For several seconds James stood motionless, brow furrowed, his eyes darkening. “You cannot take my child from me without giving me the chance to make it right. I’ll be damned before any child of mine grows up calling another man father.”
Startled by the conviction in his words, Phoebe didn’t immediately respond.
“I’ll leave you for now,” he said, stowing the ring back in his breast pocket. “But I will be back every day until you agree to be my wife.”
* * * *
Despondent and frustrated, James strode from the small cottage, a sense of determination such as he’d never known taking root. For the first time in life—the military withstanding—he had a purpose. Something worth fighting for. The sight of Phoebe’s tear streaked face refused to give him peace. He’d done that to her. He’d caused all of her pain and anguish with his fear and insecurity. Now he must make it right.
Turning onto the road leading into the village, he shifted his thoughts to plans for the next few days. He’d already seen to stabling Sam at the local livery. Seeing as Phoebe hadn’t immediately accepted his proposal he’d have to take a room at the local boarding house. He’d spotted a wooden sign advertising rooms for rent earlier that day. Lord only knew how long he’d have to stay. A week at least. Longer if necessary.
He had no intention of giving Phoebe up, but he might need some reinforcements. A slow grin stretched across his mouth. He’d spent over a decade in the military. He knew how to launch a campaign, and this one would be to win her heart.
Nineteen
Winning Phoebe was proving considerably more difficult than James had anticipated. He’d quickly managed to charm Mrs. Condon and Elizabeth, and as such he was welcomed whenever he chose to call, but he seemed to be gaining no ground in returning to Phoebe’s good graces. Every day he brought her flowers and trinkets, and he was solicitous and honest to a fault. She received his attentions well enough, allowed him to kiss her hand when he left each evening, but the ice façade the ton chastised her for refused to crack. If not for the tears and outrage she’d expressed when he’d first found her, he might truly believe she no longer cared for him.
At odds with himself and the situation as a whole, he stalked out of the boarding house, and turned toward the stables. Perhaps taking Sam out for a hard ride would help clear his head. Give him some fresh perspective or new ideas.
An unmarked coach pulled by a team of bay horses rattled down the road, kicking up a light cloud of dust. James hesitated, waiting for it to pass, before striding purposefully across the street.
“Ho, Colonel!” a familiar voice called.
A grin instantly split James’s face as he spun around. “Collins!” He strode over to the coach as the other man stepped down. They quickly clasped hands in a hearty handshake. “Am I ever glad to see you.”
“Sarah and I came as soon as we received your message.”
“Where is Sarah?” James asked, waiting with Nick as the driver unloaded two trunks.
Nick jerked a thumb back down the road. “Dropped her off to visit with Lady Phoebe. I told her I’d come ahead to find you and secure us a room.” He grinned. “We can both go back to fetch her later.”
James pointed to the boarding house. “There is plenty of room here with Mrs. Beaman. The bedding is clean and her cooking is good.”
“You won’t hear any complaints from me,” Nick said with a grin. “And my wife is just happy to have me all to herself.”
“I can understand why.”
“How are things between you and Phoebe,” Nick asked quietly, he was obviously concerned. “When I received your letter, I had hoped it would be news that you’d eloped, not a plea for help.”
James washed a palm over his face. “Not well. I tell you, Collins, I’m finding that I know absolutely nothing about wooing women.”
Nick laughed heartily. “Your prowess when it comes to women is legendary, James.”
“In bedding likeminded widows and whores, perhaps.” He shook his head. Normally James seduced women that wanted to be lured in and bedded for a single night of mutual pleasure. He never went back to the same woman twice, and he avoided romantic attachments at all cost. “This is different. This has nothing to do with my abilities to please women. As it stands, I cannot convince the woman carrying my child that she’d be happier married to me than giving our babe away to complete strangers.”
Nick clapped him on the shoulder. “Not to worry, James, she’ll come around. What you need is to make a grand romantic gesture.”
