He didn’t want to talk about the treacherous siren any more than he wanted to think about her. When she’d upped and left on the afternoon post the same day as blasted Flora returned, without so much as a by-your-leave before he arrived home!
What sort of woman came apart in his arms before dawn and then abandoned him without a proper goodbye before dusk? Especially when only a few hours before, he had practically begged her tostay with him! He had dared to bare his heart, dared to be selfless and to do the unthinkable for her because he loved her so much, and she had as good as thrown it all back in his face. It was history repeating itself all over again and he was kicking himself for his galling, gullible stupidity. When he knew better than anyone that sailors and sirens did not mix!
Instinctively, his fingers reached for the letter he’d carried with him since he had found it on his nightstand. The short, sharp, dismissive missive that hadn’t so much as broken his heart for the second time but bludgeoned it irretrievably to mush. Yet he couldn’t bear to part with it when the damn thing deserved burning on the fire!
Dear Harry,
Now that our time together has reached its natural conclusion, please forgive me for stealing away like a coward, but I hate goodbyes. I wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your governess and, more importantly, the honor of being your friend. Please try to keep yourself safe and do your best not to sail into trouble while you achieve all the well-deserved accolades and promotions and enjoy all the great adventures which have always been your destiny. For what it is worth, I already know that you will forever be my greatest adventure, and I shall always fondly remember our time together without the slightest hint of regret.
With love,
Georgie
He must have read the damned thing at least a thousand times already, and yet it still cut him to the quick. Because he had begged her for forever and she had responded with goodbye.
In blasted impersonal writing.
The curt knock made him jump. “You’ve a visitor, Captain.” As his cabin opened, he stuffed the letter back in his waistcoat and tried to look like a busy man studying his charts.
“Hello, Henry.” How bloody typical of fate to send him the first woman who had made a fool out of him while he was still nursing the gaping wound left by the second.
“Elizabeth.” Ingrained politeness made him force a smile, but it wasn’t the least bit sincere. “What brings you here?” Although he suspected already that it was the challenge he presented. Elizabeth had never been good with the wordno,and she had always measured her self-worth in the amount she was coveted. This was the third time she had turned up at his ship like a bad penny since Georgie’s betrayal, despite him already giving her the shortest of shrifts twice.
“I find myself at a bit of a loose end with Francis gone to Dartmouth for a month.” She took the chair opposite with a butter-would-not-melt-in-her-mouth smile. “I thought you might be lonely and in dire need of some friendly company too while your charming fiancée remains away.” A stark reminder that he still hadn’t found the courage to announce the termination of his fake engagement to his superiors and comrades yet.
Because announcing it was as good as admitting to himself that it really was all over between him and Georgie and, heaven help him, despite her abrupt departure and callous letter, the remnants of his bludgeoned heart refused to give up all hope. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, after all, and according to my sources, you’ve been working on this ship all the hours God has sent this last week.”Her predatory gaze wandered to his bed. “Is it true you have even been sleeping here?”
As the very last thing he needed was her turning up here in the middle of the night, he denied it. “Of course not. Flora would kill me if I missed a family dinner. They are sacrosanct, as far as she is concerned.” In truth, he had slept here for five of the last seven nights, so his blasted sister likely would kill him if he didn’t go home tonight, and now that Elizabeth was on the prowl again, it probably made sense. “Which I am afraid I was just about to leave for… I do apologize.” He stood and, as he had hoped, she did too. She even allowed him to usher her halfway to the door before she turned and blocked his path.
“Well, if you ever do want some company…” Her hand brushed his sleeve. Lingered. “I would still very much like for us to pick up things where we left off.”
“From where you left me for another man, you mean, then married him before you had the decency to tell me?” Ingrained politeness only went so far, and her touch repelled him now.
“It’s not as if I had any choice!” For the first time, her flash of anger seemed genuine.
“Don’t tell me that your vice admiral blackmailed you up the aisle?” Lashing out with sarcasm felt good. “You poor thing.”
But she lashed out too, whacking him with her reticule and stamping her foot. “But I was blackmailed, idiot! Your horrid grandfather made it plain that he would ruin me if I didn’t marry Francis!”
“What?”
“He knew we’d had an… indiscretion…” Of course he had! “And he threatened to make it public unless I set you free.”
“I don’t believe you!” The admiral had made no secret that he disapproved of Harry’s engagement and had done his darndest to talk him out of it, but it was inconceivable that his own flesh and bloodwould stoop to outright sabotage. “But then you always did have a tenuous relationship with the truth!”
“Well, he did!” Elizabeth bristled, indignant. “And if you don’t believe me, ask my husband—because he had a promotion dangled as a reward for doing right by me so long as it was done fast. How else do you think a self-absorbed fool like Francis would have made vice admiral?”
As Harry couldn’t argue that Barrett-Hughes was a fool, he strode to the door instead and flung it open, outraged at her lies, yet hugely unsettled by them. “We are done, Elizabeth. We were done four years ago when you married your idiot. I accepted it was all over then and you have to accept it now, so please never darken my door again.”
No sooner had she stomped away across the quayside did he himself leave. He was sick and tired of this bloody ship today. Furious at Simpkins for mentioning Georgie and outraged at Elizabeth for… well, everything. That woman was a lying, cheating, poisonous serpent and if his grandfather had sent her packing—which he did not believe for a second—then he had likely done Harry a favor! A bloody underhanded, cruel, and hurtful favor, but still one he should probably be grateful for.
An indiscretion indeed!
He sincerely doubted that unfaithful tease had ever experienced a pair of cold sheets in her life! Before him! After him! Or, it would seem, while engaged to him!
He silently seethed for the entire journey across the Sound to Cawsand and on the uphill walk home, then slammed into the house, ready to snap at the first person who dared mention the slamming, only to be met by complete silence.
“Hello!” Why the hell was nobody here when he desperately needed to shout at someone? “Hello!”
