A Promise by Daylight

by Alison Delaine

  And she’d deserved it. She’d deserved worse than what William gave her. He’d given her the lightest punishment the crew would have tolerated and remained loyal to him as captain. But that didn’t change the fact of the ugly scars that would crisscross her back for the rest of her life.

  Because of him.

  Because what she’d done to him first was worse.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I sail for Italy in a week, and then to Turkey.” He put his hands on her arms. “I want you to join my crew. Be my ship’s surgeon.”

  There was a heartbeat when Millie’s mind went numb.

  “You can’t.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t. Not after—”

  “Sod all that,” he said fiercely. “None of it matters anymore. At least, not your part in it.” He looked at her, eyes regretful, mouth grim. “I won’t ask your forgiveness. But I won’t hurt you again. You have my word.”

  He thought he needed her forgiveness? “You had every right—”

  “I was the captain. Could have done as I bloody well pleased.”

  “No, not as angry as those men were. You had no choice.”

  “I won’t discuss this anymore. Bad enough what I’ve done...but I could murder Phil for sending you here.” William’s blue eyes glanced over her, taking in her disguise. It wasn’t the first time William had seen her dressed like a man. “What the bloody blazes was she thinking? Tell me he hasn’t compromised you.”

  He. Winston. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m his medic, nothing more.”

  But her mind and her body were still steeped in last night, and she felt her cheeks warm, felt the truth written all over her face for her old friend to read.

  “Bloody hell.” His eyes turned ice-cold, and he closed the distance between them. “You can’t stay here. You’ll come with me, right now.”

  What? “But my employment here isn’t finished—”

  “Your employment—for Christ’s sake—never should have begun.”

  “The duke was going to Greece—”

  “And he went to your bed instead.”

  “Sir William,” came Winston’s sharp voice from the doorway.

  Millie’s head whipped around, and William released her, striding toward Winston. “Sodding bastard,” he said, and landed a fist across Winston’s jaw.

  “William!” Millie screamed. Already a handful of servants were rushing to the doorway, and Winston was still on his feet, putting a hand to his lip, which she saw now was bleeding. But he did not raise his hand to strike William in return.

  “To what do I owe the honor, Jaxbury?” Winston said.

  William flexed his fists as if he was considering throwing another punch. “I think you know bloody well.”

  “William, don’t. Please.” And now Winston was looking at her, and she could see the questions in his eyes, and they were questions she didn’t want him to know the answer to.

  “I’ll not see you harmed further, Millie,” William said, without turning. “Putting a stop to it today. Go upstairs, pack your things and come with me.”

  Today.

  “I’m not ready to leave today.” But she should be. William was offering her...everything she wanted. But to leave Winston, now, after last night...

  “I can assure you that I have no more desire to see Miss Germain harmed than you do,” Winston said coldly.

  “Bollocks. Your reputation is well-known.”

  “I don’t need to tolerate this in my own house.”

  William turned to her, and now they were both looking at her. Waiting.

  And she needed to go with William. She should go with him. There was nothing for her here. Except Winston.

  “I can’t,” Millie said.

  “Devil take it, Millie.” William started toward her, but Winston stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

  “She’s given you her answer. I have no doubt she’ll let you know if she changes her mind,” he said.

  Millie thought for a moment William wasn’t going to leave. But he backed down and turned to leave.

  William offered an opportunity she would never have again. Otherwise, when she left Winston’s employ, she would be alone. She followed William out over Winston’s objection.

  “He doesn’t know,” she told William when they couldn’t be heard. “He thinks I’m merely one of Philomena’s acquaintances. He doesn’t know the rest, and I don’t want him to.” Winston respected her now. He wouldn’t if he found out all the awful things she’d done. “Please—you must go.”

  “Tell me you don’t fancy yourself in love,” William said.

  “I’m not a fool.”

  “Then let me help you.” He took her by the shoulders. “Let me give you back the life you had aboard the Possession.”

  * * *

  SHE PROBABLY SHOULD have gone with him. Today, just like he’d said.

  Instead, she’d told him she needed more time and she’d promised she would consider his offer.

  But she couldn’t simply leave Winston. Not after last night, without so much as a...

  As a what?

  She didn’t know. But now she was in the house, and Harris said Winston wanted to see her in the library, and now she would have to face him.

  He sat at the large desk, sorting through some papers. She watched him for a moment, saw that his lip was cracked and red where William had hit him—defending her honor, when she was the one who had asked Winston to stay with her last night.

  Then he looked up, and she met his eyes, and suddenly she wasn’t sure how she would be able to make herself leave at all unless he dismissed her.

  He stood, came around from behind the desk. “How are you?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

  “Very well.” Except it turned out that last night had not been an end to anything, because here she was wanting to reach for him all over again.

  He looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether she was telling the truth, and then he nodded. “Good,” he said, in such a low voice she could barely hear it. And then, more evenly, “How do you know William Jaxbury?”

