The Notorious Scoundrel

by Alexandra Benedict

  “No!” Edmund grabbed his brother by the scruff of the shirt, twisted the fabric between his pulsing fingers. “She’s in danger, I know it! I need you to go to Anne Street. Fetch John Dunbar; he’s a friend. If he’s not at home, go to the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office. Tell him to meet me at the Montgomery Inn in Dover.”

  Edmund pushed Quincy away from the vehicle and pounded on the roof, urging the driver to the coast, promising him ridiculous riches if he dismissed every bit of common sense and careered toward the inn on the bustling shoreline.

  Chapter 25

  Amy eyed the large bed through the looking glass. In the darkened room, she spied the flickering firelight as it danced with verve across the quilted coverlet, folded and pressed neatly at the foot of the structure.

  Her fingers trembled as she raked the boar bristles through her smooth tresses. The hair glistened and shined; it needed no more primping, yet she stroked the long locks in an even manner, averting her eyes from the bed, gazing into the mirror at the ruby necklace circling her throat. In the low light, the gems seemed black, like stones, weighty and pinching her airway.

  “I don’t want to make this more difficult than it need be, Amy.”

  She stiffened at the scratchy sound of the moniker, for he had never used her first name without the accompanying title, always so distant and formal, even ruthless, in his conduct, but she belonged to him now. Their wedded bond fostered an intimacy she wasn’t able to ignore any longer. She had her wifely duty to perform.

  Amy peered at the devil through the reflective glass. He was positioned in a wide wing chair. He had already divested his shirt. Dressed in his trousers, he brooded in the seat, his hands gripping the armrests, his long legs spread apart in a lazy manner as the firelight glowed in his eyes, like burning coals.

  “Come here,” he said softly.

  Slowly she lowered the silver-plated hairbrush, set it atop the vanity. She listened to the hard, heavy thrusts of her heart, knocking against her breastbone. In the mirror, she detected her left breast, the muscles throbbing. Draped in a thin white night rail, the organ clearly pulsed under the light material.

  She pushed away from the padded stool and approached the marquis, her every footfall a grueling effort. He followed her movements with scrutiny, moved his steely gaze across her toes, thighs, and midriff. He looked at her breasts, her bustline before he connected with her eyes.

  She paused between his legs, her pulses spiking.

  “Dance for me,” he whispered.

  She bristled. “What?”

  “Dance for me, Zarsitti.”

  Amy fisted her fingers, her palms sweating. “Y-you know? But how?”

  She had never confessed her tainted past to the marquis. How had he unearthed her wicked secret?

  He touched the night rail, rubbed the soft fabric between his fingers without touching her flesh. “I saw you at the Pleasure Palace.”

  As he caressed the flimsy dress, she cringed. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Your birthmark,” he murmured. “Only I and your parents know of the kiss between your breasts…and your lover, of course.”

  She stopped breathing as he lifted his fingers and stroked the hollow between her breasts. He smiled at her stiffness, twisted his lips into a grimace.

  “I’d like you to dance for me, Zarsitti.” He dropped his fingers. “One last time. We will then put the past behind us and begin anew.”

  She breathed deep again, her muscles tingling with sensitivity. Dance for the devil? Arouse his carnal senses before he bedded her?

  The nausea teemed in her belly.

  She stepped away from him, firmed her lips. She thought about denying him the request—the demand!—and slamming her heel between his brows in a high kick. She imagined him toppling out of the chair, senseless. It warmed her blood, the thought.

  But the man was her husband, her life partner. If she walloped him, she’d surely endure years of misery at his brutal hands. He possessed a deep-rooted darkness; she had confronted it on the river side terrace at Mortlake. She wasn’t too keen to witness such savagery again. If he was offering her a truce, if he truly desired to begin anew, she thought it wise to accept the proposal—for her own well-being.

  Amy stepped nearer the hearth, chilled. She remembered the exotic dances well, but her feet seemed encased in clay. Under the marquis’s critical glare, she was transfixed.

  “Dance for me as if you were dancing for him…Imagine I was him.”

