Read Gentle Rogue for Free Online Page B

gradually…but you weren’t there, were you? Clinton, who was gone for three years, was surprised, but he at least still knew it was me.”
    “He’s your brother!” Malcolm protested.
    “And you’re my fiancé!” she shot back.
    “Oh, Jesus, you can’t still be thinking…It’s been, what, five or six years? I never thought you’d wait, what with the war. It changed everything, don’t you see?”
    “No, I don’t see. You were on an English ship when the war started, but through no fault of your own. You were still an American.”
    “But that’s just it, girl. I never felt right, calling myself an American. It was my folks wanted to settle there, not me.”
    “What exactly are you saying, Malcolm?”
    “I’m an Englishman, always have been. I owned up to it when I was impressed, and young as I was, they believed me that I wasn’t a deserter. They let me sign on, which I was glad to do. It made no never mind to me who I sailed with, as long as I sailed. And I’m doing right well, I am. I’m second mate now on the—”
    “We know your ship,” Georgina cut in sharply. “That’s how we found you, though it’s taken a month to do so. An American merchantman wouldn’t keep such shoddy records, you can be sure. My brothers know where every one of their crewmen can be foundwhen they’re in port…but that’s beside the point, isn’t it? You sided with the English! Four of my brothers volunteered their ships as privateers for that war, and you might have come up against any one of them!”
    “Easy, lass,” Mac intervened. “Ye knew all along that he had tae fight again’ us.”
    “Yes, but not willingly. He’s as much as admitted he’s a traitor!”
    “Nae, he’s admitting tae a love fer the country of his birth. Ye canna fault a mon fer that.”
    No, she couldn’t, much as she wanted to. Rot the English. God, how she hated them. They not only stole Malcolm from her, but wooed his sentiments to their cause as well. He was an Englishman now, and obviously proud of it. But he was still her fiancé. And the war was over, after all.
    Malcolm was red-faced, but whether with embarrassment or chagrin for her condemnation of him, she couldn’t tell. She was hot-cheeked herself. This was not how she had imagined their reunion would be.
    “Mac is right, Malcolm. I’m sorry if I got a little upset over something that…well, that no longer matters. Nothing has changed, really. My feelings certainly haven’t. My being here is testimony to that.”
    “And just why is it you’ve come?”
    Georgina stared at him blankly for a moment before her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “Why? The answer to that is obvious. The question is, why was it necessary for me to come here, and only you can answer that. Why didn’t you return to Bridgeport after the war, Malcolm?”
    “There was no reason to.”

    “No reason?” She gasped. “I beg to differ. There was the little matter of our getting married. Or is that something you chose to forget?”
    He couldn’t meet her eyes to answer, “I didn’t forget. I just didn’t think you would still have me, my being an Englishman and all.”
    “Or you no longer wanted me, my being an American?” she demanded.
    “It wasn’t like that,” he protested. “I honestly didn’t think you’d be waiting for me. My ship went down. I figured you would have taken me for dead.”
    “My family is in shipping, Malcolm. The information we get tends to be accurate. Your ship went down, yes, but no man was lost. We knew that. We just didn’t know what became of you after that…until recently, when you were seen on the Pogrom . But I’ll grant you that you might have thought it was pointless to return to a fiancé who only might be waiting for you. But the proper thing to do would have been to find out for certain. If you didn’t want to make the voyage, then you could have written. Communications had resumed between our countries. An English ship or two has even been