The Infamous Rogue.
by Alexandra Benedict.
To Suzy and Steve.
Chapter 1.
London, 1825.
C aptain James Hawkins struggled with the cravat, slipping a finger between the stiff linen and his throat. The infernal noose! What he wouldn"t give to be rid of it. But if he ripped the knotted material in public, it would only confirm the haute ton"s suspicion of him: he was a barbarian.
James maintained a distance from the revelry. He had arrived late to the bal , one of the last of the London Season. Hosted by Maximilian "Rex," the Earl of Baine, the tedious affair attracted the most affluent members of society, for the earl"s "kingly" taste in decor was much gossiped about.
The ballroom was a glittering spectacle: smooth, white marble columns with soft gray veins, rich yellow drapery flanking each of the dozen windows, a pale blue fresco with gold filigree on the ceiling, gilded sconces on the walls, crystal chandeliers...
James considered it all garish rubbish, like too many sweets sitting deep in the belly, so heavy and uncomfortable.
Blood hastened through his veins. It was a subtle, warm shift, too discreet for an unwitting mind. But two decades at sea stalking-and being stalked-had conditioned him to be more sensitive, and he scanned his surroundings in pursuit of the pair of eyes he was sure were watching him.
Slowly a creeping set of hands rubbed his calves, stroked the stiff, meaty muscles of his thighs before circling his hips in an intimate embrace.
James was sure no one had touched him, and yet the kneading fingers moved across his chest in a salacious manner, making his heart thud like booming cannon blasts. Sweat gathered between his shoulder blades. He pulsed with a long-forgotten energy...a yearning.
James slipped his hand into his vest pocket and removed the fob watch. He stroked the damaged timepiece, the gla.s.s face shattered. The hands didn"t keep time anymore, but he stil guarded the cursed piece of gold. He rubbed the bauble"s underside, stroking the biting inscription: May you rot in everlasting h.e.l.l.
He stuffed the watch inside his pocket again, expression grim. The ghostly fingers stil traced the hard edges of his face in a sensual way. The movement was familiar, soft and stirring. But soon he cringed to feel the sharp nails dig into his cheeks.
The bal room was alive with movement. He dismissed the glaring ensemble of skirts and black tails to search the miens of unfamiliar faces. Soon he lighted upon a quiet creature seated a short distance away from him.
His innards lurched. She was a spindly-looking thing, pale with fair hair: an ideal woman by the aristocracy"s standards. He loathed her kind, so cold...cruel. You don"t belong here, she said with her eyes.
He fisted his palms and folded his arms behind his back, sick with the thought that her creeping regard had aroused him in such a profound way. He was sure...
James dismissed the thought. He stared at her instead. She looked away from him. She appeared aloof, but her taut posture betrayed her anxiety. Did she fret the big barbarian might think she was flirting with him? That he might ask her to dance?
He noted the way her fingers trembled. He took great pleasure in her discomfort. She thought herself his superior. How quickly she would be humbled if she knew she disgusted him, that she made him ill with her superficial, scornful nature...however, she needn"t be privy to the truth just yet.
She peeked at him once more.
He smiled.
James withheld a mordant laugh. She was flushed, a shine across her moist brow. He approached her. It was only a step, but the movement startled her. She wanted to skirt away, he could tell. But etiquette restrained her. She couldn"t dash off without causing a potential scene. And rather than risk the stigma of a social blunder, she remained in her seat, sweating and twisting her fingers in her lap.
He took another overt step toward her, and observed with wicked delight as she flexed her fine jaw. But he wasn"t satisfied; he wanted to disturb her even more.
He started for her.
"Is something the matter, James? Why do you look so murderous?"
William Hawkins advanced. He was thinking like a proper lieutenant, reading the captain"s expression for warning of approaching danger. But the only pro spective threat was that of James losing his temper and dragging that haughty b.i.t.c.h onto the dance floor for a twirl.
"Nothing"s the matter, Will. I"m just having a s.h.i.t time, is all."
The guests close enough to overhear the exchange gasped and moved off.
"Lower your voice, James. And curb your language! We"re not aboard the Bonny Meg."
James bristled. More blasted constraints!
"Look at Edmund and Quincy," said Wil iam. "Can"t you muster up some charm, like them?"
James observed his handsome brethren, dancing in step to the lively music. At ages twenty-three and twenty-one respectively, Edmund and Quincy were nearly half his age.
He was already forty, Wil iam two years his junior, and indisposed to change.
"I don"t belong here, Will."
"You don"t want to belong here, you mean. You aren"t even making an effort to fit in."
"I"m wearing a blasted noose!"
"You might dress like a gentleman, but you don"t behave like one."
With considerable ire, James growled, "And just how should I behave?"
"Well, don"t stand like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you"re prepared to clobber the first guest who dares to speak to you. And your expression! Can you look more cross?"
James frowned. "I can try."
"Oh, that"s very sporting of you, brother."
He sighed. "I"m not going to pander to the n.o.bs."
"I"m not asking you to, but can you be polite?"
"No."
"Blast it, James! You really don"t belong here, do you?"
No, he didn"t. After four years of formal suppers and tiresome parties and posh maidens, James considered it more and more an enc.u.mbrance to feign interest in the customs of the ton. "I need air. Keep an eye on Edmund and Quincy."
"Aye, Captain," William said dryly.
James moved away from his kin, deliberately approaching the same woman who had treated him with such disdain, as if he might ask her to dance. He swaggered past her instead, her gasp of relief burning his ears.
He marched with purposeful strides through the ornate pa.s.sageway, the shimmer a distraction. The more he glared at silk-paneled walls and fine wool rugs and hand-painted Oriental vases, the more the bile churned in his belly.
