“Then Mrs. Mullins doesn’t have any.”
“Any what?”
“Good taste herself.” When that brought a gasp and then a narrowing of her chocolate eyes, Drew decided he’d better back off. “Now, Georgie, it’s not so much the dress, but what it doesn’t cover, if you get my meaning.”
“I got your meaning right off, Drew Anderson,” she said indignantly. “Am I supposed to dress out of fashion just because my brother objects to the cut of my bodice? I’ll wager you’ve never complained about this particular style on other women, have you?”
Since he hadn’t, he decided it might be prudent to shut his mouth on the subject. But still—Damn, but she’d given him a turn. He’d known she’d blossomed into a little beauty, but this was broadcasting it from the mainmast.
Georgina took pity on his flushed discomfort. After all, she hadn’t had occasion to dress up the last few times Drew was home, so it had been several years since he had seen her in anything other than her modest day dresses—and more recently, her boy’s attire. She’d had this gown made up last Christmas for the Willards’ annual ball, but a severe cold had kept her from wearing it then. But the Grecian style was still in the height of fashion, as was the thinness of the material, in this case a sheer rose batiste over white silk. And her mother’s ruby necklace was the perfect touch to fill in the bare expanse below her neck, which Drew was objecting to.
But his objection really was a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she were in danger of exposing herself. There was a good inch and a half of ribbon-threaded material above her nipples, a considerable amount compared to some gowns she had seen on other women. So a little cleft was showing. A little cleft was supposed to show.
“It’s all right, Drew.” She grinned now. “I promise not to drop anything. And if I do, I’ll let someone else pick it up for me.”
He accepted that out gracefully. “See that you do,” but couldn’t resist adding, “you’ll be lucky if Warren doesn’t put a sack over your head.”
She rolled her eyes. This was just what she needed to make the evening go smoothly, brothers all over the room glaring at any man who got near her, or surrounding her themselves so no man could get near.
“What were you doing with that?” she asked, indicating the vase to change the subject.
“Just having a closer look at what’s cost us our China trade.”
Georgina had heard the story the night of her homecoming. The vase wasn’t just an antique, but a priceless piece of art from the Tang dynasty, some nine hundred years old, and Warren had won it in a game of chance. If that wasn’t incredible enough, he’d wagered his ship against it! If she hadn’t also heard that Warren was quite drunk at the time, she wouldn’t have believed it, since the Nereus was the most important thing in his life.
But Clinton had confirmed it. He’d been there at the time and hadn’t even tried to talk Warren out of the game, not that he could have. Apparently, he’d wanted the vase just as badly to take the risk of losing one of the Skylark ships. Of course, one ship was nothing in comparison to the value of that vase.
What neither of them had realized at the time was that the Chinese warlord who had wagered his vase against Warren’s ship had no intention of honoring the bet if he lost, which he did. A group of his followers had attacked them on the way back to their ships, and if their crews hadn’t come to the rescue, neither of them would have survived that night. As it was, they just barely escaped Canton without having their ships fired upon. And having to leave so suddenly was the reason they were home much sooner than expected.
As she watched Drew carefully lock the vase back in Clinton’s desk, she remarked. “I’m surprised Clinton has taken it so well, that it will be a very long time before a Skylark ship dares venture into Chinese waters again.”
“Oh, I don’t know. As lucrative as the Canton trade was, I think he was getting tired himself of the long voyages. I know Warren was. And they did make several European stops on the way back, to establish new markets.”
She hadn’t heard that before. “Is England being forgiven then and considered for one of those markets?”
He looked at her and chuckled. “You must be joking. With as much money as they cost us with their arbitrary blockade before the war? Not to mention how many of their blasted warships stopped ours to impress their so-called deserters. It’ll be a cold day in hell before Clinton deals with an Englishman again, even if we were desperate for their trade, which we’re certainly not.”
Her grimace was inward. If there had been a secret hope that she might someday return to England to see James again, she might as well bury it. If only that trip to Jamaica hadn’t been his last, she could have gone back there easily enough. But he’d confessed that he had only gone there to dispose of his holdings, that he was returning to England for good.
“I didn’t think so,” she said now in a small voice.
“What’s the frown for, Georgie? Have you forgiven England, after those bastards stole your Malcolm and caused you such grief?”
She almost laughed. England, no, but one particular Englishman she’d forgive anything, if only he…what? Had loved her a little instead of just desiring her? That was asking for the moon.
But Drew was waiting for an answer, and she gave him the one he most likely expected. “Certainly not,” she snapped, and turned to leave, only to find Warren on his way into the room. His eyes went straight to her decolletage, and his expression immediately started gathering storm clouds, and she snapped again, “Not one word, Warren, or I’ll rip it off and come down to the party naked, see if I don’t!”
“I wouldn’t,” Drew cautioned when Warren started to follow her out of the room.
“Did you see the bosoms on that girl?” Warren’s tone was half outrage, half amazement.
“Couldn’t miss ’em.” Drew smiled wryly. “I mentioned it myself, and received a quelling set-down. The girl grew up, Warren, when we weren’t looking.”
“She’ll still have to change into something more—”
“She won’t, and if you try and insist, she’s likely to do exactly as she said.”
