“I thought you would. Most every challenge issued to him was quite legitimate, all from husbands. The irony is, James might have taken what was offered, but he never kissed and told. Those batty women were so impressed with him—well, hewasa devilish handsome man when he was younger, too—thattheydid the bragging if he so much as looked at them. So it stands to reason that he wouldn’t have much respect for the married state, seeing firsthand nothing but constant infidelities.”
“Which he contributed to,” Georgina said a bit testily.
“No one can deny that.” Regina grinned. “He was, after all, the most notorious rake in London. He even put Tony to shame, and Tony was quite scandalous himself in his day.”
“I’ll thank you to leave Anthony out of this,” Roslynn said. “He’s a totally reformed rake.”
“Well, so is my Nicholas, I’ll have you know. But as for Uncle James, after so many years of seeing only the worst side of marriage, it was no wonder he despised the hypocrisy of it, and unfaithful wives in particular, with which thetonabounds. He swore he’d never have one of his own, and we all thought he meant it.”
“I’m sure he did mean it. He didn’t ask to marry me, after all.”
Regina didn’t question that. She’d already been told that James had been forced to marry, and by James himself—before Anthony could. But she did question the “forced” part.
“I have to wonder about that, Georgie,” she said thoughtfully. “You just don’t know my Uncle James—”
“But that’s what you’re doing, telling me about him. It’s rare that I get anything of a personal nature out of him, after all. Is there anything else you think I ought to know?”
“Well, the fact that the family disowned him for a while might come up tonight. He was gone from England for about ten years during that time. ’Course, he’s reinstated now. I don’t suppose he told you about any of that?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s one subject that you’ll have to ask him about, since it’s not my place to say—”
“That he was the infamous Captain Hawke?”
Regina’s eyes flared. “So hedidtell you?”
“No, he admitted it to my brothers, after they’d recognized him. I suppose you could say it was the worst luck that two of them happened to meet up with James on the high seas before he retired from pirating.”
Regina gasped, “You mean your brothers all knew? Good Lord, it’s lucky they didn’t hang him!”
“Oh, they wanted to, at least Warren did,” Georgina said in disgust. “But James was so full of confessions that night, he deserved hanging.”
“And how is it…he didn’t hang?” Regina asked carefully.
“He escaped.”
“With your help?”
“Well I couldn’t let Warren have his way, just because he was furious at James because of me. He’s a womanizer himself, that hypocrite.”
“Well, all’s well that ends well, as the saying goes,” Roslynn said, and got a snort out of Regina.
“It doesn’t sound like all’s well to me, not when Uncle James has her whole family against him.”
“Come now, Reggie, you don’t really think he’s going to let a little thing like that bother him, do you? Particularly when he’s here and they’re a whole ocean away. When he’s ready, I’m sure he’ll make it up with them, for Georgie’s sake.”
“James?”
Roslynn’s rich chuckle filled the room at Regina’s exaggerated incredulity. “Perhaps you’re right. He’s a man who doesn’t go out of his way to forgive or forget. Your poor husband has learned that firsthand, hasn’t he?”
“Don’t remind me. And I’m sure Nicholas is going to quite enjoy getting in a few digs tonight, especially if he hears that James married under the same circumstances as Nicholas married me.” At Georgina’s questioning look, she added, “Your husband was not the only one who got shoved up to the altar. In Nicholas’s case, it took a little blackmail, a little bribery, and of course Tony praying he’d refuse so he could cut Nicholas into little pieces.”
“And James?”
“Oh, he wasn’t part of that. We didn’t even know he was back in England yet. But as it happens, my husband also clashed with Captain Hawke on the high seas at one time. So if they appear to be mortal enemies tonight, think nothing of it.”
At that Georgina burst into laughter.
