by Sabrina York
Ewan patted her hand. It did not relieve his wife’s horror. “He’s a good man.”
Kaitlin grimaced. “He’s a dandy.”
“Does his mother approve?” Violet asked in a syrupy tone.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s handsome and young—”
“Hardly a young buck any longer.”
“And he has ten thousand a year. He will keep Sophia like a princess.”
Violet nodded. “If his mother approves.”
“Violet, please. She’s said no to every offer. And Dittenham is insistent.”
“Dittenham stinks.” Sophia hardly expected her pronouncement to incite titters around the table but it did.
Ewan went red in the face. “Sophia Fiona St. Andrews!”
“Well, he does.”
Violet and Kaitlin nodded.
“He does.”
“Rather hideously.”
Ewan slammed his hand on the table. “His odor is not an issue here—”
Violet shook her head. “I rather think it is. Heavens, darling. A woman has to like the way a man smells to…” She flourished a hand.
Kaitlin nodded. “It’s a very basic thing.”
“Really?” Edward entered the conversation for the first time; he’d been preoccupied wiping bisque from his inexpressibles. “Do you like the way I smell?”
Kaitlin wrinkled her nose. “At the moment, you rather smell like lobster, but generally speaking, yes. I do.”
This pleased the duke and he kissed his wife. With more passion than was generally called for at the dining table.
Ewan frowned. “I hardly see this as an issue.”
“Because you’re a man, darling.” Violet patted his arm. “Sophia isn’t interested in princes or dukes or ten thousand a year. She wants passion and love—”
“Passion?” Ewan was clearly disturbed by the prospect of Sophia ever having it.
That disappointed her more than the Dittenham falderal. Why should she not have passion in her marriage as he did? Some great love? Or adventure like Ned? Or something worth waking up for.
“She said no to a prince, for Christ sake. There is no pleasing the girl. Dittenham is perfectly respectable. A fine match.” His gaze gored her. His chin firmed. A shiver raked her. She knew that look. “Dittenham it is.”
“No,” she croaked through the bitterness clogging her throat.
“Ewan!”
He ignored his wife’s demur, his gaze intensifying. “Yes.”
“I won’t marry him.”
“You will.”
Sophia stood and threw her napkin onto the table.
“Where are you going?” Ewan barked.
“I have a megrim,” she barked right back.
“But what about Dittenham?” he called after her as she strode from the room.
“Dittenham,” she snorted, more to herself than to him. “Dittenham be damned.”
All of them be damned.
If her brother had his way, she could be consigned to a deadly dull marriage with a man who smelled of fish for the rest of her days, never having known the thrill of a great love.
To hell with that.
She was going to find it, this adventure. And she was going to find it on her own.
Chapter Three
The news that Sophia had yet another suitor did not come as a surprise to Ned but it had, certainly scuttled his appetite. He leaned back to let the footman clear his plate.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” Violet said.
“Me?” Ewan squawked. “What have I done?”
Kaitlin blew out a breath. “Honestly, Ewan. If you knew anything at all about women—”
“I do!”
“Hah!” Ned glanced at Aunt Hortense, who seemed to have recovered from her bath, at least enough for this ejaculation.
The conversation swirled around him, Violet and Kaitlin badgering Ewan that he had gone too far in pressing Dittenham’s suit, and Ewan blustering that he had not.
He finally slammed his hand on the table—again—and roared, “Enough. I am her brother. I shall decide. And I choose Dittenham.”
Silence settled over the room. Ned’s gut churned.
Well. That was that.
He lifted a finger for the footman, but when he brought more wine, Ned asked for a whisky. He’d need it to get through this without screaming aloud.
“So, Ned…” Aunt Hortense leaped into the chasm of silence. “Tell us all about your coming journey.”
Damn and blast. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it. But the footman brought him his drink, which he quickly downed. It provided the bravado he desperately needed. “Oh,” he gushed, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. “It will be positively famous.”
“Famous!” his brother Sean cried.
