Captain's Lady

by Jamaila Brinkley

“As it happens, I believe she was expecting both. She’s a very intelligent woman, your aunt.”

  “Great-aunt, actually,” she said absently. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you I grew up with a battle-mage, yes?” Kate nodded and he continued. “The Duke and Duchess of Edgebourne have a reputation for taking in strays, particularly those related to them in any way. I was one of them, my friend Duncan was another. The Duke taught us magic, and the Duchess kept us in line.”

  Lord Rothwell smiled, and she realized that his memories of family life were more than fond. “As it happens, I’m the perfect candidate for your sister, other than the inconvenient fact that I have no intention of marrying her.” She opened her mouth, but he kept going before she could say anything. “You, on the other hand . . .” He leaned toward her, eyes meeting hers. “You, I’ll marry, if you really want it.” His eyelashes fluttered, as though he was surprised to hear the words coming out of his own mouth.

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  He tilted his head and leaned back again, as though he’d been expecting a different reaction. “What?”

  “Well, my situation is desperate. But I don’t quite understand why you’d agree.”

  “Were you expecting me not to?” He frowned. “Were you just offering to save face?”

  “Lord, no,” she said bluntly. “You’re my best option. I meant it.” She blushed, realizing that she’d never spoken to a man this plainly. Even her grandfather had couched his directives in generally polite language, a nod to her femininity and a constant reminder that she wasn’t the heir.

  “As it happens, it’s been pointed out to me recently that I’m in need of a wife.” His lips twisted with some sort of grim humor she didn’t understand. “I have no interest in trawling the ballrooms for one, and you seem sensible.”

  “And desperate.”

  “Always a bonus in any negotiation,” he said cheerfully. “I need someone to fend off the hopeful mamas, and you need someone to protect you and your sister. It seems convenient all around. My estate is in Cornwall, but I certainly wouldn’t require you to remain there.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to myself.”

  A convenient marriage. It seemed they were coming to an agreement. “Thank you.”

  “So.” He captured her hand, his hazel eyes clear, direct, and somehow warm as they met hers. “You want this marriage?”

  Caught in his gaze, mesmerized by something she couldn’t identify, she nodded without hesitation. “I want it.”

  He leaned toward her, and she found herself swaying in his direction without conscious thought.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you like to find out if we . . . suit?”

  “Must we suit?” she murmured absently, her eyes drifting closed as his face filled her vision.

  “We should try, at least,” he said, and then his lips were on hers and she could only think that they suited very well indeed.

  Chapter 4

  He still didn’t quite understand what had possessed him. One of these days his spontaneous decisions were going to get him into trouble. Well, more trouble. He’d agreed to marry a woman he’d just met, an intriguing one, but still a stranger. They’d shaken on it, still exploring each other with curious eyes and lingering touches, then agreed to depart for Scotland in two days. He’d procure the license and she’d explain the plan to her sister. All in all, he suspected that no matter the complications, he had the easier part of the bargain.

  Despite what Thomas and Em had said, he hadn’t really intended to marry so soon. But reckless choices tended to be his favorite kind, and he’d make the best of what his curiosity had gotten him into. Remembering lustrous hair and smooth skin, a hint of humor, and more than a hint of practical intelligence gazing out at him from dark-brown eyes, he thought things might turn out all right. He wondered if she knew anything about estate management. Would she prefer to hare off to Cornwall or stay in London while he was at sea? How would she cope with the irrepressible Genevieve and the Carstairs sisters? Would the Duchess like her?

  He flinched, realizing for the first time the real enormity of what he’d done. The Duchess would probably like her, of course, but she wouldn’t like Jack’s harum-scarum marriage methods. The sooner he could get a special license and hie himself and his bride to Scotland to take Alicia to someone who could help her with her magic, the better. But where did one procure a marriage license? He had a vague feeling that, viscount or not, he probably couldn’t walk up to the nearest parish priest and demand one.

  But he did know somebody who would probably know, and who could probably be counted on to at least wait a day or so before tattling to the Duchess. He turned his horse toward Whitehall.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Captain Boone to see Lord Bradley,” he told the clerk, passing over his card. The spare offices in the back of a nondescript building that housed the magical division of the Home Office never changed, although the clerks occasionally did. He didn’t know this one.

  “Just a moment, sir,” the young man said, before disappearing behind a door.

  “Don’t you mean Lord Rothwell?” The voice came from behind him, and was dripping with irony.

  Jack turned. “Shouldn’t you be in your office? Are you making that poor boy hunt through every room in this building to find you?”

  Lord Bradley sniffed. “I was getting lunch.” He held up a wrapped packet that could have contained anything, but probably didn’t contain lunch. A few years older than Jack, he was dressed soberly, but it didn’t disguise the raw power in his frame, both magical and political. His face remained youthful and unlined, and it wasn’t just the coppery hair that gave him a strong resemblance to his cousin, the elfin Lady Westfield.

  “You didn’t leave through the door?”

