The Notorious Scoundrel

by Alexandra Benedict

  “No, I’ve not come to tell you that, James.” He looked across the room. “Where’s Sophia?”

  “It’s a savage storm. We’ll have to stay the night.” He looked away from the window and pegged him with his steely eyes. “Sophia’s off making arrangements for our quarters…since you’ve given away mine to the wench.”

  Edmund hardened again, his good temperament snuffed out. It wasn’t the temporary lodging situation that raised his hackles, but the cutting tone in his brother’s voice, that snide undertone that belied every austere word.

  “Good,” he said tightly. “I don’t want your wife to hear this.”

  James pinned him with a sharp stare, his features grave. He had offered Edmund The Look since childhood. It was the sort of look that elicited command and respect. Edmund shrugged off the bond that chained him to the past, though. He wasn’t moved by the tyrant’s glower anymore.

  “What is it you don’t want my wife to hear?”

  Edmund rolled up his sleeves as he crossed the room. “The sound of your nose cracking under my fist.”

  It wasn’t really what he’d wanted to say to the man; it wasn’t his original intent, but he had changed his mind about being civil.

  The pirate lord smirked. “Have at it, Eddie.”

  With a shout, Edmund rammed his shoulder into his brother’s chest, pushing him into the window. The glass cracked as James grunted before he wrapped his arm around Edmund’s throat and tackled him to the ground.

  It was a whirl of heat and energy as the brothers butted fists, slamming into the furniture. A side table teetered and the intricate model schooner of the Bonny Meg toppled off the surface; it crashed onto the floor, the fragile joints splintering.

  “I hate you, James!”

  He jabbed his elbow into the captain’s ribs, pummeled him with his fists. The wood furnishings suffered under their savage blows, rent apart and knocked into the walls.

  “What the devil’s going on?” cried Sophia as she entered the sitting room. “Stop! Stop it at once!” As the men still wrestled on the floor, she departed from the room in hastened strides. “William!”

  In a few minutes, the space was a wasteland, filled with rubbish.

  As the fire in his bones cooled, Edmund released his brother. He rested on the floor, heaving, gathering his frenzied thoughts.

  He was dazed. He had never clashed with his older brother, not with his fists. He struggled against the impulse to apologize; he was not in the wrong. If James had demonstrated even a small measure of goodwill toward him, he would not have engaged in the brawl.

  Edmund fingered his bruised and bloodied lips, wiped the thick, oozing liquid away with the back of his hand. “I want you to stay out of my life.”

  It was the original sentiment he had wanted to express to the man: a firm declaration that James’s interference wasn’t welcome anymore.

  The pirate captain remained stoic, seated on the floor beside the window, rubbing his injured midriff. There was swelling under his eyes and blood seeped from the scabs at his knuckles.

  “Do you think you can manage on your own?” he said, breathless.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ll find out, I guess.”

  A muscle in the man’s cheek twitched. “And the next time you get into a scrape and lose your memory?”

  “Then I’ll stay lost.”

  James’s features hardened. He glowered, in truth. But Edmund was resolute. He would rather wander the world without memory than live under his brother’s iron fist.

  “You’re not my father, James.”

  James had usurped the post; he had appointed himself their guardian. He had raised them since boyhood, and he still squeezed them by the scruffs of their necks, steering their steps.

  Enough.

  The pirate lord’s bruised lips thinned. “No, I’m not your father.”

  The overhead kerfuffle seeped its way into the battered sitting room.

  The brothers eyed the tremors in the ceiling, then eyed each other before both scrambled to their feet and took off running toward the second level.

  Edmund was the first one out the door and he bounded up the stairs, heading for his private quarters, where he suspected the stomps and cries had stemmed from.

  As he approached the bedchamber door with James at his heels, the sounds escalated in volume and his heart pumped with greater verve, his booted steps energized.

  “No, Quincy! Don’t do it!”

