“Who?” Lady Southbridge demanded.
“Lord Tarelton.”
Lady Southbridge fell back in surprise. Lord Darlington was at least ten years Mrs. Kimbro’s junior. Would the wonders never cease?
Clearly a Couple
REBECCA HAGAN LEE
Chapter One
London, February 1813
“I don’t know what to do with her,” Lord Admiral Sir Harold Gregory admitted to his friend, Lord Davies. “Or what to say. She’s spent five years in the Topkapi.” Sir Harold threw up his hands. “Her whole world has changed, and everyone she loved is dead.”
“Except you,” Lord Davies pointed out.
Sir Harold snorted. “I was away so much she barely knew me.” He took off his hat, tossed it on a chair, then raked his fingers through his hair. “This was all my fault.”
“How so?” Lord Davies frowned. “Unless you’ve begun underwriting Barbary pirates . . .”
“I insisted that Louisa—” He squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of his daughter’s name. “And Travis send India to us so her grandmother and I would have an opportunity to get to know her. But Louisa didn’t want to let her go.” He opened his eyes and looked at his friend. “She had suffered so many disappointments. . . . Lost so many babies. India was her little girl. Her only little girl. And Louisa refused to send her until India was old enough to begin preparing for her presentation at court.” He snorted once again. “That’s how we . . . how I persuaded my daughter to part with her only child. . . . I reminded her that India needed a proper English education in order to make her curtsy to the king and her debut into London society.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “In truth, it was simply a way for her grandmother and me to get to know our granddaughter.” He scratched his head. “I saw her several times over the years. I made it a point to see her whenever I sailed to India, but Jane . . .” Sir Harold closed his eyes again at the memory of the wife he’d loved for so many years, the wife who had died alone while he was at sea fighting Bonaparte’s navy. “God rest her soul. Jane was a terrible sailor. She’d only seen India four times in fourteen years. I wanted Jane to have the chance to spend time with Louisa’s child. And I wanted India to get to know England in the hopes that she would consider it as much home as she did the country for which she was named.”
“Nothing wrong in that,” Lord Davies pronounced. “I would have done the same. She was born in Calcutta, but she’s English.”
“If I hadn’t insisted she come to London, India wouldn’t have become so homesick for her mother and father that we feared for her health. It broke Jane’s heart to see her suffering. Still, I shouldn’t have sent India back to Calcutta. I should have taken her myself.” Sir Harold sighed. “Lud! She hated it here. I suppose she loved us, but Jane and I were strangers to her. And she hated the cold and the damp. India found London colorless, and no doubt it did seem colorless to a girl who had spent her formative years in the tropics.” He looked over at his friend, allowing Lord Davies to see the stark pain in his eyes. “So I bought her passage back to Calcutta. I put her on that ship. . . .”
“You could not have known it would fall prey to pirates,” Lord Davies said. “I’ve lost three of my ships to the scurvy bastards in the past two years, and I never dreamed pirates were operating in those waters.” Lord Davies shuddered. “We knew the French were a threat, but not pirates.”
The loss of a vessel was always tragic for navy admirals like Sir Harold and for owners of merchant ships like Lord Davies. Lord Davies had experienced the devastation of losing lifelong friends—captains and crewmembers—who had been with him from the beginning. He understood the value of a lost cargo, but he couldn’t begin to fathom the pain of losing a wife, a daughter, a son-in-law, or a granddaughter. Over the course of five years, Sir Harold had lost his wife to consumption, his daughter and son-in-law to a cholera epidemic that swept through Calcutta, and his granddaughter to Barbary pirates. Lord Davies couldn’t imagine the pain his friend had endured.
“India left England a schoolgirl,” Sir Harold continued. “And she’s returning from a life as a concubine.”
“Through no fault of her own,” Lord Davies reminded the ad
miral. “The important thing is that you managed to capture the ship responsible for taking the Portsmouth. The important thing is that you persuaded that knave of a captain to save his own neck by providing you with enough information about India and her governess’s whereabouts to pressure the sultan into accepting payment for them. The important thing is that she’s returning. It’s a miracle she survived the ordeal at all. Her governess did not.”
