The Major's Faux Fiancee (3 page)

Would
he help her? Bartholomew swallowed. He wasn’t at all certain what he’d got himself into. Yet he inclined his head in assent. “Why else would I have come?”

Why else, indeed. He’d hurried to play hero because… Well, because it seemed like it might be his last opportunity to do so. He was no longer in demand. As a rake, as a soldier, as anything.

For a toff with a fake leg, a faux fiancée was the best he could do.

He massaged his temple. When he’d been whole, he hadn’t been concerned with being heroic. He’d only wanted to be better than all the other men. Thief of every woman’s heart. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so damn successful at everything he did, he wouldn’t have believed himself invincible.

Believed his twin equally invincible.

Bartholomew could no more have stopped that bullet from entering his brother’s chest than he could have redirected the cannon-fire that had pulverized his own leg. He’d tried—for the first time in his narcissistic life, he’d tried like the devil to do something truly heroic—but he hadn’t been able to staunch Edmund’s wound or carry him from the battleground. If criminally kindhearted Oliver York hadn’t risked his skin to drag Bartholomew to safety, he would have died on the bloody soil right next to his twin.

Every day, he’d wished that was exactly what had happened.

Until today.

“Why else would I have come?” he repeated, more softly this time.

Her answering smile was weak. He wasn’t surprised. The look in Daphne’s wide green eyes was one he well recognized: Desperation.

She was fighting her own war. With Captain Steele and the world at large. She’d lost her mother as a child, but her father had always seemed like the young, ruddy-cheeked, sparkly-eyed sort who would live forever.

He knew better now. There was no such thing as forever.

Even Daphne had changed. He could hardly believe she was twice as old as the last time he’d seen her. Twice as beautiful. She might not want a husband, but he was frankly surprised she didn’t already have one. She was young and smart. Whole. Happy.

Any man would be lucky to have her.

It was Bartholomew’s duty to keep her safe until she found that man. The
right
man. Not some degenerate her privateer guardian had flung up from the sea. She needed to marry a husband she desired. A man who deserved her. But until then…

“Now that I’m here, I’d like a word with your new guardian.” He smiled at Daphne and proffered his arm. “Shall we?”

She placed her fingers in the crook of his elbow without the slightest hesitation.

His bravado cracked. If only she knew what a piss-poor hero he made. He’d ruined his life. Broken his parents’ hearts. Failed to save his brother.

The people in Bartholomew’s orbit never escaped unscathed. If the pirate wanted to fight, it would lead to his own destruction. Bartholomew’s expression hardened. So be it.

As long as nothing happened to Daphne. He glanced down at her and smiled.

Her hair was the same red-gold he remembered, but longer and thicker. Despite being coiled to her head in some sort of no-nonsense coif, stray ringlets framed her face like little curls of sunshine.

Most of the freckles had faded from her once-plump apple cheeks, leaving high cheekbones and a roses-and-cream complexion… save for a smudge of ink across the bridge of her nose. Her hair and skin smelled of lilacs. He liked the scent.

He supposed she’d grown taller, but so had he. The top of her head barely crested his shoulders. She’d always been petite, but the scant width of her waist and slenderness of her arms made him wonder if she was getting enough to eat. Was Captain Steele too tightfisted or too ignorant to properly care for a ward?

Or was Daphne still getting lost in her own worlds and forgetting to eat?

His eyes kept straying back to her. Her air and mannerisms were no longer that of a child, but of a grown woman. Her voice was huskier, her stride accented by the swing of the hips.

Ten years could do that. He couldn’t believe he’d missed the transformation.

His jaw clenched. If he’d come home once in a while, he might have noticed sooner.
Should
have noticed sooner.

He couldn’t even count all the things he wished he’d done differently.

Perhaps, if he’d been less self-centered—if he’d been the
good
twin instead of trying so hard to be the
best
—he’d have a woman like this on his arm for a reason other than a faux betrothal.

He’d have been selected because he was a worthy suitor, not because he was so laughable a choice that it hadn’t even crossed her mind to wonder if he already had a paramour.

Perhaps Daphne had assumed he was unattached simply because he’d never
been
attached. Lord knew he’d never tried to cultivate a lasting relationship. The beauty of being a rake was that one wasn’t required to call with flowers the next day. After the night was through, he was never expected to do anything at all. That was how he liked it.

