“No,” Georgina said flatly to Boyd a few hours later when he’d reached her house in Berkeley Square. “You’re lucky I don’t take a whip to you m’self. I’m not protecting you from James, not this time.”

Which didn’t bode well for Boyd if that was her first reaction to his remark. All he’d done was kiss her hello and tell her he might need her help. He should have taken better note of her surprise at his sudden presence in her parlor, as if she’d thought he wouldn’t dare show his face there.

With a sigh, he sat down next to her on the sofa. “What did your husband tell you?”

“That you intended to seduce that sweet girl on that trip and they got her out of your clutches before you could. But then I already knew that was your intention when they sailed off after you. You should have seen Tony. He was a volcano about to erupt.”

Boyd rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know. He erupted on me.”

A moment of sisterly concern filled her expression. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not really.”

“He’s losing his touch?”

He had to laugh at that. “That’s doubtful. But I’m guessing James failed to mention the seduction was his and Anthony’s idea?”

She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare try that tactic with me, Boyd Anderson. You’re not passing the buck.”

He chuckled at her. “It’s true, you know. I asked for their help, and seduction was the first thing that came to their minds, but then that is their forte, so that’s understandable. But the fact is, I wanted to marry Katey before we even sailed off together. Hell, I wanted to marry her from the day I first met her!”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before you sailed?” she demanded.

“Because I wanted Katey so much, I wasn’t thinking straight back then.”

Georgina gave him a disapproving look, but asked, “And that’s not going to get in the way now?”

“No.”

She gasped in understanding, “Oh my God, you better hope James doesn’t find out.”

“Find out what?” James asked from the doorway.

Chapter Fifty-One

AT JAMES’S SUDDEN ARRIVAL Georgina immediately jumped to her feet and stood like a barricade between her husband and her brother. Not that that would have stopped James from getting at Boyd if he’d wanted to, which was why Boyd stood up and braced himself.

But James told his wife, “Relax, m’dear. I’m not going to bloody him in your presence.”

“So I’m going to have to stay stuck to his side for the next year?” Georgina said in annoyance.

James raised a single golden brow. “It’s that bad, what I don’t know?”

She hedged. “Depends on how you look at it.”

“And how would that be?” James asked.

She started to answer, then clamped her mouth shut and took on a mulish expression. James shrugged and casually entered the room, removing his gloves and tossing them on a nearby table. But James Malory’s demeanor could be deceptive. The man could be in a towering rage and still look utterly emotionless.

He stopped in front of Boyd. Georgina didn’t try to squeeze between them. She had his word that he wouldn’t bloody Boyd. Nothing had been said about not breaking bones, though. Boyd didn’t take a defensive stance, but he didn’t relax his guard, either.

“Let’s hear it,” James said without expression.

“We were merely discussing Katey, which you’ve probably already guessed. And perhaps you can better answer this. She was willing to abandon my ship for yours to come back here, but is she now in a tearing hurry to be off on her world trip again?”

“Not a’tall. She’s delighted with her new family and is content to remain in England to get to know us. At least for the duration of winter.”

“Really?”

James apparently didn’t like how pleased Boyd sounded over that information. “What bloody difference does it make?” he snapped.

“Because that gives me reason to believe she’ll marry me now.”

“Oh? And what makes you think the rest of us will have you?”

“James Malory,” Georgina began warningly.

But Boyd burst out laughing. “It’s bad enough I have to fight Katey tooth and nail, as it were, to get her to admit she loves me, but I have to fight the Malorys, too?”

“I’ve got news for you, Yank. We ain’t admitting we love you—ever.”

Boyd rolled his eyes. “You know what I meant. I want Katey for my wife. I believe you understood that before I left England with her.”

“That was before she became my niece. Now that she is, you can’t have her.”

“It’s not up to you, it’s up to her.”

“Care to place a wager on that?”

Boyd didn’t lose his temper, the subject was too important. “Her only objection to marrying me is her damn world tour. She assumed, for whatever reason, that once she marries and has children that she can never travel again. But if she’s willing to forgo her trip for an entire winter, then perhaps this reunion with a family she never knew she had has changed her priorities, or at least made her put a higher value on family.”

“You think that makes a difference, do you?”

Boyd sighed. “James, she asked me if I’d wait for her. What does that tell you?”

“It tells me you and she had a pretty serious conversation. What else did you have?”

Boyd didn’t answer. Georgina quickly squeezed between them to cup her husband’s cheeks. James wasn’t stupid. Boyd’s silence was the answer he didn’t want to hear.

“You know this changes everything,” she told him. “It did for us, with my brothers. They let us marry—”

“Insisted,” he cut in to correct.

Georgina pursed her lips. “Well, if we’re going to get particular, you did—”

“Don’t go there,” James warned.

She smiled sweetly at her husband, despite his scowl. Boyd managed not to laugh at them. Did these two really think he and his brothers had never figured it out? James had forced their hand when he’d let them all know their sweet, innocent sister had shared his cabin—and a lot more—with him. And he did it deliberately.

“And what about Amy and Warren?” Georgina continued. “As soon as you and your brother found them in bed together, that changed your opposition to him, didn’t it? You would have dragged them straight to the altar if Amy hadn’t stubbornly dug in her heels and insisted she wouldn’t have him until he proposed to her.”

“You made your point, George,” James said with a sour look that he then turned on Boyd. “I’m going to assume you didn’t have your way with her without her permission?”

“That isn’t even close to amusing, Malory.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. And since your indignation answers that, then, yes, unfortunately, this does change everything. But don’t think you’ll convince Tony this easily. He’s very touchy right now about this particular daughter. Years lost, regrets, self-blame—despite how smoothly she’s fitting into his family, it’s all still sitting on his shoulders.”

