Well, a few more years than that had gone by, thanks to British arrogance on the high seas. But the lass wouldn’t heed her brothers’ advice to forget about Malcolm Cameron. Even when the war had ended and it was reasonable to expect that the lad would find his way home, but didn’t, she was still determined to wait for him. That alone should have warned Thomas that she wouldn’t be willing to delay while he made his West Indies run, not when he had cargo to deliver to a half dozen different ports, for wasn’t she just as adventurous as the rest of the family? It was in their blood. And didn’t she lack Thomas’s patience, and they all knew it?
Of course, Thomas could be forgiven for thinking that the problem wouldn’t be his, since their brother Drew’s ship was due in at the end of summer, and Drew always stayed home for several months between his trips anyway. And that fun-loving rogue could never deny his only sister anything. But the lass wouldn’t wait for Drew, either. She had booked passage on a ship scheduled to depart just three days after Thomas sailed and had somehow talked Mac into accompanying her, though he still wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed to make it seem his idea to do so, instead of hers.
“Well, Georgie lass, we’re no’ doing sae bad wi’ our hunt, considering this here London’s got more folks in it than the whole of Connecticut. It could’ve been much worse was thePogromno’ in port, her crew turned loose. Now the mon I’m tae be meeting tomorrow night is suppose tae know the laddie verra well. The one I spoke wi’ today said Malcolm even left the ship wi’ this Mr. Willcocks, sae who’d be knowing where he might be found if no’ this chum of his.”
“That does sound promising,” Georgina allowed. “This Mr. Willcocks might even be able to take you to Malcolm directly, so…I think I’ll go along.”
“You willna,” Mac snapped, sitting forward to give her a frown. “It’s a tavern I’ll be meeting him at.”
“So?”
“Sae what am I doing here if no’ tae see ye dinna do some crazy thing worse than the coming here was?”
“Now, Mac—”
“Dinna ‘Now Mac’ me, lassie,” he told her sternly.
But she was giving him that look that meant she was going to be stubborn about it. He groaned inwardly, well aware that there wasn’t much that could move her once she set her mind to something. The proof was her being here, instead of home where her brothers thought her to be.
Chapter Two
Across the river, in the elite West End of town, the coach carrying Sir Anthony Malory stopped before one of the fashionable townhouses on Piccadilly. It had been his bachelor residence, but it no longer was because he was returning now with his new bride, Lady Roslynn.
Inside the townhouse, Anthony’s brother, James Malory, who had been residing with Anthony while in London, was drawn into the hall upon hearing the late-hour arrival, just in time to see the bride being carried over the threshold. Since he wasn’t aware yet that shewasa bride, his bland inquiry was perfectly in order.
“I don’t suppose I should be witnessing this.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t,” Anthony said while passing James on the way to the stairs, the female bundle still in his arms. “But since you have, you may as well know I married the girl.”
“The devil you say!”
“He really did.” The bride laughed in a delightful way. “You don’t think I’d allow just anyone to carry me over the threshold, do you?”
Anthony stopped a moment, having caught sight of his brother’s incredulous expression. “Good God, James, I’ve waited a lifetime to see you at a loss for words. But you’ll understand if I don’t wait around for you to recover, won’t you?” And he promptly disappeared up the stairs.
James finally got around to closing his mouth, then opened it again to drain the glass of brandy he was still holding. Astonishing! Anthony leg-shackled! London’s most notorious rake—well, most notorious only because James had relinquished that distinction himself when he’d left England ten years ago. But Anthony? Whyever would he do such a ghastly thing?
Of course, the lady was too beautiful for words, but it wasn’t as if Anthony couldn’t have her any other way. James happened to know that Anthony had already seduced her, in fact, just last night. So what possible reason could he have to marry the girl? She had no family, no one to insist he do so; not that anyonecouldtell him what to do—with the possible exception of their oldest brother, Jason, marquis of Haverston and head of the family. But not even Jason could have insisted Anthony marry. Hadn’t Jason been at him to do so for many years with no success?
