“You thought I’d have to find a new bed, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
Hearing his past difficulties aired so nonchalantly, Anthony let his assumed boredom drop clean away with a choking sound and then a growl, “If your father don’t blister your hide, youngun, I’m bloody well thinking of doing it!”
But Jeremy wasn’t concerned with his uncle’s chagrin just now, real or not. “What are you going to do?” he asked his father.
As if it were a foregone conclusion, James replied, “I’m going to go up and beat my wife, of course.”
No matter how mildly he’d said it, six voices rose in immediate protest. James almost laughed, it was so absurd. They knew him better than that, or ought to, yet even Anthony was suggesting he think about it first. He hadn’t said another word, or made a move to do as he’d said, but they were still arguing their points when Dobson opened the front door again and Warren Anderson pushed past him.
Anthony was the first to see this mountain of male
fury heading straight for his brother and, with a nudge to James’s ribs, asked, “Friend of yours?”
James followed his gaze and swore, “Bloody hell, enemy is more like it.”
“One of your brothers-in-law by any chance?” Anthony guessed as he wisely got out of the way.
James was given no opportunity to answer since Warren had reached him by that time and immediately took a swing at him. James blocked the first punch easily, but Warren ducked his return swing and came up with a solid blow to James’s middle.
With the breath momentarily knocked out of him, he heard Warren sneer, “I learn from my mistakes, Malory.”
One swift jab to daze him, and one hard right landed Warren on the floor at James’s feet for James to reply, “Not well enough, apparently.”
As Warren was shaking his head to clear it, Anthony asked James, “Is this the one that wanted to hang you?”
“One and the same.”
Anthony offered Warren a hand up, but held on when Warren was standing and tried to get his hand back. And there was pure menace in his voice as he asked Warren, “How does it feel, having the tables turned, Yank?”
Warren merely glared at Anthony. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look around you. It’s not your family that surrounds you this time, but his. I’d bloody well keep my fists in my pockets were I you.”
“Go to hell,” Warren said as he snatched his hand back.
Anthony could well have taken exception to that, but instead he laughed and cast James a look that said clearly, Well, I tried. It’s your turn again. But James didn’t want another turn. He just wanted Warren Anderson out of there, out of England, out of his life. If the man weren’t so belligerent, obnoxious, and plainly hostile, he might try explaining things rationally to him. But Warren Anderson was not a rational man. Besides, James simply didn’t like the fellow, understandable since this was the chap who’d wanted to see his neck stretched by a rope.
Coldly, ominously, James warned him, “We can do this the hard way and I can beat you to a bloody pulp—and don’t doubt it, dear boy, I won’t need any help to do so—or you can just leave.”
“I’m not leaving without my sister,” Warren maintained staunchly.
“Now there you’re wrong, Yank. You gave her to me, and I’m keeping her, and I’m especially keeping her away from you and your bloody propensity toward violence.”
“You didn’t want her!”
“Like hell I didn’t!” James growled. “I wanted her enough to let you nearly hang me!”
“You don’t make sense, man,” Warren said, frowning now.
“’Course he does,” Anthony interjected at this point, laughing. “Perfect sense.”
James ignored his brother to assure his brother-in-law, “Even if I didn’t want her, Anderson, you still wouldn’t get her back now.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because she’s having my baby, and I haven’t for
gotten that you’re the man who thinks beating her will solve everything.”
“But didn’t Malory say he was going to—”
“Shut
up
, Percy!” came from three different directions.
Warren was too shaken up now to notice. “My God, Malory, I wouldn’t hurt her even if she weren’t…Hell, she’s my sister!”
“She’s
my
wife, which gives me all rights in the matter, one of which is my right to deny you access to her. You want to see her, you’ll have to make your peace with me first.”
Warren’s response to that wasn’t surprising, considering James looked anything but peaceable at the moment. “Like hell I will, and your rights be damned. If you think we’ll leave her in the hands of a pirate, think again!”
They were impotent last words, but Warren knew he’d have no luck getting Georgina out of that house right then, since he had come alone, while Malory was surrounded by family and friends. It enraged him beyond measure that he’d have to leave without her, but for the moment he had no choice. He left furious, and the only reason the door didn’t slam behind him as he stormed out was that Dobson had snatched it open before he reached it.