“Yes.” Tay’s head bobbed. “Positively famous.”
How lucky he was that someone was excited.
In his mind, his world was coming to an end.
* * * * *
The packet left at dawn on a stormy day, which was fitting. Ned bade his family farewell in the pouring rain. Still, everyone was there. Everyone but Sophia, who had closeted herself in her room after last night’s debacle and had refused to come out. For anything, according to Violet.
He tried to ignore his desolation that she hadn’t even emerged to wish him well. It was probably better this way. Otherwise, when she hugged him, as she would have done, he might have clung. Or, God help him, wept.
He thrust the thought away. He was hardly a weeper. Even when his sister had been kidnapped by the notorious McCloud, he had maintained his manly decorum. He shot a glare at Ewan as he recalled that fiasco.
“Now, now, boy,” Ewan said gruffly. “It’s not as bad as all that. You will have a fine time in Italy. A fine time.” His sister’s husband wrapped him in a crushing hug, revealing for the first time he might actually miss Ned’s presence.
Edward hugged him too, long and hard. “This will be good for you, Ned,” he said. “Just wait and see.” Then he clapped him on the back with far too much vigor.
Violet and Kaitlin were next. They, at least, had the decency to cry. His brothers all socked him on the shoulder, though he thought he saw a glimmer in Sean’s eye.
“Don’t worry,” Malcolm said. “I’ll watch over them all.”
“I know you will.”
Aunt Hortense was last. She engulfed him in a cloud of perfume and clutched him to her bosom as though the end of the world was nigh. But then, it was.
He’d always loved the old bat. Though she was crotchety and crusty and often cranky as hell, she’d given up her life to look after them when their father died and left them penniless. Without her—
Blast.
Sorrow welled up and he suspected he might unman himself. He cleared his throat and wiped his cheeks and eased back.
“Tell Sophia…” He ignored Ewan’s frown. “Tell Sophia I will miss her.”
“I will, my boy.” Hortense patted his cheek.
“Tell her I wish her well in her marriage. In all things.”
“I will.”
A cry came from the ship—a clipper named the Defiant, which was fitting—signaling it was time to board. Ned sucked in a deep breath and looked around the circle at all the faces he loved—all but one.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Goodbye,” they chorused. “Farewell.”
He picked up his bag and headed up the gangplank, glancing over his shoulder—surely not one last desperate search for her? His gaze tangled with Edward’s. That an unmistakable regret tinged his features was no solace.
He was being banished for his bad behavior. A part of him liked to believe he was being ripped from Sophia for the same reason. That because of this, he would lose her forever, but it wasn’t true.
Sophia had never been his to lose.
Percy bounded up to greet him as he stepped onto the deck, his face alight despite the spattering of rain.
“Are you ready for our grand adventure?”
“Yes. I am,” Ned said. He hoped, above all things, he would not burn for the lie.
He didn’t look back at his family assembled on the dock.
He couldn’t bear it.
* * * * *
The first few days of the journey were no adventure at all, probably because Ned had his head in the chamber pot for most of it. He’d never been on such a journey and had had no inkling how choppy the waves could be. When Percy came to visit him on the third day, his friend was far too chipper for Ned’s liking.
“Damn, man. What a day,” he gusted, throwing himself into the one and only chair. Ned’s cabin was smallish, consisting of a narrow bed built into the wall, the aforementioned chair and a table, which had been nailed to the floor. There was barely room for his trunk.
“Oh?” Ned groaned. “Is it daytime?” His cabin was dark, as it should be. It befitted his mood.
Percy waved his hand before his face. Yes, there was a distinct odor in the air. “You should come up on deck. It’s beautiful. The sea as far as the eye can see. Blue sky. Strong, sturdy winds. I’m loving this, my man. So glad I came.”
“I’m glad you came too.” Though he’d barely seen his friend, it made him feel a little less miserable knowing Percy was here. As though he were not utterly alone.
