A Reckless Encounter

“I’ve thought about it.”

“Yes, it seems fair enough, I suppose.” He lifted his tankard and drank deeply. “No need for me to be sober for it, I’ve not a chance either way. No match for you, old boy, and that’s a fact.”

Colter’s eyes narrowed. Anger had eased with the past month of contemplation, but not the need for answers.

“I tracked Easton to Dover. It seems he’s fled England again, gone back to France,” he said when Harvey fell silent. “You should have gone with him.”

Harvey blew out a wet sigh. “It’s not as if we’re boon companions. Christ, I don’t even like the man. He was just a means to an end. A man with the blunt to ease my debts.”

“And did you? Did you ease your debts, or only create more.”

“Ah, therein lies the rub.” His smile was rueful, a bit embarrassed. “I’m done up all over town and don’t have the coin to pay for more than a few pints here and there. They get on to you after a time, see, and a gentleman can only go without paying for so long before innkeepers become nasty about it.”

“You were paid to put Celia aboard a ship to America. Yet she’s still here.”

“Yes.” Harvey nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that was probably unwise of me, but I just couldn’t do it. She was right when she told me that there are prices too great to pay in this world. I’ve been a bastard, a thief and probably worse, but I’m not low enough to deport a woman whose only crime was grief. It seemed that she’d suffered enough. And I knew how that felt.”

“Where is he, Harvey? Easton—you know where he went.”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Tell me where he is and I’ll see that the magistrate shows mercy.”

“Oh, no, old boy, I know well enough what happens to men who are so foolish as to betray their mates. Tied to a pole at low tide and red-lighted, and I like my lights still on, if you please. I’d rather take my chances at twenty paces with you. It’s much more merciful and swift a death than the slow agony of drowning inch by inch.”

Colter rose from the chair he’d straddled, stared down at Harvey with a sense of pity. “You’re already dying inch by inch. At least make it worthwhile.”

Struggling to his feet, Harvey stood swaying for a moment, face pale and jaw set. “You’ll free me from life before I have to endure another day, I presume, so let’s get on with it. No sense in having you accused of killing a man too far in his cups.”

“Oh, no, I think it will serve my purpose far better to let you live, Harvey. It’s a slower death than even that of a smuggler’s fate.”

The bleak illumination in his eyes was ample evidence that he recognized the truth. “Damn you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Damn you!”

“Where is he, Harvey? Tell me.”

After a moment, his mouth worked into a determined line and Harvey said quietly, “Still in England. Waiting for you to be careless.”

And Colter knew then where Philip Worth had gone.

He rode back the way he came on a night that cleared to show millions of stars salting the sky, taking the road south from Broadstairs. He had a long way to go, too long, back through Ramsgate and Sandwich before he even got to Dover. Before he could get to Celia, who waited for him at Harmony Hill, his wife now, a bargain kept.

But he hadn’t married her only to keep his bargain with Lady Leverton.

Sweet Celia, with eyes as green as the sun-struck sea, with courage and heart and qualities he’d never appreciated. He’d been stupid. It shouldn’t matter why she had come to England, or that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about her mother and his father. God, what a sordid debacle his father had made of things!

It had been all he could do to keep from killing him.

If death hadn’t come so quickly to the earl, maybe he would have. His father had caused grief wherever he’d gone, and worse, he’d left behind a legacy of hate and lies.

Maybe it was time he admitted to Celia how ashamed he was of his own father. Christ, she was more courageous than he’d ever guessed, keeping the truth to herself, determined to confront a man who had destroyed her mother and had the power to destroy her if he chose. What courage that had taken—and he’d been too caught up in his own deceptions to recognize it. It was time he told her how much he admired her. And that he loved her. They’d start over.

But first he had to ensure her safety. His father had been right about Philip Worth, perhaps because it took one rogue to recognize another. And now that Colter knew Easton had no scruples, he knew that he had to get to Celia before his uncle did.

31

Nightmarish images prodded her awake. She could see through slitted eyes the face that slowly took shape, an aristocratic face below white hair, with eyes that were too familiar, treacherous eyes that regarded her with detached curiosity.

“Ah, I see that you are awake at last,” Philip Worth said, and nodded. “Very good. I began to worry that I had hit you too hard, perhaps, and that would certainly have ruined everything. But