Drew flushed with ire, fists clenching. “Youareworse than Warren, by God! If you want some more—”
“Back off, puppy. Your heart’s in the right place, I’m sure, but you’re not capable of taking me on and you know it. So why don’t you make yourself useful instead and fetch something to revive your sister? She really ought to join this particular party.”
Drew stomped off angrily to follow his suggestion, but was back in a moment with a glass half full of water. James eyed it skeptically. “What, pray tell, am I supposed to do with that?” For answer Drew splashed the contents in Georgina’s face. “Well, I’m bloody well glad you did it rather than me,” James told Drew as Georgina sat up sputtering, shrieking, and looking around for the culprit.
“You fainted, Georgie,” Drew told her quickly by way of explanation.
“There must be a dozen women in the other room with smelling salts,” she said furiously as she sat up and began rubbing water off her cheeks and upper chest with stiff fingers. “Couldn’t you have asked one?”
“Didn’t think of that.”
“Well, you could have at least brought a towel with the water,” and then, aghast, “Blast you, Drew, look what you’ve done to my gown!”
“A gown you never should have been wearing in the first place,” he retorted. “Nowmaybe you’ll go change it.”
“I’ll wear it till it rots off if you did this just so I’d—”
“Children, if you don’t mind…” James cut in pointedly, bringing Georgina’s eyes to him.
“Oh, James, look at your face!”
“That’s rather difficult to do, brat. But I wouldn’t talk, with yours still dripping.”
“With water, you ass, not blood!” she snapped, then turned to Drew. “Well, haven’t you at least got a handkerchief?”
He dug in his pocket and handed over a white square, expecting her to wipe her face with it. Instead he watched in bemusement as she leaned forward and carefully dabbed at the blood encrusted around the Englishman’s mouth. And the man let her, just knelt there on his knees and let her attend him as if he hadn’t been looking daggers at her earlier, and he hadn’t embarrassed her in front of family and friends, and they hadn’tjustbeen snapping at each other.
He glanced around to see if his brothers had noticed this irrational behavior, too. Clinton and Warren hadn’t. They were too busy still arguing. But Boyd met his glance and rolled his eyes. Drew quite agreed with him. And Thomas was shaking his head, though obviously amused. Drew couldn’t findanythingabout any of this amusing. He was damned if he wanted a pirate for a brother-in-law, retired or not. Worse, an English pirate. Even worse, a lord of the old realm. And he damned well couldn’t believe that his sister had actually fallen in love with the fellow. It simply defied reason.
So what was Georgina doing fussing over him right now? And why had she fainted just because they’d messed up his face a little?
Drew admitted the Englishman was a fine figure of a man. An unmatched pugilist, too, that Drew might admire, but Georgie wouldn’t. And he supposed he might even say the fellow could be called handsome, at least he had been before they’d puffed up his face. But would Georgina let such minor things sway her when he had so many black marks against him? Oh, hell, nothing had made sense to him since he’d found her in Jamaica.
“You’re quite handy with your fists, aren’t you?”
Drew’s attention snapped back upon hearing that testy question out of his sister. He eyed Malory for his reaction, but it was hard to distinguish any expression at all under so much damage.
“You could say I’ve trained a bit in the ring.”
“Wherever did you find the time,” Georgina came back with sarcasm, “between running a plantation in the islandsandpirating?”
“You’ve told me yourself howoldI am, brat. Stands to reason I’ve had time for a great many pursuits in my lifetime, don’t it?”
Drew almost choked, hearing that. The noise he did make drew Georgina’s attention back to him. “You’re still just standing about, when you could be helpful? His eye needs something cold for the swelling…Yours does, too, for that matter.”
“Oh, no, Georgie girl. Horses couldn’t drag me out of here just now, so save your breath. But if you want me to step back so you can have a word alone with this scoundrel, why don’t you just ask?”
“I want nothing of the sort,” she insisted indignantly. “I have absolutely nothing to say to him”—her eyes came back to James to clarify—“to you. Nothing…except that your behavior tonight has gone beyond your usual unpleasantness to the despicable. I should have realized you were capable of such meanness. All the signs were there. But no, I foolishly deemed your particular brand of ridicule as harmless, a habit as you say, without serious malice. I believed that! But you proved me wrong, didn’t you? That double-damned tongue of yours has shown itself to be viciously lethal. Well, are you happy with what you’ve wrought? Has it quite amused you? Has it? And what the devil are you doing on your knees? They should have put you to bed.”
She worked herself up to a fine rage, and then to end with a note of concern for him! James sat back on his heels and laughed. It hurt like bloody hell, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“So good of you to spare me, George, and say nothing,” he finally said.
She glared at him a moment, then asked quite seriously, “What are you doing here, James?”
With that one question, his humor was shattered. In the blink of an eye, his hostility was back.
“You neglected to say goodbye, love. I thought I’d give you an opportunity to correct that oversight.”
