Gentle Rogue

  “I’d rather hear Malory explain.” Warren’s tone was barely under control, much less his anger.

  “But—”

  “So would I,” Drew was next to interrupt, his tone no longer reasonable, either.

  Georgina, quite understandably, lost her temper at that point. “Blast you both! Can’t you see he’s deliberately looking for a fight? You ought to recognize the signs, Warren. You do the same thing all the time.”

  “Would someone mind telling me what is going on here?” Clinton demanded.

  Georgina was almost glad to see him arrive, and with Thomas beside him. Maybe, just maybe, James might feel it would be prudent now to desist in his assassination of her reputation. She had little doubt that was his intention. She just didn’t know why.

  “Are you all right, sweetheart?” Thomas asked her, putting his arm protectively around her shoulders.

  She just had time to nod before James said mockingly, “Sweetheart?”

  “Don’t even think of going that route again, James Malory,” she warned in a furious undertone. “This is my brother Thomas.”

  “And the mountain?”

  “My brother Clinton,” she gritted out.

  James merely shrugged. “The mistake was natural, considering there’s no family resemblance. Which was it, different mothers, or fathers?”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about resemblance, when your brother is as dark as sin.”

  “Anthony will appreciate the simile, indeed he will. And I’m delighted to know you remember meeting him, George. He wouldn’t have forgotten you either…no more than I would have.”

  She could be forgiven for missing the implication of that statement, as upset as she was. And Clinton was still waiting for an explanation, if the sharp clearing of his throat was any indication. Boyd beat her to it.

  “He’s the captain of the ship Georgie left England on, and English to boot.”

  “I’d already detected that much. Is that why you’re putting on this little show for our guests?”

  The condemnation in Clinton’s tone left Boyd shamefaced and silent, but Drew took up where he left off. “We didn’t start this, Clint. The bastard was insulting Georgie the moment he walked into the room.”

  James’s lips curled disdainfully. “By remarking that I prefer the darling girl in breeches? That’s a matter of opinion, dear boy, hardly an insult.”

  “That wasn’t exactly how you put it, Malory, and you know it,” Warren told him in a furious hiss. “And that’s not the only rubbish he’s been spouting, Clinton. He’s also made the ridiculous claim that Georgina’s belongings were kept in his cabin, implying—”

  “Well, of course they were,” James interrupted quite mildly. “Where else would her belongings be? She was, after all, my cabin boy.”

  He could have said lover, Georgina reminded herself as she lost every bit of color in her face. That would have been worse, but not by much.

  While each of her brothers was looking at her to deny it, all she could do was stare at James. There was no triumph in his eyes, still as frigid as before. She was afraid that last thrust wasn’t the final one yet.

  “Georgina?”

  Her thoughts clattered desperately this way and that, but could find no way to get out of the dilemma James had put her in, short of lying, which was out of the question with him standing there.

  “It’s a long story, Clinton. Can’t it wait until lat—”

  “Now!”

  Wonderful. Now Clinton was furious. Even Thomas was frowning. Burying herself in a hole in the ground was likely to end up her only option.

  “Very well,” she said stiffly. “But in the study, if you don’t mind.”

  “By all means.”

  She headed in that direction, without waiting to see who was following, but that James was the first one through the door behind her gave her a start. “You weren’t invited.”

  “Ah, but I was, love. Those young pups weren’t budging without me.”

  In answer she glowered at him, while her brothers filed through the door. Only one couple was in the room, and Drew quickly ousted them from the sofa with little fuss. Georgina tapped her toes, waiting. She might as well make a clean breast of everything and let her brothers kill James. Who the devil did he think he was dealing with here, anyway—calm, reasonable men? Ha! He was in for a rude awakening, and if his rotten plan backfired in his face, that was no more than he deserved just now.

  “Well, Georgina?”

