by Gaelen Foley
“Poor Jack,” she murmured softly.
He let out a snort of a laugh. “I swore I would protect her with my life, and provide for her to the best of my ability, but she was having none of it. She wanted the rank of a fine title and the security of a fortune, ready-made. And these she soon acquired,” he added. “Three months after she jilted me, she was wed to a noble marquess more than twice her age.”
“Egads.”
“Yes. That was the last straw for me. I kicked the dust of England off my shoes and left, swearing never to return. But now the rebels’ need outweighs the angry oath of a little lovelorn Romeo,” he said sardonically. “Practicality, my dear.”
Eden was silent for a long moment, mulling over all that he had told her. “I suppose it will be awkward if we see Lady Maura when we get to London.”
“Not for me.”
“Do you think she ever regretted her choice?”
“I doubt it. She got what she wanted. She is Lady Avonworth now, a marchioness—though she has no children, which I find rather odd. Still, she became a leading hostess in the ton. On the other hand, I’ve got deeper pockets than her noble marquess now, and there is a certain satisfaction in that, I will admit.”
“I imagine that’s no accident.”
“No, it’s not,” he admitted softly, pausing. “I swore to myself that I’d show her. I’d show them all.” He lowered his lashes, veiling the deeply buried anger in his eyes. “They all said I’d never amount to anything.”
“What did you mean when you spoke of becoming the villain of the family? How did that play itself out?”
Jack sighed.
One of his men hurried down the passageway on some errand. Eden and Jack squeezed against their respective walls to let the sailor go hurrying through, excusing himself as he passed.
Eden looked at her betrothed again with a questioning gaze.
“Jacinda wasn’t born yet, so, apart from Robert, all of us were…illegitimate,” he said in a low voice once the crewman had disappeared around the corner. “We didn’t know that until we got to school and learned it from our classmates.”
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat uneasily. “While we were younger, still at home, I eventually took it into my head that I should make the duke start treating the others like a proper father. I was used to him despising me and knew there was little hope in that vein, but I became very angry about the way he treated the younger ones. I had long since concluded that I somehow deserved the treatment I received, but there was no way Damien deserved it. Damien tried so hard to please our supposed father, all to no avail. Any other man would have gone down on his knees and thanked God for a son like Damien, but for all his striving, he was completely ignored. Lucien seemed to know better, somehow. Alec was just a three-year-old and stuck to our mother like a nettle—he was her favorite. He’s been a favorite with the ladies ever since,” he added wryly, “but one day, I just got fed up with the duke making us feel unwelcome in our own home. So we had a bit of a battle.”
“Really?”
“Aye.” He snorted. “Here I thought I was standing up for my brothers, but Damien screamed at me, telling me to stop making trouble. That I was only making everything worse for everyone. Somehow, as usual, it was all my fault.”
She murmured wordless sympathy.
“But my efforts actually worked to some degree, because in contrast to me, yelling in the duke’s face and standing up to him that way, the others looked like angels. Finally, Hawkscliffe noticed that he had all these young boys under his roof who believed he was their father. Well, he would’ve had to have been made of stone not to ease up a bit in his behavior, especially on Damien. He finally realized this lad was a born hero, just waiting for any sign of acknowledgment to point him in the right direction.”
“It sounds like you really admire your brother.”
“He’s a bloody war-hero, Eden. The whole country admires him. Carnarthen, before he died, rallied his friends in the House of Lords to have Damien awarded a title, since truly he was Carnarthen’s firstborn son, and his own title would be going extinct. They made Damien the Earl of Winterley, ostensibly as a reward for his valor in the war.”
“What about Lucien?”
“Carnarthen left him a huge estate. They both did quite well by their real father,” he drawled. “All I got was an old boxing trophy.”
“I saw that,” she murmured, shaking her head in response to his cynical smile. “Did you ever get to meet your real father?”
“Aye. After Maura ripped my poor young heart out, I went storming off to Ireland to track him down. I thought I might at least find acceptance with him. But that just goes to show you how naive a lad can be.” He let out a weary sigh. “Sam O’Shay had retired from the ring by the time I was seventeen. As I said, he had returned to his native Ireland. Turned out he had gotten married to a local lass famous for her temper and her sharp tongue. The Killarney Crusher had settled down, sired a brood of children, and turned into a more or less respectable henpecked husband. When I showed up on his doorstep, the bastard son he’d fathered in a tryst with a notorious English duchess, he asked me to take a walk with him, and then explained to me that I must go away. His wife, you see, didn’t know about his indiscretion, and it would have caused his real sons and daughters, as he put it, considerable distress and embarrassment, as well.”
“Oh, God, Jack.”
“He invited me to stay for supper as long as I kept my mouth shut about who I really was. So, after the meal and a polite glass of port, along with a great many lies to explain my visit, I thanked the O’Shays for supper and bid them adieu. Then I went down to a wharfside tavern and got absolutely sotted.”
“Oh, darling,” she murmured sympathetically.