“Yes, but you’re going to be on Boyd’s side in the argument, aren’t you?” Georgina said smugly.

Up went one of James’s golden brows. “Isn’t it enough that I’m not going to kill him?”

Chapter Fifty-Two

KATEY LOOKED OUT THE COACH’S WINDOW. The Millard mansion loomed ahead. The trees on the drive and all around the mansion were barren now, empty of leaves—like the lives inside that big house. Her father was taking her there. Roslynn had offered to come along. Judith had wanted to come, too, but Anthony wouldn’t let them. He’d merely said it was something Katey and he had to do alone, but Katey suspected he was afraid that their visit would turn ugly and he didn’t want to subject them to that. After all, they would have to get past Letitia again to see her grandmother.

Katey held Anthony’s hand in the coach and repeated to herself over and over that this other family of hers, the Millards, weren’t important to her anymore. She had his family now, and they had welcomed her into their lives wholeheartedly. From the moment she’d entered that house on Piccadilly and Judith had come running to latch on to her waist with the biggest hug she was capable of, Katey had been filled with such peace.

“I knew it, I knew it,” Judith had exclaimed in bubbling delight. “There had to be a reason I liked you so much, and there was!”

“And how did you know,” Katey asked with a warm smile. “I thought they weren’t going to tell you.”

Roslynn Malory had appeared to say, “Tony sent a runner to inform us that you were back. I felt I ought to prepare her, but it’s a good thing you didn’t take too long getting here! Welcome home, Katey.”

Roslynn came over to hug her, too. Katey had cried. In that moment, she really felt that she had a home again. And Anthony came in mumbling something about females and their contrary tears of happiness.

It had been quite a homecoming. The Malorys drifted in and out that day and the next, all of them coming by to assure the newest member of their family just how glad they were to have her. She had no doubts after that, not one. And last night at the family dinner Roslynn had arranged, Katey got to meet one of Boyd’s brothers as well, Warren, the other sibling of his that she was now related to by marriage!

What a surprise Warren Anderson turned out to be. Married to her cousin Amy, Edward’s youngest daughter, Warren looked nothing like Boyd. Much older, much taller, she would never have guessed he was Boyd and Georgina’s brother if she wasn’t told. She wouldn’t have guessed either that he was a part of this family, from some of the derogatory remarks she heard the Malory men sending his way.

“Back again, Yank? What a pity.”

That had been James’s remark, but Anthony was quick to join in: “You really should take longer trips—and leave Amy and the children at home. They might miss you a little, but we certainly won’t.”

“Might as well give it up,” James told his brother. “He’s too dense to catch the hint.”

They sounded so serious, Katey was surprised enough to ask Roslynn about it when she caught her alone. “Why do the Malorys ridicule the Andersons?”

“We don’t,” Roslynn was quick to assure her. “It’s mainly just Tony and James. Those two form a solid front against opposition, and, well, the Andersons did try to hang James when they first met him. They also beat him senseless. And despite hearing how their sister loved him, they tried to keep him and Georgina apart.”

“I heard about that,” Katey admitted.

Roslynn chuckled. “Well, you’ve seen how James is, so you might understand why they’d have reservations about entrusting their only sister to him. But while it may sound as if they hold him in contempt, they aren’t serious about it these days, and Warren knows that.”

Katey understood—somewhat. And since Warren was amused and simply laughed off the remarks, he obviously knew the Malory men weren’t really trying to insult him.

This was the older brother that Boyd had held up as an example to her, of a man who took his wife and family to sea with him. And Amy, vivacious, perky, bubbly with happiness, apparently didn’t mind that arrangement at all. She was the second female in the family who had those dark Gypsy looks from their ancestor the way Anthony did. But she had one other thing that was most odd.

Laughing about it, Amy said, “I don’t really tell fortunes, it’s just that I get very strong feelings.”

“She had me rush us back to England because she sensed there was going to be a new Malory in the family,” Warren added. “As usual, she was right.”

“I thought it would be a new baby!” Amy chuckled. “But I’m glad it’s you instead, Katey. You and I are going to be best friends, you know,” she said with absolute confidence, then she leaned forward to whisper, “Put that heartache away, m’dear. You’re going to be more happy here than you realize. I’ve already bet on it.”

Katey didn’t find out until after Amy and Warren went home last night that Amy had never lost a bet in her life, that if she wanted something to happen, she merely had to bet on it and it would happen! Jeremy told Katey all about Amy’s unusual ability and complained how often Amy had used those bets against him. Katey found the whole thing preposterous. A family joke, maybe, that she just hadn’t heard the punch line to yet?

But Amy’s remark about heartache had been too close to the mark, yet how could she know that Katey had stood for hours on the small balcony outside her room after she retired her first night there, watching, waiting, hoping for Boyd’s arrival, and she did it again last night! With two days come and gone since her return to London, she was beginning to fear that he wasn’t going to come back to England at all, that the angry things she’d said to him about never wanting to see him again had convinced him to give up on her.

But no one in the family knew that she had those fears, so Amy couldn’t know! Katey let them see only her happiness to be there and be a part of the family, because that happiness was very real.

And then Anthony informed her over breakfast that morning that as soon as they’d docked, he’d immediately sent a man to Havers Town to find out Sophie’s condition from her doctor. “I wouldn’t put it past Letitia to try to claim your grandmother still isn’t well enough for a visit. And the doctor informed me she is well. As hale and hearty as a woman her age can be. So if you’d like to head to Haverston today, I already told Ros to pack us for an extended visit.”