So no one had held a pistol to Anthony’s head, or coerced him in any way to do such a preposterous thing. Besides, Anthony wasn’t like Nicholas Eden, the viscount of Montieth, to succumb to pressure from the elders. Nicholas Eden had been forced to marry their niece, Regan, or Reggie, as the rest of the family called her. Anthony had actually pressured Nicholas, with a little help from their brother Edward and Nicholas’s own family. By God, James still wished he could have been there to add a few threats of his own, but at the time the family hadn’t known he was back in England, and he’d been trying to waylay the same viscount for a sound thrashing he felt he deserved for an entirely different reason. And he’d done just that, almost making the young scamp miss his wedding to Regan, James’s favorite niece.
Shaking his head, James returned to the parlor and the decanter of brandy, deciding a few more drinks might bring the answer to him. Love he discounted. If Anthony hadn’t succumbed to that emotion in the seventeen years he’d been seducing the fairer sex, then he was as immune to it as James was. And he could also discount the need for an heir, since the number of titles in the family were already secured. Jason, their eldest brother, had his only son Derek, fully grown now and already taking after his younger uncles. Edward, the second oldest Malory, had five children himself, all of marriageable ages except the youngest, Amy. Even James had a son, Jeremy, albeit an illegitimate one whom he’d discovered only six years ago. He hadn’t even known about the lad who’d been raised in a tavern by his mother, and had continued working there after she died. But Jeremy was seventeen now and doing his damnedest to take after his father in his rakehell ways—and succeeding admirably. So Anthony, as the fourth son, certainly didn’t need to worry about perpetuating the line. The three oldest Malorys had taken care of it.
James stretched out on a couch with the decanter of brandy. Just shy of six feet, his large frame barely fit. He thought about the newlyweds upstairs and what they were doing right about now. Well-shaped, sensual lips curled in a grin. The answer simply wasn’t going to come to him about why Anthony had done such a ghastly thing as marry—something James would never make the mistake of doing. But he had to allow that if Anthony were going to take the plunge, it might as well be to a prime article like Roslynn Chadwick—no, she was a Malory now—but still a prime piece.
James had thought of pursuing her himself, despite the fact that Anthony had already staked his claim. But then, when they had both been young rakes about town all those years ago, they had often pursued the same woman for the sport of it, the winner generally tending to be whichever of them the lady happened to clap eyes on first, since Anthony was a handsome devil females found it almost impossible to resist, and James had been called the same himself.
And yet, two brothers couldn’t be more dissimilar in looks. Anthony was taller and slimmer, and had the dark looks inherited from their grandmother, with black hair and eyes of cobalt-blue, the same coloring possessed by Regan, Amy, and, annoyingly, James’s own son, Jeremy, who, even more annoyingly, looked more like Anthony than like James. James, however, bore the more common Malory looks, blond hair, eyes a medium shade of green, a large-framed body. Big, blond, and handsome, as Regan liked to put it.
James chuckled, thinking of the dear girl. His only sister, Melissa, had died when her daughter was only two, so he and his brothers had raised Regan, equally. She was like a daughter to them all. But she was married to that bounder Eden now, and by choice, so what could James do but tolerate the fellow? But then, Nicholas Edenwasproving to be an exemplary husband.
Husband again. Anthony had cracked a screw, obviously. At least Eden had an excuse. He adored Regan. But Anthony adoredallwomen. In that, he and James were alike. And James might have just turned thirty-six, but there wasn’t a woman alive who could entice him into the matrimonial state. Love them and leave them was the only way to get along with them, a creed that had done well for him all these years, and one he would continue to live by in the years to come.
Chapter Three
Ian MacDonell was a second-generation American, but his Scottish ancestry was proclaimed loudly in his carrot-red hair and the soft burr in his speech. What he didn’t have was a typical Scottish temper. His could be considered quite mild, and had been for all of his forty-seven years. And yet what temper he did possess had been tested to the limit last night and half of today by the youngest Anderson sibling.
Being neighbor to the Andersons, Mac had known the family all his life. He’d sailed on their ships for thirty-five years, beginning as old man Anderson’s cabin boy when he was only seven, and lastly as first mate on Clinton Anderson’sNeptune. He’d declined his own captaincy nearly a dozen times. Like Georgina’s youngest brother Boyd, he did not want such complete authority to be his—though young Boyd was sure to accept it eventually. But even after Mac had quit the sea five years ago, he hadn’t been able to stay away from the ships; it now was his job to see to the fitness of each Skylark vessel when it returned to port.
