The Hero Least Likely

by Darcy Burke

  “I don’t want special consideration,” Bartholomew bit out. “I want—”

  “You want Miss Vaughan. Yes. So you’ve mentioned. With all the eloquence of a stampeding bull.” Captain Steele rolled his eyes toward Daphne. “I suppose you find yourself so overcome with emotion by this heartfelt proposal that you’ll quite literally die if I don’t accept his suit in favor of a better candidate?”

  “One of us will.” Daphne crossed her arms and scowled at him. “I shouldn’t sleep with my door unlocked if I were you.”

  “Now, now. Is that any way for a vicar’s daughter to speak to her elder? I’m shocked. Shocked. And not at all certain the two of you are remotely suited for matrimony.”

  Bartholomew smiled tightly. “Your experience in the matter being…”

  “True. You make a fine point, Major. So here are mine.” Steele ticked them off on his fingers. “We will sign not one, but two copies of the marriage contract. Miss Vaughan, you get neither. I don’t trust vicars or their daughters. The first copy is mine, and the second copy goes to the major so that he does not forget his duties. Which are: having the first banns read tomorrow morning, concluding the marriage ceremony by the end of February—”

  “But it is February,” Daphne interrupted. “Today is the third, which gives us less than four weeks to—”

  “—accomplish what only requires a fortnight to do,” Captain Steele concluded. He held up his last finger without missing a beat. “Finally, you’re to take the lass from my sight as soon as possible. She’s mouthy and opinionated. Two of the worst possible traits a female can have.”

  Bartholomew allowed the outrage to show on his countenance, but nudged Daphne’s toe with his own. They’d done it!

  All they had to do was stall the wedding until Daphne came into her portion and then break the false betrothal. Bartholomew couldn’t cry off without damaging her reputation, so she would have to be the one to do the jilting. His reputation was of no consequence. He would return to his life of solitude just as soon as the ink dried, and never think of it again.

  Oh, very well. He would think of it. Think of her. Every night, most likely. He swallowed hard. Losing a faux fiancée wouldn’t be much better than losing a real one. Especially when it meant losing Daphne. They’d only just found each other again.

  His throat tightened. He’d wonder where she was and what she was doing. If she’d found a husband and gotten married. If she ever thought of him, and what it might have been like if their betrothal had been in truth. If they would have indulged in a torrid affair.

  Or if she had found someone else. Someone she could love.

  Captain Steele pulled two identical contracts from a drawer in the desk. He filled in Bartholomew’s information in the blank area reserved for the suitor’s name, then pushed both documents across the desk along with two plumes and an inkwell. “Sign.”

  Bartholomew scanned the tiny print for hidden surprises, then signed his name at the bottom. For better or worse, the deed was done. He switched copies with Daphne and repeated the process. He then walked both sheets over to the fire to encourage the ink to dry as quickly as possible.

  When the script no longer shimmered, he handed one of the sheets of parchment back to the pirate. He rolled the other into a narrow tube and slid it into his waistcoat. “Are we through?”

  “You and I, perhaps.” Captain Steele tossed his copy of the contract into the wall safe behind the desk. “Your life with Miss Vaughan, however, is just beginning.”

  “And you are no longer part of it.” With a gentle touch of his fingers to the small of Daphne’s back, Bartholomew angled her out the door. Thank God that was over. He lowered his mouth to her ear. “This could have been solved so much easier with dueling pistols.”

  “Or just pistols,” she muttered back. “No sense waiting until dawn. I’ve no idea how that man is still alive. Everyone he meets becomes his enemy.”

  They reached the corridor just as the footman hurried straight toward them.

  “Visitors, miss.” He glanced about nervously. “Shall I send them away?”

  Daphne rubbed her temples. “Pray, do. I’m through with company for the day.”

  “I’m certainly not.” Captain Steele slipped from the vicar’s study and widened his arms in welcome. “Who’s come to see me?”

  “No one. They’ve come for Major Blackpool.” Flushing, the footman wrung his hands at Bartholomew. “Sir, your parents are here.”

