The Lady's Risk: A Marriage of Convenience Regency Romance (The Conrad Legacy Book 4) by C.K. Mackenzie

Author:C.K. Mackenzie [Mackenzie, C.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emelia Publishers LLC
Published: 2024-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Compassion. That’s what moved through her. Compassion and sorrow and the vaguest hint of understanding. Not at wanting adventure and excitement, but at wanting more. Layla tentatively reached for him. When he didn’t pull back, she covered his hand with hers.

Beneath her touch, his rigid hold on the ship’s railing flinched.

“Did your younger brother have a choice?”

“What?” The word came out harsh, hoarse.

“Did you force him?” she clarified. “Did he choose to leave, or did you force him at dagger point?”

He looked confused, his brow creased in such a vicious frown that she wondered he didn’t give himself a headache. “He—it doesn’t matter. He listened to me go on about glory and grandeur and what all.” He made a movement, a strange half shrug that bent his elbows, but his hands hadn’t loosened from the railing.

“He still made his own choice. Just as you did.”

Philip snorted. His hands ripped from the railing and balled up at his sides. “You don’t understand. I was wild. Took him down with me. He was so much smarter than I was. Than I am. He could’ve gone on to university. But no, he listened to me.”

He only made partial sense, and she knew there was so much he didn’t tell her. She let that float away in the current. For now. He knew so much about her life. But then, she’d dropped in on him, quite unexpectedly, all her troubles out in the open. She had needed his help. Still did; she had no idea where they might begin searching for answers.

If there was one thing that she remembered from her parents’ marriage, it was that they were together. They’d stood together in the face of censure and gossip at the scandalous marriage between an Egyptian widow and an English merchant. Even, it seemed, through poisonous betrayal.

“Why don’t we return to the cabin?” She wrapped his clenched fist in both of her hands. “I don’t think you want your crew to overhear this.”

He snorted, a harsh sound, and when he looked at her again, his eyes were wild and angry. “They know.” He kept his voice low. “Everyone knows. They all know about my drunken, brawling past. Where I picked fights with anyone who’d fight me.” He laughed bitterly. “My second-chance crew.”

Surprised but undeterred, she tugged him away from the poop deck, down the short flight of steps, and toward the main staircase that took them belowdecks. The crew seemed to have scattered, either because they’d overheard or thought they were having a couple’s argument. Either way, the path remained clear, with no eavesdroppers in sight.

Once they were in the day cabin, with Argus lying comfortably in his favorite corner, Layla poured a glass of carob juice and set it on the table. Neither of them touched it. The last of the afternoon’s sunlight lit the room, and in the strained silence, she heard the call of the gulls Philip loved so much.

“I wasn’t going to tell you all that,” Philip admitted. He sounded exhausted but not angry.

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