“I know, Belle, but the children have us, their uncles, their cousins. They won’t want for strong kinship.”
“Yes, they have us, but my older brothers are so often at sea, while the youngest are newlyweds and just settling into marital life. Meanwhile, your brother and his children live near the coast.” She sighed. “I wanted a big family under one roof.”
“I’m sorry, Belle, but you and I will never have another child.”
Her inherent, headstrong nature butted forth then, and she was prepared to challenge his autocratic ruling when the dong of the front bell echoed throughout the keep. “Hell’s fire. They just had to be punctual. We’ll discuss this matter at another time, Damian.”
“The matter is decided, Belle.”
“Damian—”
“I will not risk losing you again.” His voice cracked, ever so slight. His eyes darkened, glistened, even. “I lie awake every night, watching you sleep, counting your breaths. I listen to your every movement as you roll under the sheets or murmur in your dreams. I smell the perfume on your skin, the life in your veins—and I will not tempt fate again, not even to have another child as beautiful as you.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, the briny moisture spilling down her cheeks. “Damian, I—I had no idea you felt this way.” She wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and squeezed him tight. “I don’t want you to live in fear of losing me,” she whispered.
“I don’t think that fear will ever leave me,” he returned, his voice hoarse with emotion. “But I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
At his heartfelt confession, Mirabelle knew she would never have another babe. A part of her mourned the thought, but another part of her was moved beyond measure by the depth of her husband’s love for her.
“I understand,” she assured him, dabbing at her eyes. “And as you said, we shouldn’t tempt fate. We might just have another hoyden.”
A robust laugh rumbled in the duke’s chest. “I love you, Belle.”
“And I love you.”
Soon a resounding hail of booted footsteps and spirited voices filled the grand hall.
“You will behave, I trust,” she admonished her husband. “I don’t want any rows between you and my brothers.”
Damian snorted, neither confirming nor denying her request. A man once titled the “Duke of Rogues” had not inspired confidence in her brothers, and they’d downright thought her mad for marrying the duke. But, as Mirabelle had learned, love was never sensible.
She hadn’t a moment to upbraid her husband when her brother, Captain James Hawkins, entered the room.
The eldest at forty-two, James also had the most fearsome expression. It had wholly suited him when he’d roamed the high seas as the infamous pirate Black Hawk, but as a gentleman of high society and a respectable merchant captain, the long black hair tied in a queue and stormy blue eyes as threatening as the devil were a source of apprehension and gossip.
And yet those eyes softened when they fell on her, and she simpered, for she sensed his tender regard toward her. “Happy Christmas, James.”
He opened his arms, and she walked into his embrace.
“How are you, Belle? Is the bounder treating you well?”
“Very well,” she affirmed.
An exotic woman with dark brown hair, sharp brown eyes and a resplendent, brocade amber dress next stepped into the sitting room, her smile broad. “Happy Christmas, Belle.”
Mirabelle returned the festive greeting and embraced her sister-in-law. Born and raised on the island of Jamaica, Sophia was a strong, spirited woman who matched her brother in every way. The couple had married over a year ago, and it was something of a sensation that the most forbidding of all her siblings had actually wed—and was happy.
“How was your journey?” asked Mirabelle.
“Uneventful,” returned Sophia.
Mirabelle lifted a teasing brow. “No dalliances in the carriage, James?”
James balked at her outlandish remark, and damn if a little red hadn’t crossed his wicked brow.
Sophia chuckled, a rich, husky sound, but her husband remained silent—and glowering.
“Now that’s what I like to see,” said Damian, crossing the room to greet his guests. “The infamous pirate speechless. Well done, Belle.”
She winked at the duke. “And where are the others? At your heels, I hope?”
“Right at our heels,” assured Sophia.
“I’ll oversee the luggage, then,” said Mirabelle.
Her family would be staying at the castle until Twelfth Night. She had prepared their usual rooms, but she wanted to make sure all the details were addressed. Besides, James needed a moment to regain his wits. The duchess had clearly not retired all of her piratical ways either.
CHAPTER 2
James
Captain James Hawkins stood in the middle of the dressing room in front of the full-length mirror—stark naked. He had changed out of his traveling clothes and was about to pull on his eveningwear, when a pair of seductive eyes trimmed with long, sooty lashes caressed him through the glass.
She could set him afire with just one scorching look. If anyone else had that sort of hold over him, he’d struggle for supremacy. But he was coming not to mind his wife’s captivating influence.
James returned the woman’s heated gaze. “Let down your hair, sweetheart.”
A slow smile spread across her sensuous lips. She stepped into the dressing room from the adjoining bedchamber and approached him in a deliberate manner. He studied her every artful movement through the glass.
Sophia stopped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her warm fingers raking the muscles of his abdomen, and when she pressed her wicked mouth against the curve of his spine, he groaned low in his throat.
“Later,” she purred. “After dinner.”
James closed his eyes and steadied his already quickened breath. If he didn’t regain control of his senses, there would be no dinner, and he could just imagine his audacious sister barging into the room at the most importune moment, demanding to know the reason for their delay.
