One Night of Passion (10 page)

In truth, he frightened her a bit, and he was on her side.

Even his eyes seemed to burn with a disregard for danger. The shade of green, like the fast-shifting tidal waters near Penzance, warned of the hazardous mood boiling beneath his exterior.

“I told you,” he said. “This lady is with me.” It wasn’t just a statement, but an order, given without any thought that it would be contradicted or disobeyed.

Suddenly she envisioned him standing on the deck of a mighty frigate, uniformed and in full command. Everything about him spoke of undisputed authority—his proud stance, his commanding tones, and the challenge and determination alight in those eyes.

This was a man who was up against three imposing adversaries and apparently didn’t seem to find the situation all that daunting—a Sir Walter Raleigh and Charlemagne all in one. He had leapt to her rescue and he barely even knew her.

In addition, her heart clamored that perhaps he could
also save her from her other niggling problem . . .

Perhaps she was putting the cart before the horse on that one, but she could hope. And it didn’t stop her from edging herself closer to his imposing side, declaring her choice without another thought.

“Yes, I’m with him,” she told her tormenters. “My apologies, my lord,” she said, glancing once again up and over her shoulder at her knight errant. “I became lost in the crush and had trouble finding my way back to you.”

“No, my dear,” he said, taking her hand and putting it on his sleeve in a possessive and protective declaration. “The apologies are all mine.
I shouldn’t have let you go in
the first place.
But I’ve remedied that by coming to fetch you.”

If just the mere touch of his hand, his suggestive words, sent her heart galloping, she dared to wonder what it would be like to have him touch her elsewhere . . .

“Shove off, Romulus,” Paskims said, his piggy eyes growing even narrower, while his face started to flame in anger. “Why risk what little reputation you have left, when everyone in this room knows you should have spent this afternoon dancing on air for what you did?”

A slight smile turned on Colin’s face. “So quick to see me hang, eh, Paskims? I really don’t relish spending my afterlife awaiting you in Hades. Besides, given the way you like to falsify your logbooks, I’m quite sure you’ll beat me to those black gates long before I end up under the hatches.”

If it was possible, Paskims’ face mottled to an even deeper shade of red. “I should kill you right now for that insult.”

Colin appeared nonplussed. “I doubt you’d dare. For you know as well as I do it would be pistols for two and breakfast for one. And I do like my breakfast on time.”

That sent Paskims surging forward, until that is, Hinchcliffe stopped him with a firm grip on the man’s shoulder.

Georgia edged behind her protector. She’d seen officers like Paskims in Penzance—loose cannons, Mrs. Taft had called them—craven and cruel in their anger.

“See here, you poltroon,” Brummit said, stepping into the fray. “The gel is ours for the night and you’ll not be stealing anything more that you don’t deserve. Not now, not ever again,”

“I most certainly am not yours!” Georgie said over Colin’s shoulder, emboldened by his reassuring presence. “Besides, what did this gentleman ever steal from you? The only thing I see that you could possibly possess is a penchant for cowardice.”

So much for my promise not to stray into recklessness,
she thought, the moment the hasty words escaped her lips.

Brummit’s hand balled into a fist. “You rag-mannered bitch. I’ll not listen to your saucy tongue for another minute,” he said, stepping toward her, but only too quickly finding her champion in his path.

Georgie aimed a look of pure delight at the terrier-sized brute. “Go ahead,” she said, nudging Colin forward, “give him what he deserves.”

He shot a perturbed glare over his shoulder “You aren’t helping.”

She glanced back and once again realized that it was, after all, three against one. “Oh, I suppose not.”

“You can’t think you’re going to win this, can you?” Brummit asked Colin. “Just hand her over and you won’t have to suffer any further humiliations. It’s not like any of these birds would want you. Especially once they learn you’re done in. Ruined. From what I hear, not even your grandfather is acknowledging you.”

The shoulders before her stiffened once again, drawing their taut line even straighter.

Meanwhile, Brummit hadn’t finished his telling disclosures. Leering at Georgie, he said, “What say you, my sweet? Perhaps he doesn’t look so appealing now that you know the truth. Your prig there hasn’t two crowns to rub together.” His broad, bandy chest puffed up all that much more. “Now we three, we’ve prize money galore. Taken enough Frog ships in the last few months to keep you in silks and velvets for months.”

