One Night of Passion (39 page)

Georgie watched as Pymm knelt down and dipped his finger into the spilled wine. He placed a tiny drop on his tongue and shivered. When he looked in her direction, he nodded.

The wine had indeed contained poison.

As Temple and Pymm carried Mandeville out of the room, Georgie started to climb down from the chair, fully intending to join her friends, but a rough hand caught her and pulled her down the rest of the way.

“Be quiet and do exactly as I say,” a man told her.

She was going to protest despite his threats, but felt the cold, hard muzzle of a pistol being jabbed into her ribs. She glanced up at her captor and said, “Commander Hinchcliffe. Why am I not surprised.”

“None of your saucy tongue, whore,” he told her, dragging her along the side of the room. “Your friends have my father, and now I have you.”

*   *    *

Colin and Lady Diana’s tête-à-tête was interrupted by the arrival of Pymm, Temple, and Lord Nelson dragging an unconscious man into the study.

“Well, this is cozy,” Temple said, as the twosome sprang up from the couch. “Here we are saving the world and you two are off giving the cats of this city more scandal to lap at.”

“ ’Tis hardly that,” Lady Diana said. “Your cousin and I were reaching an understanding.”

Colin nodded. “We don’t love each other, and we certainly don’t want to get married.”

“And while you two were coming to that inevitable realization, your Georgie, Pymm, and I were doing the hard work.” Temple nodded at Mandeville, whom Nelson and Pymm were binding to a chair with a drapery cord. “May I introduce Mandeville?”

“Georgie?” Colin asked. “Georgie is here?”

Temple glanced up at the ceiling. “Yes, you lovelorn fool. She’s in the ballroom, but be forewarned, she’s in a rare mood.”

“I expected as much.” Colin turned to Lady Diana. “Let me take you back to your father, so I can—”

“—get married to the right lady,” Lady Diana said, smiling at him.

They started for the door, but it opened on its own. Out in the hallway, there echoed a ruckus from down near the front door, but that was nothing in comparison to the sight barreling into the study in a wild flurry of muslin. To his amazement and delight, Georgie stumbled forth.

Colin was about to catch her, when he realized she wasn’t alone.

“Hinchcliffe?” he said, as he saw his old friend, and now nemesis, had a hold of Georgie’s arm and a pistol pointed at her head.

“Ah, Romulus,” Hinchcliffe said. “I should have known you wouldn’t be too far away from your bitch.”

Georgie struggled and twisted at Hinchcliffe’s grasp, but he held her tight.

“Tell her to remain still, Romulus, or I’ll kill her right now.” Hinchcliffe’s eyes were wild, unfocused, his mouth tight and deadly.

“Georgie, do as he says,” Colin pleaded.

She frowned, but at least she stilled. Then she caught sight of Lady Diana behind him. Her face pinked in outrage, but luckily for all of them she held her tongue.

“Let her go, Remus,” Colin said. “She has nothing to do with the business between us.”

“Au contraire,”
the man said. “She has everything to do with it. She is the one who betrayed my father.” He nodded over at Mandeville. “And I intend to see she pays. Pays for what her father did to my mother by joining her murderous parents in hell.”

“Mandeville and Hinchcliffe?” Colin said, glancing over at Pymm, who nodded in confirmation.

“Yes, my father. He raised me to follow in his footsteps as his father did before him, and as every Hinchcliffe son has done for five generations—serve the glory of France.”

From over in the chair, Mandeville stirred. His head lolled from side to side, and then his eyes opened and focused on the scene before him.

A sly, wolfish smile turned his lips.

“Untie him,” Hinchcliffe said. “Untie him now!”

Pymm shook his head. “No.”

Georgie’s mouth opened to the size of a platter.

“I’ll kill her,” Hinchcliffe said. “I’ll kill her right before your eyes.”

“Just like your father did to your mother,” Georgie shot over her shoulder at him.

Hinchcliffe’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes. You heard me,” she said. “Your father murdered your mother. I saw it all. He killed her for running away with evidence that he was a spy. And then he shot my father and killed my mother when she happened along.”

“She’s lying,” Mandeville cried out. “She couldn’t have been there. I was—”

“Alone?” Georgie spat back at the older man. “Hardly. I was hidden inside the hollow of an oak tree. I saw everything. You shot your wife without blinking an eye.” She turned to Hinchcliffe. “He killed your mother; it was not my father. He lied to you when you arrived. You were carrying a small tin lantern. When you tried to go toward the fire, your father stopped you, and when you protested, he struck you. Across the face. I was there.” Defiant and glorious, Georgie’s words rang with a truth that tore through the room like a hurricane.

Colin could see the doubts rising in Hinchcliffe’s eyes, the uncertainty in his wild gaze. And now all Colin needed was for him to become just a little more distracted, and he’d have an opportunity.

And suddenly he had it.

Outside the room, the disturbance in the hallway grew louder and more boisterous.

“I tell you, my niece is in there, and I mean to see her now!”

The door came banging open, bouncing into Hinchcliffe and sending him stumbling forward.

Colin lunged into the fray and pulled Georgie out of Hinchcliffe’s grasp even as the pistol fired.

He and Georgie toppled to the floor. For one horrible second, Colin feared that she’d been shot. His love, his life, the only woman he wanted to marry.

“Georgie, Georgie, my dearest girl, are you hurt?” he said, his hands roaming over her body, turning her to and fro, searching for any sign of blood.

“I’m fine, Colin,” she said.

They stared at each other, and Colin had never seen a sight more blessed than her angry dark gaze.

