‘Mr Praxton, sir, it’s the Pallas, she’s arrived. Best come quickly, for I don’t fancy that they’ll hang about for long in this weather.’ Rain battered against the steamy windows just to highlight Blakely’s point.
Shrugging into his many-caped great coat, Mr Praxton accompanied the sodden Blakely through the door. The streets were a muddied mess, puddles pooling to overflow into miniature rivulets. Walter’s expensive leather boots strode through them all the same, splattering a pattern of mud speckles around the lower periphery of his overcoat. The stench of wet wool and filth drifted from his companion and a look of disdain flitted across his face. It was gone in an instant. Walter Praxton wasn’t fool enough to upset the small smelly man. Blakely, after all, was still of potential use.
By the time they reached the allotted spot, the Pallas was neatly and securely anchored. A small group of men huddled as a welcome party, wet and windblown. An orderly rabble of crew started to clamber out of the first boat, a trail of rain-drenched bodies rapidly forming a crowd within the dockyard. The carts and waiting carriers and cabs poised themselves to receive their customers. Officer’s sea chests were large and weighty, something that no man wished to carry far on a day like this. The boys and seamen lugged the wooden chests to the waiting recipients and, with a rapid salute, and a shake of the hand in some cases, were off.
Praxton’s pale blue eyes narrowed as he scanned each figure leaving the ship. He had seen several boys, none of whom could possibly have been Georgiana. Was Blakely’s information flawed? He pondered exactly what he would do if that proved to be the case. The little man’s life wouldn’t be worth living once Walter had finished with him. The thought spread a malicious grin across his handsome face. Never once did the narrow eyes waver from their cause, trained so obsessively on the emerging crew. A tall, well-built man came into view. Dressed smartly in a boat cloak and with his cocked hat catching the worst of the downpour, he held himself with supreme ease and self-confidence. Praxton did not doubt for a minute the man’s identity, for it was abundantly clear from his demeanour that this was none other than Nathaniel Hawke, the captain of the frigate. Walter frowned—where the hell was Georgiana? If Blakely had played him false…All thought broke off thereafter as Walter Praxton’s jaw gaped, slack and open. He stared as if he could not believe what lay before his very eyes. There could be no mistake. For there, walking behind Captain Hawke, was Georgiana Raithwaite, and not dressed in the guise of some ship’s boy either. From where he stood he could see that she wore a dark green walking dress that matched the colour of his own stylishly tailored coat. Around her shoulders was draped a pale woollen shawl, which seemed to be absorbing the English rain with the voracious capacity of a sponge. From beneath her bonnet peeped damp ebony ringlets that were fast losing the shape of the curl. The captain turned to her, offering his arm. Beside her walked a taller woman, dressed smartly as a lady in a walking dress and cape of dove grey. The rain was gradually darkening her attire to a deep smoky charcoal.
Walter watched as Georgiana willingly took the proffered arm, smiling up into the man’s rugged face. Bitter gall rose in his throat; he felt a band of tension constrict his chest and the overwhelming urge to run Captain Hawke through with the blade of his sword.
Blakely was prattling on in the background. ‘Don’t see the lad, gov. Not one that meets your description. Maybe he didn’t make it. Like I said, it ain’t an easy life out there.’
Mr Praxton ignored him, all his attention focused on the object of his desire. It was one thing to say that he would take her no matter her sullied state, and quite another to witness her play the part of another man’s mistress. His teeth ground together and his lips narrowed to a thin hard line. An image of her naked white body writhing beneath the tall, powerful man at her side arose unbidden to torture his mind. He clenched his knuckles and held his breath.
‘You all right, gov? Lookin’ a bit pale about the gills there, Mr Praxton.’
The narrow light eyes were focused far away.
‘Mr Praxton, sir,’ Bob persisted, rightly concerned that his payment wouldn’t be forthcoming if the gent decided to take a flaky turn.
Walter Praxton forced the wash of imaginings away, and turned to the odorous Blakely. ‘The woman on the captain’s arm, find out who she is,’ he hissed. A cold and malevolent light sparkled in his eyes. When Blakely did not move, he snapped derisively, ‘Now!’