“If you come up on deck, I promise you will feel better. Get your sea legs. That wind, when it slams into your face, bracing.
“I’m sure.” He wasn’t. He wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and die. He was too miserable to even think about Sophia, to wonder if he should, in fact, have spirited her away with him. Oh, how magnificent that would have been! Just the two of them on a long voyage. Where her brother couldn’t kill him.
But he wasn’t thinking about her, he reminded himself.
There was no point.
“Do come up on deck, Wyeth. The other passengers are asking if you are a myth.”
“Other—other passengers?”
“A fascinating lot.”
Ned lifted his head. Fascinating?
“There’s Wrotham, a tradesman heading to Italy on a business trip. Oh, his conversations about olive oil will hold you spellbound. And a portly baron by the name of Billingsly and his dumpling of a wife, who are going on holiday.”
“You’re not convincing me.”
“The captain, though, now there’s an interesting man. He’s a Scot.”
Ned nearly groaned. No doubt he was one of Ewan’s many minions.
“Fought in the war, he did.”
This caught Ned’s attention. His brother Edward had fought Napoleon. He’d been held in a French prison for nearly two years. “Really?”
Percy nodded. “He’s invited us to dinner tonight, by the by. Something of an honor, judging by Lady Billingsly’s squeal.”
“She’ll be there too?”
“Naturally. The captain wouldn’t want to show offense.”
“Of course not.”
“You will come, won’t you?” Percy peered at him. “Clean up first.”
Ned grimaced. “Naturally.”
“You do have to eat.”
The thought of food made the bilge in his stomach rise.
Percy blew out a breath. “Seriously, Wyeth. Do come. Only think how deadly dull this dinner would be without a friend with whom to commiserate.”
“All right. I shall try.”
And try, he did. It took nearly everything in him to rise and bathe in the small tin pitcher Percy had fetched him, and to dress in fresh clothing. His legs shook as he made his way to the captain’s cabin, and he found himself clutching the walls as the deck heaved.
Percy clapped him on the back. “Rough seas tonight,” he chirped. “Captain says we’re heading for a squall.”
“Lovely.”
“Comfort yourself with the knowledge that after tonight you’ll have that much more to cast up.”
Ned glared at him.
Percy threw back his head and laughed. How like him. They’d been friends for years and, in that time, if Ned had learned one thing about Percy it was that he could find humor in any situation, and he was afraid of nothing.
But then, as the son of a peer, he had no need for fear.
The captain’s cabin was not as cramped as Ned’s, but close. His table was larger, barely enough to seat six; the man’s bed was definitely larger. Ned eyed it with envy. There was also a desk against the wall, strewn with maps and what Ned assumed were navigation devices. He did not pay much attention. Rather, he dropped into the first chair he saw, gasping for breath.
He’d never been a weak man but damn if this sea sickness hadn’t taken all the vinegar from him.
A large, bearded man stood as they entered. He was so tall his head nearly scraped the ceiling. “Pettingbone!” he called to Percy. “You made it, thank God.” He strode forward and the two men clasped hands. “And this must be Edward.”
“Ned, please.” Ned thrust out his hand, only to have it crushed in a brutal grip.
“Ned, this is Captain MacDougal.”
“Ned. Ah yes. Your brother is Edward as well.” His brow quirked as he poured the three of them a dram in tin cups and handed them ’round. “How does that happen? Two brothers with the same name?”
Ned cringed. He hated explaining it. Again and again. “We were raised in separate homes.”
“They only recently found out they weren’t cousins,” Percy put in. Percy was always willing to serve up awkward tidbits.
“Aha.” Based on MacDougall’s expression, this explanation was clear as mud. But he didn’t pry. There was no time as just then the door opened and the other passengers flooded in. Lady Billingsly was preceded by her perfume. It was a ghastly scent. Ned would have preferred the bilious vapors of his rooms.
