The Notorious Scoundrel

by Alexandra Benedict

  “That won’t work, either.”

  John chuckled in a hoarse voice. “Why don’t you do what I do when I’m flummoxed…sleep on it?”

  Edmund sighed, disgruntled. “Not yet, I’m afraid. I’ve still a cemetery to visit.”

  The shouts from the rowers mixed with the babbling ladies and trilling birds, the mesh of vivacious voices such a contrast to the quiet sunset.

  The riverside terrace at Mortlake was brimming with an evening tea party. Amy observed the enchanting parkland from her seat at the table. She twirled her parasol between her fingers as she admired the glowing sun, sinking behind the arched bridge. The water shimmered like liquid fire, the ripples like small flames. Boats glided across the surface, dark silhouettes against the brilliant backdrop.

  “Is everything all right, my dear?”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Amy. “It’s a beautiful summer night, isn’t it? I think I’ll take a turn through the grounds.”

  The duchess smiled. “Don’t soil your dress.”

  Amy chuckled. She was one-and-twenty years of age and yet her mother persisted in treating her like a child. She didn’t mind, though. She had to make up for fifteen years of missed coddling.

  Amy excused herself from the gaggle of matrons. She strolled the terrace in harmony with the cool breeze that floated off the river, stirring her pristine white hemline. She descended a series of stone steps, leading toward the well-hewed turf. As she passed between the noble trees, she searched the terrain for the marquis. He was at the tea party, too, trolling the grounds. She soon spotted his solitary figure.

  Amy paused. She observed the morose man as he stared at the sunset in silent contemplation. She had learned his secret at last. It was a sad tale; he hadn’t a tainted past worthy of the scandal sheets. And his “indiscretion” was a matter of opinion. It’d disturbed her father, an elitist, but it had saddened Amy.

  As she spied the lonely lord, she reflected upon her own bitter, turbulent past. A more compassionate tactic might suit her aims better. If she appealed to his heart, she might get him to end their engagement, instead.

  She gathered her composure and slowly approached the brooding figure.

  He turned his head slightly. “Do you grow tired of the gossip, Lady Amy?” He looked back at the sunset. “I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well for your future as a marchioness.”

  She stilled beside him. “And what qualities should the future Marchioness of Gravenhurst possess, my lord?”

  “She should be of good stock, prideful, manipulative…a gossip.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t make you a very fine wife, then.”

  He glanced at her sidelong. In the burning twilight, his gold eyes sparkled red. “I think you have your father’s blood.”

  She looked away from him, suppressed a creeping chill. What did her father have to do with her being a good wife?

  Confounded, she pressed on with “I can’t even read.”

  “I’m aware of your defects,” he said tersely. He folded his hands behind his back. “But your faults won’t prevent our wedding.”

  “And what will?” she wondered, trembling.

  He returned quietly, firmly, “Nothing.”

  Her heart shuddered. “We are not suited, my lord.”

  “I’m not concerned with our suitability, Lady Amy.”

  “But you didn’t even want to marry me a few months ago; I heard you tell my father so in the study.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided to honor my duty. And I suggest you do the same.” He peeked at her askance, his eyes seedy. “I’ll not take too kindly to being jilted, Lady Amy. In truth, I’ll be very displeased.”

  She frowned at the veiled threat, her skin warming, yet she resisted quarreling with the unpleasant man. He was a wounded soul, she reminded herself. He had suffered, still suffered. She might reach his heart yet.

  “You must see that’s impossible, my lord.” She looked at the distant terrace, at her beloved mother. “I’d disgrace my family.”

  “Even if it means losing your lover?”

  She stiffened at the murmured words and blushed at the memory of the marquis’s inappropriate regard that night in the garden. He had peeped at her and Edmund, ogled their most intimate encounter. It roiled her blood, the recollection.

  “I don’t have a lover,” she returned in a stiff voice.

  He chortled; the vibrato rattled like chains. “There’s no need to be missish, my lady. I’ve already told you, I won’t stand in the way of true love…you do love Mr. Hawkins, don’t you?”