  TEN

  Parents. Daphne’s breath whooshed out of her at the word.

  It was impossible not to feel sorry for herself. Not to be jealous. How could she? Bartholomew’s parents were still alive. They showed up even when he wasn’t expecting them. They loved him. They certainly weren’t forcing him to marry against his will, just because they didn’t wish to deal with him.

  No. She swallowed hard. That wasn’t fair. Just because Bartholomew’s parents were still alive didn’t mean all three of them hadn’t suffered a loss just as powerful as hers.

  And here she was, forcing Bartholomew into a faux betrothal.

  How would they possibly keep his parents from finding out? She looped her arm through Bartholomew’s and dragged him forward. This was dreadful. They had to send his parents home immediately, before they ran into—

  Captain Steele’s hand fell upon Daphne’s shoulder before she finished taking her next step. “What’s the hurry, love? Of course we’ll invite Mr. and Mrs. Blackpool in for a nice spot of tea. It’d be right churlish to turn them away in this sort of weather.”

  Rooted in place, she slowly turned her head up toward Bartholomew, expecting to see writ upon his countenance the same panic jolting through her veins. That, or fury at Captain Steele’s obvious glee from meddling with their lives.

  Instead, she saw abject sorrow flit across his face, followed by a wince of pain. Frowning, she held fast to the crook of his arm. He let out a slow breath.

  “They’re going to be so disappointed in me.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his face pale. “I’ve no idea how they learned I was here, of all places, but to discover me a half mile from their door when I haven’t left London since returning from war…”

  “You haven’t seen them?” she whispered in disbelief.

  “I saw my father. Once.” He nodded to the footman. “Show them into the parlor, please.”

  The footman glanced at Daphne, then behind her at Captain Steele.

  Her guardian lifted his hand. “By all means, the parlor. We’re not animals. I’ll fetch the port.”

  She glared at him. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning!”

  “I’ll fetch two bottles.” He winked and disappeared back into the study.

  Daphne shook her head. Only a pirate. She kept her fingers curved around Bartholomew’s arm as they headed toward the parlor. Her head, however, was still spinning from his casual admission of little to no contact with his parents. What in the world could cause such a thing?

  She frowned. During the first few months of recovery, he wouldn’t have been able to leave his bedchamber, much less take a carriage ride to Kent. Yet his father had visited his sole surviving child only once? She narrowed her eyes. Something was amiss. If anything, the Blackpools had always struck her as overly doting on their twin sons.

  Surely they didn’t blame Bartholomew for Edmund’s death! That blame lay with Bonaparte’s army, not with the honorable soldiers dedicated to defending against it.

  Then again, she, too, had felt abandoned when the twins left for Eton and then to war, leaving her adrift in the countryside with an absent father and nothing to keep her company but her own loneliness. She had dreamt of them coming home. Of having friends. Of mattering to someone.

  No doubt Bartholomew’s parents had been even more desperate for the safe return of their sons.

  And now this.

  She bit her lip. With such an obvious rift in their family, the worst thing to do was to spring a surprise betrothal on them,
but there was no way to avoid it now that they were here. Her stomach churned. Bartholomew’s parents were bound to think the reason they knew nothing of their relationship was because their estranged son hadn’t deigned to inform them.

  The only thing she could do was smooth their ruffled feathers as quickly as possible. But was that even a help, when they’d be crying off the engagement in a few weeks’ time? Her stomach soured. No matter what, hopes would be dashed. What was the best plan?

  She didn’t want to make too good of an impression. She might never speak to his parents after today. Bartholomew, on the other hand, was going to have to go through a heart-rending dust-up with them all over again when the wedding fell through.

  Presuming they were still speaking to him.

  Daphne would instruct him to blame everything on her, of course. She would never forgive herself if his relationship with his parents worsened because of her involvement.

  Familial relationships were to be cherished. One never knew how much time one had left.

  She settled onto a wingback chair to await the inevitable disaster.

