“Payton, darling, do try to eat something. You’re looking positively peaked underneath your tan.”
Payton picked up her fork and stabbed at the eggs on the tray in her lap, breaking the yolks, and sending yellow fluid streaming toward the roasted potatoes on the far side of her plate. She pretended the eggs were volcanoes, the broken yolks lava, and the potatoes Pompeii. She didn’t feel much like eating.
“Are you sure you aren’t too warm?” Georgiana plucked at the sheet Payton had pulled up to her chin the minute her sister-in-law had entered the room. “You can’t possibly be cold, my dear. Why, it’s blazing out there.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Payton said. “Only I don’t feel much like talking right now. It was sweet of you to bring me breakfast, but if you don’t mind—”
“Oh, I don’t mind a bit,” Georgiana said brightly. “And I understand your not wanting to talk. I’ll just sit and wait until you’re done, and then I’ll take the tray back down.”
Bloody hell! Payton watched as her sister-in-law began sifting through the correspondence that had arrived that morning, which she’d placed on the tray beside Payton’s breakfast. It seemed as if every Englishwoman in Nassau had come calling on the Dixon’s Bahamian villa while they awaited Marcus
Tyler and Becky Whitby’s trial. They were all, Payton thought bitterly, in competition to see who could be the first actually to see the star witness, the ruined—and very darkly tanned—Dishonorable Miss Payton Dixon.
“Look here.” Georgiana held up a calling card, conveniently forgetting Payton’s wish not to talk. “Lady Bisson. Did you know Sir Connor’s grandmother was here on the island, Payton? We brought her down when we first heard the news that you’d disappeared. You and Sir Connor, I mean. She’s been quite anxious to see you, you know.”
Payton lifted the pepper and carpeted her plate with it. Volcanic ash.
“Shall I tell her to come for tea? Would you like that?”
Payton glared across the bed tray at her sister-in-law. “Considering the fact that I’m not allowed to leave my room, it might be a bit awkward entertaining Drake’s grandmother, don’t you think, Georgiana? Unless you suppose I can use this bed tray as a tea table.”
Georgiana, completely unruffled by this outburst, calmly laid the calling card aside. “You know your brothers will let you out just as soon as you see reason.”
“Reason?” Payton lifted the tray from her lap. She thought about hurling it across the room, but she’d tried that before, to no effect, except that one of the maids had been sent to pick up the mess, and Payton, feeling sheepish over her outburst, had felt obligated to help her.
This time, she set the tray aside, but took’care not to let the sheet she’d pulled over her slip down. “Georgiana, surely you don’t think I’m being unreasonable. I mean, you must see that they’re the ones who are being completely asinine about the whole thing.”
“Asinine?” Georgiana regarded her sister-in-law placidly. Her new, ethereal calm was maddening, but even more maddening was the reason behind it. Well, Payton supposed it had been bound to happen, sooner or later. Even an ogre like Ross must have his tender moments, and it appeared that during one of them, he’d managed to get his wife enceinte. Though how
Georgiana could feel so calm about the fact that in four or five months, she was going to give birth to an ogre-baby, Payton couldn’t imagine.
“They aren’t being asinine, Payton. They’re only doing what they think is best for you. You’re the one who’s being—”
“What?” Payton interrupted, in a hard voice. “I’m the one who’s being what, Georgiana?”
“Well.” Georgiana looked apologetic. “Stubborn?”
“Oh, I see. I’m stubborn, just because I don’t happen to want to marry someone my brothers insist I must.”
“Yes. Because we all know you want to. Payton, everyone knows you love him. So why are you being so difficult about it? Just agree to marry the man, and then we can all be one big happy family again.”
“Has everyone forgotten,” Payton demanded, “that he happens to be married to someone else?”
Georgiana waved a lace-cuffed hand in the air. “Oh, heavens. Justice O‘Reardon annulled that farce of a union as soon as Drake—I mean, Sir Connor—regained conscious—er, got around to explaining matters to him. That’s not what’s stopping you.”
“No,” Payton said, tight-lipped.
“Then what is it? Why all this fuss? You should be over the moon, Payton. You’ve gotten exactly what you always wanted.”
“But Georgiana,” Payton said, her voice catching. Oh, Lord, she wasn’t going to start crying again, was she? She’d cried for three days straight already. She’d rather hoped she was on the mend. Apparently not. “Georgiana, can’t you see? I never wanted him this way.”
“What way, sweetheart?”
“You know. By trapping him. By forcing him. This is precisely the way Miss Whitby—”
“It isn’t,” Georgiana interrupted hastily. “Payton, really. This is nothing like what Miss Whitby did. Did you go to bed with Sir Richard, and then tell his brother you were carrying
his child? No, of course you didn’t. Your case is quite, quite different—”
“But he still doesn’t get a choice in the matter,” Payton insisted. “Don’t you see? He felt obligated to marry Becky Whitby—never mind that that obligation turned out not to be true. And now he’s marrying me for the same reason: He feels obligated.”