A few minutes passed in the blissful absence of Blakely’s stench, watching the captain hand both women up into a waiting hansom cab. Hawke’s tall frame issued instructions to the driver before setting the ladies on their way and tracing his steps back to the ship’s master and the dockyard office.
Mr Praxton began to walk in long loping strides towards the few remaining vacant cabs.
Blakely caught at his arm as he threaded his way through the thinning crowd. ‘Mr Praxton, the lady is the captain’s wife. It’s Lady Hawke.’
A chill of pure malice traversed Praxton’s heart. Hawke had not only taken her to his bed, but had married the girl! All of his dreams, all that work, all that time, destroyed by Blakely’s few words. Rage erupted within his chest, but he battened it down. No one made a fool of Walter Praxton, not even the woman that he had wanted for as long as he could remember. ‘Find out all you can of Captain Hawke,’ he barked at Blakely, ‘and meet me tonight in the Crown.’ And with that he was off, his leather riding boots kicking up a pattern across the mud.
Georgiana regarded Nathaniel’s town house with a little apprehension. Not because it was small and somewhat spartanly furnished, or that the few servants had yet to remove their eyes from her. Rather, it was the knowledge that this place would see the start of her life properly as Captain Hawke’s wife. While aboard the Pallas, everything had been so much more contained, a small world of its own. Now that she was back on terra firma, all her problems loomed large and oppressive. No more thinking, no more planning. Here in England she would have to act or leave Nathaniel to face the deplorable consequences of her mistakes.
Mr Fraser had accompanied them from the dockyard to the house located within St Mary’s Street in Portsmouth. The elderly retainer set about chasing the gawking servants to light the fires and make the rooms ready. All this involved was a change of bedding as the house was maintained in a type of semi-ready alert, not knowing when the master was due to return. With only three bedrooms and one of these in use by the rather crotchety housekeeper, Mrs Posset, Georgiana found her few belongings delivered directly to Nathaniel’s room.
Mrs Posset, a small apple-shaped woman of indiscriminate years, eyed Georgiana with obvious suspicion. No amount of reassurance from Mr Fraser seemed to alleviate the coldness from her glare. It was clear that she regarded herself as some kind of defender of her employer, and had cast Georgiana in the role of the wily strumpet who had hoodwinked a naïve milord into marriage. Not so very far from the truth, thought the new Lady Hawke rather grimly, although she would not go quite as far as to describe herself in such strong terms. The housekeeper was not so condemnatory in her attitude to Mrs Howard, sensing in that lady one who would come up trumps in any altercation into which she was drawn. Besides, Mrs Posset reassured herself, the woman was far too old to present any real threat to milord. Not that this excused her for any part she may have played in assisting the scheming young lady, if one could call the trollop so, by her side.
Thus it was that when Nathaniel returned later that afternoon to the house in St Mary’s Street, he found a rather gloomy state of affairs and Mrs Posset with a face like an angry terrier.
‘The house is to your liking?’ he ventured, unsure of how to deal with the new-found tension.
‘Quite impeccable,’ replied Mrs Howard with the utmost politeness of manner. What she did not say was that she was only suffering to stay in such an abode to protect Georgiana from the worst of Mrs Posset’s sniping.
Georgiana nodded and curved her lips to a smile. ‘Yes, it’s a fine residence,’ s
he managed.
But Nathaniel did not miss the bleakness in her eyes, nor their stormy grey palette, that he knew from past experience to be indicative that she was in low spirits.
The evening progressed without improvement, from the dinner that was served under the direction of the rather steely-eyed Mrs Posset to Mrs Howard’s early retirement due to the headache. Indeed, he could have sworn he saw the housekeeper positively glower when Georgiana announced her intention to do likewise. But Nathaniel had little time to ponder as to what lay at the root of the glumness of the ladies’ mood. He supposed it to be due to fatigue, nothing more. Life at sea was hard enough for a man. The toll it had exerted upon the two women was bound to make itself known. And, besides, there was a much more pressing matter monopolising Captain Hawke’s attention.