Sir Harold squeezed his eyes shut and fought to maintain control of his emotions. “And she’s ruined.” He opened his eyes. “What are her chances of making a life for herself here now? When everyone knows what happened to her? Where everyone knows she spent five years in a harem? What gentleman is going to offer for her under those circumstances? Especially when she cannot be presented into society?”
“You might be surprised,” Lord Davies told him.
“I’m not a nabob like you,” Sir Harold replied. “I’m comfortably well off, but I can’t afford to provide a dowry generous enough to persuade a gentleman to overlook her loss of virtue.”
“The right gentleman won’t require it.” Lord Davies gave a slight smile. A year ago, his daughter, Gillian, had foolishly eloped to Scotland with a scoundrel who abandoned her there after their wedding night. And while it was true that he had offered his current son-in-law a considerable fortune to marry Gillian in order to save her reputation, Colin had wanted Gillian more than the fortune. No one looking at Colin and Gillian today would ever guess that Lord Davies had blackmailed Colin McElreath, Viscount Grantham, into marrying his only daughter. Their marriage of convenience had turned out to be a love match. “There are men who will see India for the courageous young woman she is. Men who will admire her for surviving her ordeal, rather than condemn her for the manner in which she survived it.” He looked at Sir Harold. “But I think we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves. First, we bring India home safely and allow her to settle in before we begin worrying about providing for her future.”
“That’s just it,” Sir Harold answered. “The horns of my dilemma.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I’ve come to you. I’ve arranged the transfer of cash and securities into gold as the sultan requested. But I’ll need someone completely trustworthy to deliver it. As an admiral in His Majesty’s Navy, I cannot put into port in Turkish waters. I cannot bring India home to London,” he admitted. “At least, not yet.”
Lord Davies frowned. “Why not?”
“The Admiralty wants to send a diplomatist to deliver the ransom so they gain access to the Topkapi, claim success for recovering India from a fate worse than death, and then use her to gain information about him and his alliance with the French. But the sultan insists that if our government becomes involved or interferes in the negotiations in any way, the deal will be nullified, and my ransom and India’s life will be forfeited. I refused to jeopardize India’s life by allowing the Admiralty to send a diplomat, but the Foreign Office is convinced that sending one is the best course of action.” He sighed. “They don’t believe the sultan will harm India. But she’s suffered enough and I cannot gamble with her life.” Sir Harold looked his old friend in the eyes. “I need to recover my granddaughter before the Foreign Office sends a diplomatist to Istanbul. And it must be done in complete secrecy. The first lord of the Admiralty has placed my ship at the diplomatist’s disposal, but the Turkish government refuses to allow a British naval vessel into their waters. Negotiations to gain entrance to the port are set to begin at the end of next month.”
“That means you’ve less than a month to arrange the transfer of funds and to recover India before our government calls the sultan’s bluff.”
Sir Harold nodded, then raked his fingers through his hair. “And although she cannot be presented to the regent, the first lord is planning a huge celebration once India is back on English soil and the season gets under way. I’d prefer India arrive home alive without any fanfare. We don’t know her condition or her mental state. I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to proceed with her, but I know exactly how I shouldn’t proceed. And that’s to bring her to London during the height of the season, where she’ll be picked apart by curiosity hounds and gossips.”
Lord Davies nodded thoughtfully. “I concur.”
“Unfortunately, Lord Middlebrook is my commanding officer, and Lady Middlebrook appears to be his.” Sir Harold furrowed his brow. “The best I can hope to accomplish at the moment is to bring India home on a privately held vessel and hold the admiralty at bay for as long as possible. If I bring her home, there will be no keeping it quiet from my superiors and I’ll be obligated follow orders. But if I were to charter a private ship to fetch her home and keep her someplace outside London, I might buy India some time before she’s forced to confront London society.”