Anthony rocked back on his heels and gave a hoot of laughter. “Don’t know whether to congratulate you about the baby, old man, or because you got rid of its uncle.”
“I need a bloody drink,” was James’s only response, and he headed back into the parlor to find one.
Much as he would have liked it otherwise, the whole lot of them followed. By the time the rest of the congratulations had died down, James was on his way to being quite foxed.
“Little George wasn’t too far off the mark when she described her brothers, was she?” Anthony remarked, still quite amused over the whole affair. “Are they all as big as that one?”
“Just about,” James mumbled.
“He’ll be back, you know,” Anthony speculated. “And likely with reinforcements.”
James disagreed. “The others happen to be a bit more levelheaded. Not by much, mind you, but a bit. They’ll go home now. What can they do, after all? She’s my wife. They saw to it.”
Anthony chuckled, not believing a word of it. “That ghastly word’s coming easier to you, is it?”
“What word?”
“Wife.”
“Go to the devil.”
G
eorgina couldn’t believe it. He’d locked her in. And no matter how much she’d pounded on the door all through the night, finally giving up in exhaustion, no one had come to let her out. And they were still ignoring her this morning. How
could
Warren do this to her? And after she’d defied her husband’s dictates just to relieve his mind about her welfare.
She wished now that she’d never heard his voice last night, raised so loud as he shouted at her husband in the hall below. But she did, and of course it had drawn her out of her room with every intention of rushing right down to him.
But before she’d reached the stairs, she’d heard James refuse to let Warren see her, and she knew she’d only get him angrier at her than he already was if she just went down to join them. So she thought she’d been real clever in deciding to sneak out the back way once again so she could come around to wait for Warren to leave. And she didn’t doubt that he’d be leaving. James’s refusal had been more than adamant.
So she’d waited out front and surprised Warren when he stormed out of the house. She’d wanted to assure him she was all right. She’d wanted to tell him not to worry about her anymore. She hadn’t expected him to thrust her into his carriage and drive off with
her. Devil take it, why couldn’t James have thought to lock her in instead, then she wouldn’t be here, on Warren’s ship, panicking because he had every intention of taking her home, not to James, but to Connecticut. And he wouldn’t listen to the fact that she didn’t want to go. He hadn’t listened to anything she’d had to say. She was afraid, too, that he wasn’t even going to tell the rest of her brothers that he had her!
In that she was wrong, as she found when the door opened and Thomas stepped into the cabin. “Thank God” were her first words, because it was her one brother who didn’t let temper affect his judgments.
“My sentiments exactly, sweetheart,” he said as he held out his arms to her and she quickly entered them. “We’d about given up hope of finding you.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” She leaned back to demand, “Did you know Warren had locked me in?”
“He did mention it last night when he returned to the hotel and told us what had happened.”
She pushed away from him. “You mean you left me here all night!”
“Calm down, sweetheart. There was no point in letting you out sooner, when you aren’t going anywhere.”
“The devil I’m not!” she said furiously on her way to the door. “I’m going home!”
“I don’t think so, Georgie.” This from Drew, who appeared in the doorway right then to effectively cut off her exit. To Thomas, he said, “Well, she looks fit enough, doesn’t she? No bruises. Spitting mad.”
Georgina felt like spitting, or screaming. Instead she took a deep breath, took another, then asked in a perfectly calm voice, “Warren didn’t tell you, did he,
that I wasn’t in need of rescuing? Right? He forgot to mention that I’m in love with my husband? Is that why neither of you bothered to let me out of here sooner?”
“He didn’t mention the love part, no,” Thomas admitted. “I seriously doubt he believes it. But he did say you’d demanded to be taken back to your husband. He thinks you’re suffering under misplaced loyalty because you’re going to have the man’s baby. How are you feeling, by the way?”
“I’m…How did you know?”
“Malory told Warren, of course. He used that as one of the reasons he’s keeping you.”