“How do you know how he feels? Have you asked him?” When Payton’s only response was a sniffle, Georgiana answered for her. “No, you haven’t. You’ve refused to see him. You won’t even read his letters.” Georgiana reached out to the silver tray of mail beside her. “Why, there’s three from him already this morning, and it’s only just gone noon. The man is obviously desperate to see you.”
“Of course he’s desperate,” Payton muttered. “He’s desperate to restore his reputation, and get back in his grandmother’s good graces … not to mention Ross’s. Don’t forget, Georgiana, Dixon and Sons employs him. I suppose he’d do just about anything to stay on Papa’s good side.”
“Pshaw,” Georgiana said, with a laugh. “What twaddle, Payton. Connor Drake isn’t exactly Matthew Hayford. He doesn’t need the piddling salary your father pays him. He has quite a tidy fortune in his own right. And as for his reputation, I never met a man who cared less what anybody had to say about him than Connor Drake.”
Payton gritted her teeth. “I won’t marry a man just because my brothers say I have to. I won’t!”
“Then don’t. Marry him because you love him.”
But Payton ignored her. “My whole life, I’ve done what my brothers told me to. I’ve lived the way they taught me to live. If any one of them had been stuck on that island, they’d have done exactly as I did. So why am I being punished for it?”
And then the tears did start up again. Dammit, and she’d thought she’d cried enough, this past week, to dry her tear ducts out. Apparently not. Apparently, there were still a few gallons or so left.
Sighing, Georgiana picked up the breakfast tray and left the room, taking care to lock the door behind her, as her husband—rather unnecessarily, Georgiana thought—had ordered. There was a large balcony off Payton’s room, from which the girl could climb down any time she pleased without a bit of trouble, nimble as she was. So why bother locking her bedroom door? If she wanted to escape, she’d have done it already.
But Georgiana hadn’t bothered mentioning this to her husband. It would only cause him to board up the French doors to the balcony, which would quite destroy the charm of the house from the outside, and would inspire more gossip than the youngest Dixon had already managed to engender.
“Well?”
Georgiana nearly dropped the tray. But it was only Connor Drake, eagerly awaiting her reappearance in the breakfast room.
“Nothing’s changed,” Georgiana said, letting him take the tray. “She still won’t budge.”
“Did you show her my letters?”
“Of course I showed her your letters. She won’t touch them. I told you she wouldn’t.”
Georgiana didn’t like to disappoint the man, as he already looked quite wretched enough, with his split lip, and the jagged wound in his right eyebrow where her husband’s wedding ring had left a gash. Still, she thought him every bit as much to blame for the problem as Ross. After all, he ought to have been able to have restrained himself on that island. A gentleman always could.
“Why can’t I see her?” Drake spun around to face the men who would be his brothers-in-law. “Just let me go up there. I’ll be able to talk some sense into her.”
“No!” Ross pushed himself up from the chair in which he’d been lounging. “Gad, no. We can’t let her know we’ve forgiven you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hudson grumbled, from the confines of his own chair.
Ignoring his brother, Ross went on. “If she thinks we’ve forgiven you, then she’ll never marry you.” Ross shook his head. “You have to understand the way a woman thinks, Drake. That’s your problem. You’ve never understood how they think.”
Georgiana had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling at the thought of her husband pontificating on the intricacies of the feminine mind.
“What you ought to have done,” she said gently, “was forbid her from marrying Sir Connor. Angry with you as she is right now, Ross, she’d have found a way to elope with him at her earliest opportunity. The way you’ve got things, refusing to marry him is the only way she can think of to punish you.”
“Me?” Ross bleated. “What did I do?”
“Well, you are the one who beat her lover into a bloody pulp,” Raleigh reminded him, from the thick stone windowsill on which he lounged.
“Pardon me, Ral, but weren’t you standing right there alongside me? I saw you get in a good blow or two.”
“Right. But I didn’t enjoy doing it. I heartily dislike bloodshed.”
“That’s not why she’s angry with you,” Georgiana said.
“What do you mean, that’s not why?” Ross glanced sharply at his wife. “What else has she got to punish us for?”
Georgiana sighed. “Everything. The fact that your father’s business is called Dixon and Sons, instead of Dixon and Sons and Daughter. The fact that all of you encouraged her to shoot and climb and sail, then denied her the right to do those things. The fact that any of you, on that island, would have acted exactly as she did, and yet you feel the need to lock her in her room for it.”
“That’s not why she’s locked in her room!” Ross bellowed. “She’s locked in her room because she won’t marry the blighter!”
“She didn’t eat.” Hudson was examining the tray Georgiana had brought down. “Look at this. She just moved the food
around. She didn’t eat any of it. Why didn’t you make her eat, Georgiana?”
“I can’t force her to eat, Hudson.”
“She hasn’t eaten since she got here.” Hudson lifted a hand and dragged it through his disgracefully long hair. Really, as soon as Georgiana got a chance, she was going to go after that fellow with a pair of shears. “What does she plan on doing? Just wastin’ away? Is that the plan? To punish us all by starving herself to death?”
