A Wedding By Dawn. Alison DeLaine
As if Auntie Phil were sitting on her shoulder, a laughing voice invaded her thoughts. I daresay this one knows how to conduct himself in a tête-à-tête.
He exhaled sharply. India tensed. He rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes, then reached for a book that had more papers stuck between its covers than pages. He scratched a few notes with a pencil and returned his attention to the map.
He looked miserable.
He frowned at the map, pinpointing something with his finger, making a few more notes with a pencil on a leaf of paper. If only it were as easy as it looked. What would he think if he knew she could not even pen an invitation for tea?
He might decide she was unsuitable for a wife and return her to Malta. More likely, he would think her a disgrace, curse his increasing bad fortune and marry her, anyway.
He glanced up. Spotted her in the passageway.
Her breath hitched. And then she forced herself into the cabin, because the alternative was running away.
“We’re in the Mediterranean Sea,” she informed him breezily. “South of Sardinia. We’ll be passing along—” It wasn’t a map. It was a giant drawing of some kind of mechanical device—a mill, it looked like.
“What do you want.” He said it as a statement, not a question, and rubbed his hand across his forehead. He looked at her as though he wanted to murder her—or possibly vomit on her, considering the greenish pallor of his skin.
“Ideally, I would like to be returned to Malta,” she said even though it was obvious he was short on patience and feeling very poorly. “If Malta isn’t possible, then I suppose Italy would do.”
“If you haven’t got anything intelligent to say, then I suggest you return to your duties.”
“Oh, I have many intelligent things to say, Mr. Warre. A great many intelligent things. And not to worry—a lifetime together will allow you to hear every last one.” She hopped onto the table and perched there, crinkling the corner of his drawing.
“Get down.”
Instead, she rested her toes on the edge of his chair and studied the drawing. “Surely, if you plan to make your fortune constructing a mill, you don’t need my father’s money.”
He ignored her and took a measurement, jotting the figure on a chart.
She leaned closer. “Three and an eighth.”
His eyes shifted to her, and he stared, expressionless.
“It was three and an eighth,” she said. “You wrote three.”
“It was an estimate.” Oh, yes—there was definitely a spark of irritation just now.
“An estimate. Oh, I see. Do forgive me. One doesn’t estimate aboard a ship, or one could end up in Alexandria instead of Athens.” She dove her brows and cocked her head to the side. “You haven’t been merely estimating the size of your debt, have you? Because I would hate to live beneath my standards even after you’ve pocketed my father’s money.”
“Get down,” he repeated. “Now.”
“Such a tremendous effort you’re making to win my hand. Very commendable.”
He waited for her to obey his command.
“I must say it is flattering beyond all description,” she went on, “being pined after with such heartfelt devotion and such puppy-dog eyes. It’s only too obvious that you love me to distraction.”
“Lady India.” He leaned forward. “As much as I burn endlessly for you body and soul, as I suffer in lovesick torment, as I can scarcely keep my wayward mind from composing spontaneous sonnets in your honor—” he pushed to his feet and braced his hands on the table, looming over her “—I must request that you remove yourself from this table else I shall do the removing for you.”
“Will you.”
His face was inches from hers. “One.”
One?
His gaze touched on her lips, raked across her breasts, returned to her eyes. “Two.”
“Are you counting, Mr. Warre?” Her pulse leaped a little. Those eyes were nothing like a puppy dog’s. They were predatory and on fire with thoughts that would make Frannie sound like someone reading from a ladies’ companion.
“Control yourself, Mr. Warre.” She slid off the table and onto unsteady legs, but refused to break his gaze. “Wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve is dreadful unseemly.”
“Were I not overcome by love and adoration,” he said, still much too close to her face, “I would certainly be capable of greater discretion.” The ship banked and lolled with a wave, and he gripped the table, clenching his jaw.
“Overcome by seasickness, rather,” she scoffed. Trapped in the space between his body and the table, the subtle scent of his cologne teased every breath. “If you’re feeling that ill, I can’t imagine why you aren’t in bed instead of sitting in here.”
“For the same reason you study every empty barrel and piece of potential flotsam aboard this ship.” He returned to his chair and seated himself.
“Why, Mr. Warre, if this mill can help me escape an unwanted suitor, you must explain it to me at once.”
He picked up his ruler, silently took another measurement. Wrote it down.
One and three-eighths.
She went to the door. Turned. “Do not insult me by suggesting that we have even a single motive in common,” she said with her hand on the jamb to steady herself. “I merely want my freedom, while you are motivated purely by—”
The desire to escape? Escape what?
“—greed.”
She left him, frowning to herself, and returned to the quarterdeck.
* * *
A FEW HOURS later, Nick stood on deck, staring at the horizon as Miss Germain suggested, telling himself it helped when it didn’t, wondering how in God’s name he was going to survive a life wed to Lady India, hating that he had no choice.
This was what it had come to: an arranged marriage—no, forced. Definitely forced. She was right about that much. A forced marriage to a young woman who had strayed so far from the usual expectations that she was hardly recognizable as a lady.
A wave of nausea gripped him and he let his head fall. He needed to accept that his life was not going to turn out the way he’d hoped, and that he would be doing well if he managed to save Taggart.
His shipping operation was defunct—destroyed by storms and pirates in the space of two months. All that remained was his debt, and the deadline he’d agreed to with Holliswell was fast closing in on him. Holliswell had “graciously” given Nick enough time to pursue Lady India and collect the dowry—Nick much preferred to think of it that way—from her father. But if Nick didn’t manage it in...God, a few more weeks, Holliswell would take Taggart. That was the agreement: more time to pay off the debt, with Taggart itself as collateral.
There would be little left after that, and he would need to make the most of it. He would not risk another investment on the seas. He needed to have the plans for the new mill works ready by the time they reached London, which meant he needed to prepare drawings for each mill site and lay out projections for how quickly the new corporation—if the other men agreed to form it—might turn a profit.
It wouldn’t be much of a profit. Barely enough to make all the repairs Taggart Hall desperately needed and pay the cost of maintaining Lady India in the standard that the wife of a peer should maintain. He’d already been forced to sell his house in London, which meant he had nowhere to keep Lady India while they were in town, except with James or Honoria.
What kind of man had