The Notorious Scoundrel (21 page)

“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 wits 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.”

T
he 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.”

She caressed his hips in eager strokes. “That isn’t true, Edmund.”

“Damn it, Amy!” He fisted her wrists again, for she tempted him with her sensual touches…tormented him. “It can’t be between us! Don’t fool yourself into thinking we have a future together. You
don’t
belong with me.”

She kissed him.

It was a hard, passionate gesture; it snatched his wits away. He cried into her hot, needful mouth with longing, and, in an instant, he smothered her in his embrace, keeping her locked between his arms as if he might cease to breathe if he let her go.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“I want to be with you, Edmund.”

He gritted his teeth at the wretched pain that churned in his belly, for he knew the words hollow, however sweet and tempting.

She silenced his protests with another sultry buss; it seized his breath, his resistance. He was hungry for her, for every wistful fancy that she’d promised him. A darker sentiment prevailed, though. A miserable truth: He wasn’t fit to be her husband.

“I can’t, Amy.” He cupped her cheeks in a firm hold. “Damn you, woman. Stop!”

“You can’t do this to me,” she said, breathless.

He gnashed his teeth. “Do this to
you
? Do you think I don’t cut my own heart out, turning you away?”

“Then
don’t
turn me away.” Biting back the tears that had formed in her shaky voice, she pleaded, “Come with me to Gretna Green.”

“No,” he returned tersely. “I have to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From myself!”

“Arrgh!”

She stepped away from him. He watched her fretful movements as she trolled the grounds in a circle, wringing her fingers, her each disorderly step mirroring the havoc in his soul.

“I can’t marry the marquis!”

“You’ll find a more respectable husband in time,” he said in a broken voice. “You don’t have to wed the marquis.”

“He’s promised to make it
very
unpleasant for me if I cry off. And I’m to be married in one week! Where will I find another husband in that time?”

He returned darkly, “I’m just preferable to the lout, then?”

“He’s mad, Edmund!”

“What?”

“Gravenhurst is
mad
.” She paused and stared at him, her lips quivering. “He’s vowed to make me miserable. At the party at Mortlake, he offered me a glimpse of our future together. It’s dreadful.” She shuddered. “I can’t endure it.”

“Did he hurt you?”

The dark sentiment passed between his dry lips in a throaty rasp; his blood burned, pounded in his head.

“He frightened me,” she returned in a low voice.

He softened as he spotted the tears in her eyes, sensed her anguish. “What about your parents, Amy?”

“I know, I’m a failure.” She sniffed. “I’ve not the strength to do my duty, to wed the marquis.”

He hardened at the familiar sentiment; it festered in his head, too. “I
mean
, are you prepared to go against their wishes?”

She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve; he hadn’t a kerchief to offer her, he thought sourly.

“Yes.” She rubbed her nose in her sleeve, too. “I know they’ll be upset at first, but if we wed, it’ll lessen the scandal. I’ll be married to a respectable gentleman; there won’t be anything the marquis can do about it, either.”

His ears burned. “Are you sure, Amy?”

“Yes!
”

He stiffened with indecision, hounded by the primitive instinct to follow his wants and desires, to marry the lass and protect her from harm, even if she merely preferred him to the mad marquis. And yet he was troubled by the thought that
he’d
make her unhappy, that
he’d
harm her with an unsuitable match.

As the contention within him intensified, he sifted through his muddled reflections, grasping at reason. Had she quarreled with the marquis over the engagement? Was that why he’d frightened her? Could she reconcile with the man? Be happy?

The prospect gripped him, for if there was hope for a reconciliation, he shouldn’t whisk her away to Scotland for his own selfish motives; she belonged with a better man than he.

He rubbed his brow. She was frightened, though. She had survived the rookeries. She had served the vicious queen for three years. If such hardships hadn’t frightened her enough to escape them, then her ordeal with the marquis
had
to have truly alarmed her…and he’d never leave her to such a dismal fate. If she asked him for everything in his possession, he’d give it to her.

Breaking away from the past isn’t easy, I know. But
you
have a chance to make a new start for yourself with Amy, and if
you
don’t take it, it’s your own damn fault
.

Edmund closed his eyes; he let the scoundrel in him win.

“I’ll wait for you in front of the house, Amy.”

She gasped. “Oh, Edmund!”