Penthouse Suite (21 page)

“Stop.” He was getting away from her, his long legs eating up the ground, and an air raid siren had started going off inside her head. “Stop walking. Stop looking at things. And for the love of God, stop talking.”

He actually had the audacity to grin at her again, as if they were still allies, and this was all an enjoyable game rather than the second wave of a hostile incursion.

“There’s not going to be a fence,” Ellen said firmly.

“Your brother is crazy-famous, and you have a kid. You need a fence. I can get it painted any color you want. Or stained. Cedar would look nice with your siding.” Caleb looked at his watch. “Are you free in about an hour? I’m supposed to be meeting with Carly, but after that I’d like to come back by here. In the meantime, it would help me a lot if you could pull together your itinerary for the next few weeks. I need names and contact information for all your friends, too—family, boyfriends, anybody who comes over to play with your son—so I can let my team know who it’s okay to let on the property. Oh, and does your cell phone have a radio function, by any chance?”

Ellen’s fingers had begun to ache deep in the joints, so she opened her hand to stretch them, and the iced tea glass fell onto the lawn. She gawped at it, unable to collect her thoughts over the ringing in her ears.

Trouble. This man was trouble. Far bigger trouble than a few photographers.

Caleb leaned over and scooped up the glass. Then it was in front of her face again with
his hand wrapped around it, and her eyes traveled the length of his forearm and over the rolled sleeve at his elbow, up to the rounded cap of his shoulder, his collar and neck, his jawline and that bump in his nose and those twinkling, confident, conspiratorial eyes. Heaven help her, he looked
good
. Why did misery always come in such attractive packages?

She took the glass from him, and his fingers bumped hers, and it was terrible the way she felt it. Just terrible.

“What?” she croaked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll get you a new phone with a radio. Comes in handy as a backup. You’ll have to let my team know every time you leave the house, and they’ll decide whether you need an escort. I’ll get that set up by tomorrow morning. In the meantime—”

“Stop,” Ellen whispered.

Not loud enough. You had to be loud—she’d figured that out with Richard. You had to be louder than they were, stronger than they thought you could be, and so mean and cold and unforgiving, they called you names.

She knew how to do this. She’d done it before.

“
Stop
,” she said, and this time the word came out at a satisfying volume. “You’re not putting a fence up on my property. I’m not giving you schematics. I don’t want your help.”

“Didn’t we already cover this a minute ago?”

They had. But she’d been a fool, and she knew when to change tactics. If she gave this man one more inch, he would take over. She’d seen it with Jamie. One day, she and Jamie had been ordinary teenagers, and the next thing she knew her brother had his own armed escort. He was ostensibly an adult now, but he reported his comings and goings to a team of people who monitored his food, screened his friends, and installed an alarm system in his house that had a habit of going off a three a.m. in irritating bursts of shrieking that no one knew how to stop.

Security guards oversaw Jamie’s whole life. They told him where he could go and when, controlled him, choked him. Ellen couldn’t handle that. Not after Richard.

So she folded her arms over her chest and stood up straighter. Caleb’s gaze locked with
hers.
Let him try
, she told herself.
Just let him try
.

But he only smiled, his eyes too kind and a bit bewildered. “I’m here to help you. The way I see it, Breckenridge put me under contract, but I work for you.”

“Excellent,” she said. Because it didn’t matter whether he was kind. It only mattered that he would wreak havoc with her life if she let him. “In that case, you’re fired.”

London, 1749

Nicholas Addison tossed back a mouthful of flat champagne and watched the swirling mass of people on the dance floor with a jaded eye. If he didn’t have an important meeting in a few moments he would have left already. Hell, he wouldn’t have attended in the first place.

“We’ve only just arrived. You can’t leave yet.”

Nicholas switched his gaze from the dizzying dancers to his brother, Sebastian, Earl of Claybrook.

Sebastian grinned but the amusement didn’t reach his tired eyes. “So what did Kenmar have to say?” he asked, referring to Nicholas’s earlier appointment with the marquess.

Nicholas shrugged and looked around one more time. You never knew who could be lurking in the shadows. Listening. And he wasn’t taking chances. Not tonight.