  Edmund heard Amy’s frantic cries. He grabbed the iron latch and pushed against the door…

  The shadows flickered in haste as the lamplight danced with gusto. The rainstorm had penetrated the room through the parted window. The curtains snaked around the two bodies perched precariously beside the opened glass.

  Amy was drenched with water, fighting the wild tempest—and the irrational figure struggling in her embrace. She had twisted her arms around his waist in a desperate effort to keep him secured…but she was losing the battle with the much heavier Quincy.

  “We’re sinking!” cried Quincy. “We have to abandon ship!”

  Amy shouted over her shoulder, “He’s going to jump!”

  Edmund and James charged through the tumultuous room, clasped Quincy by the arms, and yanked him roughly away from the storm-battered window.

  Amy quickly shut and locked the slick panes. The shadows stilled, the lamplight steadied. Quincy thrashed, hollered, and they wrestled him to the floor, holding him tightly.

  William entered the room, his arms akimbo. “What the hell happened to the sitting room?” As his eyes fixed firmly on the heap of intertwined limbs, he demanded, “What the devil’s going on in here?”

  “It’s Quincy,” gritted Edmund. “He’s hallucinating.”

  The men struggled with their delirious kinsman.

  “Blimey,” snarled James. “He’s as strong as a bull.”

  William quickly offered assistance, and together the three brothers hoisted him off the floor and tossed him back onto the bed.

  James ordered, “Fetch the doctor!”

  William departed in haste as Sophia appeared in the doorway. She gasped and rushed inside the room. She clutched Quincy’s twitching ankles. “What’s happened in here?”

  Edmund wondered about that, too. What had happened to Quincy? How had he deteriorated to such an abysmal frame of mind? And would Edmund lose him to that seductive darkness?

  “Hold still!” barked James.

  Quincy gasped for breath. He thrust his breastbone out, taking in a deep swell of air before he sighed and collapsed.

  Edmund maintained a sturdy hold on his brother’s arm, too wary to let go and risk another violent outburst, but he soon relaxed his sore fingers, for Quincy seemed unconscious; he was murmuring incoherently in his sleep as he was wont to do since boyhood.

  “I think it’s over,” whispered Edmund.

  James stared at the troubled pup with a deep frown. “No, it’s not over.”

  Perhaps not in the future, Edmund mused, but for the short term the ordeal had come to a surcease. He slipped off the bed, his muscles cramped after the series of scuffles. Sophia crawled across the coverlet, taking his place. She had a towel in her hand and set about dabbing the sweat and rainwater from Quincy’s fevered flesh.

  As James and Sophia attended Quincy’s needs, Edmund glanced across the room, slightly disoriented, and located Amy still standing beside the window, wet and shivering. Fingers curled into fists, she seemed anxious, alert.

  He crossed the room and gathered her into his arms. “Are you all right, Amy?”

  She had combated with Quincy. She had invested every ounce of strength she possessed into keeping him from jumping through the opened window. Was she hurt? he wondered.

  The lass trembled in his embrace and he hugged her tighter. As he smothered her in his arms, she, in turn, smothered the darkness in his head. She warmed him, even with her chilled bones and blood. The woman’s heartbeat, so near his own, w
as enough to silence the nagging suspicions he concealed in his heart about Quincy’s welfare and recovery, about his own estranged relationship with James. With Amy’s strong body in his arms, everything seemed…hopeful.

  “Let me see your hands, Amy.”

  “I’m fine,” she said at last. “Truly.”

  He bussed the crown of her wet head, stroked her stringy locks. He should let her go, he thought, encourage her to return to her room and change, rest, yet his arms remained clinched at her shoulders, her backside. And she didn’t protest. She didn’t squirm in his embrace or insist he take his hands off her. She was quiet. Still. The tremors subsided. The stress in her muscles eased, for he sensed her stiff fingers spread apart…and embrace him in return.

  Edmund sighed. He took comfort in the woman’s touch, like balm. The storm still beat and drummed against the glass, but it couldn’t get inside the room anymore.

