The Wild Wellingham Brothers: High Seas To High Society / One Unashamed Night / One Illicit Night / The Dissolute Duke. Sophia James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Azziz with her candle at midnight Emerald joined him on the road that swung between Falder and the sea. He did not look pleased.

      ‘Have you bedded him?’

      ‘Have I what?’ Even in the darkness she knew he must see the mounting blush on her cheeks at his question.

      ‘Bedded him? Toro said he saw you leave the water today in the company of Asher Wellingham. He said you were naked.’

      ‘I’d been for a swim. He found me there.’

      ‘I will kill him.’

      Laying her hand upon his sleeve, she pulled him back. ‘It was my fault. I should not have gone in without clothes and he did not touch me. He was a gentleman in all of his actions.’ She mentioned neither Asher’s suggested dalliance nor the barn to him.

      ‘Put a knife to Carisbrook’s throat tonight, Emmie, and demand the parchment. Then we can run for the coast and take sail to Jamaica. If we delay our leave much longer, we’ll have no money for the passage home.’

      The brutal thrust of Azziz’s argument worried her. Even a month ago she might have suggested the same thing, but now…

      ‘I’ll sell my pearls. That should tide us over for at least a while.’

      Azziz shook his head. ‘They are the only thing of your mother’s you have left. You always said you’d never be parted from them.’

      ‘Please, Azziz, have Toro take the pearls down to London and find the best jeweller in town. You know where they are hidden in Miriam’s house. Just give me another few days.’

      Another few days. Another caress? Another chance?

      She shook her head to rid herself of the image of Asher on the horse behind her and felt the hairs on her arms rise up in memory.

      ‘I could rob a wealthy traveller. It should be enough.’

      ‘No.’ Horror swamped her. ‘Not in England. Here you are hanged for such an offence. Far better to sell the pearls and buy us some time.’

      ‘If you let me at Carisbrook for an hour—’

      ‘No.’

      ‘His sister, then. Word has it they are close.’

      ‘Leave the family alone. I mean it.’

      ‘Lord, you were always headstrong. Beau had more faults than any one man had a right to, but he was your father and Carisbrook killed him in cold blood.’

      ‘Cold blood? A mid-ocean encounter between two warring ships.’

      ‘You would excuse this English duke?’

      She turned away and looked back towards Falder. From here the lights of the house showed bright against the hills behind it. ‘My father lived by the sword just as surely as he died by it and before I came here I thought that Asher Wellingham was of the same ilk. But now? I think he is as honourable as you are and I would not see him hurt.’ She swallowed as she felt Azziz’s large hand come to rest upon her shoulder.

      ‘You like him, don’t you, girl?’ His voice was soft. ‘How do you think he would react if he knew of your Sandford blood?’

      ‘Badly.’ Her response was as honest as the question asked.

      ‘And if he exposes you, there will be little that anyone could do to stem the damage. Trust him and you could well be as dead as your father and what will happen, then, to Miriam and Ruby? If you will not think of yourself, at least think of them.’

      Emerald shivered. For the very first time in all of her life she had met a man who made her feel like a woman. A man who made her imagine things that she had not before even considered.

      Naked beneath his jacket and walking into the barn, a part of her had wanted him to follow her in and take away her virginity. She was twenty-one and she had never bedded a man. It was time. It was beyond time. The throb of lust deep within her loins surprised her and she was pleased when Azziz left his warnings at that and turned towards the line of trees that ran across the eastern ridge and away from Falder.

      In the moonlight the garrets and turrets of the house were light against the sky and, skirting the pebble-chip pathways beyond the gardens, she saw a silhouette in the bay window. Stopping, she retraced her steps and crept through the undergrowth directly in line with the uncurtained window.

      Asher stood against the glass, looking out. Behind him, hovering in the alcove, was the painted image of his long-dead wife. Watching him. Tying him to a sadness that was all consuming and never ending. She could so often see that wounded look in his eyes, like a man who bled from a gash he could not find and had ceased to notice his own hurt.

      Melanie Wellingham, the dead Duchess of Carisbrook.

      Everything had to do with her and with his broken hand and his blind brother. And it was all intertwined with Falder, a thousand years of history bearing down hard upon his shoulders. She started forward and stopped. What could she say?

      Kiss me. Love me. Let me stay here. Here. For ever. Where the names of your ancestors march through the centuries and the shivers of memory are kind.

      Kinder than my own memories. Much kinder.

      A ship in the midst of an angry sea and the promise of another storm chasing hard on the heels of the first one. The English ship with the promise of well-laden hulls and Asher Wellingham waiting, sword in hand, on his quarterdeck with two dozen men behind him. An easy target. Slow. Cumbersome. The lightning off the sea silhouetting everything.

      She had felt his focus and his expertise, but had still been surprised as he had swung through a swathe of sailors to reach her father. It was the whine of a cannonball that threw him into her path, and into the radius of her blade, though he had laughed as her sword crossed his own. ‘You have chosen the wrong pathway, lad. Throw in with me and I will see that you have safe passage back to England—you are too young to be losing your life to the likes of this motley crew.’

      Grasping her sword tighter, she had fended him off, though his proficiency was a revelation. He had been playing with her. The realisation had come with a great rush of amazement, given her own ability at swordplay, and she had been pleased to see the amusement harden as she had cut across his left sleeve and drawn blood. If she was going to die, she had wanted it to matter, though his sudden feint had her fighting arm pinioned against the mizzenmast.

      ‘Drop the sword and I will spare you. It’s not my way to slaughter innocents.’

      His breath had mingled with her own and it was then that their eyes truly caught.

      Tight and close.

      ‘Lord, you’re a girl.’ Amazement narrowed his eyes as he brought his hand across the quivering fullness of her lips. Even now through the gathering years of time Emerald could still feel that caress, still feel the way her body had simply melted into heat.

      Unexpectedly sweet. Undeniably woman. In the middle of an ocean, in the middle of a battle, she had run her tongue across the saltiness of his thumb and shock had claimed them both.

      She СКАЧАТЬ