Georgina couldn’t believe it. He’d locked her in. And no matter how much she’d pounded on the door all through the night, finally giving up in exhaustion, no one had come to let her out. And they were still ignoring her this morning. How could Warren do this to her? And after she’d defied her husband’s dictates just to relieve his mind about her welfare.
She wished now that she’d never heard his voice last night, raised so loud as he shouted at her husband in the hall below. But she did, and of course it had drawn her out of her room with every intention of rushing right down to him.
But before she’d reached the stairs, she’d heard James refuse to let Warren see her, and she knew she’d only get him angrier at her than he already was if she just went down to join them. So she thought she’d been real clever in deciding to sneak out the back way once again so she could come around to wait for Warren to leave. And she didn’t doubt that he’d be leaving. James’s refusal had been more than adamant.
So she’d waited out front and surprised Warren when he stormed out of the house. She’d wanted to assure him she was all right. She’d wanted to tell him not to worry about her anymore. She hadn’t expected him to thrust her into his carriage and drive off with her. Devil take it, why couldn’t James have thought to lock her in instead, then she wouldn’t be here, on Warren’s ship, panicking because he had every intention of taking her home, not to James, but to Connecticut. And he wouldn’t listen to the fact that she didn’t want to go. He hadn’t listened to anything she’d had to say. She was afraid, too, that he wasn’t even going to tell the rest of her brothers that he had her!
In that she was wrong, as she found when the door opened and Thomas stepped into the cabin. “Thank God” were her first words, because it was her one brother who didn’t let temper affect his judgments.
“My sentiments exactly, sweetheart,” he said as he held out his arms to her and she quickly entered them. “We’d about given up hope of finding you.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” She leaned back to demand, “Did you know Warren had locked me in?”
“He did mention it last night when he returned to the hotel and told us what had happened.”
She pushed away from him. “You mean you left me here all night!”
“Calm down, sweetheart. There was no point in letting you out sooner, when you aren’t going anywhere.”
“The devil I’m not!” she said furiously on her way to the door. “I’m going home!”
“I don’t think so, Georgie.” This from Drew, who appeared in the doorway right then to effectively cut off her exit. To Thomas, he said, “Well, she looks fit enough, doesn’t she? No bruises. Spitting mad.”
Georgina felt like spitting, or screaming. Instead she took a deep breath, took another, then asked in a perfectly calm voice, “Warren didn’t tell you, did he, that I wasn’t in need of rescuing? Right? He forgot to mention that I’m in love with my husband? Is that why neither of you bothered to let me out of here sooner?”
“He didn’t mention the love part, no,” Thomas admitted. “I seriously doubt he believes it. But he did say you’d demanded to be taken back to your husband. He thinks you’re suffering under misplaced loyalty because you’re going to have the man’s baby. How are you feeling, by the way?”
“I’m…How did you know?”
“Malory told Warren, of course. He used that as one of the reasons he’s keeping you.”
One of the reasons? It was probably the only reason, and why hadn’t she thought of that before? Because she’d begun to think James really hadn’t heard her when she’d told him about the baby, since he’d never once mentioned it to her.
She moved over to the bed and sat down, trying to fight the depression that was sneaking up on her. She couldn’t let the reasons matter, she just couldn’t. She loved James Malory enough for the both of them. And as long as he wanted to keep her, then she wanted to stay with him. There, that settled that. So why didn’t she feel any better?
Thomas startled her when he sat down next to her. “What did I say to upset you, Georgie?”
“Nothing…everything.” She was grateful to have something to take her mind off the fact that James didn’t love her. Them! Her brothers were being too high-handed by half. “Would you two mind telling me what I’m doing here?”
“It’s all part of the plan, Georgie.”
“What plan? To drive me crazy?”
“No.” Thomas chuckled. “To get your husband to be reasonable.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Would he let Warren see you?” Drew asked her.
“Well, no.”
“Would he have changed his mind about it, do you think?” Thomas asked.
“Well, no, but—”
“He’s got to be made to see that he can’t keep you from us, Georgie.”
Her eyes flared. “You intend to take me all the way home just to teach him a lesson?” she cried.
Thomas grinned at her chagrin. “I doubt it will be necessary to go that far.”
“But if he thinks we will…” Drew didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate, and it wasn’t.
Georgina sighed. “You don’t know my husband. All this is going to do is get him mad.”
“Maybe. But I guarantee it will also work.”
She doubted it, but wasn’t going to argue about it. “So why couldn’t Warren have told me all this last night?”
Drew snorted before answering, “Because our dear Warren never agreed to the plan. He has every intention of taking you home with us.”
“What!”
“Now don’t worry about Warren, sweetheart,” Thomas told her. “We won’t be leaving for at least a week, and your husband is sure to show up long before then to settle this thing.”
“A week? You came all this way, won’t you stay longer than that?”
“We’ll be back.” Thomas chuckled. “And quite regularly, it seems, since Clinton has decided that as long as we’re here anyway, we might as well make this rescue profitable. He’s off right now arranging for future cargoes.”
Georgina might have laughed at that if she weren’t so upset by all of this. “I’m delighted to hear it, but I didn’t need rescuing.”
“We didn’t know that, sweetheart. We’ve been worried sick about you, especially since, according to Boyd and Drew, you didn’t go willingly with Malory.”
“But you know now that I did so why won’t Warren give it up?”
“Warren is hard to understand at the best of times, but in this case…Georgie, don’t you know that you’re the only woman that he has any kind of feelings at all for?”
“Are you trying to tell me he’s given up women?” She snorted.
“I don’t mean those kind of feelings, but the tender kind. I think it actually upsets him that he has any feelings at all. He wants to be completely hardhearted, but there you are, making him care.”
“He’s right, Georgie,” Drew added. “Boyd said that he’d never in his life seen Warren so upset as when he came home and found you gone off to England.”
“And then Malory arrived, and he saw it as his inability to protect you.”
“But that’s absurd,” she protested.
“Actually, it’s not. Warren takes your welfare very personally, perhaps more personally than any of the rest of us do, because you are the only woman he cares about. If you take that into consideration, then it’s not so surprising, this hostility he feels for your husband, particularly after everything the man said and did when he showed up in Bridgeport.”
“Why did he set out to ruin your reputation that night, Georgie?” Drew asked her curiously.
She made a face of disgust. “He felt slighted because I sailed off with you without saying goodbye to him.”
“You must be joking,” Thomas said. “He didn’t strike me as a man who would go to such extremes for petty revenge.”
“I’m just telling you what he told me.”
“Then why don’t you ask him again. You’ll probably hear a completely different reason.”
“I’d rather not. You don’t know how infuriated that night still makes him. After all, you men throttled him, married him off, confiscated his ship, and locked him in a cellar to await hanging. I don’t dare mention your names to him.” Saying all that made her realize how hopeless their plan really was. “Devil take it, he’s not going to change his mind, you know. What he’ll probably do is bring his whole family down here and tear this ship apart.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. We are reasonable men, after all.”
“Warren isn’t.” Drew grinned.
“James isn’t, either.” Georgina frowned.
“But I’d like to think the rest of us are,” Thomas said. “We will settle this thing, Georgie, I promise you, even if your James has to be reminded that he provoked our hostilities in the first place.”
“Well, that’s sure to make him amiable.”
“Is she being sarcastic?” Drew asked Thomas.
“She’s being difficult,” Thomas replied.
“I’m allowed,” Georgina retorted, scowling darkly at them both. “It’s not every day that I get abducted by my own brothers.”