After some pointless chitchat, they all took their seats, Lady Billingsly cooing and fluttering about how exciting it was to be the only woman in this vast array of strapping men. That her eyes lit on Ned, mid-coo, was not comforting in the slightest. And then her foot nudged his beneath the table.
When his gorge rose, it had nothing to do with the lunging decks.
Wrotham was a smallish man, wiry and mostly silent. Billingsly took little part in the discussion, since he was making love to his whisky, leaving all banter up to his wife. As dinner was served by MacDougall’s mangy-looking cabin boy, she dominated the conversation, telling all and sundry of her triumphs during the season. Each and every season. Beginning with the very first. By the second remove, Ned was nearly cross-eyed.
In a rare gap—she had taken a breath, preparing to forge onward with a full description of Almacks on the night of her betrothal—MacDougal stepped in and took the lead in the conversation.
“So, Ned,” he said as he rounded the table, refilling their cups. “I understand your brother is a duke.”
“Ooh.” Lady Billingsly went nearly into raptures. “A duke.”
MacDougal sent her a wink. “The Dark Duke.”
It was amusing to watch Lady Billingsly—Prudence as she bade him call her—blanch. She nearly turned inside out.
“The Dark Duke? Moncrieff?” Her nostrils flared and her eyes went a little buggy, which was interesting because in their natural state they were rather narrow.
Ned nodded. “The very same.” He sliced into his beef and took a bite, never lifting his eyes from Lady Billingsly.
She fixed her attention on her husband, who was blissfully enjoying his whisky, and smacked him on the shoulder. “Oh Herbert. Herbert? Did you hear?”
“I’m right here, dear.”
“Moncrieff. The wicked Duke of Moncrieff himself.”
“Yes, dear.”
Prudence fixed Ned again with her avid, beady-eyed gaze. She seemed torn, unsure whether to be fascinated or outraged. She leaned forward and hissed as though somehow Edward might hear, “Is he as depraved as they say?”
“Worse.” He had, after all, banished his
own brother to the hinterlands.
Prudence quivered like a pudding.
“They say I’m very like him,” he said, just to be contrary.
The wobble of her chins was fascinating.
MacDougal bit back what looked like a mischievous smile. “And didn’t your sister just marry Ewan St. Andrews?” he asked, although clearly he knew.
“She did.”
Prudence’s brow wrinkled as she took a sip of her wine. “I don’t believe I know the name.” She had that persimmony look. One that suggested she was much loftier than a name she did not know.
“Ach, yes,” MacDougal boomed. Ned suspected he boomed for one reason only, to see Prudence spill her Madeira. “He’s better known as The McCloud.”
Prudence’s mouth drifted open. Her wine, uncaught, dribbled all over her bodice. “The-the-the…”
“McCloud,” Ned offered, biting back a grin. “Yes.”
“The Scottish brigand?” Well, this had captured Billingsly’s attention.
“One and the same.”
“Oh dear.” Prudence dabbed at her lips. “Oh dear.”
“Are you very like him too?” MacDougal asked.
Ned thought he might like their captain. “Oh, indubitably. My sister says we are two peas in a pod.” Not a lie. She actually had. She’d been yelling it after discovering the two of them fencing in the drawing room. But Ewan had been showing him an interesting parry. And the cushions of the divan hardly signified.
With something resembling a screech, Prudence Billingsly shot to her feet and, after pushing the cabin boy out of her way and muttering something about her smelling salts, she quit the room in a flurry of muslin.
Billingsly glanced around the table and grimaced. “Well,” he huffed. “I’d better go with her.” But still, he sat. For longer than was precisely necessary.
“I should be going too,” Wrotham said, setting his serviette on the table and bowing to them all. “Thank you very much for dinner.”
Silence descended as the door shut behind the lot of them. And then MacDougal barked a laugh and clapped Ned on the shoulder. “Thank you, my boy. Thank you.”
Ned hid his grin. “What did I do?”
“You performed a miracle. No doubt I won’t have to suffer through one more meal with that woman. And her drudge of a husband.” He chortled to himself.