He took another swig of champagne and frowned when the alcohol hit his stomach like a round from a twenty-two-pounder. “He’s offering me a captain’s position on one of Hamilton’s ships. I haven’t given him an answer yet.”

“So will you do it?” Sebastian asked quietly, looking around as well. If someone was lurking, Sebastian and Nicholas’s strange behavior would surely tip him off.

Nicholas swirled another swallow of champagne around in his mouth but it didn’t wash away the indecision. The anxiety. “I’m to give him my answer in a few minutes.” He looked around for the marquess but the crush of people made it impossible to see even a few feet beyond him.

“Don’t leave a chap in suspense, Nicholas. What will you tell him?”

“I haven’t made my decision yet.”

When the summons arrived to report to the marquess’s residence, Nicholas’s curiosity
had been piqued. Bored, he accepted the somewhat terse invitation even though he knew he couldn’t
not
accept it. What Kenmar had proposed was the last thing Nicholas had expected and the one thing he wanted most—to command his own ship, to be out on the ocean where he belonged.

But, as with anything in life that seemed too good to be true, it came with provisions. The shipping company had recently been under attack. Some suspected pirates. But not Kenmar. Kenmar suspected the owner of the company, a man named Daniel Blackwell, was purposely sabotaging the ships to gain the insurance money.

Nicholas had inwardly winced when he read the insurance papers. The names scrawled at the bottom were some of the most highly placed noblemen in the country. A few even had the advantage of the king’s ear. If Blackwell was fleecing them of their money, the man was an imbecile.

Nicholas leaned against the wall, desperate to escape the cloying perfume of the ladies, the boisterous boasts of the gentlemen, and the swirling couples on the dance floor. He’d never been a decent dancer, not even an adequate dancer, and with his barely healed leg, adequacy wasn’t a possibility. Not that he wanted to dance. No, what he wanted was to climb those stairs and exit the stifling house. But first he had to speak to Kenmar.
First
he had to make a decision.

Sebastian slapped Nicholas on the back. “I’m certain you’ll make the right decision, brother.” He made to move away, hailing a friend across the room.

“Sebastian.”

His brother turned and raised a brow in inquiry. Nicholas was taken aback by the fatigue on Sebastian’s face. Small lines etched the corners of his eyes and deep grooves creased the sides of his mouth. A mouth that smiled little lately.

“Thank you,” Nicholas said quietly.

Sebastian smiled, erasing the serious expression that seemed to be a constant lately. “That’s what families are for, Nick.” His gaze flickered behind Nicholas. “Kenmar’s approaching.” Then he disappeared into the crowd, giving Nicholas only a few moments to prepare himself.

“Addison.” Kenmar stopped beside him. An older gentleman who clung to the tradition of wearing a white wig in public, the man was well respected and a close acquaintance of the king.

Nicholas nodded. “Kenmar.”

“Have you given my proposal any thought?”

“I have.”

Kenmar took a sip from his glass. “Before you give me your answer, I’ll have you know I received more information after you left this afternoon. Inside sources tell me Blackwell is launching a shipment of gold that’s to leave the colonies in a month or so. If you choose to accept this mission, I’ll need you to discover more about the gold. Where it’s headed and what it’s being used for.”

“You don’t believe Lady Anne is behind the attacks?” According to Blackwell, the notorious female pirate, Lady Anne, was behind them.

“I don’t believe Lady Anne exists.” Kenmar swirled the wine in his glass.

The London papers were full of the lady pirate’s exploits. Young girls wanted to be like her. Men claimed to have bedded her. The elite whispered about her in their ballrooms and she was the major source of entertainment in what would otherwise have been an ordinary season of soirees and balls.

Nicholas didn’t know anyone who’d actually seen Lady Anne, let alone met her. Whether she existed or not had been little concern to him. Until now.

The prospect of the gold fascinated him. Hell, who was he kidding? The entire proposal intrigued him. He’d been away from the sea for two long years. It was time he regained his sea legs and this was the perfect opportunity.

“I will do it,” he said. And the weight that had settled on his shoulders after his injury shifted.