  “Of course not. Why should I make it that easy?”

  “Everybody needs to learn,” Jack agreed as they made their way into Bradley’s office, which to all intents and purposes had only one visible door.

  “So what can I do for you, Rothwell?”

  “Must you?”

  “Oh, I think so.”

  “Captain Boone, I—” The clerk was back, breathing hard. “Oh! Lord Bradley! I didn’t see you leave.” He sounded uncertain as he peered through the door, as though he wasn’t sure whether his employer really existed at all.

  “That’s all right,” Lord Bradley said. “Next time.”

  The young man blinked, then recovered his composure admirably. “Yes, sir. Captain Boone to see you, sir.”

  Bradley turned to Jack. “Must you?”

  “Obviously.”

  Bradley shook his head, thanked the clerk, and shut the door. “I’ve been expecting you for some time.”

  “I’ve only just gotten back,” Jack said.

  “From Cornwall, yes.” Not that Jack had informed Bradley where he was going. While he did do a great deal of work for the Home Office in the course of his travels, the supervisory structure of this particular division of that august organization was . . . loose. And Jack wasn’t particularly in favor of rules to begin with, something that Bradley had come to terms with over the years of their association.

  He liked to think that he was doing Bradley a favor, keeping him sharp. Although, given that Bradley’s cousin was now married to Jack’s best friend, not a lot of razor-sharp intellect was needed to determine his whereabouts these days.

  “So you were expecting me? You have a new mission?” It would have to wait until he’d returned from Scotland, of course, but it would be nice to have a new direction soon. Preferably one far away from anybody who might want to remind him that there was a Lord in front of his name now.

  For the first time in several years, Jack saw Lord Bradley look surprised. “You want a mission?”

&
nbsp; “What did you think I came here for?”

  “I assumed you’d come to turn in your resignation.”

  It was Jack’s turn to be surprised. “What? Why?”

  “Well, you have a title now, and duties—”

  Jack cut him off impatiently. “Westfield and Kilgoran have had titles for practically their entire lives, and you never pressured them to quit.”

  “They both tried to resign after they married,” Bradley said.

  “Tried to?”

  “Lady Westfield was quite firm about, ah, keeping her options open. And Lady Kilgoran just laughed,” Bradley said, looking smug. As well he should. Ladies Westfield and Kilgoran happened to be his first cousins, and both formidable women.

  Jack found himself seized by a sudden urgent need to consult Debretts, to discover whether Katherine Ashe was related to the man in front of him in any way.

  “Well, I’m not here to resign. And, as it happens, I’m not here for a mission either, although I’m happy to listen to your current needs and take them under advisement.”

  “So why are you here?”

  Ah. “Well, um . . .” Jack could feel heat rising under his skin. Bradley had been present at every wedding at which he’d made snide remarks about duty and matrimony. “As it happens . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I need a special license,” he blurted.

  Bradley’s eyebrows rose so high that it was a wonder they didn’t crawl right off of his face. “Found yourself a viscountess already, have you?”

  Jack scowled. “Don’t think I don’t know you had something to do with landing this wretched title on me, you sneaky bastard.”

  His erstwhile employer smiled beatifically. “I like to think of it as a just reward. For services to the Crown.”

  Jack’s services to the Crown had mostly been in the form of French brandy, a perfectly good drink that certainly didn’t justify dumping a moldering Cornwallian castle on him. “Bollocks.”

  “The title is legitimately yours, you know. It would only have gone into abeyance if the courts hadn’t elected to pursue the maternal line.”

  “And who tipped the courts to the matter?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.” Bradley’s innocent expression was nearly as practiced as Lady Westfield’s, and without the benefit of illusion.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Will you help me, or not?”

  “Wouldn’t you be better off petitioning Edgebourne?”

  Now Jack’s scowl turned to a grimace. “My marriage is something I would much rather present to the Duchess as a fait accompli, if you must know.” Urgent travel needs aside, he couldn’t possibly live through what she’d put Thomas and Duncan through in the weeks before their weddings. He winced as he remembered the daunting Earl of Kilgoran literally fleeing a floral arrangement that had been thrown at his head with unerring aim.

  Now Bradley’s grin was positively saccharine, and Jack wanted to hit him more than he ever had in ten years of clenching his fist around the fellow. “Mothers, eh?” He bent to his desk and scrawled a note, then sanded it briskly and handed it over. “Take this to the Bishop of Canterbury. He’ll get you what you need. And do give my felicitations to your bride.”

  “Just you wait, Bradley.” Jack folded the note and tucked it into his pocket. “Your turn will come.” He closed the door of the office on Bradley’s snort of laughter and headed for the street.

  Chapter 5

  “What the devil is this traffic?” Jack demanded. His carriage—or rather, Lord Westfield’s—had been stuck for ten minutes and didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the Morehouse residence.

  “Don’t know, sir,” the driver called over his shoulder. “Seems to be some kind of mix-up ahead. Lots o’ vehicles.”