  “You don’t have to take that head-of-the-family tone with me, Clinton. I haven’t done a single thing I’m sorry for. Circumstances forced Mac and me to work our way home, but I was disguised as a boy.”

  “And where did this boy-in-disguise sleep?”

  “So the captain kindly offered to share his cabin with me. You’ve done the same for your cabin boy, as a means of protection. And it wasn’t as if he knew I…was…a—” Her eyes flew to James, flaring wide and then filling with murderous lights as his previous words finally clicked. “You son of a bitch! What do you mean, you wouldn’t have forgotten me? Are you saying you knew I was a girl all along, that you only pretended to see through my disguise later?”

  With supreme nonchalance, James replied, “Quite so.”

  There was nothing tepid about Georgina’s reaction. With a low cry of rage, she leaped across the space between them. Thomas jerked her back just short of her target and held on to her, since Warren had already claimed James’s attention, swinging him about to face him.

  “You compromised her, didn’t you?” Warren demanded without preamble.

  “Your sister behaved like a dockside doxy. She signed on as my cabin boy. She helped to dress me, even to bathe me, with nary a single protest of maidenly airs. She was compromised before I ever laid hands on her.”

  “My God!” Warren said. “You’re actually admitting that you…that…”

  Warren didn’t wait for an answer, or even to finish. For the second time that evening, his emotions carried him along and he swung his fist. And for the second time, the punch was easily deflected. Only James followed it with a short jab to Warren’s chin that snapped his head back, but otherwise left him standing in the same place, just slightly dazed. While he blinked away his surprise, Clinton swung James around to face him.

  “Why don’t you try that with me, Malory?”

  Georgina couldn’t believe her ears. Clinton, about to engage in fisticuffs? Staid, no-nonsense Clinton?

  “Thomas, do something,” she said.

  “If I didn’t think you’d interfere if I let you go, I’d hold that bastard myself while Clinton rearranges his face.”

  “Thomas!” she gasped, incredulous.

  Had all of her brothers lost their senses? She could expect such remarks from the more hot-tempered three, but for God’s sake, Thomas never lost his temper. And Clinton never engaged in fights. But look at him, standing there bristling, the only man in the room older than James, and perhaps the only one a match for him. And James, that devil rogue, couldn’t have cared less that he had managed to fire all of this heated emotion.

  “You’re welcome to have a go at me, Yank,” he said with a mocking slant to his mouth. “But I should warn you that I’m rather good at this sort of thing.”

  Taunting? Daring? The man was suicidal. Did he honestly think he’d only have Clinton to deal with? Of course, he didn’t know her brothers. They might pick on each other mercilessly, but against a common enemy they united.

  The two older men faced off, but after a few minutes it was readily apparent that James hadn’t been bragging. Clinton had gotten in one blow, but James had landed a half dozen, each one taking its toll with those bricklike fists.

  When Clinton staggered back from one particularly grueling punch, Boyd stepped in. Unfortunately, Georgina’s youngest brother didn’t stand a chance and likely knew it, only he was too furious to care. An uppercut and then a hard right landed him on the floor in short order…and then it
was Warren’s turn again.

  He was more prepared this time. He wasn’t unskilled as a fighter by any means. In fact, Warren rarely lost a fight. And his greater height and longer reach should have given him the advantage here. He’d just never come up against anyone who’d trained in the ring before. But he did acquit himself better than Clinton. His right connected solidly again and again. His blows just didn’t seem to be doing any damage. It was like hitting…a brick wall.

  He went down after about ten minutes, taking a table with him. Georgina glanced at Drew, wondering if he was going to be foolish enough to get into this, and sure enough he was grinning as he removed his coat.

  “I have to hand it to you, Captain Malory. Your ‘rather good’ was putting it mildly. Maybe I should call for pistols instead.”

  “By all means. But again I should warn you—”

  “Don’t tell me. You’re rather good at that, too?”

