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. “They could have 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 the ton’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’t you!” 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
Courtland didn’t question her skill with the weapon—he knew it firsthand. And the truth was though he’d known the girl, he didn’t know this brazen woman who’d lived the life of a man for the past six months or who held the pistol with such unwavering confidence. By age eleven, she’d already been a crack shot. “Are you going to shoot me, Ravenna?”
At the sound of her given name, her fingers flexed on the handle but her eyes hardened. “I will if I have to.” A loud knock banged on the outer door to the office. “Or whoever comes through that door. Get rid of them.”
“Your Grace?” Rawley called out, making Courtland wince. He was sure his cousin was delighted to take the piss with the title. “Bingham won’t leave without seeing you.”
“Not a good time, Rawls.”
There was silence. Perhaps, he’d get the message. Perhaps not. Courtland wasn’t a man given to nicknames. “Very well, I’ll try again later,” Rawley said.
Rounding the desk to where he stood, Ravenna waved the pistol and set her eyes on the safe resting behind it. “Open that up and put the contents in that satchel.”
“Stealing is as bad as cheating, you know.” Squatting down, he obeyed her demands. She was close enough that he could probably tackle her and wrestle the gun away, but if the weapon discharged, she could get shot. He wasn’t willing to take that chance, no matter how much fury filled his blood.
“I’ve never cheated, and at this point, it’s survival.” Her voice sounded resigned. “It’s my mess, and I have to clean it up. I always knew it would come to this. I’ll pay you back someday, I promise.”
Huffing a breath, he stared up at her, the sack full of banknotes in hand. “It’s not a crime to ask for help, you know.”
Her smile was small. “How can you help me? You pretended to be dead to your own family for eleven years, hiding out here in Antigua of all places. And now that you’re a duke, you don’t even seem to want the title.” She blew out a sigh and reached for the bag. “It doesn’t matter. Honestly, I don’t think even an army of dukes could help me right now.” A dark laugh slipped from her lips. “I can see the headlines now: Lady Ravenna Huntley, plowed by a shipload of sailors, all hail the Hussy Heiress.”
“It has a certain ring to it.”
“Not funny, Ashvale.” She backed away toward the door, the pistol trained on him. “Grant me this one answer then for old times’ sake. Why don’t you want to go back to England? You’re a duke now. You’ll be celebrated.”
For the first time in his life, he didn’t shy away from the question though his gut churned with the usual ugly combination of shame and rage. He rose slowly and inched round the desk, propping his hips on it. “Who’d celebrate me as duke? Not my brother.” He lifted a hand. “I am of mixed blood. One single drop corrupts the whole, or so the dogmatists say.”
Confusion crossed her face. “I don’t understand.”