  She’d already rehearsed her answer. “He’s a friend of a friend.” It was true. “Lady Pennington, in fact.” That, too, was the truth.

  “A very close friend, apparently.”

  “Please accept my apologies. I had no idea he would...”

  “Discern the truth?” Amusement barely whispered across Winston’s face as he looked at her, let his gaze roam over her face, her body, clothed now as Miles. “He’s not your lover, I know that much.”

  “William?” The idea almost made her laugh. “He’s like a brother to me,” she said, and immediately realized how much that simple statement revealed.

  Winston regarded her for a moment and then reached for something on the desk, a letter, the two halves of its broken seal stuck like thick blood to the paper. “My presence is required in London. I shall be leaving immediately, and I expect to be there at least a week, perhaps more.”

  London. The word and all it implied burst into her mind in vivid detail. They would never be alone in London. A pain caught her in the chest, and now she realized she should have accepted William’s offer on the spot.

  “It was time I was on my way anyhow—”

  “I want you to come with me—” They’d spoken at the same time, and now he cut off. “On your way,” he said.

  “You won’t need a medic in London.”

  “That’s neither here nor there. For God’s sake, do you really imagine that I would—” He stopped, as if he wasn’t quite certain what he’d been about to say.

  And with every passing moment his life in London was piecing itself together in her mind, one entertainment, one acquaintance after the next. Every form of carnality was to be found in London. Every kind of temptation.

  It wasn’t hard to predict what would happen once he got there.

  “I can’t remain in your employ forever,” she said. “I don’t wan
t to. You already know that.”

  “I’m only talking about a few more weeks—the time I’m required to spend in London, until I’m able to return to my estate. Perhaps a bit longer, just to be certain.”

  “Certain of what?”

  “Of my health.” He made a frustrated gesture. “Of my complete recovery. In case anything should happen—anything that might aggravate the freshly healed injuries.”

  It was ridiculous. Nothing was going to slash open his wounds. He was perfectly sound now, and they both knew it.

  Yet he wanted her to stay.

  The fact of it surged hotly inside her, almost like the thrust of his body, except fuller and more completely. And there was no doubt, if she stayed, what would happen between them.

  Just a little bit longer.

  It wouldn’t hurt to stay with Winston just a few days more.

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall go with you to London.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FROM THE MOMENT Winston arrived in town, it began—demands, invitations, callers...his life, the way it had always been. As if there had never been an accident, never any useless vow or crisis of conscience.

  London didn’t care about one young woman’s virtue or the fact that he had taken it when he had no right to, or the even more damning fact that he couldn’t quite regret it.

  He presented himself at the palace, listened for two hours about the excessive power of Parliament, and then met for two more hours with a handful of malcontents at Westminster and heard about the king’s overreaching.

  But he wasn’t quite concentrating on business.

  He couldn’t touch her again. He knew that much.

  Even though he wanted to. Because making love to her was a madness beyond compare to anything. He’d never experienced anything like it, and he couldn’t quite reconcile the idea of never experiencing it again.

  Which was why, when his business was finished, he went to White’s instead of going home. Had supper there, and plenty of company, and just enough distraction to keep him from changing his mind.

  He should never have brought her to London in the first place. But he needed more time. For what, he had no idea.

  The one thing he could not do was compromise her and simply leave her.

  He’d just finished a game of billiards when the much-celebrated Captain James Warre, Earl of Croston, approached him.

  “Thought you were convalescing in the country,” Croston said, picking up a stick.

  “The country became a bit claustrophobic.”

  “For you, I don’t doubt it.” They started a new game, and Croston took the first shot. “You appear to be completely recovered,” he said.

  “Mmm.” Winston lined up his shot, sank a ball in the corner pocket. “Excellent medical attendant.”

  “So I’ve heard. Miles Germain, is it?”

  Bloody hell. “You know him?”

  “Miles Germain? Can’t say that I do.”

  Winston had been about to line up his next shot, but now he straightened. Looked at Croston, who stood on the same side of the table. “Perhaps you know my medic by a different name.”

  “I shall face hell at home if I do not do my duty and warn you off her. My wife won’t tolerate anyone treating her ill. Nor shall I, for that matter. In a very real way, I owe her my life as much as I owe it to Katherine.”

  Winston knew of only one connection between Croston, his wife, Katherine, and William Jaxbury.

  “You’re telling me Miss Germain was aboard your wife’s ship.”

  “I know firsthand what an excellent medic she is,” Croston said. “She did a very thorough job restoring my health. I’d have her as ship’s surgeon aboard any vessel of mine without question.”

  Winston finally bent down, lined up his shot. After the disastrous shipwreck when Croston had been found and pulled to safety by Katherine Kinloch, he’d been tended to by Millicent. Ship’s surgeon. It explained everything.

  He missed the shot. “Was it Miles Germain that tended you, or Millicent?”

  Croston gave a laugh. “I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Miles.”