“Now unhand me, you wretched scoundrel.”

“Never,” he told her, and pressed his lips to hers in a hard, demanding kiss. At first she fought him, but slowly and eventually, she gave in, surrendering herself to him.

When they came up for air, they found Hinchcliffe sobbing at the foot of the chair that held his now dead father.

The bullet meant for Georgie had pierced Mandeville’s heart.

And from the doorway, Uncle Phineas stood gaping at the chaos he’d wrought.

“Dammit, gel, what is it with you and sailors?” he said.

Epilogue

The
Sybaris

1814

“G
eorgie! Dammit, where are you?” Colin thundered, striding up and down the decks of the
Sybaris.
He turned to his ship’s master, Mr. Livett. “I know she’s here. I just know it. I caught her eavesdropping when Temple called last night with Pymm. I’d bet my last inch of sail she’s aboard.”

“The men have searched everywhere, Cap’n. All her usual spots and some I wouldn’t put past her,” Livett said, with the resigned nature of a man defeated. “Perhaps her ladyship decided to leave you be this mission.”

Colin snorted. “And you searched
all
the holds?”

Livett nodded.

Colin glanced at the river flowing around them. If they didn’t leave now, they’d lose the advantage of the tide. He had no choice but to sail.

And so he gave the orders, looking again toward the docks where his wife should be standing waving her farewells. Instead there were only a few hands and the regular riffraff one found around the London waterways.

The
Sybaris
slid into the river, her sails catching the wind, her sleek lines riding the tide, and moving with an eager elegance out of the pool.

For the rest of the day, Colin held his breath, waiting for his wife to come popping out of some hidey-hole or another, but Georgie was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps he had indeed outfoxed his wife and sailed before she’d been able to sneak aboard.

Not that he liked sailing without her, for he cherished having her at his side. She understood his love of the sea, it was one of the many things they shared. But this trip was different. There were rumors afloat that Napoleon, safely held on Elba, was planning to flee. The
Sybaris
was being sent to keep a watchful eye on Bonaparte and report anything irregular back to London.

And if need be, to stop the wily Corsican from making good on his vow to return to France.

Once they had cleared the river and started into the Channel, Colin finally breathed a sigh of relief, and with the sun well set, decided to head to his bed for some much-needed rest.

His cabin was dark when he entered, but he hardly needed a lamp. He knew every inch of it by heart, pulling off his boots, his breeches, and his shirt en route to his bed and a well-deserved respite. But on his final step, he stumbled, tripping over something. He felt around until his hands came upon the culprit.

A lady’s shoe.

“Georgie!” he said, getting into his bed, his hands wrapping around the naked and glorious body of his wife. “How the devil—”

“Sssh!” she whispered, her lips meeting his in a kiss meant to silence his protests. “I thought you’d never give up looking for me and come to bed.”

Oh, he knew her tricks. After all these years of marriage, he knew his Georgie girl only too well. But he had to admire her tenacity. And her resourcefulness. They were just two of the myriad things he loved most about her.

And so he gave in to what she offered, making love to her, reveling in the joy he found each time he held her in his arms.

As the dawn started to come across the horizon, spilling its soft light into Colin’s quarters, he awakened to find Georgie standing before the open stern window, gazing out at the sea she loved so very much.

He’d been a fool to think he could ever keep her at home. Keep her free from the danger in which his work for the Admiralty and the Foreign Office so often placed him.

“How did you do it?” he asked, rising from their bed and pulling on his breeches before he joined her at the window, stepping carefully over the shoes she’d left discarded in the middle of the room.

Her own personal calling card, those shoes.

Her blond hair fell in an unruly tangle, ruffled by the salty breeze. He reached out and tucked a strand up into the hasty collection of pins she’d used to capture her curls.

“So how did you get aboard?” he asked again.

She turned and grinned at him. “If I told you, that would ruin the surprise of it.”

“I’m going to stop sailing on the
Sybaris
and start using the
Gallia
for these missions.” He’d captured the
Gallia
years earlier from its inept captain, Bertrand, and placed the ship-of-the-line into the service of his own private fleet of spy ships.

“Then I’d commandeer the
Sybaris
and come after you,” she said.

“You would.” He kissed her deeply and thoroughly. “And I’d do the same thing I’ve done every day since the first night I met you, my dearest Cyprian.”

“What is that?” she murmured, laying her head on his chest.

“Surrender.”

Author’s Note

W
hile I know of no French plot to assassinate Lord Nelson, he was eventually killed by a French sharpshooter at the Battle of Trafalgar. His death was a tremendous loss to England, and to his ladylove and mistress, Emma, Lady Hamilton.

I have strived to use as much accuracy aboard the
Sybaris
as possible, and would like to thank naval expert and author Ron Wanttaja for his unstinting assistance. If you would like to learn more about this time period, visit his website at
http://www.wanttaja.com.

I hope you’ve enjoyed
One Night of Passion.
Watch for Temple’s outrageous adventures, coming next year.

All my best wishes,

About the Author

One Night of Passion
is E
LIZABETH
B
OYLE
’s sixth historical romance and her third title for Avon Books. Elizabeth’s other passions include her husband and two young sons (or as she calls them, “her heroes in training”). In between diapers and gardening and trying to keep up on her ever-growing knitting pattern collection, she continues to write new and exciting romances.

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Readers can write Elizabeth Boyle at P.O. Box 47252, Seattle, WA 98146, or visit her Website at
www.elizabethboyle.com
.

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Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.