  Amy’s heart cramped. She firmed her muscles, pinched her lips to keep the marquis out of her soul. He was rummaging through her innermost reflections, and she bristled at the thought that he’d pried into her most private ruminations.

  “I’ve been away for fifteen years,” she said tightly. “Do you want me to cause my parents even more pain?”

  “I care nothing for your parents’ feelings!”

  The savageness in his voice disarmed her, and she blinked. “There is compassion in you, I know it.”

  “Do not fool yourself,” he said brusquely as he stepped in front of her, glaring. “You will be very disappointed.”

  “You have a heart, Gravenhurst,” she insisted, and clutched the parasol with greater vim. “Call off the betrothal and spare us both a lifetime of misery.”

  “I am already miserable.” He eyed her with fierce, piercing regard. “My life will not change for having you as my wife…and I’ve not a heart for you to milk, Lady Amy.”

  “Yes, you do.” She maintained her poise even as he blustered and her heartbeats increased. “You’ve concealed it well, but I know you have it…I’ve seen it.”

  “What do you think you have seen?” he drawled in a low voice.

  Amy licked her lips. “I saw you at the cemetery…a-at Ruby’s grave.”

  He quickly rotated his heavy form and presented her with his towering backside. She spied his knotted fingers at his rear, the appendages white. The man’s wide shoulders ballooned as he swallowed deep mouthfuls of air.

  Amy sagely waited for him to gather his composure. She had received word from Edmund about the grave at the outskirts of Town. She had misread the letters in her ignorance, and the “RUD” was, in truth, the start of “RUBY”: a Miss Ruby Duncan.

  “I know you loved her,” she said softly. “I know she ended her own life and you’re grieved by her loss, so have mercy—”

  Amy shrieked and dropped the parasol as two fists came at her. He slammed his knuckles into the rough bark behind her head, blood spurting from the wounds; she sensed the light spray on her cheeks.

  “If you utter one more foul word, I’ll rake my knuckles over your teeth.”

  She trembled, pinned between his snarling features and the tree. She wanted to scream. She glanced at the terrace and the coterie of females engaged in gossip. If she screamed, it’d cause a scandal. She pinched her quivering lips before she attracted their attentions, her heart in her throat, constricting her airway.

  “Never,” he growled. “Never again.”

  He pegged her with a black expression. Tears welled in her eyes. She struggled with her gibbering thoughts, her harried breath. She ached with a stiffness in her bones as she girded her muscles in anticipation of the madman’s savage blows.

  “Never say her name in my presence, you cursed, wretched spawn!”

  Amy swallowed her tears, choked on them. She flinched as he pressed his bloody thumb across her cheek, smearing the warm fluid.

  “Is this the heart you were speaking of, Lady Amy?” There was a darkness in his eyes, black as cinder. He burrowed his thumb into her cheek, grinding the bone, making her wince. “Is this the compassion, the mercy you believed rested inside me?”

  He shuddered as he said the words. He resisted thrashing her right there in the park; she observed it in his twisted visage. He grimaced with the pulsing need to maim her, and he grappled with his wit
s to keep his feral instincts under control.

  “Well, take a good look at me, for I will soon be your husband,” he hissed. “I will not cry off. This is whom you will have to endure for a lifetime of misery. Accept it.” He stepped away from her, haggard, his eyes flashing. “Begone from my sight! I don’t want to see you again until our wedding day.”

  Amy clamped her sweating palm over her mouth, curtailing her cries as she stumbled and dashed into the woods.

  She looked over her shoulder to make sure the mad marquis wasn’t in pursuit before she slowed her frenzied steps and sobbed.

  She wiped the blood from her cheeks with the kerchief she had tucked up her sleeve; her tears sluiced the red stains.

  “Never,” she vowed as she scrubbed her face with zeal, washing away the lord’s vile touch. “Never will I wed the Marquis of Gravenhurst.”