After recovering a measure of his unbridled lust, James opened his eyes. His wife was watching him with a smirk, ever aware of the power she had over him, and the witch was all but glowing with satisfaction. She took far too much pleasure in tormenting him, he thought, disgruntled.
“The family is informal, sweetheart. I’m sure no one will mind if you let loose your hair.”
He loved her lush locks spilling over her backside, unfettered by combs and pins. Wild. Like her.
James remembered the first time he had met her in the untamed mountains of Jamaica. Cutting through the swirling mist and tangled brush, he had made his way to a ramshackle house in the peaks, searching for an old buccaneer who had once saved his father’s life. But there, deep in paradise, James had also found Sophia, the pirate’s daughter.
She had greeted him with the barrel of a pistol, her suspicious eyes peering at him over the flintlock, her thick tresses, like smooth cocoa, flowing over her shoulders in abundant waves.
“Black Hawk, I presume? My father’s told me all about you.”
At the stirring memory, James shuddered.
“I prefer to wear my hair up for dinner,” she said in a playful drawl, thwarting his desire.
He humphed. “If you’re finished torturing me, woman, it’s time I dressed for dinner.”
She chuckled, a smoky chortle, before she slapped his arse and sashayed a few steps away. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, James.”
“What about?”
He pulled on his breeches as Sophia fetched him his linen shirt. He had no valet, detesting the pompous convention, but he’d grown rather fond of his wife’s help in the manner of dressing—and disrobing.
She handed him the shirt. “I’m pregnant.”
James froze with only one arm through a sleeve. A cold, rushing panic gripped him, and he stared at the woman as
if she’d turned into a goat.
“James?”
“How?”
A dark brow quirked. “Really?”
“You are barren, woman,” he growled.
Was she funning with him? She had the same damn smirk in her eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was being sincere. She had always found a perverse titillation in making him miserable.
“I’m not amused, Sophia.”
“Good.” She folded her arms under her generous breasts. “I’m vexed about it, too. You just had to be so virile?”
She was winding him up, the witch. And with the worst possible jest. Sophia knew he didn’t want any urchins. Ever. After the death of his mother, James had reared his siblings while their father had pirated at sea. Those had been the most difficult years of his life. And he was done nursing brats and raising hoydens. He sure as hell wasn’t going to start another family at forty-bleeding-two years of age!
“Enough, Sophia. I’m in a piss poor mood now.”
He yanked on the rest of his clothes, a vest and coat, and tied back his hair in a roughshod manner before stalking out of the dressing room. He sat on the edge of the bed, cramming his feet into his shoes, all the while glancing at Sophia askance.
The woman had yet to confess she was toying him. Her silence stretched. Her gaze remained fixed and unflinching. And James started to feel uneasy.
“You’re barren,” he repeated, making her ploy inconceivable.
Sophia was only twenty-eight years of age, a fertile period for most women, but she and James had met eight years ago, and their heated affair had never produced any offspring. After a torrid year together on the island, their affair had ended in a crushing blow that had soured him for years. And James wasn’t naive. His sensual Sophia had taken other lovers in the time they’d been apart. But she had never had a pregnancy. And she had never used anything to block one because . . . She. Was. Barren.
“James,” she said softly. “Haven’t you noticed I was getting a little ‘plump’ in certain areas?”
He snorted, then murmured under his breath.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“I said, I noticed.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t think it wise to mention you were getting ‘plump.’ Besides, I adore your curves, you know that.”
She smiled, her eyes smoldering. “What about our nights together? Haven’t you noticed I’ve not pushed you away for the last three months?”
James paused, then frowned.
“I haven’t had my menses in three months, James.”
His heart started to pound. No. Impossible.
“But we don’t want children,” he rasped, suddenly strapped for breath.
Sophia had spent her youth caring for her mad father. She, like James, had no desire to take on more responsibility; they were both gratified with each other.
And it wasn’t as if James disliked children. He adored his niece and nephew. But the brats were his sister’s obligation. He just . . . He just couldn’t do this. Not again.
Sophia sauntered toward the bed and settled beside him, slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Shall I fetch you a bottle of rum?”
James dropped his head between his hands. “Blimey.”
CHAPTER 3
Edmund
“I do not believe you, Edmund Hawkins.”
Edmund paused—about to stuff a tart into his mouth. He was ensconced in a dark corner of the castle’s kitchen, tankard in one hand, pastry in the other. Sensing his wife’s displeasure, he crammed the tart into his mouth then downed the wine before looking over his shoulder.
Amy was stunning: piqued, arms akimbo. Her long fair hair was rolled and twisted in a delicate crown on her head, while her flushed cheeks hinted at the fire in her soul. Her piercing green eyes burrowed into him but he never minded their striking stare. She always peered inside him, not at him, and he shuddered at the intimacy of her gaze—however vexed.
“You look lovely, Amy.”
“Bullocks.” She waved aside the compliment, her bejeweled slipper tapping. “You’re not dressed for dinner.”
He glanced at his dusty travel clothes. Since arriving at the castle, he had paused to peck his sister on the cheek before making his way straight toward the kitchen. “I was hungry.”
