Alison DeLaine – A Wedding By Dawn (страница 2)
“Let me make one thing clear, Warre.” Jaxbury’s blue eyes glittered like cold sapphires. “Lady India’s a virgin, and whatever else happens, you’ll go easy on her even if I have to stand by the marital bed and watch.”
Nick curled his lip. “Enjoy that, would you?”
Jaxbury’s fist tightened in Nick’s shirt. “Careful, or you may find I’ve changed my mind about this folly.”
“This ‘folly’ does not require your approval.” Enough was enough. Nick pushed Jaxbury away and started forward.
Lady India’s days of wanton adventure were about to come to an abrupt end.
* * *
“FOOL’S ERRAND IS an insulting way to speak of something as profound as my deflowering, Millie.” India took a swig of ale and studied a square-jawed, dark-haired sailor through the crowd. Finally setting foot on Malta was a blessed relief for so many reasons.
“Nothing profound originates in a waterfront tavern,” Millie said.
India felt her foot resume its tapping. The tavern roared with conversations in every language, teemed with whores, barmaids and men who were too drunk to see past her waistcoat and breeches.
But she would make sure one of them saw the truth. Tonight.
Millie gripped her tankard as though she were the one about to invite the carnal knowledge of a Mediterranean stranger. “If you’re smart,” she continued to warn above the din, “you’ll keep your flower intact.”
“Smart is merely another word for prudent, dull and biddable.” And accomplished, well-versed and literate, but this sailor was one person who wouldn’t care that India was none of those things. He laughed at something his hollow-cheeked companion said, revealing an intriguing gold tooth. India leaned across the table toward Millie. “Do you think he’s Egyptian? I think I might like to be deflowered by an Egyptian.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
India snorted and pulled her tricorne hat lower across her eyes to better conceal her surveillance. If anyone was going to be sick, it would likely be her. Her lady’s maid Frannie had warned her that women of quality sometimes vomited after their virtues were taken.
Already the ale soured a little in her stomach, but she couldn’t help smiling. There was little of quality left of her, so she’d likely come through the event without disgracing herself.
Ha. Disgracing herself was the beginning and end of the entire endeavor.
The Egyptian sailor lifted his glass with a large hand that was no stranger to rope and canvas. Gold gleamed from the fingers that would unlock the last door to her freedom.
For freedom, she could endure a bit of vomiting.
She drew in an unsteady breath heavy with salt air and tobacco smoke, sailors and alcohol, and slipped a crust of bread to a brown-spotted mongrel who sat begging beneath the table. A loud trio of men jostled her from behind, sloshing a bit of ale onto her hand.
She licked it away and shifted on her stool but couldn’t quite make herself stand. “You’ll send the longboat back to shore for me?” she asked Millie.
“By the devil, India—” Millie huffed. From beneath her giant misshapen peasant’s hat, she frowned at India through a carefully applied layer of grime that almost completely hid her gender. “You cannot do this.”
She could, and she would. Now, before she lost her nerve completely. “I shall meet you back at the ship.”
“I’ll not return to the ship without you!”
“You can’t stay here by yourself!”
“India....” In Millie’s eyes India saw all the arguments Millie had already made against this plan: pain, pox, pregnancy.
The sailor didn’t look like a brute, and Millie swore all men were poxed, anyway. As for the third...
“I’ve got my vinegar sponge in my pocket.”
“For God’s sake, India—”
“Must you be so bloody contrary about everything? Always?” India’s palms began to sweat. She forced herself to her feet. Even now, Father’s lackeys could be afloat in the Med looking for her. He would have dispatched them the moment he’d learned she and Millie had borrowed Katherine’s ship. They would very likely find her, but she would not allow them to drag her back to England to marry whatever disgusting, fleshy fishbelly Father had paid to wed her.
If her father’s men succeeded, she could well find herself with Millie’s three P’s in spades regardless.
“If you catch his eye dressed like this,” Millie warned, “it won’t be deflowering that’s on his mind—at least, not the kind you’re thinking of.”
“I have a plan.” Pardon me, sir, she would say, there’s a gentleman outside asking to see you. Once outside, she would whisk off her hat, let her blond hair tumble free and tell him what she wanted.