One of the reasons? It was probably the only reason, and why hadn’t she thought of that before? Because she’d begun to think James really hadn’t heard her when she’d told him about the baby, since he’d never once mentioned it to her.
She moved over to the bed and sat down, trying to fight the depression that was sneaking up on her. She couldn’t let the reasons matter, she just couldn’t. She loved James Malory enough for the both of them. And as long as he wanted to keep her, then she wanted to stay with him. There, that settled that. So why didn’t she feel any better?
Thomas startled her when he sat down next to her. “What did I say to upset you, Georgie?”
“Nothing…everything.” She was grateful to have something to take her mind off the fact that James didn’t love her. Them! Her brothers were being too high-handed by half. “Would you two mind telling me what I’m doing here?”
“It’s all part of the plan, Georgie.”
“What plan? To drive me crazy?”
“No.” Thomas chuckled. “To get your husband to be reasonable.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Would he let Warren see you?” Drew asked her.
“Well, no.”
“Would he have changed his mind about it, do you think?” Thomas asked.
“Well, no, but—”
“He’s got to be made to see that he can’t keep you from us, Georgie.”
Her eyes flared. “You intend to take me all the way home just to teach him a lesson?” she cried.
Thomas grinned at her chagrin. “I doubt it will be necessary to go that far.”
“But if he thinks we will…” Drew didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate, and it wasn’t.
Georgina sighed. “You don’t know my husband. All this is going to do is get him mad.”
“Maybe. But I guarantee it will also work.”
She doubted it, but wasn’t going to argue about it. “So why couldn’t Warren have told me all this last night?”
Drew snorted before answering, “Because our dear Warren never agreed to the plan. He has every intention of taking you home with us.”
“What!”
“Now don’t worry about Warren, sweetheart,” Thomas told her. “We won’t be leaving for at least a week, and your husband is sure to show up long before then to settle this thing.”
“A week? You came all this way, won’t you stay longer than that?”
“We’ll be back.” Thomas chuckled. “And quite regularly, it seems, since Clinton has decided that as long as we’re here anyway, we might as well make this rescue profitable. He’s off right now arranging for future cargoes.”
Georgina might have laughed at that if she weren’t so upset by all of this. “I’m delighted to hear it, but I didn’t need rescuing.”
“We didn’t know that, sweetheart. We’ve been worried sick about you, especially since, according to Boyd and Drew, you didn’t go willingly with Malory.”
“But you know now that I did so why won’t Warren give it up?”
“Warren is hard to understand at the best of times, but in this case…Georgie, don’t you know that you’re the only woman that he has any kind of feelings at all for?”
“Are you trying to tell me he’s given up women?” She snorted.
“I don’t mean
those
kind of feelings, but the tender kind. I think it actually upsets him that he has any feelings at all. He wants to be completely hardhearted, but there you are, making him care.”
“He’s right, Georgie,” Drew added. “Boyd said that he’d never in his life seen Warren so upset as when he came home and found you gone off to England.”
“And then Malory arrived, and he saw it as his inability to protect you.”
“But that’s absurd,” she protested.
“Actually, it’s not. Warren takes your welfare very personally, perhaps more personally than any of the
rest of us do, because you
are
the only woman he cares about. If you take that into consideration, then it’s not so surprising, this hostility he feels for your husband, particularly after everything the man said and did when he showed up in Bridgeport.”
“Why
did
he set out to ruin your reputation that night, Georgie?” Drew asked her curiously.
She made a face of disgust. “He felt slighted because I sailed off with you without saying goodbye to him.”
“You must be joking,” Thomas said. “He didn’t strike me as a man who would go to such extremes for petty revenge.”
“I’m just telling you what he told me.”
“Then why don’t you ask him again. You’ll probably hear a completely different reason.”
“I’d rather not. You don’t know how infuriated that night still makes him. After all, you men throttled him, married him off, confiscated his ship,
and
locked him in a cellar to await hanging. I don’t dare mention your names to him.” Saying all that made her realize how hopeless their plan really was. “Devil take it, he’s
not
going to change his mind, you know. What he’ll probably do is bring
his
whole family down here and tear this ship apart.”