He escaped the palatial house at last. The moment the warm summer breeze greeted him, he cooled his heels. In a still leggy yet more leisurely gait, he wended through the wel -manicured hedgerows and stepped into the blooming garden.
It was a small garden, for the earl"s city home was in the heart of Mayfair. And so James glanced from side to side to ensure he was alone before he rent the noose from his neck and stuffed it into his pocket. The air was sweeter without the cravat, and he inhaled the perfume-fragrance of roses. It was not the tang of the salty sea, however.
James yearned to be back aboard the Bonny Meg. There he was in control and respected. There he was home. But instead he had to wear the dreadful mana cles of "respectability." He had to try to fit in with the rest of the haute ton for the sake of his sister. He could not disgrace her with his sinful past. He could not shame her with his crude behavior. He had promised.
James stiffened.
A sharp blade p.r.i.c.ked him in the back.
"Why aren"t you rotting in h.e.l.l, Black Hawk?"
Sophia Dawson pressed the tip of the knife more firmly into his spine. He was every bit as towering and robust as she remembered, and her heart fluttered at the hot stab of longing that welled in her breast.
She quickly quelled the spurt of unbidden desire. Her palms sweated, and she gripped the bejeweled knife with greater strength. "Answer me, Black Hawk."
Slowly he turned around. "Be careful how you address me in public."
The low drawl of his voice stirred her senses to arousing life, and she clenched the muscles of her midriff to tame the wild flutters in her belly.
The man"s gaze lighted on her. Even in the shadows of the garden, those hard and commanding eyes struck her soundly, ensnared her. She knew they were a rich blue; she remembered. She remembered all the nights he had set fire to her pa.s.sions with those s.e.xy eyes.
"What are you doing in public, Black Hawk?"
He grabbed her wrist and hoisted it closer to his chin. The short steel blade shimmered in the moonlight, the silver light bouncing off the pools of his livid eyes.
"I"m not Black Hawk anymore."
The touch of his fingers burned her flesh. The heat seeped into her blood, warming her arm, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, sinking into her toes.
With a quiver in her voice, she said, "And who are you now?"
"Captain Hawkins."
"You joined the Royal Navy?"
The question riled him even more, for he gritted, "I"d sooner hang!"
The man had not changed in seven years: in opinion or manner. He stil loathed the Royal Navy for pressing his father into service. And he was still boorish in behavior, befitting his rank as the most notorious pirate captain on the high seas!
His thumb brushed across the pulse at her wrist, thumping quick. "There are no accounts in the paper about Black Hawk. Did it ever occur to you I might not be a pirate anymore?"
Heartbeats swift, she dismissed the rising pressure in her skull to curl her lips into a sardonic smile. "I a.s.sumed you dead."
She could hear the breath rush through his nose. It warmed her fingers, stirring the fine hairs on her arm. "You have a cold heart, woman."
She angled the blade to fit snugly under his chin. "Release me, Black Hawk."
He let her go, and she took a shaky step back.
"You"re right," he said. "Black Hawk is dead."
Dead? The wicked corsair wasn"t dead. If he was dead, the man standing before her wouldn"t have such a devastating pull over her senses. She would have the pluck to slice his gullet and walk away from him before he ruined all her carefully orchestrated plans.
But she didn"t have the mettle to gut him. The rough sound of his voice, his sensual eyes and stalwart grip fil ed her head with potent memories. Memories of crisp, white bedsheets tangled together with limbs soaked in sweat.
She banished the pleasurable thought with a sharp breath and glared at her target. But the vim in her blood only swelled as she observed the faint flutter of black hair that caressed his temple.
He maintained an unfashionable long mane, tied in a queue. One wayward lock dropped over his temple and curled under his eye. The impulse to sweep back the rebellious tress gripped her. But she refrained from the whim, for the same dark curl emphasized the man"s glower, bringing her back to her wits.
"You still look like a pirate," she charged. He had shaved his beard-hence his newfound role as Captain Hawkins. He was unrecognizable to the guests at the ball, whose jewels, surely, he had robbed at some point during his long pirate career-but he was still wicked and dangerous; she sensed it. "If you don"t captain the Bonny Meg anymore, what do you captain?"
"I captain the Bonny Meg," he said slowly. "But she is a merchant vessel now."
"You retired from piracy to become a tradesman?" He had the heart of a pirate, the disposition of a scoundrel. Give up his wicked ways? "Why?"
"I had to protect my sister."
"Mirabelle? Is she here?" Sophia offered him a scornful look. "Wil I make her acquaintance at last?"
Even the sinful Black Hawk had conformed to some traditional standards of behavior, for he had never introduced his sister to his mistress.
"Mirabelle is at home, nursing a new babe...she is now the d.u.c.h.ess of Wembury."
Sophia snorted. So that was why he"d retired from piracy, to keep from besmirching his sister"s respectable reputation. How very n.o.ble of him.
The hypocritical knave! He had once declared matrimony a sinister inst.i.tution, a form of unfair imprisonment. It was called wedlock for a reason, he had contended. However, it was wholly proper for his sister to marry. Wedlock was only a sinister captivity if she wanted to be the bride.
Her blood burned with the haunting memory of taunts and snubs. She had suffered the stigma of being Black Hawk"s mistress. She had struggled against the disdainful looks of the island"s inhabitants. But she would suffer no more.
"If I had known you"d climb the social ladder," she said in a flirty manner, "I wouldn"t have deserted you."
He took an ominous step toward her.
She lifted the knife to ward him off. "Stay back, Black Hawk."
"d.a.m.n you, woman!" He lowered his voice to impart, "Don"t call me that."
"And what should I cal you?"