“A grand romantic gesture?” James lifted a skeptical brow. “What do you suggest?”
* * * *
“I am so happy you’re here!” Phoebe embraced Sarah for the third time since her friend had knocked on the door. They sat side by side on the sofa, waiting for Mrs. Condon to bring tea and cookies.
“I couldn’t stay away.” Sarah grinned, eyes twinkling. “Nick is finally well enough for travel, and we were both ready for a refreshing holiday.”
“Tell me,” Phoebe sat back against the cushions. “What news from Corsair?” She missed home so desperately she ached.
“I haven’t been home much in the last few weeks because I was with Nick in London, but we were back for a few days just last week and learned that another young woman had been murdered.”
Phoebe shivered. She hadn’t forgotten the slain woman she and James had discovered in the woods last spring. “How awful. Who was she?”
Sarah shook her head. “I can’t recall the name, but she wasn’t anyone we knew. Mama said she was an unsavory sort from the tavern.”
“Even so, she didn’t deserve to be murdered.”
“I quite agree,” Sarah said, shifting her eyes down and smoothing her skirts. “But enough of that dark subject, how have you been?” She peaked up at Phoebe. “I understand Colonel Witherspoon has been visiting you.”
Phoebe eased away from her friend. “Is that why you’re here? To check on the situation with James?”
“Yes,” Sarah admitted sheepishly. She hesitated. “Colonel Witherspoon wrote to Nicholas practically begging for help.”
“Help?” Phoebe crossed her arms. “You mean help convincing me to marry him?”
“Yes.”
Betrayal instantly soured Phoebe’s mood. “I can’t believe you came here for James Witherspoon? Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, Phoebe.” Sarah reached for her hand.
Phoebe snatched away. “You don’t understand, Sarah!” She stood, stalking to the other side of the room. “No one understands. I don’t want to forgive him, and I have no desire to marry him. I want him to go away and never come back.”
“If you really wanted Colonel Witherspoon to leave, all you’d need do is send word to Edward.” Sarah hesitated, speaking quietly, her all too knowing eyes slicing through Phoebe. “Have you sent word to Edward?”
“No.”
“I think that may be because deep down you do want the colonel to be near you.”
Phoebe crossed her arms stubbornly. “You don’t understand, Sarah. He can’t be trusted.”
“Because of the history between your families?”
“No. It has nothing to do with Patrick’s death or any other family quarrels.” She sighed, facing the window, lost in bittersweet memories. “Last spring James was wonderful, and I honestly believed the most notorious man in Britain had reformed for me.” She laughed, the sound self-deprecating and ironic even to her ears. She flipped sad eyes to Sarah. “How completely vain.”
Expression soft, Sarah met her gaze with compelling eyes. “Falling in love isn’t vain, Phoebe.”
“Love?” Phoebe tested the word. It tasted bitter on her tongue. “Is that what it was?” She shook her head, anger and hurt swirling like ash in her belly. “I’m not so sure. At the time I thought so. He was kind and attentive. Humble, even. I got so caught up in the romance of it all. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t propose or ask me to elope with him. Instead
…” She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug, searching for the right words. “He panicked. He panicked and left without another word or even a letter.”
“But he’s back, Phoebe, and he wants to be with you.”
“He’s back and playing the same love struck swain he did months ago.” Phoebe gulped as James’s easy grin flashed through her mind. It would be so easy to fall for his charms again. To pretend he’d perceived his grave error in turning from her once before, but… “What if he panics again after a week or two?” She didn’t wait for Sarah to answer. “I can’t risk my future for a man that can’t maintain his romantic interest for more than a week. All I have hangs by a thread. I’ve already alienated my brother beyond repair, and if I don’t tread lightly he’ll turn me out.”
Sarah was silent for a long moment. “I do understand what you’re saying, Phoebe, but I fear you’re making decisions that you’ll regret for the rest of your life. I know you, Phoebe, better than you know yourself, and I know the last thing you want is to lose your baby."
