Regency Vows: A Gentleman 'Til Midnight / The Trouble with Honour / An Improper Arrangement / A Wedding By Dawn / The Devil Takes a Bride / A Promise by Daylight. Julia London
as tightly as his hand. “This entire bargain is driven by my own sense of obligation.”
“Which I should have guessed was false.” Except she could see in his eyes it ran bone-deep, and even now he couldn’t quite hide it.
“Some debts cannot be repaid.”
“An excellent excuse for default, Captain,” she snapped. It was impossible to wrest out of his grasp, so she pushed him instead.
“Devil take it—” He lost his balance as the ship listed starboard, and for a moment she reeled with him, but almost immediately he regained his footing. In the next moment he pushed her against the wall and his mouth came down on hers with all the fury of an ocean tempest. She fought him, even as she opened her lips to drink him in. His kiss was half-crazed, fierce and possessive as the sea itself, surging through her blood in waves of desire unlike anything she’d ever felt.
She tried to tear away and they knocked over a chair. He crushed her to his body, backing her hard against the wall. He felt magnificent, and she hated him.
“Damn you!” She wanted him on her. Over her. In her.
Away from her.
He pushed up her tunic and found her breasts. She grabbed his shirt and felt the fabric tear, but the pleasure ripping through her body drowned all reason. She cried out with frustration. Outrage. Desire.
Something—maybe his knee—banged against the wall. His mouth seared into hers, out of control. They stumbled against the fallen chair and he kicked it out of the way.
Suddenly her cabin door flew open and crashed against the wall. She barely realized what was happening before William was there, tearing Captain Warre away from her.
“Bloody he—” Captain Warre’s furious oath was cut off when William’s fist landed across his jaw, sending him reeling.
“Bloody cur!” William caught Captain Warre by the shirt before he could fall and landed another hit across his jaw.
“No!” Katherine shouted her reaction an instant before regaining her senses. “William, stop! Enough!”
But William was beyond reason, and now it was Captain Warre whose back was to the wall as William drew his knife and held it to Captain Warre’s throat.
“William!” Katherine commanded sharply. “Let him go.”
Phil and India crowded into the doorway. “Katherine, are you all right?” Phil asked, her voice for once free of insinuation. Good God. They all thought he’d attacked her.
“You filthy bastard,” William spat, nose to nose with Captain Warre, who silently stared at him. “You couldn’t wait a few more days to slake your lust on someone who’s willing?”
“William!” Katherine repeated. “That’s enough. You misunderstand.”
Finally William looked at her. Only the ship and Captain Warre’s breathing made a sound as she met William’s eyes. She raised her chin a notch, but still a wash of heat spread across her face.
Phil’s comprehending voice filled the cabin. “Oh, dear.”
“NOT A SINGLE WORD.” Katherine marched to the upper deck with Phil on her heels. “Not one.” It was probably the most futile order she’d ever given. Besides, Phil didn’t need words. Everything she was thinking was written plain as ink on her face.
Which was why Phil’s obedience was worse than anything she could have said. The silence stretched out, brimming with what had just happened below. Deep breaths of sea air didn’t cool the fire pounding through Katherine’s veins, and her body screamed to go downstairs and finish what Captain Warre had begun.
Captain Warre. Captain Warre. The reality of what she’d just done was a battering ram forcing entrance into her mind. She craved him the way Papa had craved fast horses—recklessly and without regard to the consequences. If William had not interrupted—
She would not think of that. Looking at Phil was out of the question, so she held her spyglass to her eye.
Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Say it.”
Phil was silent a heartbeat longer. “I confess I don’t know what to say.” Humor edged Phil’s pretend dumbfoundedness. “Does this mean you’ll be moving him back to a cabin, after all?”
“It’s not too late to throw you overboard,” Katherine snapped.
Phil only laughed. “Yes, it is. I could swim to England from here.” The spyglass jolted as Phil tucked her hand into Katherine’s elbow. “You mustn’t be angry with yourself, dearest. Despite your better judgment, you find Captain Warre attractive—and understandably so.”
“He tried to kill me.” The resentment she’d clung to for years sounded ridiculous with his taste still heady on her tongue.
Phil ignored her. “The question is, what will you do about it once you arrive in London?” She lowered her voice. “An affair may work brilliantly to your advantage. What better to motivate him into championing your cause? Keep him hungering after your charms and see if he doesn’t press your case most urgently.”
“Your imagination has run wild.”
“Was it my imagination, or did Captain Warre have his hands inside your—”
“Enough!” Katherine pulled her arm from Phil’s grasp. “What you saw was not part of a master plan to whore myself for Dunscore. It was an accident.” A moment of weakness, after she’d worked so hard to be strong. She focused her spyglass on the distant ribbon of land they’d been paralleling. “I hate him.” She hated what he stood for, what he made her remember—the person she’d been when he’d fired on the Merry Sea. Vulnerable. Terrified. At the mercy of others, in so many ways.
“Then use him and be done with him,” Phil suggested in all seriousness.
The desire to see him, to touch him, seemed to have a life of its own. The kiss had turned the whole thing into a damnable mess that had to be stopped before it went any further. She lowered the spyglass. “He believes a few words to the right people will turn the bill under. There will be little reason for us to see each other after we reach London.” Questions she wished she didn’t have fought to be asked.
She felt the lightest touch as Phil brushed a strand of hair from her shoulder. “I meant it when I said you mustn’t be angry with yourself,” Phil told her. “Sometimes our bodies have minds of their own, no matter how harshly we try to command them into submission.”
Katherine raised a brow at her. “When have you ever tried to command your body into submission?”
Phil laughed prettily. “It isn’t that I haven’t tried, dearest.”
“Where Captain Warre is concerned, I can’t afford to fail.” Even now, his touch smoldered on her breasts and his spicy maleness wafted from her skin.
Phil squeezed her arm. “It’s the most unfair thing imaginable for him to turn out to be so—”
“Useful.”
“—desirable. For heaven’s sake, Katherine. You’re a woman grown, and he is a very tempting man. You needn’t take it to heart. Desire is just...desire. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
“Is that what you learned in Paris?”
“Yes.” Phil looked away and pushed at her hair. “Yes, precisely. Things happen in Paris—all kinds of things that go against reason. It’s not for nothing that they call it the City of Love.” She waved her hand. “But that’s neither here nor there. We’ll be in London shortly, which hasn’t near the magical quality of Paris, and if you’re not going to have an affair