No Choice but Seduction (3 page)

The Andersons’ family business, Skylark Shipping, also had an office in London now. While the family had avoided England for many years due to the old war and the hard feelings that had ensued from that, they were once again firmly entrenched in trading with the English. In fact, now that England was central to all of their newly acquired routes, the London office had grown considerably in the last eight years. Boyd wouldn’t half mind taking over the running of it.

Become landlocked? God, why didn’t he just do it already? Because oddly enough, he loved the sea. He just hated what it did to him.

Georgina had introduced him to London society more than once on his visits here. He even kept a wardrobe at her house specifically for his London stays that was more appropriate for a gentleman, since the English dressed quite a bit more fancily than sailors did! He didn’t go excessive in frilly cravats or lacy cuffs as some of them did. In fact, he took a cue from his brother-in-law, James—well-tailored, but subdued and even open-collared. And he had a few velvet jackets that spruced him up for evening social events.

On this extended visit he’d been receiving invitations to balls and soirées from Georgina’s acquaintances that knew he was still in town, and he’d occasionally accepted. He wasn’t actively looking for a wife, but if the right woman showed up, that would be incentive to settle down. He’d thought he’d found her. Katey Tyler would have been the perfect woman for him—if she wasn’t already taken!

God, how did he let
her
sneak into his mind again? Once she did, it took days and a good bout of drinking to get her out again. But only briefly. She was somewhere in his thoughts more often than not. It seemed that knowing he couldn’t have her because she already had a husband made him want her even more! He’d never been able to figure out what exactly it was about Katey Tyler that had twisted him inside out on that voyage. She wasn’t even the kind of woman that usually caught his eye.

She was too tall for one thing, only a few inches shorter than he was. He preferred to feel tall where his women were concerned, and Mrs. Tyler didn’t give him that feeling when she stood eye to eye with him. But it didn’t matter. One look at her lushly abundant curves and nothing else mattered.

She could talk a lot—about nothing. That was a remarkable feat. Even more remarkable, he’d never found that annoying! Her dimples often made her seem like she was smiling when she wasn’t. And she contradicted herself a lot, which could be quite confusing, but he actually found that endearing. It made her seem charmingly absentminded. Her nose was slim, almost patrician, her brows rather thin, her mouth—he could never think about her mouth without becoming aroused.

No woman had ever affected him like that before, or stayed in his thoughts this long.

Gabrielle Brooks had caught his interest though. What a relief that had been, assuring him that he wasn’t a lost cause! She could have banished Katey from his mind—well, that had been his original hope. Gabby had arrived in London at about the same time he did and had become Georgina and James’s houseguest because her father, an old friend of James’s, had asked James to sponsor her for the Season.

A pretty thing, Gabby could have turned his thoughts toward marriage if Drew hadn’t been taken with her, too. Not that his carefree brother ever intended to get leg-shackled, as the English put it. But Gabby seemed to be fascinated with Drew, too, so Boyd had stopped thinking about her as a possible wife. Besides, she was the daughter of a pirate, as it turned out, and Boyd would have had a hard time getting past that simple fact. Pirates were the nemesis of honest sailors.

He glanced at the two invitations on his tray that were actually for him and carefully put back the four that were addressed to his sister. He opened the folded note since he couldn’t tell whom that was for. He had to read it twice before the meaning sank in. And then he was bolting up the stairs shouting his niece’s name.

When he found Jacqueline in her room, the color returned to his cheeks and his heart slowly returned to its normal beat. He read the note once more.

I have your daughter. Start gathering a fortune if you want her back. You’ll be told where to bring it.

Boyd shoved the note in his pocket, deciding it had obviously been delivered to the wrong house. He wondered if any of Georgina’s neighbors had daughters. He didn’t know, but he’d have to take that note to the authorities.

“What’s wrong, Uncle?”

Glancing at Jack’s woebegone expression, Boyd replied, “I could ask you the same thing.”

She started to shrug, but then she sighed and said, “Judy’s riding her first horse today in Hyde Park. Not a pony, a real horse Uncle Tony bought her.”

“And you weren’t invited to watch?” he guessed.

“I was, but—I think only Uncle Tony should share that with her. He’s so been looking forward to it.”

Boyd managed to stifle a grin. His niece was only seven years old, but sometimes she amazed him with her insight and consideration for others. She obviously wanted to be in the park watching her best friend ride her first real horse, but she’d taken the girl’s father’s feelings into account instead.

Boyd had known about the outing and had been afraid that Jack would feel left out. He’d actually considered buying her a horse as well, but then he realized his sister might have a fit if he did. Actually, it was James’s likely reaction that had decided him against it. If Sir Anthony had been looking forward to seeing his daughter’s excitement upon riding her first real horse, James was probably looking forward to the same.