Phoebe blinked back tears, striving to remain resolute in the course that had been set. It would be best for everyone if she simply gave the child up… the babe most of all.
“Consider this,” Sarah continued in a gentle tone, “last spring everything happened so fast between you and Colonel Witherspoon. Too fast. It was such a whirlwind that you never even told me about it. Has it occurred to you that he simply needed more time to sort through his feelings?”
Frustrated, Phoebe paced across the room, her hands beginning to shake as turbulent emotions coursed through her. Sarah’s words had merit, but Phoebe still couldn’t shake the awful sense that James had used her. “I don’t know what to believe, Sarah. I certainly can’t trust him again.” She sighed, searching for the words to put her turbulent emotions into perspective for Sarah. “James only came back because I am with child and he feels an obligation.”
“Oh, dear,” Sarah muttered suddenly, tone completely changed. “This is terrible.”
Alarmed, Phoebe turned back to her friend. “What is it?”
“Your brother is coming up the walk.”
Cold panic flushed through Phoebe’s veins. She whipped to the window. “Oh, no.” Sure enough, Edward rode up the small drive on the back of his favorite chestnut gelding. “Do you think he knows about James?”
Sarah joined her at the window. “I don’t know, but James and Nicholas are due here any minute.”
“You need to leave,” Phoebe said quickly. “Go through the backdoor and meet James and Nicholas on the road. If Edward discovers…” Her words trailed off as genuine horror gripped her. “Lord, no,” she whispered. Helplessly she stared through the glass as James rounded the hedge at the end of the small dirt drive at the same moment Edward swung off his horse.
The men froze simultaneously.
After a few painfully long seconds, Edward threw down his reins and stalked forward with shoulders tensed and fists clenched.
Twenty
“Witherspoon, you blackguard! You’re supposed to be dead.”
Bloody hell! I must be dreaming. James closed his eyes for a second, praying the figure of Phoebe’s elder brother was but a figment of his imagination. He snapped them back open, gaze instantly keying in on a murderous Edward Landon. James suppressed a groan. This was a stroke of supremely bad luck.
“I should kill you,” the duke growled, grinding to a halt. “How dare you come to my sister’s cottage after mistreating her so?”
James squared off with the arrogant duke. “I’m here to marry her, Corsair. I want to make things right.”
Edward sneered. “I would never allow Phoebe to align herself with you. I’ve made all the necessary arrangements, and my sister will emerge from this debacle unscathed despite your abuse.” He raked a superior leer the length of James. “I can appreciate that you’re making an attempt to be honorable,” he said grudgingly, disdain dripping from his tone, “and as such, I will grant you this one opportunity to leave and never return.”
Rankled by the duke’s condescending attitude, James strove to maintain his cool and state his case. “I love her. I realize that—”
“Enough,” Edward spat, smoky eyes smoldering with anger. “My patience is wearing thin. I don’t wish to make this situation any more difficult on my sister than necessary. Now go slink back into whatever bottle you crawled out of and leave us in peace.” He turned away, dismissing James once and for all.
Anger mounting, James cracked the knuckles in his left hand, itching to plunge a fist into the arrogant Duke’s face. “You have no right to take my child from me.”
Edward pivoted back to face him, seething. “I have every right. My sister—”
“Your sister would have eloped with me in a second last spring.”
Corsair’s lip curled with anger and menace. “I should call you out.”
“You’d lose,” James goaded.
“You son of a bitch.” Hands balled into fists, Edward charged him.
James knew he deserved a brotherly beating after everything that had happened with Phoebe, but at the moment, he didn’t particularly care. All of the pent up hurt and uncertainty boiled over. James wanted to pound something, and, duke or otherwise, Edward Landon’s pretty mug would do just fine.
Edward cocked a fist and let it fly.
James nimbly ducked the first swing, lunged, and tackled Edward to the ground. Rage pumped through his veins as he fisted Edward’s collar in his hands. “Corsair, you bastard, you should have told me she was pregnant.”
