Regency Vows. Kasey Michaels

matter last night, and all night her questions had built up, waiting, demanding to be asked.

      “You seem to have determined the answer to that question yourself.” He leaned against the seat across from her and looked out the window, holding the curtain aside as if there was something outside more interesting to see than her own maid sweeping the steps. “And I’ve made no secret of my regrets.”

      “No. Only of your visit to Salé.”

      He allowed that much with a slight inclination of his head.

      “Do I understand correctly that you were among those attempting to negotiate my release?”

      “Attempting, and failing.” He let the curtain drop and turned those damnable eyes on her. A shiver prickled her skin. While she had wept inconsolably in the caravan to Algiers, Captain Warre had been trying to help her.

      The reality made her feel vulnerable and exposed. “Thus leaving your sense of obligation unfulfilled,” she snapped.

      His mouth quirked up, drawing her attention to his lips. “Nothing quite so dramatic as what you’re imagining,” he said. “I don’t blame myself for failing in that regard. I doubt anything could have convinced the dey to break his agreement with al-Zayar. God knows, we all tried.”

      He had been there, perhaps in the same building. Perhaps mere rooms away.

      She did not want this kind of connection to him. It was too personal. It touched a place too deep, made her yearn for him with terrifying need.

      “I’m not helpless.” Damnation! The words flew out before she could stop them.

      “I would venture to say you’ve demonstrated that quite thoroughly.” He observed her a little more intently, as if trying to read her thoughts.

      She imagined him in Salé coldly demanding her release. Imagined how his voice would have turned sharp when they refused, how his eyes would have gone flinty with rage.

      For her.

      “Why did you not tell me?” she demanded, hating how small she felt.

      “Would telling you have earned me a promotion aboard the Possession?”

      “Certainly not,” she said.

      “I thought as much.” In the silence that followed her statement, he studied her from across the carriage. “What are you thinking?”

      Memories flitted by: Mejdan, laughing indulgently while his two young daughters draped him with silks to make him look like a woman. Nafisa and Aysha on market day, happily trying on a hundred scarves while the shopkeeper grumbled and huffed. Katherine and Nafisa laughing themselves sick while Nafisa taught Katherine Arabic from the same book the children used, and Katherine’s tongue refused to cooperate. Had Captain Warre and her father been successful, there would have been no market days, no playing with the children, no laughter. She would have been brought home to a country that would have seen her as a tragic oddity, where nothing awaited but ruination, isolation and loneliness.

      But she made herself raise a brow at him. “That you are by far the most efficient cabin boy I’ve ever had, and promoting you would not have served my interests at all.”

      “Touché, my dear Captain.” His smile did not reach his eyes, but something else did. For the briefest moment she saw his desire wage war with his guilt.

      And then the carriage drew to a stop in front of a town house, and his expression changed to cold calculation. “Here we are,” he said. “I would suggest you bear in mind that Lord De Lille is one of the most powerful lords in the House.”

      She peered out at the house with that same knot in her gut as when she faced an aggressing ship. “I remember. He and Lady De Lille were friends of my father’s.”

      “Then I don’t need to tell you to remember your manners in front of Lady De Lille.”

      She smiled at him. “For shame, Captain. When have I ever not remembered my manners?”

      * * *

      MANNERS, KATHERINE DECIDED a short time later, were a severe inconvenience.

      “I’ve always thought foreign travel was fraught with danger,” Lady De Lille declared after Captain Warre had flawlessly introduced a retelling of his rescue. She was a plump froth of lace and pink ribbons, peering out from a frame of heavily powdered gray curls topped by a lacy cap. “I’ve never once been tempted to see the world’s oddities—especially not those where you’ve been.” She leveled her eyes at Katherine the way a ship might level its guns and pointed her fan as though it were a pistol. “Not that I haven’t been to Paris, mind you.”

      Katherine clenched her teeth behind the smile she’d pasted to her lips. “Naturally.”

      “But I would never travel farther south than that.” Lady De Lille’s mouth pruned disapprovingly. “I have strong feelings about the effect of the Mediterranean climate on one’s passions.”

      “How fortunate that passions are rarely inflamed in Paris,” Katherine said.

      Captain Warre shot her a meaningful look. Behave.

      She let her eyes drive into him. This is preposterous!

      Seated nearby, Ladies Gorst, Linton and Ponsby exchanged looks with each other and with a Mrs. Wharton, who was married to one of the navy’s top admirals.

      Lady De Lille narrowed one eye, but Captain Warre spoke first. “Hot weather does tend to make people more reactionary,” he said pointedly.

      “So true!” Lady Gorst agreed. Quickly fanning herself, she leaned toward him to assure a clear view of cleavage her disarranged fichu no longer covered. “A summer in London nearly does me in. I’m sure I wouldn’t last above an hour in that hot climate. However did you tolerate it?”

      “One quickly acclimates when one has no choice,” he said.

      “Indeed,” Mrs. Wharton said. “The admiral has always said exactly that.” The lady looked at Katherine. “You must have grown quite acclimated to the heat. One can only see how much time you’ve spent in the sunshine.”

      “Sunshine is unavoidable in the Mediterranean,” Captain Warre said quickly, cutting off the reactionary response that leaped to Katherine’s tongue. “In any case, I’ve always questioned whether it can be good for ladies’ health to avoid sunshine as studiously as they do.”

      “Bless me if this isn’t the first time any such question has crossed your mind,” Lady De Lille scolded. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life.”

      Lady Gorst laughed and drew her fan across her cheek. “And it’s hardly a winning argument, as a lady will always sacrifice health for beauty.”

      Lady Ponsby nodded.

      “One can only see how your time in Barbary has affected you.”

      “Is it true they eat dogs?” Lady Gorst gave a graceful shudder. “Oh, I couldn’t bear it.”

      Lady Ponsby paled.

      Katherine thought of Zaki, with his jeweled bowl and his silken pillows, chewing on a mutton bone with nearly an inch of meat still attached. These people were fools.

      Captain Warre shot her a glance. “An ill-informed rumor, I assure you.”

      “Except when the market for kittens is tight,” Katherine added.

      “Oh!” Lady Gorst placed a hand against her heart.

      “My word,” Lady De Lille said crossly. “You are in more dire need of a husband than anyone I’ve ever met. It is only too bad that your age and adventures put you out of the market, though I suppose there is the estate’s fortune to sweeten the deal.”

      Katherine stood abruptly.

      “Sit down, Lady Dunscore,” Lady De Lille ordered.