  Chapter 22

  The distant clock tower chimed the hour of midnight. Edmund remained at the garden’s edge, observing the town house, the occupants asleep, the rooms dark—but for one burning light.

  He had spotted the figure in the window an hour ago. He wasn’t able to see inside the bedroom, for it was too highly elevated, but he maintained a watchful eye on the shimmering lamplight—and the restive shadow prowling behind the wispy drapes.

  At length, the illumination expired.

  “Sweet dreams, Amy.”

  He guarded the house, concealed by the tall stone wall, the shrubbery and fruit trees. He had yet to determine how he was going to apprehend the queen. In the meantime, he was prepared for an all-night vigil. If the attackers approached the quiet dwelling, it’d be a swift doom for the pair.

  A few minutes later, Edmund spotted a lone figure. It skulked from the structure through the arched terrace doors, lugging a carrying bag.

  Amy.

  It was her unique frame; he recognized it even in the darkness. He moved toward her with quiet footfalls and whispered, “Where are you going, lass?”

  She yelped and started, peered into the blackness. “Who’s there?”

  He emerged from the shadows.

  “What are you doing here, Edmund?”

  “Protecting you.” He took her by the wrist and dragged her off the flagstone walkway, steered her beneath a shelter of trees. “What are you doing?”

  She dropped the bag at his feet. He sensed the chamomile wash in her hair; the soft scent kissed her flesh and welled in his lungs like a spell, charming him. She was so warm. He sensed the heat from her pores. She was breathing at a slightly rapid rate, too.

  “Well?” he said in a low voice.

  “I’m going to Gretna Green.”

  He stiffened. “You’re eloping with the marquis?”

  A coldness entered his heart. She had changed her mind about marrying the man. It was the right thing for her to do, for the marquis was her social equal and he was her father’s choice for a mate. She would be more content with the marquis in the long term…and yet Edmund gnashed his teeth at the thought of it.

  “Don’t be daft,” she chastised. “I’m eloping with you.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “It’s a good thing you’re here.” She picked up her bag. “It saves me the trouble of making my way into St. James. If we leave tonight, we can be in Scotland by Sunday. I’m at the age of consent, so I don’t need my father’s permission to wed.”

  “Amy.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Stop.”

  A welter of thoughts in his brain, he paused for a few seconds, sorting through the dissenting voices…and the cheering ones that crowded in his head. The lass had changed, he reflected. A few months ago, she would never have suggested anything so spontaneous—or reckless—and yet here she was, in the garden at midnight, demanding that he marry her.

  “What’s the matter?” She set down the luggage again, frowning. “You want to marry me, don’t you? You said so right here in the garden, I remember.”

  “I did?”

  “Aye, you did.” She folded her arms over her breasts. He sensed the soft swishing sound of her skirts as she tapped her foot in rapid strokes. “You said you would only touch me as my husband.”

  He hardened at her provocative words—and the sweet promises the words suggested. He struggled with his reflections. “I don’t remember saying that, Amy.”

  “It was something similar, I’m sure.”

  A need filled him, a wretched longing. He wanted to take her away. Far away. Into the Highlands. Before he surrendered to the irresponsible impulse, he distracted her from the passionate entreaty with “What happened with the marquis?”

  She spat. “The black-hearted devil!”

  He brushed her cheek, so soft, so warm, pulsing with blood. “Tell me, Amy.”

  “I implored him to end the engagement.”

  He sensed the frailty in her voice, and his every muscle cramped in response to it. Without a word, he opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace, wrapped her hands around his midriff, squeezing, filling him with her heat. He hugged her tight in return, smothered her until his stiff joints sighed in comfort.

  “I appealed to his heart, but he doesn’t have one,” she mumbled into his shirt. “He’s an infernal beast!”

  Edmund buried his lips in her sweet-smelling hair and bussed the crown of her head, weaving his fingers through her thick tresses, breathing in the essence of her. He stroked her rigid spine, too, strummed the knobs of bone in an even manner.

  “He didn’t cry off, like you’d hoped?”