Kenmar nodded, his expression unchanging, as if he’d expected no other answer. “Be
ready to sail in five days.” He put his glass on the tray of a passing waiter. “Now I’m off to the club. Have a good evening, Addison.” And he disappeared into the crowd, leaving Nicholas alone with his newfound trepidation and anxiety. But also with anticipation.

“Do you find these things as boring as I?”

His gaze collided with eyes the color of the sea on a clear day, a combination of blue and green. They smiled at him, those eyes. Crinkling at the corners and dancing with merriment.

Slowly his startled gaze swept over her, taking in shiny black hair piled high. One curled, ebony lock rested seductively on the top of a firm, golden breast encased in an off-white gown.

With all that dark hair and glowing skin, she reminded him of a Gypsy.

But what fascinated him the most, what caught his attention more than the curve of her breasts and the bewitching color of her eyes, were the dimples peeking out at him when she smiled.

The stunning vision held out her hand. “Emmaline Sutherland. And you are?”

He hesitated. He might disdain society, preferring the open ocean to a stuffy ballroom, but he knew the rules, and one of the biggest was that a lady did not introduce herself to a gentleman. Intrigued, he smiled, bowed over her hand and kissed it.

“Captain Nicholas Addison.”

“Well, Captain Addison, why don’t you ask me to dance? Maybe a sarabande will alleviate our boredom.”

If women didn’t introduce themselves to men, they certainly didn’t ask men to dance.
Who was this woman?
The fear of making a fool of himself kept his feet rooted to the gleaming wood floor. Would his leg withstand the complicated dance moves? If it didn’t, did he deserve the captain’s position just offered to him?

He held out his arm for her to take. “Would you prefer a stroll instead?”

She tilted her head, studying him while his elbow remained crooked for her hand.

Finally she took his arm. “I’d be delighted.”

As he guided her through the crush of people, he recalled his brother mentioning something
about this ball being held for an Emmaline Sutherland. “So, Miss Sutherland, to what do we owe the honor of this route?”

She grimaced, her gaze glancing over the dancers. “No honor. Aunt Dorothy will take any excuse to give a ball. I happened to be in town at the moment.”

“You are not from London?”

Her hand felt nearly weightless on his arm, yet he was well aware of its warmth beneath her glove.

“Originally, yes. But I live abroad now and return infrequently. And you, sir? Are you from London?”

“Yes, but like you, I am rarely here. I’m a sea captain and will set sail in a few days for Boston.” Not completely the truth. He was rarely in town because he preferred the family’s country home, where he didn’t have to encounter pitiful stares and whispers behind his back. If not for Kenmar’s summons, and Sebastian’s plea to attend this ball, Nicholas wouldn’t be here now.

Miss Sutherland raised an ebony eyebrow. “Boston. How exciting.” Her tone lacked the aforementioned excitement, as if her mind was far away. “And who do you sail for?”

“Blackwell Shipping.” Pride welled in his chest. Pride that he was once again
doing
something. Sailing instead of rusticating, as his brother called it. Sailing instead of recuperating. Sailing instead of feeling sorry for himself. “Where do you live, if not in London?” he asked.

“Barbados.”

“Barbados?” He turned to look at her.

Amusement lurked in those curiously colored eyes. “Does that shock you?”

More like fascinated. While Nicholas was well traveled, he didn’t know many women who were. In fact, he didn’t know
any
women who were. “No,” he lied.

“My husband and I own a sugar plantation on the island.”

Disappointment washed through him at the mention of a husband even though he had no right to his disappointment. It wasn’t as if he was able to pursue a courtship with Miss, or rather,
Mrs. Sutherland. He was leaving in five days, after all.

“And is your husband present tonight?” He glanced around the room, searching for an angry gentleman staring holes in his back.

“He’s in Barbados overseeing the plantation. He never travels to London.”

“I see.” But he didn’t see. If
he
had a wife as beautiful and charming as Emmaline Sutherland, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Definitely not to travel from Barbados to London alone. “Are you frightened traveling alone?”

A smile touched her lips. “What would I be frightened of?”