At least, that’s what gentlemen of a certain background were expected to like.

If being a Corinthian and a rake were half as fulfilling as he’d always pretended they were, maybe he wouldn’t have run off to war in search of something more. He’d still have his brother. The love of his family. And his leg.

Daphne hadn’t said a word, but she wasn’t blind or deaf. Bartholomew couldn’t help wincing at the clapping sound his hand-carved foot made every time it snapped back into place. It shamed him. Everything about his misshapen body shamed him. There was no way to hide it.

Daphne paused a few feet from a familiar doorway.

He swung his head to face her. “Your father’s office? Captain Steele has taken over your father’s study?”

“It is a small home,” she replied quietly, shoulders stiff. “There is nowhere else for him to be. The other gentlemen are in the main parlor.”

Bartholomew clenched his jaw to keep from responding. There might not be much space, but what there was had belonged to her father. The vicar had only passed recently. Daphne was still in mourning clothes.

“What happened?” he asked, then immediately wished to kick himself. Using his false foot, so it would hurt more. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask questions, that he would let her grieve and decide whether or not she wished to discuss her loss at her own pace, without any bullish interrogations from—

“Apoplexy,” she said softly. “At least, that’s what we think. He was upright one minute and prone the next. He never got back up.” She shuddered. “’Twas over in moments.”

Bartholomew nodded. It sounded dreadful. His heart ached for her.

He wished he had the right words. He knew from experience there weren’t any. There was nothing a friend could say, nothing anyone could do. Not when you were praying for an impossible miracle. Time could not be turned back. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t want to mention…”

“Edmund.” Bartholomew’s throat dried. She’d been doing the same thing he was. Trying to leave painful subjects alone. Yet they were impossible to ignore. Captain Steele didn’t belong in her father’s study any more than this blank empty space belonged at Bartholomew’s side. Was it as strange for her to see him like this? He wasn’t certain Daphne had ever glimpsed either twin without the other. “We’re easy to tell apart now. I’m the one with the wooden leg. He’s the one who’s dead.”

Her face jerked up at him, her eyes wide with shock.

“Forgive me,” he muttered and glanced away.

He was always saying the wrong thing these days. He couldn’t stifle his words, although they weren’t funny to him, either. They burst out of his mouth on their own. His jokes were awful because they were true. They were all he had left. A nervous tic, he supposed. Or a subconscious attempt to poke fun at himself before anyone else could beat him to it.

“Well, Miss Vaughan?” came a languid drawl from somewhere within the vicar’s study. “Are you going to whisper in the corridor all evening, or are you going to introduce me to our newest guest?”

Bartholomew raised his brows at Daphne. When she nodded, they walked into the study side by side.

A tall, slender man with a scar across his left temple and slight salt-and-pepper in his stubble leaned against the vicar’s old desk.

The infamous Captain Steele.

He was more compact than Bartholomew had expected. More lithe. The captain’s sleekly muscled frame and all-black ensemble gave the man more an air of a panther than that of a pirate. Yet there could be no doubt as to his identity.

“Blackheart.”

The blackguard smiled winningly. “That’s ‘Captain’ to you, I’m afraid. My darling ward refuses to allow ‘savage’ nicknames in her father’s home.”

Daphne’s fingers tightened around Bartholomew’s elbow. She flashed him a tense smile. “This is my guardian, Captain Gregory Steele. Captain Steele, this is the first and only man who ever stole my heart—Major Bartholomew Blackpool.”

Captain Steele smiled like a shark that tasted blood. “Well, damn me.”

Daphne flinched, but held her tongue… and held fast to Bartholomew’s arm.

He didn’t take his eyes from the captain.

Steele leaned back against the desk. “Major Bartholomew Blackpool. The King’s Army, I presume?”

Bartholomew inclined his head in silence. He had no interest in engaging in idle chitchat.

“I’ve nothing but respect for men who fought on the front lines,” the captain continued. “Me, I did all my fighting from my ship. Took care of things with some well-aimed cannon fire.” Another shark smile curved his lips. “Run into any cannon fire abroad?”