“Don’t be an ass, Drew. She wouldn’t—”
“Are you so sure?” Drew interrupted again. “Our little Georgie has changed, and I don’t just mean into a raving beauty. That was more gradual. This is so sudden, it’s like she’s a new woman.”
“What is?”
“Her willfulness. The temper she’d been demonstrating. And don’t ask me where she might have picked it up, but she’s developed a droll wit that is really quite amusing at times. And snippy. Hell, it’s hard to even tease her anymore, she sasses back so quickly.”
“None of which has anything to do with that blasted gown she’s wearing.”
“Now who’s being an ass?” Drew snorted, and borrowed from Georgina’s own retaliation. “You wouldn’t mind seeing it on any other woman, now would you? Those low-cut bits of nothing are, after all, highly fashionable,” and he added with a grin, “thank God.”
And that just got him a glower that Warren was still wearing when he stood in the receiving line a while later to greet their guests and intimidate any of the male gender who happened to stare at Georgina too long. No one else, of course, thought anything the least bit wrong with her lovely gown. It was, if anything, modest next to a few others worn by some of their female neighbors.
As was usually the case in a seafaring town, there were many more women present than men. But for an impromptu party, there was a fine turnout. The main gathering was in the drawing room, but with so many people showing up, and still more trickling in as the evening progressed, every room on the first floor had a small crowd of people in it.
Georgina was enjoying herself, despite the fact that Warren was never more than a few feet away. At least he’d stopped scowling. Boyd, too, after his first sight of her, was right there at her side every time a man approached her, no matter what age the man happened to be, and even if he was
accompanied by a wife. Drew remained close by just to watch the other two playing big brothers, which was amusing him no end.
“Clinton informed us that you’ll be sailing to New Haven soon.”
“So it seems,” Georgina replied to the stout lady who’d just joined her small group.
Mrs. Wiggins had married a farmer, but she came from townfolk herself and had never quite made the adjustment. She flicked open an ornate fan and began stirring the air around them. The crowded room was getting a bit warm.
“But you’ve just returned from England,” the older lady pointed out, as if Georgina could forget. “By the way, dear, how did you find it?”
“Dreadful,” she said in all sincerity. “Crowded. Rife with thieves and beggars.” She didn’t bother to mention the beautiful countryside, or the quaint villages that had, oddly enough, reminded her of Bridgeport.
“You see, Amos?” Mrs. Wiggins told her husband. “It’s just as we imagined. A den of iniquity.”
Georgina wouldn’t have gone that far in her description. There were, after all, two sides to London—the poor and the rich—maybe she would go that far. The rich might not be thieves, but she’d met one of their lords and he was as wicked as they come.
“It’s fortunate that you weren’t there very long,” Mrs. Wiggins continued.
“Yes,” Georgina agreed. “I was able to conclude my business quite swiftly.”
It was obvious the lady was dying to ask what that business was, but she wasn’t quite audacious enough to do it. And Georgina wasn’t about to volunteer the information that she’d been betrayed, jilted, forsaken. It still bridled that she’d been such a fool, clinging to a childhood fancy for so long. And she’d already come to the conclusion that she didn’t even have love as an excuse. What she had felt for Malcolm was nothing next to what she felt for James Malory.
She blamed his name being in her thoughts for the tingling shiver of premonition that crawled down her spine a moment later when she saw Mrs. Wiggins staring in clear amazement at the doorway behind her. Of course it was absurd, wishful thinking. She had only to glance around and her pulse would slow down again. But she couldn’t do it. The hope was there, regardless how unfounded, and she wanted to savor it, cling to it, before it was dashed to nothing.
“Who is he, I wonder?” Mrs. Wiggins crashed into Georgina’s thoughts. “One of your brother’s men, Georgina?”
Probably. Surely. They were always picking up new crewmen in other ports, and new faces always engendered curiosity here in Bridgeport. She still wouldn’t look.
“He doesn’t have the look of a sailor,” Mr. Wiggins had concluded and said so.
“No, he doesn’t.” This surprisingly from Boyd, whom Georgina had forgotten was even beside her. “But he does look familiar. I’ve met him before, or seen him somewhere…I just can’t place where.”
So much for raised hopes, Georgina thought in disgust. Her pulse slowed. She started breathing again. And she turned around to see who the devil they were so curious about…and had the floor drop out from under her.
He stood not ten feet away, big, blond, elegant, and so handsome it was painful. But the green eyes that pinned her to the spot and took her breath away were the coldest, most menacing eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Her love, her Englishman, and—the realization was fast dawning and rising up to choke her—her downfall.
Chapter Thirty-two
“What is it, Georgie?” Boyd asked in alarm. “You don’t look well at all.”
She couldn’t answer her brother. She felt the pressure of his hand on her arm but couldn’t look his way. She couldn’t take her eyes off James, or believe, despite the silly game of hope she had just played with herself, that he was truly here.