  She stiffened at the unseemly suggestion, for she’d no more desire to dance for the seaman than the marquis, her heart still sore from the pirate’s desertion.

  As the darkness thickened in her soul, she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, meditated on more pleasant memories…like her first kiss with the scoundrel.

  The music. The torchlight. The flora. The images filled her head as she slowly rolled her hips and undulated her waist. She moved her fingers in an artful manner as she dreamed about the dark, wooded path at Chiswick…and Edmund’s heady voice murmuring into her ear, encouraging her to be spontaneous, to enjoy life.

  Stop trying to fight Fate, Amy.

  The words strangled her, wrenched the hope from her soul. She remembered the sweet kiss, so full of passion and life. She remembered the profound feelings surging through her breast, urging her to take his advice and seek contentment…but a cold, watery darkness now resided in her soul, for she knew she would never be cheerful again.

  Amy twirled in front of the firelight, reflecting on her wretched circumstances. As her limbs twisted and her spine arched, she allowed the fresh torment to fill her veins and smother her spirit, for she had no need for hope anymore.

  After a few minutes, she was spent and the dance ended. She slowly opened her eyes, disoriented. As she adjusted her distorted vision in the dim room, she made out the large chair and the dark figure ensconced within it.

  “You dance beautifully, Zarsitti.”

  “I dance with pain,” she qualified stiffly.

  “I know.”

  He lifted from the chair and approached her in laggardly strides, his large body moving toward her like an ominous storm.

  He cupped her cheek in his palm, steered her toward the bed. “I won’t make this more painful than it need be, Amy.”

  She bumped into the bed. She was warm, her muscles loose after the vigorous stretches and movements, but she hardened as soon as he bussed her mouth, the kiss cold, like death.

  “You can run to your lover in the weeks ahead.” He pushed her onto the bed, glowered at her. “Every time I’m with you, you can wash away my touch by being with him; you have that comfort. I envy you that, Amy.”

  She scooted to the head of the bed, but he followed her, crawled over the coverlet until he had caged her between his legs, the flames in the hearth at his backside, casting his features in darkness.

  “I have no lover,” she whispered, bones rigid.

  She winced as he stroked her cheek. Her nerves thrummed with energy as he settled his weight overtop her, pinning her to the feather tick.

  “Aye, you do. And he’ll come to you, even if you’re my wife. Do you think he has pride?” He moved his thumb across her brow. “There is no pride when it comes to love, Amy.”

  She struggled for air, for distance as he swallowed her with his robust presence. He covered her like the night—a frosty winter night.

  She squirmed. “I can’t do this!”

  “Shhh.” He bussed her lips again. “It’ll hurt less if you’re still.”

  She shuddered at the forced intimacy, her muscles taut. “Can we…?”

  “Postpone the wedding night?” He lowered his arms, flanked her head. “I don’t think so, Amy.” He breathed hard, brushed her hair away from her face, her throat. “I’ve waited for this night for a very long time.”

  She opened her eyes wide as he circled her throat, pinned his thumb and forefinger across her airway, applying pressure.

 
; Her senses screamed as a visceral strength welled in her blood, pounded in her veins. She gasped for breath and thrashed under his weight, but he paralyzed her with his bulk.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Amy.” His mouth quivered. “I have to, though.”

  He’s going to kill me!

  She grabbed his wrist, wheezing. She scraped her fingernails across his demented hold in frantic movements, drawing blood, but he gripped her firmly.

  “Why?” she rasped.

  She bucked her hips, her efforts unfruitful. It might be a ghastly fate, marriage to the marquis, but she wasn’t ready to give up her life to avoid it!

  He loosened his fierce fingers. “Because I hate your father…he killed Ruby.”

  Amy’s heart throbbed with vim. He had parted his strong fingers, clutching her like a vise, yet still, a little air flowed into her starving lungs. He pinched her airway with just enough force, she was rendered breathless yet still conscious, and listening: listening to the dreadful unfolding tale.