On hearing this, Millie grabbed her arm. “We’re leaving. I absolutely will not allow you to commit such a folly. An utter stranger, who could have any manner of disgusting ideas—”
“Don’t be such a pill.” India wrenched her arm free. “Auntie Phil beds whomever she pleases. It can’t be so terrible and disgusting.” It probably could, but she’d already told herself to stop remembering the more shocking details Frannie had described.
“Your aunt’s deflowering took place in a marriage bed,” Millie hissed.
“Which can hardly happen to me as I have no intention of marrying.”
“I’ll never know how you’ve survived being such a dullard.”
The accusation stung more than Millie had intended. “Perhaps I shall marry the Egyptian.” India laughed. She might be a dullard, but she would soon be a dullard whom her father could marry off to absolutely nobody.
An especially rowdy bunch at a table in the far corner exploded in guffaws. The dark sailor punctuated his conversation with the kind of dramatic gestures that always accompanied an exotic tongue.
India reached for her tankard to take one last swig and hoped a deflowering didn’t take much time.
Millie grabbed her arm. “I’m serious, India. Ruining yourself won’t solve anything.”
“But it will most certainly solve one thing.” She set the tankard on the table and fixed her gaze on the sailor. “I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Every nerve came alive in an alarming swarm of anticipation.
“Nothing to lose! You’ll throw yourself away—”
“Oh, fie.” Virginity was the last virtue she had left to throw away. Everything else—her friends, her reputation, her popularity—was already gone. “I’m a woman of the high seas now, Millie. What does it matter if I give my virtue to a handsome sailor?”
But suddenly Millie wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was looking past India’s shoulder, and her eyes had grown as big as silver crowns.
“It matters, Lady India,” came a cold voice from behind her, “because you are betrothed to me.”
BETROTHED.
India whipped around and looked up into heartless green eyes set like flints above an arrogant nose and grim mouth. They were eyes so cold they could have belonged to an executioner, in the kind of face that could command the attention of an entire ballroom.
And he wasn’t alone. Next to him stood—
“William!” Freedom collapsed like a sail in a dead breeze.
William grinned and crossed his arms. “Such a disappointing welcome, Indy. Not happy to see us?” India thought she might end up vomiting with her virtue still intact. William shifted his laughing blue eyes to Millie. “Why, Millicent, you’ve gone pale. At least, I think you have. Difficult to tell beneath all that—what is that on your face?” He reached a finger toward her cheek, but Millie swatted it away.
India glanced away from them at the Egyptian sailor. At Millie, whose eyes had grown sharp with alarm—and that bloody pessimism that was the bane of India’s existence. There was no question what Millie was thinking: They would never escape William, the man who had taught their own mentor to survive on the high seas.
But India wasn’t above trying. “We’re overjoyed to see you, aren’t we, Millie?” she said brightly. “We absolutely are. What a stroke of good fortune— Millie, was I not just saying how much I wished we had friends in town? And now here you are. Join us, and let’s toast your return to the Mediterranean.” It took all her willpower not to look at William’s companion.
William laughed. “Very well. We’ll play that game if you wish.”
Game? Millie and India had sailed with William on the Possession. He knew how important their freedom was to them. Yet he thought this was a game?
“For God’s sake, Jaxbury,” the betrothal-announcer muttered irritably.
From the corner of her eye she could see he was dressed impeccably, conservatively, as though he’d just emerged from Westminster. Except no respectable man would be desperate enough to enter into an agreement to marry her, which meant he was what—a slave to the gaming tables? The holder of an empty title? A merchant with a mountain of debt?
Even now she could hear her father’s voice. You will choose one of these men, India, or I will choose for you.
The tavern seemed to close in on her. It would take seconds to dart across the room to the Egyptian, seconds more to reveal that she was a woman, a moment or two to convey what she needed. They would need to leave the tavern and go—where? Where would they go?
“Forgive me.” William laughed. His gold earrings glittered terrifyingly in the light from candles sputtering in an iron chandelier. “I see my new shipmate is growing impatient. Introductions and all that—terrible manners on my part. Lady India, may I present Nicholas Warre, Lord Taggart.”