“To what end, Witherspoon?” Edward’s fist slammed into James’s jaw. “If you really wanted her you would have eloped with her before sailing to Brussels.”
James slammed Edward into the dirt. “I should have.”
“Stop!” Phoebe cried.
James scarcely heard as he released the rage pulsing through him, and continued grappling with Corsair. Edward proved to be considerably stronger and more skilled as a fighter than James would have expected for a spoiled duke, and Edward landed a few harsh blows though he never managed to gain the upper hand.
“Don’t!” Phoebe’s voice sliced through the air. “Nicholas, help! Stop them before they kill each other.”
James had Edward pinned solidly beneath him when a set of burly arms snaked beneath his shoulders, dragging him bodily off of Edward.
“Stand down!” Nick Collins’s firm command battled the red haze consuming James’s mind.
Breathing heavily, Edward staggered to his feet, eyes blazing. Blood dripped from his split lip, and if the man had held a weapon at that moment James had no doubt he would have used it. “Don’t order me to stand down! That son of a bitch murdered my brother and ruined my sister.”
“I did not kill Patrick,” James growled.
“You deserve to be shot where you stand.”
“Then why don’t you do it,” James spat.
Edward raked a seething, disdainful glare the length of him, making it clear the young duke believed James unfit to breath the same air as an aristocrat of his caliber. “Because you’re not worth it.”
That was the final straw. Something within James snapped. The man always itching for a drink, trouble, and a good fight—not necessarily in that order—resurfaced. Eyes narrowed, he strained against Nick’s hold. “Or maybe you’re just a coward.”
“Shut up, James.” Nick shook him. Hard.
James ignored his friend completely. “You know nothing, Corsair. You—”
Phoebe dashed between them, full on fear lacing her pretty face. She held her arms out, one palm flattened in Edward’s direction and the other raised toward James in the universal gesture of halt!
Shaken momentarily from his single-minded rage, James dragged in a breath and glanced at his surroundings. Sarah stood by the house, holding the reins to Edward’s horse, trying to keep the spooked animal calm, while Mrs. Condon and Elizabeth huddled in the doorway with sheet white expressions.
“Edward, please calm down.”
“Did you invite this wastrel here?”
“No,” she replied quickly. She shifted anxious eyes to James. “Please leave before this situation gets any worse.”
James yanked against Nick’s vise-like grip. “Not unless you come with me.”
Phoebe’s sad, stormy eyes locked with his, and for the first time since his return he saw hesitation in their depths.
His heart leapt with hope. He was there, quite literally fighting for her, would it be enough to prove his love and desire to make amends?
After a long moment she glanced back to her brother and finally dropped her gaze to the dirt. “Goodbye, Colonel. Please don’t return.” Phoebe’s gaze flipped up to Nick. “Captain Collins, please see Colonel Witherspoon back to the village and see to it he leaves before dawn tomorrow.”
Nick sighed heavily, and inclined his head. “Of course, my lady.”
Desperate, James wrenched against Nick’s grasp, but his friend held surprisingly fast, dragging him back a few paces.
“Not now,” Nick muttered urgently for James’ ears only. “Know when to retreat, old boy. Know when to retreat.”
* * * *
Heart heavy, Phoebe watched Nick physically drag James down the dirt drive, away from the cottage. The anguish in his eyes wrenched her spirits.
“I thought that son of a bitch was dead!” Edward roared.
Phoebe drew a deep breath and faced her brother with absolute calm.
Edward fixed her with a murderous glare. “I will disown you for this.”
A flash of panic lit in Phoebe, but she quickly beat it down. “Edward, I swear to you, I did not invite him here. He just… showed up.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that?” he spat. “I will—”
“It’s true,” Sarah interrupted, rushing down the front steps. “Phoebe is telling you the truth. She didn’t invite Colonel Witherspoon here.” Sarah briefly met Phoebe’s gaze. “I did. I told him where to find her.”
Siren Page 14