  Bartholomew took the wingback chair opposite. His posture was stiff, his eyes glassy.

  She frowned. They didn’t look like a besotted couple. They looked like strangers. Awaiting sentencing.

  Hollowness seeped inside her chest. Of course that’s how they looked. Why should she have expected anything else?

  From childhood, she had been taught that her needs were of secondary importance. That she herself was of little importance, forgotten by her flock-minded father and their entire little town.

  A part of her had always hoped that someday, someone would look at her selfless life, her years of devoting herself to the welfare of others, and think, Miss Vaughan has made a difference. Or Miss Vaughan matters.

  A deeper part of her once hoped that someday, someone would actually want her in his life. Not because he was in search of a wife or in want of companionship. But because he wanted Daphne. Someone who wanted to chase her dreams with her instead of force her to abandon them completely. Someone who loved her. Who couldn’t imagine life without her.

  Today… was not that day. Even her faux fiancé could not look less interested.

  She curled her fingers into fists. Next month, the ruse would be over. Bartholomew would be gone. But here today, beneath her guardian’s watchful eye, they needed to look like a couple that intended to marry. Now that they’d signed the contracts, they could not risk him making good on his threats of Bedlam and Newgate. She glanced around the room.

  Opposite them was a chaise longue, closer to the fire. Perfect. They could sit next to each other, with nary an armrest between them. She could force her cracked lips into a smile and at least pretend her handsome, rakish neighbor really had returned to Maidstone to beg for her hand.

  She dashed to the chaise longue and motioned for Bartholomew to join her.

  He tilted his head quizzically, his mind obviously elsewhere.

  Urgently, she thumped her hand on the cushion. “Come here.”

  “What am I, your lapdog?” he groused. But he smiled as he joined her on the chaise longue, his attention focused on her once more. “You’re fortunate this is a counterfeit betrothal.”

  “Shh.” She rapped the back of her knuckles against the side of his thigh. “Or what? You’d toss me over your shoulder like a heathen and lock me in some gothic attic on the moors?”

  “If I could do so without my fake leg giving out on me, absolutely.” His blue eyes twinkled as he gave her a chastising look. “If we did make it to the altar, you’d be the one who should carry me over the threshold.”

  “Me!” she exclaimed, clutching a hand to her bosom in mock affront. “Just what might you be implying about my ladylike figure, sir?”

  He blinked back at her innocently. “Was it too subtle? As clever as you are, I assumed wordplay wouldn’t be too far above you. I can think of other things I’d prefer to have above you—or wherever you like it. May I offer my…” He coughed into his gloved fist and sprang to his feet.

  Flushing, Daphne did the same. Bartholomew might not have lain eyes on his mother in three years, but Daphne had run into her now and then at All Saints Church while he’d been gone. Until they’d got the news about their children, of course. There’d been no sign of any Blackpool since. Without Edmund’s body, there hadn’t even been a funeral to attend.

  Her breath caught as they walked into the room. In the interim seven months, ’twas safe to say that Bartholomew’s parents had… deteriorated. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

  Mr. Blackpool—once as wide and tall and arrogant as his sons—hovered in the doorway like a leaf caught in the wind, neither rising up nor falling down. Despite his height, he seemed fragile. Ephemeral. His expression was vacant, as if his body were an empty shell and his mind no longer present.

  Mrs. Blackpool, on the other hand… everything about her was very present. She’d gained at least two stone in the past few months, and her entire body quivered like a volcano about to burst. Her red-rimmed eyes watered. Her handkerchief trembled from shaking fingers. The gasping sounds escaping her throat were somewhere between weeping and outright hysteria.

  Daphne’s throat convulsed. She had felt exactly like this when her father first died. Some days, she forgot to eat. On others, her eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Her father might have always been busy tending his flock, but he was the only person who loved her. And now he was gone.

  She curtseyed awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed. Bartholomew took a hesitant step forward, his face ashen.

  With a sob, Mrs. Blackpool threw herself directly into her son’s arms.