“Or out of them,” Paskims added, winking at her, his bushy eyebrows waggling about again like a pair a black moths.

Georgie shuddered, for even the thought of any of these men divested of his uniform was enough to send her running to her uncle’s side to beg him to marry her off to Lord Harris without any further ado.

“Stand aside, Romulus,” Brummit repeated. “This girl is ours.”

Her protector turned slightly toward her. “What say you?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather go with you.”

“So be it,” he said, with an imprudent, perilous light glowing in his eyes.

Dear Lord, what had she just agreed to?

Georgie had never considered herself overly sensible, but for half a heartbeat she wished she were more like other young ladies and was safely home stitching some bit of frippery. Then Colin’s hand once again closed over hers and squeezed it, and suddenly Georgie was very glad she wasn’t like other misses.

For they hadn’t the chance to feel his touch.

“Gentlemen, you heard the lady, she is going with me,” Colin said.

He turned to leave, and when he did, Paskims struck out in a flash, catching Georgie’s free arm and yanking her out of the shelter of Colin’s shadow. Even as the man plucked her away, Colin moved to strike him, but failed as the other two officers caught him by the arms and wrestled him away from her.

“Damn both your hides,” he roared. “You’ll not do this to me or the lady.” He struggled back and forth, but Brummit and Hinchcliffe had him firmly clamped in their grips.

Paskims laughed, taunting Colin by making a great show of drawing Georgie close, his rummy breath bringing tears to her eyes. “Stop wasting your time,
Romulus.
Just because you wanted to debauch the little bitch first. You always were a selfish bastard. Don’t worry, we’ll leave something for you.” He tugged Georgie into his arms. “Come here and see what you turned down, you bothersome little—” Then he used a name so bad that several of the rougher ladies around them who’d stopped to watch this tableau play out gasped in shock.

It wasn’t that Georgie hadn’t heard the phrase before, but it had never been thrown at her and she found she didn’t like it one bit. And if that wasn’t bad enough, out of the corner of her eye she spied Uncle Phineas barging through the crowd, his greedy gaze set on the growing knot of people who were gathering around them. Unfortunately the crowd was placing loud wagers as to the outcome, and she knew Uncle Phineas could never resist an opportunity to gamble.

Georgie didn’t have a moment to lose.

Paskims shook her hard, rattling her attention back to the situation at hand. “Didn’t you hear me, gel? I want a kiss, you little—”

Unwilling to wait around and find out whether the man had the bad taste to repeat his ugly slur, she balled up her hand, reeled back from Paskims, who was even then trying to lower his filthy mouth to hers, and planted her fist squarely into his nose with every ounce of strength she possessed.

Now Georgie hadn’t grown up around the docks of Penzance without the occasioned tussle, much to Mrs. Taft’s despair, but the boys of the town only tangled with Georgiana Escott once before they learned their lesson.

Paskims learned his too late.

He instantly released her, leaving her teetering on her high-heeled shoes. His eyes opened wide in shock as he wheeled around like a spinning top on its final turns, before falling backward.

“My nose! My nose!” he wailed in a high-pitched nasal screech. “She broke my nose.”

Georgie leaned over to survey the damage she’d wrought. “It’s not broken,” Why, it was barely bleeding.

“Get up,” she dared him, shaking her fist before him. “And I’ll give you another. Mind you, this time I’ll make sure I break that demmed beak of yours.”

Paskims stayed decidedly ensconced on the floor, complaining and wailing over his supposedly life-threatening condition.

Hinchcliffe charged forward. “I’ll teach you to lay a hand on your betters, gel.”

Before he could reach her, Temple stepped in front of him, appearing from out of nowhere in the crowd and blocking Hinchcliffe’s progress.

Georgie watched the fast-moving emotions flitting across Temple’s face. Shock at her quick dispatch of Paskims, then the barest hint of laughter at the man’s continued ravings, and finally a line of outrage and determination so very similar to the one Colin still wore.

And then suddenly all those hints of heroism were gone and in their stead were all the trappings of a masher.