  And now Winston wondered if he had ever met Millicent. But a picture was coming together—one that was scarcely credible. He imagined her aboard a sailing ship. It wasn’t as difficult an image as he might have thought. Her sensible demeanor, her no-nonsense expectations. He could imagine her doing just about anything aboard a ship, from doctoring the sailors to hoisting the sails.

  If she’d sailed with Croston’s wife, she must have done even more than that. She’d likely helped take ships. Perhaps fought Barbary pirates, although that was difficult to imagine, as small as she was.

  Millicent was as much a renegade half-pirate as Katherine was. But where Katherine had her title to protect her, Millicent would never be accepted in society and had, apparently, even been rejected by her own family. All because...

  She wanted to live a life that was closed to her unless she became someone else.

  Miles Germain.

  And through it all, she’d managed to guard her virginity. Until him.

  Croston sank two balls before missing a third.

  Winston thought of something else. “Did your wife take the lash to her?”

  “Good God, no. Katherine wasn’t that kind of captain. I’ve never seen a more devoted crew.” Croston frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  Croston didn’t know about the lashes. And for Millicent’s sake, Winston wasn’t going to tell him. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about any...injuries she’s received?” He rounded the corner of the table, took his next shot. Glanced up to see Croston’s mouth settle into a grim line of comprehension.

  “You’re talking about the beating she took. I don’t know what permanent damage it might have left—little on the surface, I would imagine. But her brother beat her nearly to death. We were all quite concerned that she might leave us.”

  “When was this?”

  “Months ago. But she was able to pull through, fortunately. Convalesced in Katherine’s town house.”

  “The man ought to be hanged, taking the lash to her like that.”

  “Lash?” Croston looked at him. “I don’t recall any lashings. All blows from the bastard’s fists.”

  Winston could hardly comprehend what he was hearing. Millicent had been beaten and lashed?

  “Then she’s been back to see him?”

  “As far as I’m aware, she’s been out of the country until she arrived with you. What’s all this about lashings?”

  Which meant that she’d lied. And why in God’s name would she do that?

  “A misunderstanding, apparently.”

  At home in the wee hours, he stood for long minutes outside her closed door, one hand braced on the jamb, reciting all the reasons he should not go in.

  Finally he pushed away and went to his room.

  * * *

  MILLIE HAD JUST finished Miles Germain’s morning toilette when Winston knocked on the door. She knew it was him—could recognize the way he knocked. Rap-rap. Two solid thumps.

  She drew in a breath to calm a sudden flutter in her belly as she opened the door.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” she said in her most formal tone, in case any of the staff were listening. In this house, so much smaller than the house at the estate, she’d noticed after only a day that they seemed to be everywhere all the time.

  He gestured for permission to come in and closed the door behind him.

  “Good morning,” he said. His voice was low. Familiar. With a hint of uncertainty? “I shall be out most of the day,” he said now. “I wanted you to know.”

  “Thank you.” He could have had Harris or Sacks tell her.

  He hadn’t come to her last night. She’d lain awake a very long time, listening, wondering, but had fallen asleep before she heard him return.

  It was impossible not to wonder, now, whether he’d found more suitable company instead. The possibi
lity hurt a little, deep inside her chest.

  Winston cast dissatisfied eyes over her clothing. “I’m coming to despise that bagwig and suit,” he said.

  “I can hardly change it now.” Here, in London, where rumors would spread from the staff throughout town like wildfire.

  She wondered briefly what she was doing here. She would scarcely get to see him, was positive that when she did see him, it would lead to...more.

  He reached for her hand and drew circles on her palm with his thumb. “True enough,” he said. He was regarding her very intensely, as if she were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

  And she couldn’t stand another night like the last one, so she asked, “Will you be late tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” He searched her eyes, possibly trying to determine whether she wanted him to be late, or...

  Something else.

  She moistened her lips. His eyes darkened.

  “I should tell you,” he said, “that you’re free to return to the estate if you wish.”

  Did he want her to return?

  “I would rather be here.” With him holding her hand, lacing his fingers through hers now, holding more tightly, sending delicious sensations through her with just that simple contact.

  He moved closer. “What will you do today?”

  “I don’t know.” It was impossible to think and stand this way at the same time. “Read, most likely.” And think about what to do next, and whether to accept William’s offer, and what was going to happen tonight when Winston came home.

  “I’ve put a carriage at your disposal should you wish to visit anyone.” He paused. “Do you have any acquaintances in London? There is Lady Pennington, of course. I understand she’s in town.”

  “Yes. Perhaps I shall see her.” There was also Katherine, whom she still hadn’t been able to come up with words for, and her little daughter, Anne, whom Millie had hurt most of all when she’d left Katherine and returned home to her brother. And India, whom Millie suddenly longed to see. But most likely, none of them would want to see her. “I doubt I shall need the carriage. I don’t have any friends to see.” It was true. And it made her heart ache fiercely, but she tried to hide it with a smile. “I’m not terribly fond of London.”