  Chapter 12

  Amy was alone in the dining parlor with an assortment of biscuits, scones, and jams spread out across the table’s surface. She was famished, and the breakfast fare smelled ever so inviting, yet she contented herself with a cup of tea and mulled over the previous evening’s happenings in her mind.

  Her bones still ached from the energy she’d exerted keeping the delirious Quincy from leaping through the opened window, but she was fit enough from her training as a dancer to weather the aches tolerably well. It was her thoughts that stirred the greatest distress in her belly: the memory of the scamp’s muscles slipping between her stiff fingers. If Edmund and James had not appeared in the room at that crucial moment…

  Amy shuddered. She wrapped the shawl more tightly around her shoulders. She was still chilled from the thorough soaking she’d received during last night’s storm. It was as if she wasn’t able to warm her blood, she was so icy inside. Even the hot, minty tea wasn’t a comfort.

  She closed her eyes and imagined Edmund’s arms holding her tight. The shiver that touched her spine wasn’t from the cold. It stemmed from a warm place in her heart that rippled throughout her limbs. Tucked firmly in Edmund’s embrace, without a breath of space between them, was the most intimate she had ever been with a man…and she wondered if perhaps the chill she was feeling was the result of the loss of that intimacy.

  The door opened and Captain James Hawkins entered the narrow room, filling the small space with his stout presence. She noted the bruises around his eyes; the discoloration didn’t negate his hard stare, though.

  Amy quickly looked at the teacup nestled between her hands. She sensed the man’s piercing regard on her. Was he still furious with her for calling him a cur? She suspected that he was.

  The distinct clip-clop of heavy footfalls resounded in the dining parlor. The chair’s legs scraped across the well-polished floor. He assumed a seat and reached for a biscuit, his meaty hand permeating her line of vision.

  She twisted her lips, sifting through her thoughts, searching for something worthwhile to say to the man, but one indecorous question was all that pressed on her mind: Where did you get the bruises?

  She didn’t ask him that, though; she didn’t dare.

  At length, she reasoned it might be a better idea if she excused herself from the table and allowed him to eat his morning meal in solitude. She certainly didn’t mind being apart from him.

  Amy set the earthenware on the surface, prepared to depart.

  “Thank you, Miss Peel.”

  She stiffened. What was he thanking her for? For preparing to leave the room so he could enjoy his food without her troubling presence?

  She frowned at the assumption, so rude. However, she had learned her lesson from the previous evening’s disastrous confrontation with the man. She would not voice her conjectures aloud again.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “Thank you for saving Quincy’s life.”

  The low timbre in his voice disarmed her. It was pleasant. There was no animosity or underlying sarcasm in the tone of his voice. She would have detected it otherwise, for she was accustomed to Madame Rafaramanjaka’s “sweet” smile and vicious taunts. The captain seemed genuinely grateful. She wasn’t sure how to respond to the civility.

  “You’re welcome,” she returned quietly.

  He resumed his meal and she reconsidered her earlier decision to depart from the room, reaching for a tasty-looking biscuit herself.

  Sophia soon entered the dining parlor.

  “Good morning, Miss Peel.”

  Amy returned the convivial greeting. She watched as Sophia circled the table without wishing her husband the same felicitation. Amy wondered if perhaps the couple had quarreled, but she soon dismissed the thought from her mind as she observed the private gesture that passed between them.

  Sophia slipped her fingers beneath the man’s queue and stroked the back of his neck before she assumed a seat. It was a simple, fleeting expression of solidarity, and it altered the surly captain’s entire visage. He seemed more at ease, comforted. The stiffness in his muscles loosened and his features relaxed…though a sensual fire burned bright in his eyes.

  Amy was breathless. The silent communication intimated the couple’s deep bond, and she sensed a pang in her breast at the thought that she was alone in the world, that there was no one in her life to chase away the demons in her head with a loving touch.

  “Excuse me, please.”

  Amy set aside the half-eaten biscuit and quickly skirted from the room, mounted the steps at the end of the passageway, and headed for Edmund’s room. She failed to knock on the wood barrier. She pushed opened the bedroom door…and sighed.

