The Captain's Courtship. Regina Scott

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      Chapter Four

      Richard had little time to consider his feelings as he left Claire’s town house. He stopped at Everard House only long enough to leave his greatcoat and issue instructions about their plans to journey to Cumberland. He’d have to deal with Claire’s requirements later. Right now, he had another commission to complete before he left London.

      His older brother Jerome and younger cousin Vaughn, who with him stood to inherit a fortune from their late uncle once Samantha successfully navigated her first Season, had pressed him to contact the Marquess of Widmore.

      “The last note from Uncle said the marquess would know why he fought that duel the night he died,” Vaughn had insisted when the three met in the library of Dallsten Manor before Richard headed south. “Widmore can help us track Uncle’s killer.”

      “And determine who else knows our secrets,” Jerome had reminded Richard. There was a new light in his brother’s blue eyes, a new surety in his step, now that he’d married his Adele. Richard envied him that.

      “I cannot feel comfortable sending Samantha to London,” Jerome had added, “until I know what she’s facing.”

      Richard had agreed. Ever since their uncle’s death, when the three of them had learned about Samantha’s existence, more and more secrets had come to light, like a flotilla of ships appearing out of a fog, and he didn’t think they had faced the last.

      His uncle, Arthur, Lord Everard, had lived by his own rules and only late in life had realized the importance of family and faith. He had attempted to make up for his previous misdeeds by leaving the considerable Everard legacy—which included lands in six counties, sizeable investments in the Exchange and a fleet of sailing ships—to his daughter Samantha, with generous bequests to Jerome, Richard and Vaughn, which they could receive only when they had helped their new cousin enter Society.

      Launching a lass wouldn’t be so daunting in other circumstances, Richard was sure. But the rumors surrounding Samantha’s birth and upbringing would be enough to set tongues wagging. The way his uncle had hidden her and her mother away, in the north of England, would raise questions about Samantha’s legitimacy. Yet Jerome had found a marriage certificate from Gretna Green in Scotland that indicated that her mother and Uncle had legally wed.

      Still, questions remained. Why had his uncle kept his daughter a secret from the rest of the family and Society until his death? Why had he fought a duel the last night of his life without having one of his nephews act as his second, as was customary as well as his habit? And why had one of Samantha’s servants recently endangered Jerome’s life to steal a porcelain box that had been emptied of its contents?

      All roads of inquiry had eventually led back to the Marquess of Widmore. But Richard wasn’t even sure the powerful lord would see him. Though the marquess had been a good friend of the family, he and Lord Everard had seen little of each other of late, according to Vaughn, as if their uncle had distanced himself from the fellow in the last months of his life. And Richard hadn’t seen the man since starting on his most recent sea voyage two years ago.

      Besides, the marquess’s schedule would be full of appointments and social events. He wasn’t likely to find time for a sea captain he hadn’t seen for years. But at least Richard could leave his card.

      He glanced at the pearly rectangle as he climbed to the door of the ornate stone house set off from the street. Captain Richard Everard, the card read, the letters embossed. Like the marquess, Richard was the ruler of all he surveyed, but his power extended only to his ship. There, he was used to relaying orders, having them followed without question. Funny how one look from Claire made him feel like a schoolboy again, staring across a crowded ballroom at the most beautiful girl in all of London and hoping she might notice him.

      “Sir?” the footman asked, brows drawn down under his powdered wig. Richard hadn’t even heard the door open, much less remembered knocking.

      He straightened to his full height, looking down at the black-clad fellow, and boomed in his most commanding tone, “Captain Richard Everard to see the Marquess of Widmore.”

      The footman accepted his card with a respectful bow. “Please wait inside, Captain Everard, while I determine whether his lordship is at home to visitors.”

      Richard followed him into the house and glanced about as the footman made his stately way up the stairs. The entry hall was tall, with pale blue walls rising to a veined dome of glass in the ceiling. Already the light was fading with the afternoon. On one wall hung a massive oil painting of sailing ships in the middle of a battle, cannons coughing smoke.

      Richard shook his head. The artist was clearly in love with the idea of the sea but had never sailed. No captain would waste powder on the air, the target already past. And the flying flags should be pointed in the same direction as the sails. But then, he’d seen sailing as just as romantic when he’d headed out as a youth.

      He clasped his hands behind the back of his brown wool coat and balanced on the balls of his booted feet. Standing about, riding in carriages, felt odd after so many days at sea. At times he missed the order of things; at others he was glad for the good food, СКАЧАТЬ