  Bartholomew’s false leg crumpled, sending both mother and son barreling right over Daphne. All three landed on the floor in a tangled heap of skirts and limbs, with Daphne underneath. The wind rushed out of her lungs.

  As the footman rushed over to pull Mrs. Blackpool from the top of the pile, Bartholomew’s mouth brushed the shell of Daphne’s ear as he whispered, “You needn’t worry about my sense of balance. I know better than to sign my name to any dance cards.”

  She was prevented from shaking him for flippantly undermining his self-worth at a time like this, due to her arms being trapped beneath her body.

  During all of this, the elder Mr. Blackpool hadn’t moved a muscle. He remained in the doorway, neither in nor out, eyes focused on nothing.

  Captain Steele edged around him, entering the room just as the footman was steadying Mrs. Blackpool on her feet. With neither merriment nor any particular hint of surprise in his eyes, the pirate crossed the parlor in two long strides and held a hand out to Bartholomew.

  Bartholomew ignored it.

  He rolled off of Daphne and into a sitting position. He quickly swung both knees up to his chest, falling backward as he did so as if gathering momentum. Then he rocketed forward, his false leg outstretched before him, and sprang upright on the force and strength of his good leg alone.

  Daphne gaped at him in disbelief. She couldn’t rise from the floor that fast using both arms and both legs, much less do so gracefully. She was absolutely going to let the footman help her to her feet.

  Bartholomew held his hand out first. He was neither winded nor perspiring. He looked magnificent.

  If she wouldn’t have seen him crumple like a marionette, if she hadn’t been trapped beneath him and his mother just a few seconds earlier, she might have believed he’d never fallen at all. She, however, was trying to catch her breath.

  He mistook her awe for distrust in his ability to help and lowered his proffered hand. Lips tight, he glanced over his shoulder toward the others. “Footman? If you’d—”

  “No.” She reached up, her arm and gaze steady. After a beat, he took her hand and pulled her smoothly to her feet. Too smoothly. She had to fake a small stumble in order to press against his chest long enough to whisper, “Pure laziness is the only reason you wouldn’t carry me over a threshold.”
>
  The corner of his lip quirked. “You didn’t see me fall?”

  “I saw you get up.” She stepped back to shake out her skirts, then turned to face his parents. “Pardon my clumsiness. I get lightheaded when I fail to break my fast properly, and I—”

  “She’s scarcely to blame,” Bartholomew interrupted. “My pride prevents me from carrying my walking stick as I ought, and the last thing I expected was…”

  Daphne glanced around as he trailed off. Neither of his parents was listening. His father had retreated back into himself. And his mother was moaning to the room at large about how it was too much, just too much, to have one son dead and the other as helpless as a babe.

  “Twenty-six years old,” she wailed, hurling herself into her husband’s cravat. “We’ll have to hire help to watch over him, like a nanny. He cannot even stand reliably. Whatever will I do?”

  From the flat expression on Bartholomew’s face, the reunion was going about as well as he’d expected. He made no further attempt to hug his mother. She would likely either cosset him like a newborn baby, or throw herself back into his arms and tumble the entire party to the floor all over again.

  “Well, then,” Captain Steele boomed from behind the desk. “Port?”

  Why not? Daphne accepted a glass from the pirate, then handed it directly to Bartholomew.

  He handed the port to the footman and pulled her over to the chaise longue. “Mother. Father. Sit.”

  Mrs. Blackpool pulled her tear-streaked face away from Mr. Blackpool’s cravat and staggered into the wingback chair closest to Daphne and Bartholomew. Mr. Blackpool did nothing.

  Bartholomew didn’t breathe. His fingers clenched and unclenched, his posture stiff, his cheekbones touched with pink.

  This was killing him, Daphne realized. How could it not? His mother wasn’t thinking of him as a survivor. She thought of him as a baby, a burden. A disappointment. All her grief was due to her own pain. She hadn’t yet spared a thought for how her son must feel. What he might need. Daphne brushed the back of her fingers against Bartholomew’s fist.