After the Abduction

  Montfort paled. Everyone knew the duke was a horrible shot. And Sebastian was well aware that the man was too proud to endure any public insult for long.

  “I see that we understand each other,” Sebastian went on. “You have forty-eight hours to set the gossip to rest. By day after tomorrow, I’d better see everyone in society treating Juliet like the angel that she is. Or I swear I’ll make your life a living hell until they do.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the door and opened it. When he looked back, Montfort still stood frozen, his eyes wide with fright at the idea of having his cock shot off. And publicly, too.

  For the first time since he’d entered the library, Sebastian smiled. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s high time I dance with the woman I intend to marry.”

  Sebastian left, his plans regarding Juliet having changed greatly. He would not stand in the shadows watching Juliet anymore. He would claim her before the world, and devil take all her foolish conditions. He would marry her and protect Morgan—he’d done it before; he could do it again.

  But one thing was for certain, he wasn’t abandoning her this time.

  Chapter 21

  Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy,

  the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

  Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas, worked on a hanging by Juliet upon her return to London from Shropshire

  N ot long after her dance with Lord Havering, Juliet returned from the ladies’ retiring room to see her brother-in-law circling the ballroom like a wasp hunting a daisy. Before she could duck back into the hall, he spotted her. He paused in his stride only long enough to pull Rosalind under his wing, then buzzed directly toward her.

  With a sigh, she stood waiting for him. Judging from his expression, his talk with Montfort hadn’t gone well. Not that she’d really expected it to.

  “We’re going home now,” he said as he approached.

  “Why?” Much as Juliet hated moving among people who despised her and whispered about her, she hated even more being run off.

  “Montfort is unreasonable,” Griff said. “Though he does seem to be the one who started the rumors, he won’t relent. He’s determined to have you, and he thinks dragging your reputation through the mud will accomplish it. I can stop him eventually, I’m sure, but it’ll require some digging to discover how to get at him. In the meantime—”

  “In the meantime,” Juliet interjected, “I shall act as if nothing happened. I’m sorry, Griff, but I shan’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me bury myself away. So you might as well abandon that notion.”

  “But Juliet—” Rosalind began.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Juliet said firmly, “I need some punch. My mouth is dry as toast.” With that, she marched off toward the supper room.

  Really, this was the outside of beyond. She could strangle Montfort, not only for the gossip, but for sending her family into their protect-Juliet-at-all-costs stance once more. She ought to run away from home again, if only to escape them.

  The orchestra struck up a waltz, and across the room she saw Montfort emerge from a hall and look her way. She met his gaze coldly, expecting him to cast her the same supercilious smile he’d been annoying her with all night.

  Instead, he glowered at her, then stalked off toward some friends. How very odd. Griff himself had said that his talk with Montfort had come to naught. So why wasn’t the duke gloating like the sly beast he was?

  She was so distracted that she didn’t notice the hand touching her elbow until a familiar husky voice murmured, “May I have this waltz, my lady?”

  She froze, hardly daring to look, to believe he was here. When she did gather the courage to turn around, she thought her heart would knock loose from her chest, it was pounding so. He flashed her a half smile, as if uncertain of his reception, and every particle of her silly, besotted soul lit up.

  “Sebastian,” she breathed.

  “You were expecting someone else?” he said with raised eyebrow.

  “N-no. That is…well, I certainly wasn’t expecting you.”

  His eyes searched her face with a tenderness that made her ache. “Did you really think I’d abandon you twice?”

  The words snapped her out of her happy dream. She drew herself up stiffly, not sure what to make of his sudden appearance here. “Actually, I did.”

  “Then I have much to make amends for. Dance with me, sweeting.”

  She arched an eyebrow in a vain attempt to act nonchalant and sophisticated. “You think dancing with me is a sufficient way to make amends?”

  “No. I think dancing with you will reassure me that you don’t hate me.”

  He looked so painfully earnest that she couldn’t help but soften. She held out her hand. “I don’t hate you. Not entirely, anyway.”

  “Then I’ll try to improve upon your feelings even more.” Tucking her hand in his elbow, he led her to the floor, and a moment later they were waltzing.

  She could hardly breathe for the memories. They hadn’t danced together since he’d first appeared in Stratford all that time ago. She’d forgotten how well he danced, how sensuous it had always felt to have his hand resting on her waist and his smoky scent swirling between them.

  She examined his face, marking the changes since she’d last seen him. Had he always looked so thin and weary? Or dared she hope that her absence had affected him as strongly as it had her?

  And did this mean he’d decided to tell her family the truth at last?

  “Why are you here?” she asked bluntly before she could begin hoping too much.

  He gazed down at her with an impenetrable look. “I missed you.”

  Vainly she tried to squelch the thrill his words sent coursing through her. “I seem to recall your claiming that since you’d ‘done without me’ for most of your life, you could ‘manage a few more weeks.’”

  He winced. “One of my more idiotic statements. Being a man, I’m prone to the occasional blustering. You’ll have to get used to it.”

  “Still the same arrogant scoundrel as ever,” she said with a sniff.