  James actually laughed at Drew’s dry tone. “Better than good, dear boy. And in all fairness, I was merely going to arm you with the same knowledge that the young cockerels at home are aware of, that I have fourteen wins to my credit, no losses. In fact, the only battles I’ve ever lost have been at sea.”

  “That’s all right then. I’ll take the advantage that you must be tiring.”

  “Oh, hell, I don’t believe it!” Boyd suddenly exclaimed, to Drew’s annoyance.

  “Stay out of this, baby brother,” Drew told him. “You had your turn.”

  “No, you dolt, I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen him before. Don’t you recognize him, Thomas? Imagine him with a beard—”

  “My God,” Thomas said incredulously. “He’s that damned pirate, Hawke, who had me limping into port.”

  “Aye, and he walked off with my entire cargo, and on my first voyage on the Oceanus as sole owner, too.”

  “Are you certain?” Clinton demanded.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Clinton,” Georgina scoffed at this point. “You can’t take them seriously. A pirate? He’s a damned English lord, a viscount something-or-other—”

  “Of Ryding,” James supplied.

  “Thank you,” she replied automatically, but went right on as if there’d been no interruption. “To accuse him of being a blasted pirate is so ludicrous, it—”

  “That’s gentleman pirate, love, if you don’t mind,” James interrupted her once again in his drollest tone of voice. “And retired, not that it matters.”

  She didn’t thank him this time. The man was positively insane. There was no other excuse for what he’d just admitted. And that admission was all her brothers had needed to converge on him in force.

  She watched for a moment, until they all crashed onto the floor, a small mountain of sprawled legs and swinging arms. She finally turned to Thomas, who still had his arm firmly about her shoulder, as if he thought her stupid enough to get in the middle of that.

  “You have to stop them, Thomas!”

  She didn’t know how urgent she sounded. And Thomas wasn’t dense. Unlike his brothers, he’d been watching the two principals involved in this distasteful affair rather closely. The Englishman’s baleful stares lasted only as long as Georgina was looking at him. When she wasn’t, there was something else entirely in his eyes. And Georgina’s emotions were even more revealing.

  “He’s the one you’ve been crying over, isn’t he, Georgie?” he asked her very gently. “The one you—”

  “He was, but he’s not anymore,” she replied emphatically.

  “Then why should I try to interfere?”

  “Because they’re going to hurt him!”

  “I see. And here I thought that was the idea.”

  “Thomas! They’re just using that piracy nonsense as an excuse to stop being fair about this, because they weren’t getting anywhere fighting him individually.”

  “That’s possible, but this piracy business isn’t nonsense, Georgie. He is a pirate.”

  “Was,” she staunchly maintained. “You heard him say he’s retired.”

  “Sweetheart, that doesn’t alter the fact that during his unsavory career, the man crippled two of our ships and stole a valuable cargo.”

  “He can make reparations.”

  The argument lost its point just then as the combatants began rising from the floor. All but James Malory. Brick walls weren’t invincible after all.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  James managed to keep the groan from escaping his swollen lips as he regained consciousness. He took a quick mental inventory, but didn’t think his ribs were more than badly bruised. His jaw he wasn’t so sure about.

  Well, he’d bloody well asked for it, hadn’t he? He couldn’t just keep his mouth shut and play ignorant when those two younger brothers had remembered him and brought his past into it. Even George had defended him in her moment of disbelief. But no, he had to let the skeletons out of the closet for a clean breast of it.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if there weren’t so many of them. Hell and fire, five of the bloody Yanks! Where were Artie and Henry’s wits to have failed to mention that? Where were his, for that matter, in abandoning his original plan to confront George alone? Connie had warned him, indeed he had. And Connie was going to gloat to England and back over this, might even mention it to Anthony just to rub it in further, and then James would never hear the end of it.