Daphne jerked up straight. “Of all the inconsiderate—”

“Shh.” Bartholomew hauled her to his side and curled his arm about her waist. Her muscles were tense with anxiety. He raised his cold gaze to the pirate. “Mock my injury all you like. You can’t hurt me and you
won’t
hurt Daphne.”

Steele’s eyes widened in injured innocence. “I’ve no wish to hurt our darling girl. Only to see her happily married. Isn’t that what guardians do?”

“
Happily
married,” Bartholomew ground out, “means you cannot force her.”

“Who’s forcing her? I’m just… recommending strongly.” Steele shrugged. “As you said, one cannot force a chit into wedlock.”

“She said you threatened her with an asylum.”

“Oh, yes. I can certainly follow through on that.” Captain Steele bared his teeth. “If the lady wishes.”

Bartholomew ground his jaw. “You’d commit her on what grounds?”

“On the grounds that she’s a raving lunatic.”

Daphne stiffened. “I’m nothing of the sort!”

The pirate chuckled. “You believe yourself to be multiple people. Last I checked, that’s called ‘madness.’”

“I’m Daphne Vaughan and no one else,” she said hotly, her hands curling into fists.

Captain Steele leaned back and brandished a handful of letters. “Then explain these.”

Her mouth fell open. “You stole my correspondence?”

“I waylaid it temporarily.” He flipped through the pile. “Either you believe yourself to be Mr. Caldwell, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Smith, or you’re purposely and fraudulently attempting to bamboozle… Parliament, is it? What do you think, Major Blackpool? Is our girl bound for Bedlam or the Fleet Prison?”

Good Lord. Bartholomew sent her a sharp look.

She flushed and reached for the letters.

Captain Steele held them out of reach. “Right fortunate she is to have me for a guardian and not some upstanding, moral sort of chap who gives a fig about fraud. I’ve no intention to turn her in. I intend to marry her off.”

Bartholomew considered him carefully. “Why bother?”

“Pirates mind ships. They don’t chase after wards. I set sail a week from Sunday, and I expect to have the matter settled before I go. The contract will be signed by Saturday night, and the first banns read Sunday morning.”

Bartholomew frowned. “You’re not staying for the wedding?”

“Yes, yes, it won’t be the same without me present. She’ll just have to make do. I’ve an extremely lucrative… project that I cannot reschedule. I’ll return in a month’s time.” Captain Steele smiled cheerfully. “If she’s not married when I do, it’s off to Bedlam for her.”

“You are
heartless
.” Daphne’s voice shook with rage.

“I am more than fair. I’ve given you a choice in the matter. If you or your future fiancé make the wrong decision, how are the consequences my fault? You will have chosen your fates.”

Bartholomew narrowed his eyes. Although he couldn’t deny Steele’s ruthlessness, the pirate was no doubt exaggerating his reach. “I suppose you’re powerful enough to send the fiancé to Bedlam as well?”

“Newgate,” Captain Steele corrected, flashing his teeth. “Sanitarium for her, prison for him.”

Daphne sucked in a breath. “You said you wouldn’t turn anyone in to the courts!”

“I said I wouldn’t do that to
you
, love. Any so-called gentleman who breaks a solemn vow with Blackheart, however, gets prison rot in Newgate or impaled upon my sword. His choice.”

Her face went ashen. “You’re a monster!”

Steele tipped his hat. “At your service. Until Saturday, that is. Unless you’ve already chosen? Is your gentleman friend here to make me an offer?”

“We…” The look in her eyes wasn’t as confident as before. Bartholomew didn’t blame her. The threat of institutionalization was credible. So was the threat of prison. “I’m not certain.”

Captain Steele tapped Daphne on the nose. “As your guardian,
I
will exert final approval. Choose wisely, or I shall choose for you.”

“I need a moment alone with Major Blackpool,” she said tightly.

“Like that, is it? You can have a moment alone with all the gentlemen you wish. Try before you buy, as they say. You’re a clever one, all right.” He rose from behind the desk and swaggered from the room.

Daphne turned to Bartholomew with tears in her eyes. “This is a disaster.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said simply.

She shook her head. “I can’t let him send you to Newgate for breach of contract.”

Nor would he. Bartholomew made his decision. “If I go, he goes, too. Fraud is illegal, but so is coercion into an unwanted marriage. It must be bluster.”