doors, what was dead had sprung to life.
Home. Home. Home.
Her heart thundered the word she knew better than to reach for.
“Mama, you’re squeezing.”
Katherine loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, dearest.” Where the east tower once stood, a pile of rubble now sat.
Fortify the east tower! What a silly muffin you are, Katie. That tower has stood for six hundred years, and mark my words, it will stand for six hundred more. Come—let us order the phaeton. I fancy a fast ride and a visit to Deal.
Oh, Papa.
Across the velvety landscape that hugged Dunscore’s walls she spotted the housekeeper Martha marching toward them, her crisp white apron billowing in the wind. Katherine already knew what the message was: Lord Deal had arrived.
One night’s reprieve was all she could afford. Today, she and Lord Deal would discuss an arrangement. It was imperative that she marry before the committee could decide against her. Lord Deal was the only one she would consider, and she would need to make that very clear to him.
Lord Deal, I insist that we marry. No, that didn’t sound right at all.
Lord Deal, I assure you I would make a most biddable wife. He would never believe it.
Lord Deal, you are my only hope. Pathetic.
Nothing sounded right. Nothing felt right. But of course it wouldn’t. This was a last resort. A desperate situation.
And you are in love with another man.
She pushed the thought of James away. “Come,” she said to Anne, tugging lightly on her hand. “I see Martha.” Martha’s disapproving scowl, to be precise. Its sternness matched the imposing gray walls behind her as she met them partway along the trail that led from the castle to the sea.
“Ach, Katie!” Martha cried, fisting her hands on her hips. “You canna see him looking like this!”
“Will I scare him away, do you think?” She looped her arm through Martha’s, honestly unsure whether to hope for or dread the possibility. She should have been inside preparing for Lord Deal’s visit, having her hair carefully coiffed and powdered and her face brightened with a subtle layer of paint. Instead, she would receive her future husband looking as wild as this place where the rocky shore touched the North Sea.
“The most terrible demon would be scared away by the likes of you,” Martha humphed, and Anne giggled. The three of them headed back to the keep, Anne’s hand in Katherine’s, and Katherine’s arm in Martha’s, the sea wind pushing at their backs. With each step, Katherine’s nerves swirled in fearful eddies in her belly.
Once she and Lord Deal came to an agreement, all this unpleasantness would soon be finished. And Anne’s place would be secure.
Miss Bunsby met them outside the door and took Anne. “But I want to greet Lord Deal, Mama,” Anne complained.
“Next time, dearest. I have business to discuss with him now.” If only she could put off the inevitable forever.
“Will