  “Absolutely.” He moved her smoothly, easily about the floor. For a man who rarely came into society, he certainly danced well. “I’m giving you fair warning, sweeting. I’m here to marry you.”

  Despite all her stern self-cautions, her pulse began to race. “I haven’t exactly accepted an offer of marriage from you, Sebastian, and you know it.”

  “Ah, but you will. This time I won’t brook any refusal.”

  It was getting decidedly harder to restrain her foolish, hopeful heart, but restrain it she must. She didn’t yet trust him. Though she did indulge her urge to stare at him, so fine and handsome in his evening attire. The only way he’d look better was if he were peeling it off one piece at a time to bare that delicious chest and—

  “I’ll begin,” he went on, “by making my intentions known to your family tonight.”

  “You think to stride in here and marry me, no matter what my wishes.”

  “Something like that.”

  She wished her insides would stop doing all that premature leaping for joy. “And I don’t suppose you’ve come to your senses about telling my family everything.”

  His long, sober silence was her answer.

  The leaping for joy stopped at once. She’d known it was too good to be true. “Then we have nothing more to discuss,” she murmured, trying to pull out of his arms.

  He jerked her back, managing it so well that she didn’t even stumble. “Hear me out, Juliet.”

  “No! You’re still refusing to do the right thing, so—”

  “The ‘right thing’ doesn’t involve abandoning my brother for you,” he snapped, “no matter how much I want you for my wife. I can’t risk it—especially now, with this whole mess involving—”

  “The pirates,” she finished for him. “I heard all about the Pirate Lord and his new outrage. And I knew you’d
respond like this.” She added in a whisper, “I sometimes think I know you too well. That’s probably why you really came to London—for him.”

  “No, I came for you. I didn’t hear about the pirates until this afternoon, I swear.”

  At least that was some comfort. If he’d come all this way for her after being so firm about how he wouldn’t, then he must care about her a little.

  Just not enough. “You know, Sebastian, if your brother was involved with that nastiness, you ought to be handing him over to the authorities, not trying to get him pardoned.”

  “He wasn’t involved—I refuse to believe it.” They swept past one of the gossipy Miss Marches, who was straining to hear their conversation. Sebastian cast the woman a pointed glance, then moved them both well away from her. “But I can’t prove it, of course. I spoke to the Navy Board this afternoon. I’d already gone there to prevail upon them to consider a pardon for Morgan even though he hasn’t shown up in England yet. They told me of the pirates instead. Now the pompous sots are refusing even to consider the matter until the Pirate Lord is captured. They are up in arms over this.”

  “At least they’re concerned over those poor women convicts.”

  “It’s not the women they care about; it’s Blackmore’s stepsister. I suppose you heard about that, too.”

  She nodded.

  “No one on the Navy Board would say whether Miss Willis was taken with the others—apparently, it’s some great secret—but the earl is enraged all the same. And when the great Blackmore is enraged, they’re enraged. They want the Pirate Lord’s head, and failing that, Morgan’s.” He grimaced. “I swear, if Morgan has gotten himself involved with kidnapping a gentlewoman—”

  “Yes, that would be truly awful,” she put in dryly. “Kidnapping a gentlewoman—what kind of scoundrel would do that?”

  He blinked, then groaned.

  She took a petty pleasure in his discomfort. “You Blakely twins seem to have a penchant for this sort of thing. I do hope Morgan comes out of it as well as you have.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What the devil do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Only that you have yet to suffer any inconvenience because of what you did. You won’t even tell my family of your part—”

  “One word from Knighton to the Navy Board about my kidnapping you, and any possibility of a pardon for Morgan vanishes, even if Morgan had naught to do with this latest outrage. You know very well I can’t risk it!”

  She ground her teeth in sheer frustration. Why was the man cursed with such a perverse sense of duty to his family? “You needn’t tell Griff about Morgan, you know. He still thinks your brother is dead. Just let him believe that. Tell him why you kidnapped me, and leave it at that.”

  “Then he’ll wonder why I didn’t simply tell the truth from the beginning. Why I blamed it on my brother.” He drew himself up stiffly. “He’ll think I was too cowardly to admit what I’d done. That won’t make him any more eager to countenance a marriage between the two of us, will it?”

  “I don’t care what he countenances! I want him—and the rest of my family—to hear the truth.” She put some distance between them, though it wasn’t easy to do when he held her with all the intimacy of a lover. “You won’t change my mind on this, you know. If you won’t tell him until after Morgan returns, then we won’t marry until then.”

  He glowered at her. “All the same, I shall ask Knighton for your hand.” His hand slid to her back. “At least we can be engaged while I’m cleaning up this mess.”

  “No.” Leave it to Sebastian to try to wriggle through her conditions however he could. She saw Rosalind across the room speaking to Lady Brumley, who was probably trying to find out how much of the gossip about Juliet was true. That firmed her resolve. “Until you can ask Griff properly, I won’t accept any offer of marriage from you. If you even mention marriage to him, I’ll tell him flat out that I refused you, and that will hamper your efforts later.”