She huffed then joined him at the small table. “You are always hungry. But we’re not heathens.”
“I couldn’t wait for dinner,” was his grumbled excuse.
His wife’s features sharpened even more. “And who is to blame for your empty stomach? If you hadn’t spent the entire morning at Bow Street, you could have joined me for luncheon before we’d headed for the castle.”
Edmund fell silent at the mention of the Bow Street Magistrates Office, his place of employment as an investigator. His quiet only ruffled his wife’s temperament, and she demanded, “What is it?”
But he wouldn’t ruin her evening and shrugged. “Nothing a‘tall.”
“What happened at Bow Street?” She grabbed his hand from across the table. “Tell me.”
As her fingernails penetrated his skin, it was clear her night was already ruined, her anxiety roused, and he had no choice but to put her mind at ease, however difficult the task.
Slowly he covered her hand. “I received word, Amy.”
She paled. “Gravenhurst?”
A year ago, Lord Gravenhurst had almost murdered Amy. It’d been an act of revenge against her father, a duke, for sins committed when she was an innocent babe.
The memory still haunted Edmund. In vivid detail, he reflected on the moment he’d stormed the bedroom, witnessed the gut-churning sight of Amy’s throat between the fiend’s crushing hands.
He shuddered again—but with unshakeable fury. He had thrashed the son-of-a-bitch to within an inch of his life, rescued Amy, but the swine had escaped, disappeared.
Edmund and his fellow Bow Street Runners had hounded the elusive bastard for months, and now, finally, their search was at an end.
“He’s dead, Amy.”
She squeezed his hand ever tighter. “Are you sure?”
“A body was discovered at the base of a cliff.” He refrained from the grisly details, like the broken limbs dashed against the rocks, the bloated flesh. “He committed suicide.”
“And you’re sure it’s him?”
“Aye,” he returned, caressing her quivering hand. “The body had laid on the beach for a few days, its features unrecognizable.”
“Then—”
“No,” he stopped her frantic thought. “His height, his clothes, his signet ring, even the papers in his coat pocket—all prove his identity. Gravenhurst is dead, I swear.”
Her trembling fingers stilled. She sighed. A tear appeared in her eye, then another.
“It’s over, Amy.”
“I believe you. It’s just . . .”
“What?”
She slipped her hand away, dabbed at her eyes. “He had such hate for Papa. He lived an angry, lonely life. He hurt me. And you. And for what?”
“I don’t understand.” He frowned. “Do you feel charitable toward the devil?”
“I feel sad,” she said at last. “Such waste, Edmund. And for nothing. Nothing a‘tall. In the end, Death.”
Edmund lifted from his seat and kneeled beside her. “It was his choice, Amy.”
“I know.” Her gaze lighted on him, sparkled with an effervescence that took his breath away. “I just have so much love in my life. And I wish . . . I wish every lost soul could find it, too.”
His heart seized at her unexpected confession. For so long, he had hunted the monster, surrounded his wife with trusted guards when he wasn’t there to protect her himself. How many sleepless nights had he paced their bedroom, peering through the curtains, searching for a shadowy figure in the street? And now the monster was dead. And rather than rejoice with him, Amy pitied the bastard. She pitied him because he hadn’t love . . . like her.
A fing
er brushed his cheek. “Is that a tear, Edmund?”
“Rubbish.” He stuffed the sentiment into the bowel of his soul, but she never failed to inspire him with hope, to broaden his dreams and stretch his unending love for her.
He rasped, “I love you, Amy.”
“And I you, Edmund.”
A weight lifted from his shoulders. Fear regressed. And a lightness entered his body. She was safe. At last.
“We’ll tell the others at dinner,” he said, clearing his throat, gathering his wits. “They’ve been worried about us for such a long time.”
“I don’t want to spoil anyone’s appetite. We’ll share the news after dinner, I think.” She then slipped her hand through his arm. “Let’s get you dressed. I’m looking forward to a festive meal with my family.”
He walked with her through the kitchen. “And, ah, not a word to my siblings about any rot, like tears.”
“Oh?”
“I mean it, Amy,” he growled.
She snuggled into his arm. “I will keep your secret, I promise. Can you imagine the shock should anyone discover you’re not a notorious scoundrel but a good man with feeling?”
“Perish the thought, indeed.”
CHAPTER 4
Quincy
The ballroom glimmered under a soft glow as Quincy Hawkins set alight the last candle. He waved the matchstick, extinguishing the flame before turning toward his radiant wife.
She stood a few yards away, wearing a golden gown, her expression coy, her leaf-green eyes shimmering under the resplendence. And while her elfin features might confuse any other man into believing her an otherworldly sprite, she was in fact a sensual woman with deep desires he never tired of pleasing.
Quincy extended his right hand. “Might I have this dance, sweet Holly?”
Her lips formed a sensuous smile. She curtsied with aplomb before taking his hand, and together they waltzed across the silent room.
“We danced this dance at the ball where we first met,” she purred in an arousing manner.
How to Steal a Pirate's Heart (The Hawkins Brothers Series) Page 13