  “I loved Ruby,” he said hoarsely. “I loved her more than my wealth, my title, my respectability. She was a country girl without an education, but she possessed spirit.” He trembled. “I wanted to marry her. I wanted to break the betrothal contract I had made with your father six years earlier, but he refused; he wanted a bloody noble heritage. And he didn’t want society to think his precious offspring was flawed in some way, that I’d prefer a peasant girl to you, a duke’s daughter.

  “I was going to end the agreement anyway; I didn’t care about the scandal, but your father intervened before I could make Ruby my wife.” He revealed his teeth as he gritted, “He told Ruby lies; he told her I’d never loved her, that I’d used her for sex and nothing more, that I would never wed her, a country wench, for I was promised to you!”

  Amy sensed the tears in her eyes. The hot, briny moisture soaked her lashes and slipped across her cheekbones at the madman’s savage words.

  “Yes, your father’s a monster…and he made me into a fiend, too.” His eyes flashed. “I found Ruby. Dead. She had taken poison. She was pregnant with my child and she knew the disgrace that would befall her if she didn’t marry soon. She thought I didn’t care for her.” The man’s voice cracked. “She died thinking I had used her.” He then seethed, “I want your father to pay sorely for that sin.”

  Amy grappled with her wits, keeping her thoughts afloat, her eyes and fingers searching for freedom.

  “The kidnappers?” she said raggedly.

  “Aye, the kidnappers. Hired at my behest. Fifteen years ago, I sent the men to take you away from your father and kill you. I wanted him to lose his only child as I had lost mine. I wanted him to suffer with the knowledge that his dream of a noble lineage would be shattered at your loss, for you were his only child; your mother wasn’t able to conceive again.”

  She grappled with his hardy fingers as her heart pulsed with painful exertion, keeping her alive. “But I escaped.”

  “Aye, you did. You were a spirited child; you fled into the rookeries. I thought I’d never see you again. It wasn’t the revenge I had planned; I’d wanted your father to weep over your grave, to weep over his lost dream, but your disappearance sufficed for a time.” He seized her hair with his other hand. “I watched it torment your father for years.”

  She gasped, “Isn’t that enough?”

  “I’m afraid not, Amy.” He frowned. “As soon as I saw you at the Pleasure Palace, as soon as I saw the kiss between your breasts, I knew I had found you again. I hired two cutthroats to fetch you, to bring you to me, but you evaded them.” He shushed her, rubbing his thumb across her jawbone, her lips. “It doesn’t matter now. The cutthroats still proved useful, spiriting your lover away.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “No, Amy, he didn’t abandon you; I’ll give you that comfort. I suspected your desire to cry off, so I had the men follow you; I suspected you might run away with your lover. I couldn’t let that happen, though.”

  She gasped, “Edmund’s…”

  “Alive,” he assured her. “I’m afraid he’ll mourn your loss, too. Unfortunate, really. I’ve no desire to hurt anyone other than your father.”

  As she slowly withered under the mad marquis’s vicious hold, she ruminated about the pirate scoundrel. He had not abandoned her! All his tender words, his promises had remained true. He’d intended to take her away, to marry her.

  She remembered everything she had shared with him over the past few months and a warmth strengthened her; she grasped at the comforting sentiment as she battled the darkness threatening to overtake her.

  “I don’t hate you, Amy. Not like I hate your father. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” He burrowed his fingers deep into her hair. “But I have to do this, for Ruby.”

  “Samuel, please!”

  The darkness washed over her eyes for a brief moment, then receded as he loosened his fingers, breathing thickly.

  “I wish it could be different, Amy, but I can’t let you live as my wife or bear your lover’s child: a child I’d have to claim as my own. I can’t let your father’s dream of a noble legacy come to pass. I can’t do that to Ruby. She’s suffered enough at your father’s hands.”

  As the pressure increased at her throat, she uttered weakly, “You’re doing to me…what…my father did to Ruby.”

  “An eye for an eye, Amy.” He growled, “I want your father to find your body with the ruby necklace. I want him to know I ended his dream, like he ended mine.”

  The darkness was slowly creeping over her eyes again. The pain, the heaviness at her throat was unbearable and she clutched the marquis’s hard fingers in desperation.