  “Deuce take it, be reasonable!” he hissed. “It won’t be long before Morgan returns, one way or the other. Blackmore is going after the Pirate Lord with a well-armed crew. If Morgan is no longer with the pirates, then he should be in England any day. If he is still with them, Blackmore will bring him back in chains, as Morgan deserves. But one way or the other, the whole matter will be settled soon enough. So if we agree to marry—”

  “No, I tell you,” she said firmly. “Until this is all worked out, I’m not agreeing to anything.” Because then he’d find another way around it, another reason, and she’d be marrying a man her family didn’t really know. “As you say, it’ll be settled soon enough.”

  Eyes hard as onyx glared down at her. “You do know you’re being incredibly exasperating, irritating—”

  “Don’t forget ‘childish’,” she put in.

  “—and stubborn?”

  She tipped her nose up airily. “Then I wonder why you want to marry me.”

  The anger in his expression was suddenly tempered by a healthy dose of desire. “If we were alone, sweeting, you wouldn’t have to wonder.” He danced his fingers sensuously across her back, stopping just short of smoothing them down over her derriere. But she could feel the heat of them, muted by her silk gown and his kid gloves, but palpable all the same against her spine. “Perhaps you’d fancy a walk in Feathering’s gardens.”

  Her mouth fairly watered at the thought of slipping outside with him where he could kiss her and caress her and do all those other wicked things he excelled at. But she knew better than to let his seductive voice coax her this time. “We shan’t be alone again, sir—either in the gardens or anywhere else—until you speak to my family. I shall not be your paramour while you wait for matters to turn out to your satisfaction.”

  “You know I don’t see you that way!”

  “Oh look, the waltz is done,” she said brightly as the music came to an end. “And I desperately need some punch.”

  Jaw set, he gestured toward the open French doors that led to the gardens. “Come with me for a walk in the fresh air, so we can finish discussing this.”

  “We’ve already finished discussing this.” And the last thing she needed was to be alone with him where he could melt her iron reserve into a slag heap.

  She started to leave him right there, but he caught up to her and tucked her arm firmly in the crook of his elbow as he led her off the floor. “I sometimes miss the old Juliet, the one I met two years ago.”

  She scowled at him. “Why? Because like a ninny, she did whatever you asked?”

  “No. Because she was so eager to have me that she asked me to kiss her.”

  A reluctant smile touched her lips. “You refused me at first, as I recall.”

  “Temporary insanity. I won’t make the same mistake again, however.” He rubbed her hand with his. “Now where is this blasted punch you say you want?”

  “In the supper room. But you needn’t accompany me—”

  “You’ll not be rid of me that easily, sweeting,” he murmured and squeezed her hand.

  Her mouth went dry. She dearly wished she had the fortitude to walk away from him entirely. But three days without him had weakened her just a little.

  They’d almost reached the supper room when Griff and Rosalind accosted them.

  “Hello, Templemore.” Griff’s rigid stance and curt tone belied the seeming cordiality of his greeting. “What brings you to London?”

  Sebastian glanced down at her with unmistakable affection. “A certain young lady.”

  Juliet groaned. He might as well have written “MINE” in ink across her forehead. “Actually, Lord Templemore is in town to find out more about his missing brother. He’s never given up hope of finding him, though I fear he’s doomed to disappointment. In that, as in other things.”

  “Ah, Lady Juliet, such a pessimist you are,” Sebastian rumbled. “But as you know, I’m a determined sort, and I don’t brook disappointment.”

  “I for one am very glad to see you, Lord Te
mplemore,” Rosalind burst out, as if she couldn’t contain herself any longer. “I know you’ll be interested in what Lady Brumley was just telling me before Griff found me.”

  Beaming at Juliet, Rosalind lowered her voice. “Apparently, there’s a new rumor sweeping the ballroom—that Lord Montfort took it upon himself earlier today to check into the claims about you. He’s now pronouncing to everyone his discovery that they were utterly false.”

  Griff looked perplexed. “That’s an abrupt reversal from an hour ago, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” Juliet said, musing over this strange new twist of events.

  Rosalind winked at Sebastian. “You wouldn’t happen to know what brought it about, would you, my lord? There are some young gentlemen who claim you were looking for the duke earlier.”

  Juliet glanced to Sebastian in surprise. “Is this true? Did you have a part in this? And if so, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Sebastian shrugged. “I couldn’t be sure that Montfort would respond to my…er…suggestions. But yes, I spoke to him. I didn’t think it fair that you be maligned for what my brother did.”

  “I spoke to him, too,” Griff said gruffly, “but Montfort was determined to ruin her, and I couldn’t sway him. However did you convince him to relent?”

  “As I told you before,” Sebastian said smoothly, “I knew Montfort when we were younger. I merely appealed to his sense of decency.”

  Griff’s eyes narrowed. “Montfort has no sense of decency.”

  Sebastian stared him down. “Then let’s just say that my arguments left him no room for refusal.” He glanced over to where the duke stood with a gaggle of his gossipy friends, and his jaw went taut. “He won’t trouble Lady Juliet again, I swear.”

  His hard tone made fear leap in Juliet’s belly. “Oh, please say you didn’t challenge him!” she cried.

  His gaze swung back to her, soft and faintly amused. “Would you care?”