No Choice but Seduction Read Free

thought they’d be so troublesome,” a carrot-haired young woman said as she came up to them, holding a toddler in each hand. “We’re going to have to hover over them if we bring them up to the deck again.”
    Katey bent down and picked up one of the children and set it on her hip, ruffling its hair. Boyd couldn’t tell if the tot was a boy or a girl.
    “That’s not a bad idea, Grace. They are a bit too inquisitive at this age,” Katey said.
    “Well, here, give her back. I’ll get them settled belowdecks before we sail.”
    “Yours?” Boyd asked as soon as the other woman walked off with the two children.
    He was joking, but Katey glanced at him with a frown on her pretty face. Then her eyes widened and she said, “Yes! Actually, I didn’t think to mention it, but I’m married and on my way to join my husband in England. I should go and help my maid. Those two darlings can be a handful.”
    She rushed off. Boyd was left standing there poleaxed, no doubt about it.
    Tyrus came up to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Ain’t that always the way? The good ones are already taken.”
    Boyd shook his head and groaned. It was going to be a long voyage.

Chapter One

     
    London, England, 1826
    T HE NOTE WAS DELIVERED by a scruffy child who didn’t know he had the wrong house. The mistake wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been told there were many different Malory houses in London. He’d come to the first one he’d been directed to, pleased that it hadn’t taken long to earn the few coppers in his pocket. And just as he’d been told to do, he’d run off before Henry could question him.
    Henry and Artie, two crusty old sea dogs, had shared the job of butler at James Malory’s house ever since James had retired from his life at sea and they’d both retired with him. But recently James had gone back to sea, briefly, to rescue his brother-in-law Drew Anderson, who’d got himself into a coil when according to one of his crewmen who’d managed to escape, pirates had stolen his ship right out of London harbor! With him on it! Henry and Artie had tossed a coin to see who would sail with James for the rescue. Henry had lost.
    Henry tossed the note without reading it onto the mountainous pile of calling cards and invitations that had come in from people who didn’t know the Malorys of this particular household weren’t in residence. A normal butler would never have let the tray on the hall table overflow with invitations and letters. But in the eight years since Henry and Artie had begun sharing the job, neither of them had learned how to be a proper butler.
    That afternoon when Boyd Anderson returned to the Malory house in Berkeley Square, he found the note on his tray, along with a few other cards that had slid off the larger pile next to it. He didn’t usually have a tray of his own in his sister Georgina’s house, but then he usually only visited for a week or two, never as long as several months as this visit had turned out to be. Nor was it the first time Georgina’s mail had got mixed up with his.
    Despite having given it a lot more thought, Boyd still hadn’t made up his mind yet about settling in England. But that wasn’t why he was still here. He hadn’t returned to sea yet because he was doing his sister a favor. Although Georgina had married into the large Malory family and any one of her numerous in-laws would have been delighted to take care of her children while she was gone, Georgina’s seven-year-old daughter, Jacqueline, balked at joining her young twin siblings at the country home of their cousin Lady Regina Eden, because she didn’t want to be that far away from her best friend and cousin, Judith. Other Malorys in London could have taken her, but since Boyd was staying at her London house, Georgina had asked him to keep an eye on Jacqueline until he sailed again.
    He would have preferred to go along for the rescue. That would have been a fine bit of work to tease his brother Drew