Gabrielle followed the lady, and unfortunately, James Malory followed her. She was sure she wasn’t going to be able to relax with that man in the room. He was far too intimidating, and besides, she was still so embarrassed about intruding on their lives that she could barely get out the apology she felt she owed them.
“I’m very sorry that my arrival has disrupted your plans like this.”
“Not another word, m’dear,” Malory replied, his tone much more congenial now. “At the risk of earning a scowl from George, I don’t mind admitting your timing couldn’t have been more perfect.”
“You weren’t happy with your plans?”
When he didn’t answer, Georgina laughed and explained, “He’s still worried about that scowl he mentioned. You see, while he’ll go above and beyond in his efforts to please me, the trip I wanted to take was rather quickly arranged, to take advantage of my brother Drew’s ship being in London. But my husband doesn’t actually get along famously with my brothers—”
“No need to wrap it up nicely, George,” Malory interrupted. “I despise her brothers and they despise me. It’s pleasantly mutual.”
Gabrielle blinked, but Georgina rolled her eyes. “He’s simplified it, but they really dotryto get along.”
“What she means is we stopped trying to kill each other years ago,” James added.
He sounded serious, but Gabrielle simply couldn’t believe that he was. And assuming that he was joking managed to put her somewhat at ease.
“At any rate,” Georgina continued. “James wasn’t happy about sailing on my brother’s ship, so yes, he’s no doubt delighted to have our trip postponed to a later date.”
Amazingly, they’d managed to remove most of Gabrielle’s guilt for foisting herself on them. Not all of it, but she was certainly feeling much better about it.
“I have a maid who will need to stay here with me,” she told them.
“Certainly,” Georgina said. “I would have hired one for you if you hadn’t brought yours.”
“Thank you. I’ll only need to avail myself of your hospitality for a few weeks, until my father arrives and finds us other accomodations. That you’re willing to sponsor me for the rest of this Season is most appreciated. By the by, if you don’t mind my asking, how do you and my father know each other?” she asked James.
“He didn’t tell you?” James queried.
“No, it was all so sudden, his decision to send me here. And then I was quite disappointed that he couldn’t sail with me because he had some business to finish up. I wanted to wait for him, but with the Season already under way, he wanted me here soonest. Anyway, I never got around to asking him.”
“I’m rather curious myself,” Georgina admitted, glancing at her husband. Just what is this debt you owe? That letter didn’t say.”
“How do you put a price on a life? Brooks saved mine. I didn’t ask him to.”
“When was this?” Georgina asked.
“Long before I met you. I’d picked a fight in the wrong place at the wrong time, had about twenty drunken sailors trying to tear me apart.”
“Only twenty?” She snorted. “And you consider that life-threatening? To you?”
James chuckled. “Appreciate the vote of confidence, m’dear. But they’d already stabbed me, shot me, and pronounced me dead.”
A frown of concern immediately appeared on her face. “Were you really almost dead?”
“No, but one of the sailors had also cracked my head open, so I was no longer paying attention, and they were too drunk to notice I was still breathing.”
“You were unconscious?”
“Quite. But since they were convinced I was dead, they were determined to get rid of the evidence. They tossed me off the wharf there in St. Kitts. It was a deep dock. And the water didn’t revive me. Apparently I had no trouble sinking to the bottom.”
“So Nathan Brooks fished you out?”
“To hear him tell it, he nearly drowned himself trying,” he said.
“But he obviously succeeded.”
“It was luck all the way around, m’dear. His ship was docked there. I’d happened to be tossed in the water right next to it. But it was late at night. No one was around, and he wouldn’t have been there either to hear the commotion if he hadn’t come back to his ship to fetch some map he’d forgotten. Nor would he have bothered to fish out a dead body, but he happened to hear one of the crowd ask if they were sure I was dead. So he dove in to check. I woke up soaking wet, lying under the dock where he’d left me.”