An uneasiness lay heavy across Nathaniel’s soul. Tomorrow they would travel to Collingborne, a place he knew that he was not welcome. Georgiana was his wife now, come what may, and, as such, it was time she was presented to his family. The earl had told him to take a wife, and so he had. But he was under no illusion as to what his father’s response to Georgiana would be. When it came to Nathaniel the earl knew only one manner of behaviour, and Georgiana would not change that. Scornful bitterness. Nothing more, and nothing less. He did not doubt that his wife would be subjected to the same. And he had yet to utter a word of warning to the woman lying upstairs within his bed. He gulped at the brandy, allowing himself the short respite that its fiery deluge offered. How exactly did one go about informing one’s wife that she was married to the black sheep of the family? That his father could not stand the very sight of him—indeed, that he blamed Nathaniel for the death of the countess? With slow measured steps Nathaniel made his way to the bedroom.
Georgiana lay quite still, rolled upon her left side within the small bed, the blankets pulled high to cover her chin. She did not look round when she heard her husband enter the room. She did not need to, for the crackling fire within the grate cast the flicker of his shadow clearly upon the wall. She watched while the shadowman disrobed, folding each newly stripped article upon the storage chest at the bottom of the bed. Even in the dark silhouette upon the painted surface she could see the athletic strength in his finely toned body. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. She could hear the soft tread of his footsteps across the rugs, the rustle of his clothes as they left his limbs. The mattress tipped as his weight settled upon it and her heart tripped fast into a canter of beats. He moved to mirror the curve of her body, curling around her as if they were two spoons laid one on the other. The essence of sandalwood and soap drifted to her nose. Her heart careered to a blatant gallop and she tried to swallow down her arid throat. The touch of his naked skin seared through the flimsy cotton of her nightgown, asserting his claim over her, proclaiming their intimacy.
‘Georgiana.’ The hush of his words caressed her shoulder. His right hand meandered over, brushing her breasts as it traced a path to the flat plane of her stomach.
The gasp escaped her spontaneously, ejaculating into the silence of the room.
‘Are you asleep?’ he asked, although he must have known from the sound and the tremble of her body beneath his enquiring hand that she was not.
She wriggled round to face him, her eyes smouldering a deep dark blue in the warm glow of the fire.
His fingers slipped round to linger against her firm rounded buttocks. ‘It has been a long day, sweetheart, and I know that you’re tired.’ Shapely lips nuzzled affectionately against her forehead.
Georgiana’s body felt enlivened, as if the heavy mantle of fatigue had dropped from her shoulders. Stirrings fluttered low in her belly and a surge of excitement coursed through her veins. She raised her lips to his. ‘Not that tired,’ she murmured as she plucked one sweet kiss.
A dark winged eyebrow flickered, but he did not move to take her. ‘Patience, sweetheart.’
Georgiana wriggled with a growing enthusiasm. This time he smiled, but when his hand moved to stroke the softness of her short feathered hair she saw that his expression was not one of desire. His jaw was stiff with tension and his dark eyes serious. Her reaction died in an instant, torn apart by a sudden trepidation. Surely the Admiralty could not know so soon? She raised herself up on one elbow and stared at him with worried eyes.
‘Nathaniel?’ And in that one word was the question she did not dare to ask. ‘They cannot know already. We only docked today. How can they know?’ It was sooner than she’d expected, too soon.
‘Hush, petal.’ He suppressed a pang of guilt over the white lies, knowing exactly to what she was referring. A callused thumb touched to the soft pink cushion of her mouth. ‘Georgiana, there’s nothing to fear from the Admiralty. Not now, not ever.’ He was still looking at her, aware of the tension. ‘There’s another matter of which we must speak. You should be prepared for what lies ahead.’
She said nothing, just delivered a slight nod of the head and waited for her husband to find the words. The lines deepened around his mouth and a furrow etched vertically between his dark angled eyebrows. Georgiana braced herself for what was to come. A horrible possibility made itself known to her: what if he meant to put her aside after all? Was that why he was looking like a man about to face the firing squad? A sudden ball of nausea heaved in her stomach. She swallowed it down, and waited with as much courage as she could muster to her cause.
The dark eyes shuttered. ‘Tomorrow we travel to Collingborne House, the seat of my father, the Earl of Porchester.’