  And what the devil had he thought to accomplish in coming to their bloody party anyway, aside from embarrassing the darling girl as she deserved? It was the party, or the idea of it, and George flitting around enjoying herself with a dozen beaus surrounding her, that made James lose his wits. And damned if he hadn’t found her so well protected by those idiots she was related to that no one could get near her, not even him.

  Their voices were buzzing around him, coming from different directions, some far away, some close, just above him in fact. He imagined one of them was watching for signs of his coming awake, and he thought briefly of changing places with the chap. He’d gone easy on them for Georgie’s sake, and look what it had gotten him, when he could just as easily have taken each of them out within a matter of seconds while they were still being fair-minded about it. On second thought, perhaps he wasn’t quite up to making the effort just now, after they’d tried pounding him through the bloody floor. He’d do better to concentrate on what they were saying, but that effort was almost as difficult through the haze of pain clamoring for attention.

  “I’m not believing it, Thomas, until I hear it from Georgie.”

  “She tried to clobber him herself, you know.”

  “I was here, Boyd.” The only voice that was easy to listen to, and it was so soothing. “I was the one who stopped her. But it makes no difference. I tell you she—”

  “But she was still pining over Malcolm!”

  “Drew, you ass, how many times do you have to be told, that was pure stubbornness on her part.”

  “Why the hell don’t you stay out of this entirely, Warren! The only thing that comes out of your mouth these days is rubbish anyway.”

  A brief scuffle, and then, “For God’s sake, you two, haven’t you garnered enough bruises for one day?”

  “Well, I’ve had enough of his damned bitterness dropping in my corner, Clinton, I really have. The Englishman could take lessons from him.”

  “I’d say that was the other way around, but that’s neither here nor there. Kindly shut up, Warren, if you can’t contribute anything constructive. And stop being so blasted touchy, Drew. You’re not helping matters any.”

  “Well, I don’t believe it anymore than Boyd does.” James was beginning to distinguish voices, and this one from the hot-tempered Warren grated along points already throbbing. “The blockhead doubts it, too, so—”

  More scuffling ended that revelation. James sincerely hoped they killed each other—after he found out what they were so doubting of. He was about to sit up and ask when they crashed into his feet, jarring his whole body. His groan was telling enough.
/>
  “How are you feeling, Malory?” he was asked by a surprisingly amused voice. “Fit enough for a wedding?”

  James cracked his eyelids open to see the baby-faced Boyd grinning down at him. With all the contempt he was capable of, he said, “My own brothers have done a better job on me than you puling pups.”

  “Then maybe we should give it another go-round,” said the one whose name ought to be cut in half. War suited him so much better.

  “Sit down, Warren!”

  The order came from Thomas, surprising them all, except James, who had no idea this Anderson brother rarely raised his voice. And he really couldn’t have cared less just then. Determinedly, he concentrated everything he had on sitting up without flinching.

  And then it hit him, “What the bloody hell d’you mean, wedding?”

  “Yours, Englishman, and Georgie’s. You compromised her, you’ll marry her, or we’ll very cheerfully kill you.”

  “Then smile away, dear boy, and pull the trigger. I won’t be forced—”

  “Isn’t that what you came here for, Malory?” Thomas asked enigmatically.

  James glowered at him, while the brothers all reacted in different degrees of amazement.

  “Have you gone crazy, Thomas?”

  “Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it?” This, sarcastically.

  “Where are you getting these ridiculous notions from, first about Georgie, now this?”

  “Would you like to explain that, Tom?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thomas replied, watching James. “The English mind is too complicated by half.”

  James wasn’t going to comment on that. Talking to these imbeciles was a headache in itself. Slowly, with extreme care, he got to his feet. As he did, so did Warren and Clinton, who had been sitting down. James almost laughed. Did they really think he had anything left in him that they need worry about just now? Bloody giants. Little George couldn’t have a normal family, could she?

  “By the by, where is George?” he wanted to know.

  The young one, who’d been pacing the floorboards in agitation, stopped in front of him to glower hotly. “That’s not her name, Malory.”