  She rolled her face in his chest, shaking her head. “And I won’t wed him!”

  He sighed. “You don’t have to wed him, Amy.”

  She looked up at him. In the dark shadows, she was a part of him, for the night concealed her noble attire, her aristocratic profile. In the dimness, she was an outcast in the garden, like him. And for a moment, he believed…

  “My parents will get over the shock, Edmund.”

  He rubbed the base of her skull, cradled her neck in his palm. He pressed his thumb against the pulse at her throat and memorized the rhythmic beats. The life teeming inside her stirred something within him, moved his heart to thump at a matching tempo.

  “Yes,” he murmured, “your parents will get over the shock of your broken engagement.”

  “No.” She fisted his coat between her fingers. “I mean, they’ll get over our wedding. I still need to marry, Edmund. I need to wed a respectable gentleman, so there won’t be any whispers about me in society.”

  A cold, rugged pain twisted in his gut. He grabbed her fingers and loosed her tight hold before she severed his veins with her wistful promises.

  “I can’t marry you, Amy.”

  She blinked. “What the devil do you mean, you won’t marry me?”

  He raked his fingernails along his scalp. “I said I can’t marry you.”

  She was quiet. Still. He listened to the sound of her breathing as it steadily increased in sound and speed.

  “I’m sorry, Amy. I once thought I could make you happy, but it isn’t true. I’m not a respectable gentleman, and your family will never approve of our marriage. If we wed, your parents will disown you, and you’ve lived apart from them for fifteen years. You can’t lose them again, not because of me.”

  She stared at him, unmoving. After a few silent moments, she turned away from him, rubbing her temples in circular movements.

  He reached for her, stretched his fingers toward her arm, but a stringent voice in his head censured him, and he pulled his hand away, firmed it into a fist.

  “One day, you’ll grow to hate me, Amy. As you come to miss your parents’ company, you’ll see me as the cause of the estrangement.”

  Slowly she confronted him again. “You have good relations, Edmund. Ducal in-laws. My father will come to accept you in time. Mother even sooner, I’m sure. And the ton will forget about my broken engagement to the marquis. Once I’m properly wed, that is.”

  He returned stiffly, “Your father will
never accept me.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “I’m a pirate.”

  She offered no expression of outrage or even disbelief. As the quiet seconds lengthened, he thought about commenting on the situation, but she soon flicked her forefinger and stabbed him in the chest with it.

  “If you don’t want to marry me anymore, then say so, but don’t invent such outlandish, childish tales.”

  He circled her wrist with his fingers, sensed her pounding pulse. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “You’re a pirate?” she said with sarcasm. “And I’m really Zarsitti, a Turkish princess.”

  Edmund cupped her defiant chin. “I was a pirate for many years.”

  She snorted.

  “We were all pirates.”

  “We?”

  “My brothers and I.” He thumbed her chin. “After Belle married the duke, we retired from piracy.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He pressed his thumb against her plump lips, silencing her. “It’s true. I served under my brother James…Black Hawk.”

  She parted her lips, gasping. “James is the infamous pirate Black Hawk?” After a few thoughtful moments, she said, “I can believe that.” She pulled her chin away from his fingers. “But Black Hawk is dead. James killed him at sea when the marauder kidnapped Sophia.”

  “It was staged to put an end to our past, to protect Belle from the threat of our identities being revealed.”

  “So you are a thief?”

  “That’s right,” he said succinctly. “I might be a gentleman now, but that doesn’t negate who I once was at sea. Do you see now why I can’t be with you, Amy?”

  “No.”

  “I’m a cutthroat,” he reiterated.

  She tsked. “I’m not going to tell my father about your past.”

  “You don’t have to tell him…he already knows the truth.”

  “What?”

  The bile in his belly burned at the memory of his last heated encounter with the Duke of Estabrooke. “He isn’t privy to the details, to my years at sea as a pirate, but your father knows I’m a wastrel; he senses it. He will never approve of our marrying. I’m not good enough for you, Amy. I’ll never be good enough for you.”