  “I’ll go take a look.” Not well suited to sitting back and waiting for things, Jack opened the door and leapt out of the carriage, bounding up the street as the driver’s stifled protest faded into the background noise of London.

  The traffic, it turned out, was due to him. Or rather, his travel arrangements. He’d sent coaches ahead—any he could scrounge from the heavily-used Edgebourne stables and a hired hack—to meet him at Lady Morehouse’s. All of them were parked directly in the middle of the road, blocked from neatly pulling over by another set of coaches—rather more elegantly turned out than the ones he’d managed to borrow. A full complement of conveyances were arrayed in front of the Morehouse residence, and their drivers were arguing angrily with his own. What on earth?

  He squirmed through a break in the vehicular barricade and darted into the open house. “Hello?” He peered around the foyer, noting bags and boxes arrayed neatly alongside the stairs. Somebody was ready to leave, at any rate. He had no idea if it was his own bride-to-be or somebody else, unfortunately.

  “Lord Rothwell! You’re here!” Speaking of his radiant bride, there she was, making her way down the stairs with efficient steps. “You’re late.”

  He stopped, admiring the way her dress shifted along her hips as she moved. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I had everything ready for ten o’clock,” she said, frowning as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s past ten fifteen.”

  He blinked, and opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then tried once more. “Er. Are those carriages . . .?”

  “Yes, the arrangements turned out nicely, I think.” She sniffed. “Perhaps not quite as elegant as you’re used to in the ducal household, but I hope they’ll do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand? We’re traveling. I made travel arrangements.”

  “But I made travel arrangements.”

  Her expression went completely blank for a moment. “You what?”

  “I made travel arrangements. I thought it was understood that I would take care of it.”

  “I thought you were just getting the special license,” she protested.

  “I said I would take care of it, Miss Ashe,” he said. “I meant everything. That’s supposed to be my role.”

  “Have you ever done it before?” A blunt question, delivered inelegantly, and he bristled.

  “I have been making travel arrangements for my entire life,” he said.

  “For ladies?”

  “I, ah . . .”

  “For titled ladies? I did look you up,” she said. “Afterwards.”

  “I will admit that generally, I’m doing for myself or my crew,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of making acceptable arrangements.”

  She rolled her eyes. This marriage was going well. “I’ve been arranging all of the Ashewell travels for years. I used the same coaching stables the earl does—did, I mean.” The expression that flashed across her face made him remember that she’d lost her father not so long ago. “If it isn’t good enough for you, Lord Rothwell, we can certainly use yours.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. How had this conversation gotten so out of his control? He glanced around and realized they had an audience. Lady Morehouse was watching from the parlor door, her lips thin and arms crossed. A footman and a maid were waiting with carefully blank expressions next to one of the piles of luggage, and— Oh, good lord, was that a priest? The man in the collar was unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile as he stood in doorway to the dining room. This must be the priest the bishop had promised to send, yet another old friend of Lord Bradley’s who could be trusted to keep his mouth shut. At least when said mouth wasn’t laughing at Jack’s inexplicable argument with the woman he hadn’t even married yet.

  Exasperated, he grabbed Miss Ashe’s—Kate’s—hand and tugged her to the front door. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To investigate our duplicate arrangements,” he said
. “And stop that priest from giggling.”

  She peered over her shoulder and gave the priest a casual wave as Jack dragged her from the house. “We’ll be right there, Father,” she called.

  “Have you been waiting long?” Jack asked her.

  She shrugged as they came to a stop by the elegant posts of the entry gate. “Only fifteen minutes or so. To be honest, I expected you to be late. Men generally are.”

  He glanced over at her and found her glancing back with a sly gleam in her eye. He laughed. “It’s true, we spend far too long on our toilette.”

  She grinned, and he let out a breath of relief. Perhaps they could start this marital adventure with something other than an argument. And to that point . . . he peered at the traffic jam they’d caused and reluctantly admitted to himself that she’d done a superlative job of acquiring traveling coaches. The black lacquered entourage stood waiting in silent perfection, the drivers having given up arguing with their counterparts in Jack’s motley crew and gone around to the front of the first carriage to have a collective smoke.

  “Is that . . . yours?” Kate’s tone was dubious as she beheld the carriages parked haphazardly next to her own little cavalcade.

  He sighed. “I borrowed what I could from the Duke’s stables, but Her Grace and the girls needed most of the equipage, I’m afraid.”

  She turned to him, and spoke cautiously. “I’m sorry . . . I should have asked first. Is there . . .? Should I have tried to find . . . less-expensive accommodations?”

  He set his fingers on the bridge of his nose, massaging briefly. “No. No, I’m sorry. We’re doing this in a bit of a harum-scarum manner, aren’t we? There should have been settlements, and the like, so you’d know my worth, or something?”

  “I think Lady Morehouse had something drawn up last night,” Kate said, still watching him carefully. “I don’t have much of a dowry, I’m afraid. Shall we economize? I can send them away.”