“Besides,” Jacqueline added. “Judy’s coming over tonight to spend the weekend, so I’ll be hearing—”

She didn’t finish because Henry burst in completely out of breath, as if he’d run up the stairs just as Boyd had done. Without saying what had brought him upstairs in such a hurry, he glanced at the daughter of the house then motioned for Boyd to come out into the corridor. Henry knew that small children had big ears, and this was one thing he was going to make absolutely sure Jack didn’t overhear.

“A messenger just came from Sir Anthony,” Henry whispered urgently in Boyd’s ear. “’E’s asked for every man in the ’ouse to come and ’elp ’im search for ’is daughter. She’s gone missing in the park.”

“Damn,” Boyd said, and pulled Henry downstairs with him before he showed the old salt the note.

It made sense now. The note hadn’t been delivered to the wrong house on the street, just the wrong
Malory
house, which mistake happened frequently with eight separate Malory households in the city.

“A search isn’t going to be necessary,” Boyd said grimly. “But I need to get this note to Sir Anthony immediately.”

“Bleedin’ ’ell, the cap’n is going to be furious ’e ain’t ’ere to ’elp.”

Boyd didn’t doubt that the captain Henry referred to was James Malory. The two younger Malory brothers were quite close, just as Boyd was close to Drew and Georgina, they being the three youngest in their family.

“Then I’ll just have to represent him,” Boyd said as he rushed out of the house.

Chapter Two

T
HE COACH RIDE WAS TERRIFYING.
It was an old coach. The seats didn’t even have padding on them. They might have had padding when the coach was new, but how many centuries ago was that? Both windows were open to the elements. Any glass that might have been there had long since been broken and removed.

Mere cloth had been tacked over each opening to at least keep the wind from blowing in, but it kept out most of the daylight as well. At least there was no chance of freezing when it was merely the middle of October. Judith was grateful for one less thing to fear.

She hadn’t cried yet. She kept telling herself she was a Malory and Malorys were made of sterner stuff. And besides, her eyes would sting if she cried. She knew they would. And her hands were tied so she couldn’t wipe her eyes. But it was hard to keep those tears from falling.

What had started as a thrilling day had turned into a nightmare the likes of which she’d never before experienced. She’d been showing off in the park. She didn’t want her father to worry that the horse he’d bought her was too big for her, or that she couldn’t handle it properly.

It was a beautiful mare, a slender horse only a few hands taller than her pony. And she was well balanced in the seat. Her father had bought her a normal saddle, not a sidesaddle, and had told her she had a few more years to go before she needed to learn how to ride like a lady. She’d just wanted to see how fast the mare would go and prove that he didn’t need to worry about her.

But her short gallop had taken her around a bend in the path, far away from where her father had been standing watching her and out of his sight. She’d already been slowing the mare down to turn around and go back when she’d been yanked off her. The mare had been slapped and raced away, and Judith had been dragged through the thick foliage beside the path with a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming.

Still a voice had threatened, “Make any noise and I’ll cut yer throat and toss yer dead body in the bushes.”

She didn’t make any noise. She fainted instead.

When she woke, her hands were tied, her feet were tied, and her mouth was gagged. Falling off the cushionless bench to the floor of the coach had woken her.

She didn’t try to get back up on the bench, didn’t think she could manage it. And the fear took over. She knew that the coach was speeding recklessly. Her small body was bounced all over the dirty floor. Wherever she was being taken, she was sure she’d never get there. The old coach was going to wreck and crumple around her.

But eventually it did stop in a normal manner and the door was opened. Something was immediately thrown over her, a cloak or a blanket, giving her no time to turn to see who was there. She was rolled in the cloak so that it covered every inch of her before she was dragged across the floor by her feet and then had the wind knocked out of her as she was dropped over a bony shoulder to be carted somewhere.

She still hadn’t gotten a look at who had stolen her, but the voice that had threatened her, while gruff, had sounded like a woman’s. But that didn’t lessen Judith’s fear.

She heard sounds now, lots of them, and voices, even a bit of laughter. And the smell of food was strong, making her realize how hungry she was. But Judith no sooner took all that in than it faded away, as if they’d merely passed by an open doorway or a kitchen or a dining room and were now leaving it far behind. She could see nothing from under that cloak, but she could tell that she was being carried upstairs. The person toting her began to breathe more heavily from the exertion.

A door was opened. It creaked. And then she was dumped on something soft. A bed?

The cloak wasn’t removed from her. She tried to wiggle out of it so she could see again.

“Stop that,” a voice growled at her. “Be still, be quiet, and ye willna be getting hurt.”

She went still. She’d already been quiet. And the door opened again, but she wasn’t being left alone. Someone else had arrived.

“I thought that was ye I saw slinking past the door tae the tavern room,” a man said in an accusing tone. “Where the devil ha’ ye been, womon? When ye dragged me down here tae visit yer aunt, ye didna say ye’d be disappearing for an entire day. I wake tae find ye gone this morning. What was I tae think, eh?”