  Edmund’s long, muscular figure was slouched in a wing chair, his feet propped on the edge of the bed as he watched Quincy dream.

  Slowly Edmund turned his head, his expression thoughtful, and observed her with a smoldering stare that warmed her belly and eased the pinching pressure on her airway.

  “Is something the matter?” he murmured, his voice scratchy with sleep.

  “No.” She closed the door. “I’ve come to see how Quincy’s faring, is all.”

  “He’s doing well…thanks to you.”

  The look he offered her smothered her like a woolly blanket, chased off the chill in her bones. She approached him, observed his puffy lips, his bruised cheek, and her good mood quickly soured, for his brother sported a similar set of injuries.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Amy.”

  Had the scoundrel broken his vow? Had he engaged in fisticuffs with his brother? She refrained from making the accusation, though, as both men had wrestled with Quincy last night. Perhaps they had been injured in the scuffle.

  She pointed at his wounds. “Are those from the tussle with Quincy?”

  “No.” He eyed her intently. “They’re from James.”

  “He hit you?”

  “I hit him first.”

  Amy rounded the chair, tight-lipped. Keeping her footfalls light, so she didn’t spoil the scamp’s sleep, she crossed the room and settled beside the window.

  He sighed at her backside. “He deserved the thrashing, Amy.”

  “He’s your brother.”

  The furniture’s joints creaked as he lifted from the chair. He joined her beside the window, frowning. “He’s an iron leg shackle—and last night I broke free of him.”

  “I see,” she said stiffly. “Will you dishonor every promise you make if it suits you?”

  He dropped his brows, his eyes shadowed. “I’ll see you settled in a proper post, Amy.”

  She turned her head away. “Unless I’m a burden to you—another leg shackle—and you break free of me, too.”

  “You don’t keep my head below water so I can’t breathe.” He tipped her chin with his forefinger, forcing her to meet his torrid gaze. “I don’t want to be free of you.”

  She shivered at his smoky words, the firm touch of his finger. She turned her head away again, the sensitive underside of her chin skimming his hand, as she eyed the slumbering
scamp, his features pale and twisted into a grimace.

  “Is he in pain?”

  “I don’t think so.” He dropped his hand away from her face. “I think he’s dreaming.”

  The poor devil. It must be a frightful dream, she thought.

  She looked through the window into the misty morning light. “I had a bad dream last night, too.”

  “Oh?”

  Amy pinched the shawl more firmly at her bust, but it was not the coolness in the air making her uneasy. It was the scoundrel’s expression: part dreamy, part incisive. He folded his thick arms across his chest, leaned a shoulder against the wall, and crossed his ankles.

  She looked at his bare feet. She had dropped her eyes to avoid his scrutiny, but now she wondered if perhaps she had made a mistake, for she imagined slipping her toes over his sturdy feet in playful banter.

  The unladylike reflection startled her and she quickly lifted her gaze. “I dreamed about my parents.”

  He was watching her with keen interest. “And it was a bad dream?”

  “I remembered the last time I saw them.” She peered through the glass at the distant structures. “They were preparing for a party at a friend’s house. My mother kissed me good night. My father tweaked my nose and told me to be good. I never saw either of them again.”

  “How did they die?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Amy munched on her bottom lip. She looked away from the window and confronted him. “I lied to you, Edmund.”

  He frowned. “Amy?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you the truth.”

  “Why?”

  The welter of feeling that welled in her breast was so profound, she needed a moment to gather her breath and retrieve her strangled voice. “I don’t like to think about that night.”

  The man’s voice softened. “Tell me, Amy.”

  At his encouraging words, she swallowed a deep mouthful of air and confessed: “My parents didn’t perish when I was six years old.” The truth seemed so heavy and she struggled with every word. “I haven’t seen them in about thirteen years, so perhaps they’re dead now, but they didn’t pass away on the night of the party.”