“Look,” Ross said, leaning forward. “This’ll all be over next month, after the trial. Once she’s testified—”
Georgiana sucked in her breath. “Must she? With as much publicity as all of this has already garnered, what with us thinking she was dead, and then finding out she wasn’t … Goodness, this will only make things worse. Wouldn’t Sir Connor’s testimony alone suffice?”
“No. For God’s sake, Georgiana, Marcus Tyler is standing trial for his life. He’s been accused of piracy, for which alone he could hang. But there’s also charges of abduction, attempted murder, and conspiring to kill Drake’s brother. Payton’s a key witness. Her testimony is crucial.”
“Still.” Georgiana shook her head. “I don’t like it. Payton isn’t at all … well, herself.”
“What do you mean?” Drake demanded sharply.
“Just that … well, I’ve never seen her like this. I hardly recognize her. You’ve kept her locked in that room for a week, Ross, and she hasn’t once tried to escape. The Payton I know would have broken out in half an hour, and then laughed in your face about it.”
Ross looked troubled. “You’re right. By God, you’re right!”
“I just find it very hard to believe that the girl who lived for a month aboard a pirate ship disguised in boy’s clothes and that girl upstairs weeping into her pillow are one and the same,” Georgiana said. “Why, she’s acting so strangely, I’d almost think—”
She broke off quickly. Good Lord, what was she saying? And in front of men, too! Why, she was turning into Payton,
there was no doubt about it, since she felt comfortable enough to say these sort of things in mixed company.
“You’d almost think what, Georgie?” Ross asked curiously.
Georgiana knew she was opening and closing her mouth, rather like a fish with a hook through its jaw. But she couldn’t help it. Every time she thought of something to say, she realized she couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, say it. She hadn’t any proof. And it wasn’t as if Payton had been ill. True, she wouldn’t eat, and she hadn’t tried to escape, but she had been through quite a traumatic experience, so that was only to be expected.
Or at least it would have been expected, in any other girl but Payton. Payton had always seemed to take traumatic experiences in stride, as if, for some reason, she believed they were her due.
“Well,” she said finally, aware that everyone in the room was staring at her expectedly. “I was just thinking that one explanation for her rather, er, uncharacteristic behavior—the not eating, and all the weeping, and the fact that she won’t see Drake—I mean, Sir Connor—and that she hasn’t tried to escape, might be that she’s, um …”
“She’s um what?” Ross shouted. “Out with it, woman! What is she?”
“Well,” Georgiana said, with a gulp. “Expecting.”
“Expecting what?” Ross had leaned forward in his chair, but now he threw himself back into it again, disgustedly. “An apology? Well, she’ll be waitin’ a long time for it. I’m not apologizin’ till she does. After all, nobody asked her to save Drake. He could have bloody well saved himself. He’s done it a thousand times before.”
“Um,” Georgiana said. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant she might be expecting, um, a baby.”
Georgiana felt her cheeks turn crimson. She couldn’t believe she’d just said what she’d said. It was quite unheard of, speaking of such things in front of men, even if the men were family—well, for the most part, anyway. Heat was rising into her face, which was uncomfortable considering it was very hot
in New Providence anyway, despite the wide-open seven-foot windows, and the thick stones the villa had been built with. If she didn’t have to keep discussing these embarrassing topics, she wouldn’t be half so hot.
“Expecting a baby?” Ross blurted out, after a moment’s silence, during which she’d heard, quite distinctly, the sound of the gardener outdoors, snipping away at the bougainvillea. “Payton?”
It irked Georgiana a little, that he should look so incredulous. Why, perhaps Payton had a point. They had treated her like a fourth brother her whole life, and now they expected her to behave like a dutiful sister. And yet whenever any sort of evidence arose that suggested Payton to be a member of the fairer sex, they still balked like donkeys.
“It would,” Georgiana said mildly, “be a natural consequence of what you yourself accused her of doing with Drake. I mean, Sir Connor.”
“But—” Ross looked about the room. She didn’t know what he was looking for, unless it was some sort of assurance that what she’d said couldn’t possibly be true. “But then why won’t she marry him?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t know it herself. I don’t know. I only suspected it this morning, when she still wouldn’t eat. It would explain her moodiness.”
“But not why she won’t marry him!” Ross thundered.
“But of course it does. Don’t you see? She told me she doesn’t want him to think of her as another Miss Whitby, whom he felt obligated to wed.”
“Miss Whitby?” Ross exploded. “Miss Whitby? Still Miss Whitby? When am I ever going to hear the end of Miss Bloody Whitby?”
“When she’s hanged?” Raleigh suggested.
“Drake,” Ross shouted, spinning around. “This is all your fault. I told you not to—”
But his voice trailed off, because Connor Drake had slipped from the room some time before.
They found him easily enough, however. His cursing could
be heard all the way down the stairs, when, a few seconds later, he opened the door to Payton’s bedchamber and found the room empty, the French doors to the balcony swaying lazily in the afternoon breeze.