“I knew it!” Dorcas chortled. “A storied adventurer like Captain L’Amour would never leave anything to chance!”
“Siren’s Retreat?” Portia gave a bounce. “But that’s where we’re going! Come, Captain. Let me drive you to the door.”
Not-Captain L’Amour staggered back a few more steps, understandably alarmed at this suggestion.
“There is barely room in the carriage for the three of us,” Allegra began.
“I’ll walk,” Portia and Dorcas said in unison.
“And I cannot drive,” Allegra finished. “If we’re all staying under the same roof, I’m certain there will be many more opportunities for chance encounters.” That was, unless Not-Captain L’Amour had tired of the charade and decided to expose Allegra’s tall tales after all. “In any case, you can see he is heading in the opposite direction. We should not wish to disrupt his errands, would we?”
“Of course we shall not,” Portia said in horror. “Whatever his errands may be, we can be assured they are for you. Oh, the hour of the ball cannot arrive soon enough!”
With that, Portia took the reins and took off at such a trot that Dorcas could only wave adieu over her shoulder instead of bid the Not-Captain a proper farewell.
Allegra did not look back. She dared not. She couldn’t believe her implausible imaginary beau had somehow sparkled to life.
More to the point, she did not want a beau, imaginary or otherwise. She was within two months of receiving her spinster inheritance. Money that would give her financial independence she’d never known. The ability to live where she pleased, eat what she pleased, wear what she pleased, do as she pleased. On her thirtieth birthday, she would wake up for the first time in two decades at the hour of her choosing, with no obligations to anything or anyone.
Why would she wish to muck all that up with a man?
Of course, there were still two months to get through between now and her birthday. Months in which Allegra was to get her cousins safely betrothed, whilst remaining unspoken for herself. Whilst also sharing a roof with the embodiment of Allegra’s wildest fantasies come to life.
Dorcas grabbed Allegra’s hand. “I am so sorry I didn’t believe you!”
Portia’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t believe her? Our cousin would never lie to us!”
Allegra’s throat tightened.
“Eleven years was a long time for a suitor to be absent,” Dorcas protested.
“France has been at war for a long time,” Portia huffed. “The revolution began in ’89, a decade before we were born. And then Napoleon—”
“Yes, yes, but Captain L’Amour managed to slip away long enough to meet Allegra and fall in love, didn’t he? He had time for that.”
“It may surprise you to learn that ‘love at first sight’ is rather quick,” Portia said. “Instantaneous, even. By definition.”
“But that wasn’t all that happened, was it? Captain L’Amour swept Allegra off her feet over the course of a summer, whilst you and I were still in the nursery. He took her aboard his pirate ship—”
“Fed her chocolate from Mexico—”
“And tea he picked himself in China—”
“Taught her to shoot his pistols—”
“Wrote her poetry—”
“Took her dancing beneath the stars—”
“Fought a duel over her—”
“Twice—”
“—then disappeared without a trace for eleven years,” Dorcas finished. “It did not strike you as a lengthy respite?”
“He sent letters,” Portia said. “In rhyming verse. Where did you think those came from? Allegra’s imagination?”
Allegra very carefully stared straight ahead and regretted every word she’d ever said about Captain Hamish L’Amour.
“I know the captain is real, and I believed Allegra had fallen in love…” Dorcas sent her cousin a guilty look. “But as the years went by with no further appearance, I could not help but suspect a pirate’s affections were not as ardent as he claimed. Captain L’Amour can do anything. So I thought…if he really wanted to be with Allegra, he would find a way.”
“And as you can see, he did just that,” Portia said in satisfaction. “He returned, just like he always promised he would.”
“And in time to receive your full dowry,” Dorcas added. “Just think if he would have arrived too late for the money!”
Yes. Allegra’s mysterious unsuitor had arrived just in time to vie for twice as much money as she herself would be eligible for on her birthday. Money that would become his, and not hers. Just as a wife also belonged to her husband. Like a tobacco pipe or a pair of old boots. No independence. No autonomy. No rest from responsibilities.
No chance in hell of Allegra allowing that rubbish to transpire.
“My point is,” Dorcas said, her voice soft and her grip on Allegra’s hand tight, “you were right all along. I was wrong to lose faith in you. True love prevailed, just as you swore it would. I am ready to listen to you now. If you can help me find a husband who loves me half as much as Captain L’Amour adores you, I will eagerly take all advice.”
Allegra swallowed. This was exactly the miracle she—and her uncle, and Portia—had been hoping for. Dorcas, agreeable! Portia was so bubbly and biddable, she would be happy with any man. It was simply a matter of finding her a good one.
Dorcas, on the other hand… Dorcas had a long list of stringent requirements, and was likely an acquired taste herself. But the biggest obstruction to her betrothal had always been Dorcas’s long-standing belief that there was no man who could meet her specifications. That the Right Match did not exist.
She met each interested gaze with a puckered expression of such sour-lemon skepticism that even the most smitten of swains fled for more agreeable ground not long after the first How do you do?
But if she were now going to be open-minded and receptive, Dorcas might actually find a suitor who…well, suited her.
All because Not-Captain L’Amour had singlehandedly restored her faith in Allegra and in the glories of true love.
The man really was the stuff of legends.
This unexpected victory put Allegra in an even worse position. Her stomach twisted. To admit her lie now would do more than destroy Dorcas’s fledgling hopes for the future. It would destroy her faith in Allegra. Portia’s, as well.
Allegra could not let that happen. Her cousins had been her entire world ever since she became a ward of her uncle at the age of twelve. Portia had been an infant then, and Dorcas too small to cause a bulge in Aunt’s belly. The night Allegra arrived, she had been assigned to the nursery, where she had fallen in love at once with the baby in the cradle. That love had only expanded when Dorcas was born.
When a fever snuffed Aunt’s young life a few years later, the girls were left without a mother. Something they had in common with Allegra. Uncle was alive, but had no time for brats. Not if he was to provide for them at the gaming tables. Allegra became Dorcas and Portia’s world, just like they were to Allegra.
She could not bear to lose them. Not over a man, and especially not over a foolish white lie Allegra had begun when she was a year younger than Portia was now. It had seemed harmless at the time. Who would know, or care? Allegra’s life was no different than that of a servant—with the important exception that staff received wages for their labor—and she did not want to be pitied. A fictitious beau could harm no one. He wasn’t even real.