“Air! Air!” Temple cried. “I cannot stand the sight of blood. I must have air!” He wavered and faltered, latching heavily onto the unsuspecting Hinchcliffe, effectively pulling him out of Georgie’s way.

“Get off of me, Templeton,” Hinchcliffe complained, trying unsuccessfully to push him away. “Leave me be, you dandified idiot.”

“Oh dear God,” Temple wailed, pointing down at Paskims. “That man is bleeding on my best evening shoes! A valet, a tailor, a shoemaker, I do say, anyone come quickly! I need help!”

Just then there was a thwack and a loud gasp, and Georgie watched as Brummit went sailing past her, holding his gut and gasping for air.

Colin was once again at her side. He shook out his fist and then held a hand out to her. “If you want to leave, come with me now.”

One look into his fathomless green eyes, and Georgie only too willingly reached out and let him pluck her from the chaos erupting around them.

He plotted a quick course through the crowded room, while behind them, Brummit, Paskims, and Hinchcliffe struggled to find their feet, shouting complaints and making calls for help from their uniformed brethren scattered about the room.

Georgie swiped a few stray locks out of her face, only to find Uncle Phineas standing in the path before them.

Colin shoved him out of the way, sending him floundering into the crowd, his pudgy arms waving about like a pair of windmills.

She made the mistake of looking back to see if he was hurt, and his livid gaze met hers.

“What the—?!” he called out.

Yet before their pursuers could overtake them or Uncle Phineas could regain his footing, Georgie found herself towed out the front doors, down the steps, tripping and spilling along as she tried her best to keep up with Colin’s unrelenting pace.

Once they gained the street, Georgie felt her heart sink. Even if they were to find a carriage, it would essentially be trapped in the press of vehicles. There was nowhere for them to go, no means of escape.

Colin swore under his breath, looking this way and that, as if weighing his choices. Then he dashed straight into the confusion of curricles, cabriolets, and elegant barouches.

Drivers shouted curses at them as they set horses to prancing and tossing their heads in their traces.

Georgie stumbled once or twice in her wretched shoes, the high heels and ill fit a serious detriment to flight—but then again, she hadn’t planned on creating a scene that would have an angry mob nipping at her hemline as she fled the ball.

Halfway across the street, Colin snatched a dark blanket from a carriage seat, throwing it over Georgie’s shoulders like a shawl. The driver started down from his perch, shouting out a protest, until he spied Colin.

“To the corner, Elton,” he said. “And we’ll meet you there . . . in good time.”

“Yes, milord,” the driver replied, scrambling to pick up his reins, and shouting complaints to the other carriages blocking his path.

They set off anew, Georgie shrouded in the smelly horse blanket. So much for her dreams of the ermine-trimmed cape she’d once seen in a fashion magazine. Still, she didn’t complain, for the dark wool covered her telltale dress, and from the shouts behind them, their followers had not let the crush of vehicles or the prospect of picking their way through a dark, horse-littered thoroughfare lessen their zeal.

“Your driver doesn’t find this unusual?” she asked, wondering if Colin was in the regular habit of dashing about with disreputable women, and an angry mob hot on his heels.

“He’s not my driver,” Colin tossed over his shoulder. “He’s Temple’s man. And if you knew my cousin, you wouldn’t consider our predicament unusual in the least.”

Once across the street, Colin continued down the block until they came to an alley.

He darted down the narrow way, dodging the refuse blocking their pathway.

To her dismay, she stumbled, this time landing in a heap on the dirty cobbles. He turned around and plucked her up from the ground with barely a pause.

“My shoe,” she cried out, realizing she’d lost one of her shoes the moment her stocking-clad foot touched the cold ground. “My shoe fell off.” She turned to go back.

“Forget it,” he told her tersely, catching her once again by the hand and making for the lamplight at the end of the alley.

“But it’s my shoe!” she complained, the dirty alley soiling her only pair of silk stockings.

“I’ll buy you a shopful of new ones tomorrow.”

“I don’t want a shopful, I want
my
shoe.” Georgie pulled to a stop again. “Besides, according to those men back there, you haven’t any money.”

“I have enough,” he told her. “Unless you prefer they give you the blunt for it.”

As if to prove Colin’s point, Hinchcliffe cried out from the entranceway from which they’d come, “There they are.”