Page 8 of Rules for Heiresses
“Apparently, it’sAshvalenow,” she reminded him.
The sound of the ducal title set his teeth on edge. He was going to have to deal with that complication as soon as possible, too. “How did you get here anyway?”
“I took one of Embry’s clippers.” She lifted an ungloved hand to sift through the pressed strands of her shorn mane. “Hacked off my hair and disguised myself as a boatswain. Learned a lot over the last few years from my brother and his old quartermaster so it was easy. Kept my head down, did the work, and no one was the wiser.”
Courtland balked in horror—she’d spent close to five weeks on a ship full of male sailors? His hands fisted at his sides at her foolhardy actions. “Why not an ocean liner?”
“Too easily tracked. I didn’t need luxury, I needed to disappear.”
“Why?”
Her lip curled. “None of your deuced business.”
“If you were mine, I’d definitely put you over my knee.” Courtland regretted the words as soon as he said them. The thought of her lying across his lap, her pert bottom bared to his gaze, was not something he wanted to envision, not while she already had him clinging to his temper by a thread. She busied herself with her gloves, but he could see more color flare into her pale cheeks.
“Good thing I’m not then.”
Not yet.Courtland had no idea where that thought came from, nor did he want to know. He had no time for a smart-mouthed, self-centered heiress who knew no better than to traipse willy-nilly around the world with no regard for her own welfare. When he thought of the misfortunes that could have befallen her, his anger surged again. “You got lucky, you know. How could you have been so foolish? Things could have been so much worse.”
“But they weren’t.”
He was going to throttle her. “Theycouldhave been.”
“Let’s agree to disagree. Are you going to send word to Embry?”
Controlling his irritation, Courtland shook his head. “I won’t have to.”
He heard her sharp exhale. They both knew what his answer meant. Lady Ravenna would be disgraced just from being in the West Indies on her own without a chaperone. If word got out about her travels on a ship with a bunch of rough-and-tumble sailors, her reputation would take an unrecoverable thrashing.
But that was none of his business. Her virtue, or lack of it, wasn’t anyone’s concern, but he more than anybody knew the exacting nature of theton’s rules. Upon her return, they would shred her to ribbons. Any hope for a suitable match would be lost. Courtland felt an expected stroke of pity for what she would face, even if she’d brought the storm upon herself.
They fell into tense silence.
“What would it take for you to forget you ever saw me?” she asked after a while.
Courtland blinked—she couldn’t possibly be asking what he thought she was. “I couldn’t in good conscience do that.”
“Yet you were willing to throw me in jail an hour ago.”
“You weren’tyou!” He glared at her.
She cleared her throat. “Look, I’m serious. You know what awaits me if I’m sent back to London in disgrace. What will it take? Money? You are welcome to whatever I have. My body? Though I don’t know what good it’ll do—it’s as frigid as they come, or so I’ve been told.”
He ignored the bolt of pure lust at her wicked offer, even as her face flamed. “I’ll protect you.”
“How? Trust me, you can’t.”
“Bloody hell, woman, I will not let you go off on your own.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Embry would pulverize my bones to meal and my father would turn in his grave if he knew I abandoned an innocent girl to her own foolish devices.”
“I’m not innocent or foolish.”
“Your actions prove otherwise,” he said.
“Then I’m sorry for this.”
A noise that sounded uncannily like a cocking gun made his eyelids snap open. He was right—a loaded pocket pistol was pointed right at his face.
Three
