Chapter One
London
1799
"Given the evidence and the documentation offered to this
court, I have no other choice, Captain Danvers, than to
see you relieved of all duties and obligations in His
Majesty's Navy." With those words said, the Lord High
Admiral brought his gavel down on the court bar. The
responding thump, like the last clap of a hammer on a
coffin nail, was followed by stunned silence.
After all, the packed hearing room at the Admiralty had
just witnessed the end of one of the navy's most brilliant
careers, some said one that rivaled even Nelson's.
Few doubted they would ever again see such a precipitous
and fatal descent in their lifetime.
There wasn't a man in the room, officer or jack tar, who
wasn't saying a prayer of thanksgiving that it wasn't his
hide being flayed, his livelihood sinking to the bottom of
the icy Atlantic.
But then again, most of the men in the room held their
posts as men bound by the honor and code of the sea, the
written and unwritten edicts that Captain Colin Danvers
had flagrantly violated. No one disputed the damning
evidence of his treason and duplicity. Not even Nelson,
the captain's staunch supporter and mentor all these
years, had offered to attest to the man's innocence and
character given the irrefutable facts.
So the future that had once shone like the North Star for
Captain Danvers now looked as bleak and murky as a Thames
fog.
Cashiered out of the navy.
Forfeiture of all his prize money -- a sum that had made
him theenvy of his peers.
It was a moment worthy of silence.
As for the man himself, Captain Danvers stood before the
Admiralty Board, his back ramrod straight, his shoulders
squared like a taut reef bar. And despite the fact that
he'd just been cast out, he faced his judges with the same
indomitable spirit that had been his undoing.
"Is that all, my lords?" he had the audacity to ask.
The Lord High Admiral blustered, his whiskers shaking in
anger. "Consider yourself lucky you aren't hanging from a
yardarm, you insolent pup."
Several heads nodded in agreement. Truly, if it had been
any other man, he would have found himself swinging before
the day was out. But lofty familial connections had kept
that prospect at bay.
Danvers, treasonous bastard that he was, had recently
inherited his father's barony. And if that wasn't enough,
the captain's maternal grandfather was none other than the
Duke of Setchfield, a man few people dared cross.
No, the Admiralty couldn't hang Captain Danvers, but the
punishment they'd enacted was just as effective.
They'd taken the man from the sea. From Society. From a
life among his peers. A life about to be spent, some said,
landlocked in a hell of disdain and scorn.
In the back of the hearing room, a pipe whistled the end
of the session, and the trio of judges rose in unison.
Danvers bowed to them, making an elegant and noble show of
it. Then, as if he had just been handed the command of the
entire fleet, he turned smoothly on one heel and, with his
head held high, began the long march out of the room. The
crowd melted apart, leaving him a lonely aisle. He walked
past the downcast glances, the whispered observations,
and, by many, the cut direct as they turned their backs to
him.
Yet as he made his departure, it was as if he didn't see
any of it.
Damned, it was observed by an old captain hours later at
one of the officers' clubs, if the bastard didn't waIk out
of there smiling like the devil himself.
Georgiana Escott stood before the door to her uncle's
private dining room, girding herself for the confrontation
that was about to take place. The letter clenched in her
hand, outlining the latest indignity to be heaped upon her
by her uncaring relation, was the final straw in a
lifetime of enduring her uncle's disinterest and parsimony.
If only Mrs. Taft hadn't died, she thought. Then Georgie
and her sister, Kit, would still be safely ensconced in
the lady's Penzance home where their uncle had deposited
them for fostering eleven years earlier after their
parents' deaths.
Uncle Phineas had wanted nothing to do with his orphaned
nieces then, so why should he go to all this fuss now?
Really, Georgie decided, if there was blame to place for
this debacle, it was entirely the vicar's fault.
If the righteous man hadn't been so scandalized at the
idea of Georgie and Kit remaining in Mrs. Taft's small
cottage after the lady's untimely death and taken it upon
himself to write to their uncle, she would not be in this
position.
Then again, if the vicar had known the truth about Mrs.
Tafts past, he and his wife probably wouldn't have called
on the lady at all and counted her as one of his "finest"
parishioners.
Oh, bother the interference of men. Georgie paced in front
of the dining room doors. They just go about arranging
women's lives without so much as a by your leave.
Well, she wasn't going to stand for it.
And certainly not this, she thought, clenching the letter
in her hand even tighter. Marriage to a man four times her
age! A man reputed to be the worst reprobate in all of
England!
Luckily for Georgie, Lady Finch, an old family friend, had
written her detailing the wild rumors circulating the
gossipy ton regarding her impending betrothal to Lord
Harris. Knowing Uncle Phineas, Georgie had little doubt
that he probably would have informed her of her nuptials
with just enough time to dress for the ceremony.
Especially considering that her intended bridegroom had
already buried nine wives.
Georgie had no intention of being...
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