He’d cut his hair. That was the first thought she was able to fix in her mind with any coherency. He’d been tying it back as they had neared Jamaica, it had grown so long, and with that golden earring flashing, he’d looked more like a pirate than ever to her adoring eyes. But he looked nothing like a pirate now. His tawny mane of hair was as flyaway as ever, as if he’d just come in out of a violent storm, but as it was a style other men spent hours trying to achieve, it looked perfectly in order. The locks that fell over his ears concealed whether he still sported the golden earring.
He could have been walking into a ball given for royalty, he was so finely turned out in velvet and silk. Had she thought he looked stunning in emerald? He looked positively devastating in dark burgundy, the nap of the velvet so fine, the many lights in the rooms cast it in jewel tones. His silk stockings were as snowy-white as the stylish cravat at his throat. A fat diamond winked there, so big it was surely drawing notice if the man himself wasn’t.
Georgina had noticed all this when her eyes first swept him, before they locked with his riveting gaze, a gaze that was sending off warning signals that should have had her running for her life. She’d seen James Malory in many different moods over the weeks she’d spent with him, several of those moods quite dark, but she’d never actually seen him truly angry, enough to lose his temper—if he even had one. But what she saw now in his eyes could have frozen a hot coal. He was angry all right, so angry, she couldn’t begin to guess what he might do. For a moment, all he was doing was letting her know.
“Do you know him, too?”
Too? Oh, that was right. Boyd thought he looked somehow familiar. He was obviously wrong. But before she could comment at all, if she could manage to get a word past the tightness in her throat, James started to walk toward her in a deceivingly lazy stride.
“George in a dress? How unique.” His dry voice carried across the space to her and everyone around her. “It becomes you, though, indeed it does. But I must say I prefer your breeches. Much more revealing of certain delectable—”
“Who are you, mister?” Boyd demanded aggressively, stepping in front of James to cut off his derogatory flow of words as well as his path.
For a moment it looked as if James would just brush him aside, and Georgina didn’t doubt that he could. They might be of a height, but where Boyd was lean and hard like the rest of his brothers, James was a brick wall, broad, solid, and massively muscled. And Boyd might be a man to reckon with at twenty-six years of age, but next to James, he looked a mere boy fresh out of the schoolroom.
“Bless me, you’re not actually thinking of interfering, are you, lad?”
“I asked who you are,” Boyd repeated, flushing under the amused condescension he detected, but he added, with a measure of his own derision, “Aside from being an Englishman.”
All signs of amusement instantly dropped. “Aside from being an Englishman, I’m James Malory. Now be a good chap and step aside.”
“Not so fast.” Warren moved next to Boyd to block James’s path even more. “A name doesn’t tell us who you are or what you’re doing here.”
“Another one? Shall we do this the hard way, George?”
He asked it even though he could no longer see her with Warren’s towering shoulders as an obstruction. But she didn’t have the least little doubt of James’s meaning, whether her brothers did or not. And she found she could move after all, and quite quickly, to come around their protective wall.
“They’re my brothers, James. Please don’t—”
“Brothers?” he cut in sneeringly, and those frigid green eyes were back on her. “And here I thought something entirely different, with the way they were hovering over you.”
There was enough insinuation in his tone for no one to mistake his meaning. Georgina gasped. Boyd flushed beet-red. Warren just threw his first punch. That it was deflected with ease disconcerted him for a moment. In that moment, Drew arrived to prevent Warren from swinging again.
“Have you lost your senses?” he hissed in an embarrassed whisper. “We’ve got a room full of people here, Warren. Guests, remember? Hell, I thought you’d gotten it out of your system this afternoon when you laid into me.”
“You didn’t hear what that son of a?
??”
“Actually, I did, but unlike you, I happen to know that he’s the captain of the ship that brought Georgie to Jamaica. Instead of beating him to a pulp, why don’t we find out what he’s doing here, and why he’s being so…provoking?”
“Obviously drunk,” Boyd offered.
James didn’t deign to answer that charge. He was still staring down at Georgina, his expression keeping her from showing any joy that he was here.
“You were absolutely right, George. Yours are quite tedious.”
He was referring to her brothers, of course, and the remark she had made about them that first day on his ship, when she admitted she had other brothers—besides Mac. Fortunately, her three siblings didn’t realize that.
Georgina didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to ask James why he was here, or why he was so obviously furious with her. She wanted to get him away from her brothers before all hell broke loose, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone with him. But she’d have to.
She put her hand on Warren’s arm and could feel how tense he was. “I’d like a private word with the captain.”
“No,” was all he said.
From Warren’s expression, she knew there’d be no getting around him, so she appealed for help from a different quarter. “Drew?”
Drew was more diplomatic. He merely ignored her, keeping his eyes on James. “Why exactly are you here, Captain Malory?” he asked in a most reasonable tone.
“If you must know, I’ve come to return George’s belongings, which she thoughtlessly left behind in our cabin.”
Georgina groaned inwardly after a quick glance at her brothers. That “our” had stood out like a flashing beacon on a moonless night, and not one of them had missed the implication. She’d been right in her first assumption. Her downfall was imminent, especially since James at his nastiest was embarrassing in the extreme, but he was obviously going for blood. She might as well dig a hole and bury herself.
“I can explain—” she began to tell her brothers, but didn’t think she’d get far, and she was right.