  “Do you remember our night together on the terrace, after the ball?” he whispered. “Do you remember our talk about the stars? They prophesied your contentment, Amy. I didn’t tell you that, then…but I’m about to prove the damn heavens wrong.”

  The pounding in her head intensified. Hard, knocking sounds. Strange cries. Shouts. Shadows.

  Amy gasped as the stress at her throat abated; she choked. She reached for her tender muscles, mouth agape, drawing in air, but the darkness was stronger…

  Love is eternal.

  Edmund grabbed the marquis and tossed him across the room; the wall shuddered with the fierce impact. The devil rolled and Edmund pounced on him, pounded him with his fists, slammed the side of his tightly furled hand into the fiend’s shoulder, snapping his collarbone.

  As the blood seeped through Edmund’s veins, it pooled in his head and ravaged his senses, making him blind with vertigo, bleeding his wits. He was gripped with a feral need to tear the marquis apart—and he pummeled him with enough force to fracture his own wrist.

  Yet the devil lived.

  The men struggled like baited bears in a pen, pressing their weights upon each other, striking with wild passion. The commotion triggered a stirring rebellion among the inn’s patrons, who gathered at the door, gawking in dismay.

  Edmund crashed his knuckles into the devil’s face, his features already stained with thick, hot blood. The last blow rendered the villain dead or senseless.

  With loud and raspy breaths, Edmund looked at the bed…and the lifeless figure prostrated across the feather tick, her lovely green eyes open—and unblinking.

  He groaned in a low, wounded whimper at the fragile sight of her. He was already on his knees and he crawled beside the bed, his heart beating with savage blows.

  “Amy?” he rasped.

  He stroked her soft, pale cheek, stained with tears. As his fingers trembled, he rubbed her bruised flesh, cupped her listless head, shaking her.

  “Wake up, Amy,” he whispered in a broken voice.

  But her eyes remained quiet, vacant.

  A dark howl welled in his belly; it burned in the bowel of his soul.

  “No. No. No! Amy!”

  He snatched her off the bed and settled her limp body on the hard wood floor. He quickly rustled her limbs and attempted artificial re
spiration.

  He had witnessed his brother Quincy perform the procedure aboard ship after an intense sea battle…but as he stared into Amy’s blank expression, as he imagined her gruesome final moments, alone and frightened, hope withered in his breast, and he sobbed with a bitterness that curled his heart and hardened his soul.

  Forgive me, Amy.

  Chapter 26

  Amy was huddled in the window seat, wrapped in a warm, woolly shawl, watching the snow flurries. The first flakes of the winter season, the tiny puffs dropped quietly onto the earth; there was no wind disturbing their long journey from the heavens. The white dots slowly covered the sleeping ground, and the atmosphere changed from murky mud puddles and shriveled shrubs to a blank and pristine slate.

  At the sound of sharp footfalls, she turned her head away from the frosty glass. She observed her father as he entered the sitting room, looking grave.

  “How long will you stay with us in the country?”

  She peered through the window once more. She eyed the ice crystals that had formed across the pane of glass in intricate patterns.

  “Am I unwelcome, Father? If you prefer it, I can gather my possessions and live with friends. The Duke and Duchess of Wembury have issued me an invitation, as have Captain and Mrs. Hawkins.”

  Amy wasn’t so bothered about her unfixed living arrangements anymore. A few months ago, she would have panicked at the uncertainty of her situation, at losing control of her surroundings, but she had found a peace that brooked insecurity, and she wasn’t feeling stressed about her ambiguous circumstances. She had grounded her heart and soul in an unshakable foundation: love.

  “I didn’t think he would hurt you,” said the duke in a stiff manner. “It’s been fifteen years since the incident.”

  The incident. Ruby’s death. Her father had no feeling; he assumed the marquis without a heart, too. But the marquis had a heart. A dark and twisted heart. An unforgiving heart.

  “Yes, I’m sure you didn’t know he’d hurt me.” She looked back at her father with pointed regard. “But he did. And if it was legal, I’d divorce the devil on the grounds of cruelty. However, I’ve retained a solicitor. He will inquire into the prospect of my obtaining a divorce on the grounds of insanity.”