“Ah, but you haven’t heard the best part,” he chided. “Got a bit belligerent at the pub. Every pint I gulped down made me ever more keen for a fight. Chip off the old block, eh? After a few too many, the landlord threw me out, and just my luck, I walked straight into the clutches of the press gang.”
“The press gang!” she cried. “Jack, you were shanghaied?”
“Aye,” he said, chuckling.
“But as an aristocrat—”
“I was drunk. They didn’t believe me when I told them I was the Duke of Hawkscliffe’s son. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“So, what did you do?” she cried.
“There was nothing I could do. They carried me off and signed me up for the navy.”
“Good heavens. How did you fare?”
“Oh, about as well as I had in my brief stint at Oxford, dear. For about a month, I put up as much of a fight as I could. Made a point of disobeying every order I was given. Finally, I got tired of being flogged and seized to the shrouds and thrown in the brig, so I quit fighting. I learned how to work, and I learned how to sail.” He ran his hand lovingly along the stout oak planks of his ship as he leaned against the bulkhead. “I daresay it saved my life.”
Eden regarded him with a tender gaze. “I’m sorry for what you went through, Jack.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a wry smile. “Press gang was the best thing that ever happened to me. If the sun and sea can’t cure a man, nothing will.”
“So, what happened then?”
“By the time the question of my identity was cleared up and they saw I’d been telling the truth about my lofty connections, there were a great many apologies issued. Feeling vindicated, I chose to reenlist for another two years. His Grace of Hawkscliffe, now rather penitent in his illness, offered to buy me a handsome commission, but I refused. I didn’t want any favors from him.”
She studied him, trying to picture Jack all those years ago, young, alone and hurting, angry at the world. “He was awfully hard on you, wasn’t he?” she asked softly.
“He was better to his hunting dogs.”
“A lot of people have failed you.”
He said nothing.
; “I’m glad you told me, but all of that is behind you, my darling.” She pushed away from the wall where she was leaning, crossed the short distance between them. “You’ve got me now—” She slipped her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. “And I’m going to give you all the love you can possibly stand.”
“You’re very sweet,” he whispered, resting his hands on her waist.
Eden stretched up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss, offering comfort.
Jack lowered his head, happy to accept. With a firm yet gentle touch, he pressed his hand into the small of her back, bringing her closer.
When her body was flush against his—chest to chest, belly to belly, the intoxicating heat of his loins fitted snugly to hers—the reaction was mutual and instantaneous.
Desire bloomed between them there in the hull’s dim twilight, like one of the jungle’s night-blooming flowers.
The tender caress of his mouth upon hers deepened. A wanton sigh escaped her as she shifted restlessly between his legs. He kneaded her shoulders for a moment and then cupped her head with both hands, his fingers invading her neat chignon, and carelessly disheveling it. Eden didn’t care.
Clinging to him, she ran her hands through his hair, clutching a handful of it gently to coax him down further to her. He spread his legs wider and slid his back down the wood-planked wall a few inches.
“Come here,” he ordered in a husky whisper, pulling her closer still. She stepped one leg over his angled thigh, forming a closer fit between them in the place where she wished she could have him inside of her now.
He clasped her thigh through her skirts as he went on kissing her in rising passion. Her heart pounded, but the subtle motion of his hips was an invitation her body could not resist. She moved with him in scandalous simulation of the act, but Jack had become increasingly determined.
As she nibbled his lower lip in seductive teasing, he loosened her tight bodice and worked his hand down inside, cupping her breast. She let out a whimper when he gave her nipple a delicate squeeze between his thumb and middle finger.
His smell, his touch, his body against hers was driving her mad. She couldn’t believe she had ever wanted a silly Town dandy in a fancy coat when there were men like this in the world—not many of them, to be sure, but this one was all hers. She stroked his face, his neck, bringing her palm slowly down his chest.
Reaching down between them, her touch sought the hefty length of him through his black trousers. He let out a low, relishing moan and she smiled lustily upon finding him already hard.
She kissed him aggressively, molding her hand along the bulging ridge that she had found.
“You’d better stop that,” he whispered, panting.
“Why?” she asked innocently, squeezing him—hard.
“God.” He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the planks.
It really was the most intriguing organ. She could feel it throbbing against her palm, and the slightest homage she paid it seemed to give him so much joy.
She brought her lips to his ear: “Remember that thing you did to me?”
“What thing?” he asked with a wicked smile, dragging his eyes open. They smoldered with blue flame.
“When you…kissed me. Here.” She took his hand and guided it between her legs. At once, he cupped her mound through her skirts.
“Vividly,” he replied, his fingertip finding her pleasure center with unerring aim through muslin skirts and cotton petticoat. The slight touch made her shudder with bliss in response. “What about it?”
“Can—I be allowed to—do that to you?” she asked, panting.
His eyes widened briefly. “Yes!” he blurted out.
Eden smiled, her eyes flashing, but when she licked her lips in anticipation and laid hold of his waistband, he shook his head with a low, chiding laugh. “Not here, little wildcat. We’ll get to that some other time.” He captured her wrists and moved her hands up to his neck, giving her a soft kiss. “Right now, I have to be inside you.”