‘And he won’t be best pleased that you’ve married the daughter of a glorified innkeeper, even if he doesn’t know the rest of the truth. You don’t need to tell me, Nathaniel. I never expected anything else.’
A grimace twisted upon Nathaniel’s full lips. ‘Nothing concerning me would ever please my father, so don’t think that the reaction he may present is in any way connected to you.’
From the tautness of his musculature, she knew that he had touched upon a subject that pained his heart. In all that had happened, through all their trials, she had never seen him so patently distressed. ‘I sense there’s ill feeling between you and the earl. What has caused such a rift between you?’ she asked as gently as she could.
He did not want to tell her. That wasn’t supposed to be a part of this conversation. Just a warning, so that she would know what to expect before she arrived at the country house and witnessed the situation for herself. Yet he could not deny her the knowledge, felt that she had a right to know. If he did not tell her, she would only hear the story from another, and what guarantee had he that that person would not bias the truth?
She saw the light sheen of sweat upon his upper lip, felt his indecision. He sighed and then started to speak in his quiet and melodic tones.
‘It all happened so long ago. Nine years to be precise. I was twenty and as foolish as any young man of that age. There was a house party that Henry and I attended. He hadn’t met Mirabelle at that time and wasn’t quite as long-jowled as he is now. On the final night our host held a ball in honour of his daughter, a girl of nineteen with a reputation for being a little fast.’ He paused and shifted his gaze, his brow marring at the memory. ‘I danced with her, and then she asked me to walk with her through the gardens. Said she was too hot in the ballroom. I should have declined, but I didn’t. Once we were out of sight she made her intentions very clear. And I, fool that I was, responded to them. All the worse, for I knew what was being said of her.’
Georgiana said nothing, but it seemed that a heavy hand levered upon her heart.
‘I don’t wish to cause you pain, Georgiana, but it’s better that you know the truth. There should be no secrets between us.’ Brown eyes held blue with a stark intensity, and again the flutter of guilt brushed against him.
‘Of course,’ she murmured.
‘I was kissing her when her father came upon us. Needless to say, you can fathom his response to discovering the situation. He demanded that I wed her, and I refused. She�
�d set out deliberately to entrap me. And it seemed rather strange that her father decided to walk through his orange house alone, at that time of night, when he was supposed to be hosting a ball. I later learned that the very same circumstance had taken place with another young gentlemen, who happened to be heir to an earldom. Dropped their sights a little when they selected me. Probably thought that my father would see to it that I married the girl. And he damn near did.’ His breathing came fast and shallow, the sheen intensifying on his brow. He swallowed hard, more of a gulp, and waited for his wife’s response.
‘What happened?’ Her voice was low and husky, her eyes overly bright.
‘I explained the whole thing to my father and refused to marry the girl. I was labouring under the mistaken illusion that he would support me. Instead, he chose to believe the lies of a mere acquaintance over his own son.’
Georgiana understood the bitterness all too well.
‘It wasn’t as if I bedded her, excuse my blunt turn of phrase,’ he uttered aside. ‘But my father’s a man to whom duty and honour are everything. He would have none of it. Called me a coward and worse. Said I was a disgrace to the family name and that he’d ensure that I received not one penny in inheritance if I didn’t marry the girl. Well, I refused his instruction.’
Georgiana knew that feeling too, but kept quiet.
‘I removed myself from Collingborne and joined His Majesty’s Navy. The old man cut off my allowance and cursed me to the ends of the earth. We didn’t speak for years.’
Georgiana’s hand moved to cup his cheek. ‘Oh, Nathaniel,’ she uttered.
‘That’s not the worst of it. The rift between us caused my mother immense distress. She loved us both and was caught in the middle. She couldn’t disobey him, but neither could she fully desert me. I still have all of her letters. Three years ago she became ill, a wasting disease that sapped her strength and eventually her life. With the little time she had left she tried to mend the breach between us. But I was chasing Villeneuve in a frenzy of skirmishes throughout that summer and by the time I received word it was too late. My mother died thinking that she’d failed in her bid, that I’d ignored her letters. My father blamed me for her death. Said that I’d driven her to it with my scurrilous actions. Since then he can barely stand to look at me, let alone exchange a word.’
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