To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

Sinclair caught sight of a fold of cloth, drifting down. He struck out, grasping at it with his outstretched hand, and felt the material brush his fingers. His grip tightened, and then he was reeling the folds of cloth in toward him. She was heavy, weighed down with skirts and petticoats. Then he felt her body, limp, and pulled her close.

Her head tumbled forward, dark hair trailing in ribbons, and he lifted it out of the water, onto his shoulder. Her face was white, eyes closed. Was she breathing? But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get them both out of this freezing water. Sinclair struggled toward the steep bank of the canal.

“Here you go, sir.” The lockkeeper was there with a pole, and Sinclair caught hold of the end of it, using it to help him onto the wooden ladder that hung down from the path. Then there were hands, pulling him upward, lifting Annabelle’s limb body from him. It seemed only a moment later he was sprawled on the towpath, shivering with cold and shock.

A group had gathered, hiding the prone body of Annabelle from his view. He couldn’t see what was happening and he was too exhausted to get up. Seconds passed, then minutes. He began to believe the worst. Then there was a shout, and Eugenie came hurrying over to him, her face alight with good news.

“She is breathing. Sinclair. She is alive.”

Chapter 33

Relief washed over Sinclair. His sister was alive. All was well. He pulled himself awkwardly to his feet, leaning on Eugenie as she slipped an arm about his waist, her clothing soon soaking in the water from him. The group shifted to allow him in, just as Annabelle vomited up some of the brown water, and began to indulge in a fit of sobbing hiccups.

Mrs. Burdock slipped an arm about her shoulders and helped her to sit up, murmuring sympathy. Miss Gamboni had come forward but, seeing Sinclair, backed away again. Annabelle’s dark eyes scanned the faces looming over her and widened when she realized that her brother really was there.

“You saved my life,” she croaked. “Sinclair, you were right all along. I should have listened to you. Anything is better than this. How could I have thought I wanted to live the life of a simple girl?”

He knelt and took her hands in his. “Hush, Annabelle. Now is not the time. We will talk about these matters later.”

“My life is ruined,” she wailed.

When it was obvious she wasn’t going to calm herself, they carried her into the cottage and up the stairs to the Burdocks’ bedroom. There she was left to the tender care of Mrs. Burdock and Eugenie. Sinclair, who’d followed them in, sat at the same table he shared with Eugenie only moments ago.

Captain Johnno placed a blanket about his shivering shoulders and he thanked him, holding it close, feeling the warmth of the stove gradually seepin

g into his bones. Or was it his heart? Why did he feel so worried? He should be happy and relieved. Annabelle was safe, all was well, they could go home now. It was over.

But perhaps that was the trouble. It wasn’t over.

He didn’t want it to be over.

He noticed Terry hovering in the doorway, peering up the stairs, clearly worried about what was happening up there. Sinclair eyed him a moment, wondering if he had the strength to punch him in the nose. After a brief struggle with his wobbly legs he decided he didn’t.

“Sit down for God’s sake,” he growled instead.

Terry eyed him nervously. “Only if you promise not to call me out.”

Sinclair snorted. “I don’t have my second here at the moment. Sit down, Terry. I have no intention of calling you out.”

The boy—and suddenly he seemed little more—edged toward the table and sat down. There was a strained look about his eyes. Sinclair realized he felt, if not sorry for him, then at least a little less inclined to blame him for the whole situation. Annabelle could be very strong-willed when she wanted something and Terry had little experience of strong-willed dukes’ sisters.

“Do you think she will recover?” Terry said, glancing toward the door to the stairs again. “I would have jumped in, sir, but I never learned to swim.”

Sinclair rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the grate of his unshaven cheeks. When had he last shaved? He couldn’t remember. It hadn’t seemed to matter . . . until now. “She’s in good hands. Your sister will take care of her and Mrs. Burdock seems to me a capable woman.”

Terry nodded, and when he looked at Sinclair again it was with speculative eyes. “May I ask, sir, what my sister is doing here?”

Sinclair wondered how much to tell him, or how much Eugenie would want to tell him. In the end he said, “She wanted to find you. She was worried I might do you an injury if she wasn’t here to stop me.” His mouth curved into an involuntary smile, and he saw Terry’s gaze sharpen. Quickly he made his expression stony again.

“Is my sister’s virtue intact?” Sinclair asked bluntly, thinking he may as well know the worst so that he could deal with it.

Terry’s eyes opened wide. They were green, like Eugenie’s. “Yes, sir! It was never . . . we were never . . . We are friends only! And Lizzie was with us all the while. Miss Gamboni, that is. She was chaperoning your sister. None of it was her fault. We sort of—sort of kidnapped her, you see.”

He looked so indignant, so eager to impress upon Sinclair his innocence, that this time Sinclair had difficulty subduing his smile. Then he thought of something else.

“Then what on earth did you think you were doing eloping for the border?”

“We weren’t eloping,” Terry groaned. “I was escorting her to Scotland, where her friend lives. She could not marry a man she didn’t love and live a life she despised, and she begged me to help her escape. She wanted . . . she said she wanted to be an ordinary woman living an ordinary life.” His voice trailed off at the end, as if he’d realized that Annabelle’s declarations were no longer to be trusted, and perhaps they never had. He knew now he should have listened to Lizzie when she warned him, but he’d been too caught up in the romance of rescuing Annabelle, of being her hero.