“Right now, Jack?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes.” He picked her up, carrying her a few feet down the corridor, out of the gloom and into the ray of sunlight beaming in from above. “We’re going to have to do this quickly,” he whispered as he sat her down on a rung of the companionway’s tilted ladder.
Clutching the rung behind her head, she leaned back but didn’t dream of protesting as he lifted her skirts, pausing to play with the ribbon garters that held up her stockings. “Very pretty, Miss Farraday,” he remarked as he stood between her legs.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“What if we get caught?” She flinched with a little shiver of delight at his tickling touch above her knee.
“We won’t. Ahh,” he breathed, as his climbing touch glided up to her flowing wetness.
Eden fixed him in a sultry stare, too hot for him to bother with maidenly embarrassment when he realized just how ready for him she already was. The place between her legs was soaked with want.
“Take me,” she commanded him in a whisper.
Lit up by the single golden sunbeam deep in the underworld gloom belowdecks, Jack stared into her eyes and seemed to realize in that moment how genuine her feelings for him were. Yes, she wanted him, but she was not the sort of girl ever to act on lust alone, and he knew it.
She reached out and took hold of his shirt, pulling him toward her. “I love you, Jack,” she breathed. “Make me one with you again.”
He leaned down to kiss her, unbuttoning the placket of his black breeches. Then he entered her with a groan. “God, Eden.”
She wrapped her legs around him and savored every deep stroke of his wonderful cock. His devouring kisses ravished her mouth.
There were voices from one of the decks well overhead, but instead of deterring either of them, the risk of discovery only spurred on their stealthy lust, making them hurried, panting, frantic for each other.
When one of the voices from above them came too close, Jack lifted her off the ladder, his manhood still buried deep within her. Holding her buttocks in his hands, her skirts spilling over his arms, he carried her back into the darkness, still making love to her on the way.
She hooked her heels behind his back, dazzled and quite crazed by his virtuosity. Rippling muscle, flexing massive biceps, raised her up and down on his slick shaft with ease. His sheer physical power took her breath away, and then he had her right where he wanted her, with her back braced against the wall.
Her feet still couldn’t touch the ground, so she kept her legs wrapped around him, her rear end gripped in his hands. His growl thrilled her; soon she was arching her back while Black-Jack Knight simply had his way with her deep in the lower gun deck, ramming her against the wall with the most delicious barbarity.
“Shh, sweeting,” he whispered, panting. He hushed her with a soft kiss. She hadn’t realized how loud her moans had become—but she noticed her lover had worked up a sweat.
“Oh Jack, you delicious beast, you’re so good.”
He smiled modestly at her moan and took a short break, breathing hard. He rested his forehead against hers, as though merely savoring the experience. The way he brushed his face against hers so lovingly reawakened her tenderness amid the storm of passion. She stroked his hair and kissed his cheek gently. She knew now how much this hard man needed her love.
Starting again, he moved much more slowly now, more deliberately, in counterpoint to his wild ferocity of a few moments ago. Eden gasped, helplessly; threw her head back and surrendered to him, going weak in his strong, strong arms. As she writhed, each breath ripping from her turned into a bewildering sob; his sweetness had burst a floodgate inside her, releasing a long-buried anguish of such piercing pain that she found herself weeping for reasons she could not begin to explain. Words sounded senseless tumbling from her lips as he kissed the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I found you. I can’t believe I truly found you—Jack.”
“I love you,” he
whispered barely audibly, and then he gave himself to her in huge pulsations of pure virility. His kiss was too fierce for her mouth—he bit her shoulder through her dress as he came, just hard enough to let her know that she was his. Shudders racked him. “Oh, Eden.” After a long moment, he eased her upward a bit and then withdrew from her body, shaking.
She collapsed against the bulkhead behind her, staring at him while her chest heaved. He dragged himself two steps away, to the other side of the passageway, and leaned heavily against the wall across from her.
He let out a ragged exhalation and slowly raked both hands through his tousled hair.
She ran her hands sensuously down her belly, half imagining she could feel his potent seed sparking life in her womb.
Physically spent, her emotions also felt thoroughly wrung out as she wiped the traces of those strange tears away. “Why did I cry?” she whispered.
“Because you know now you won’t be alone anymore.”
His quiet answer brought fresh tears to her eyes. Maybe her heart had remembered all those times she had climbed to the jungle’s highest treetops and had searched the empty horizon, praying for someone to love.
She had found him now.
“You won’t be alone anymore, either.”
He gave her a smile with such sadness in it, as though he was trying, but could not quite bring himself to believe.
Tra-la!
A distant sound reverberated through the silence at that moment, carrying to The Winds of Fortune from over the waves.
Eden turned her head with a small gasp, listening. “What was that?” She could have sworn it was a hunting horn. Two rich, mellow notes—
Tra-la! again.
When she glanced at Jack in question, his white teeth flashed in a grin as he hastily tucked in his shirt.
