Page 120 of After the Abduction
“The Navy Board won’t lift a hand to me when I tell them what I learned on the Oceana. It seems Crouch had a source high up in the navy who tipped him off that I was spying on him. So if they give me trouble over my association with the Pirate Lord, I’ll gladly reveal their own rascal’s name to every newspaper in London. I’ll create a scandal so rank they’ll never live it down. I’m sure the citizens of England will be very interested to hear who’s been enabling the smugglers to operate all this time.”
Sebastian stood there stunned. “Do you mean to tell me—”
“That I managed fine without you? That I can take care of myself? Yes, mon frere, I do. If I’d known you were taking such steps…” He gave a Gallic shrug, then smiled at Juliet. “And to abduct such an angelique, magnifique—”
“Remind me not to let your brother anywhere near my wife,” Griff said behind them. “And here I thought you were the gallant one, Templemore.”
Sebastian began to laugh. It started as a sort of hiccup, but quickly grew to gasps of laughter that had Juliet staring at him in frank alarm. “Sebastian? My love?”
“I lived with smugglers…for weeks…” he choked out. “I kidnapped an innocent…I lied…I fought a duel…and for this? Oh God, it’s too much…”
“Will you excuse us a moment?” Juliet murmured as she pulled the gasping Sebastian past their combined relations and out of the drawing room. When she had him completely alone, she shook him a little. “Are you all right? Sebastian?”
“I’m fine,” he choked out. “Really, Juliet, fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Well, what do you expect?” He paused, fighting for breath. “Don’t you find it ironic? Think of it—all the things I did to you, the ways I ruined your life. And all for nothing! Doesn’t it make you just want to…to…”
“Kiss your brother?”
“What?”
“Don’t you see, Sebastian? If not for your strange ideas about duty and honor and responsibility for family, we would never have met. What are the chances our paths would have crossed in London? None, that’s what. Besides, you said yourself that Crouch would have had me kidnapped one way or the other, probably by some nasty smuggler. So I don’t think it was ‘all for nothing’ at all. Indeed, I’m quite happy with the results.”
He gaped at her. “But sweeting, I ruined your life! The gossip, the lies…the—”
“Are you sorry for it?”
“You know I am!”
“Then all is forgiven.”
He pulled her close, his eyes shining. “Your brother-in-law is right, you know. I don’t deserve you.”
“You certainly don’t. But I’m stuck with you now, so I’ll just have to adjust.”
With a laugh, he bent his head to kiss her, but she held her finger to his lips. “And speaking of my brother-in-law…”
He groaned. “Must we?”
“I’ve been wondering about one thing ever since we left Wimbledon Common. Last night you said you were going to shoot the pistol out of Griff’s hand. Why did you change your mind?”
Cradling her head between his hands, he smiled down at her with such tenderness it made her want to cry. “You asked me to trust you. So I did.”
She caught her breath. “Just like that? For the first time in your life, you gave up control of a situation and took a chance that Griff wouldn’t shoot you, because of what I said?”
“No. I did it because I love you. And that’s all the reason I could ever need.”
As he folded her in his arms and kissed her with the full sweetness she’d always known lay inside him, she thought that was quite enough reason for anybody.
Epilogue
A rare spoil for a man
Is the winning of a good wife.
Euripides’ Andromache, inscribed by her husband on Juliet’s list of quotes to use in embroidery
