legs wrapped round the waist of another man. And not just any man, but the very last man she’d have suspected of being able to act like...like this.
Captain Lord Dunbar. The dour Scotsman who’d arrived uninvited a couple of days ago and had been acting the part of spectre at the feast ever since—skulking on the sidelines and glowering particularly ferociously at anyone who dared look as if they were enjoying themselves too much.
‘Wait!’
As the three witnesses to her downfall turned to leave, the man she’d just seduced by mistake barked out the single word in a forceful way that only served to confirm his identity. Only a man used to command could make perfect strangers stop in their tracks that way. A man who was used to storming enemy ships and cutting his opponents to ribbons. A man who would have been perfectly at home on the deck of a ship tossed by a howling gale, but who’d looked stifled by the social niceties of a drawing room.
‘You will none of you speak of this,’ he informed them. ‘Not until I have had a chance to speak to the young lady’s father.’
David swelled and quivered with indignation. ‘If you think I would ever stoop to blacken the name of a lady, no matter what her conduct—’ he flicked her another disgusted look that flayed her like a whip ‘—then you are very much mistaken.’
Oh, David. She’d lost him. Irrevocably. She’d never be able to look him in the face again, after this, never mind persuade him that, despite the difference in their stations, she’d make him a good wife.
‘And I could never, never speak of it,’ added Marianne in woeful indignation.
‘I definitely don’t want anyone knowing I had a hand in any of this,’ added the Nightingale.
‘Would it be too much to ask for one of you,’ Captain Dunbar said in the sarcastic way that never failed to set Julia’s teeth on edge, ‘to leave us a lantern?’
Marianne placed hers on the floor. Well, she wasn’t going to need her own, since David was holding her in such a protective embrace. No chance of her tripping over a loose flagstone on the way back to the house.
There was an awkward little interlude after the others had left, during which Captain Dunbar disentangled himself from her and briskly readjusted his clothing. Julia just about managed to swing both legs to the floor though they felt all weak and wobbly.
Oh, heavens! Now she knew just what a spent rocket felt like. Two minutes ago she’d experienced a kind of fire-bursting ecstasy. Now she just felt used and shattered.
* * *
Damn it all to hell and back! Snared by the oldest trick in the book. By a green girl, which was worse. Lady Julia, if he wasn’t mistaken. The two sycophants, who normally trailed everywhere after her, wouldn’t have cared tuppence what happened to any of the other guests at this house party.
Just to make sure, though, he untied the ribbons holding the elaborately decorated mask over her face. She barely reacted. Just sat there, shoulders hunched, gazing miserably at the floor, in the position she’d adopted after sitting up and smoothing down her skirts with trembling hands.
She looked as broken as the peacock feathers that had snapped off some time during their frenzied coupling.
Hell. He looked at the bedraggled mask dangling from his calloused fingers. Lady Julia had been a virgin. Of course she’d been a virgin. And he’d just treated her as though she was an experienced courtesan.
Though wasn’t that what she’d wanted him to believe? Else why sidle up to him and get him all primed, then run him out here and set the spark to the touch hole?
It was her own fault.
He clenched his jaw, recalling her yelp of discomfort when he’d started exploring her. He had been impatient. Rough. He’d probably torn her then, with his fingers. He’d certainly felt no resistance when he’d entered her. Just a slick glide into the haven he’d sought ever since coming ashore two weeks earlier.
But blast it all—he’d have stopped if he’d sensed she was a virgin.
He would.
She lifted her head and met his furious gaze full on. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
Defiance burned from her eyes—eyes that looked too big, too bright. And luminous with unshed tears.
‘I’d like to say plenty,’ he snarled. ‘But the sad truth is, the only words spoken between us tonight have already said it all. We are going to have to get married.’ There was no other way out. Not for him. His whole future depended on maintaining a spotless reputation. It wouldn’t have mattered so much during the height of the war. An able, hard-working, skilled captain would always have been able to get command of a ship. But now?
And it wasn’t just his own career he had to consider. He couldn’t afford to become one of those officers who were only considered safe at sea. If it got about that he went about debauching unmarried, titled ladies he wouldn’t be welcome anywhere. Which would cast a cloud over Lizzie’s reputation, too. So far, his sister had done really well for herself. Sending her to that exclusive, expensive school had meant she was rubbing shoulders with girls from the best families. She’d even gained an invitation to this Christmas house party because of a connection to one of the Earl of Mountnessing’s nieces.
But if word got out that her brother was a rake, what would that do to Lizzie’s standing in society? To her chances of making a good match?
‘No,’ Lady Julia whispered.
She couldn’t marry this man. She was going to marry David.
David.
‘No...’ she moaned as the truth hit her squarely in her midriff. David would never marry her now. He had such high ideals. He could never marry a girl he’d caught with her legs wrapped round another man’s waist. No matter how highly he’d esteemed her before.
Alec squared his shoulders, remembering all the promises he’d ever made to his little sister. His promise that no matter how little they saw of each other, he’d always look after her. His promise that she would never go hungry, nor fear being made homeless. But most of all, his promise to be the kind of man on whom she could depend—unlike their scapegrace of a father.
He’d kept his word all these years. And he wasn’t going to break it now. He’d always done whatever necessary to shield Lizzie from the worst excesses of their father. And now he was going to have to do what was necessary to shield her from his own excesses, tonight.
‘Ye cannot say no to me like that as though you have a choice,’ he snarled. ‘D’ye think I want to marry you either? Hell, you’re the last woman alive who would make a suitable wife for a man like me. You’re too young, too foolish, and entirely too untrustworthy to leave alone while I’m away at sea.’
‘How dare you—?’ she began, getting to her feet.
‘Don’t waste those hoity-toity manners of yours on me. We’re not in some drawing room now, where you can get away with looking down your nose at me, just because you think I’m uncouth.’
Though she looked as though she would dearly love to answer back, she restricted herself to a toss of her
