A Lady at Last. Brenda Joyce

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СКАЧАТЬ him,” she gasped.

      He realized her mouth was bruised. He lifted her into his arms and was surprised again, because she clung. Now there was no mistaking the fact that he wanted to protect her, but he was also aware of her open robe and her soft breasts, pressed to his chest. He had glimpsed the wet treasure between her thighs. “There was never a chance,” he said roughly, carrying her from the room.

      In the hall he paused, suddenly realizing that soldiers were outside the front door, and he had just assaulted the royal governor. They’d have to make a hasty retreat through a window—and he would have quite a bit of political maneuvering to do in the days that followed. Woods might not be a friend anymore, but they needed to work together if he was to remain a viable and influential resident of the island. Suddenly he realized his burden was oddly still.

      He looked at her.

      She looked up at him, her hands remaining looped around his neck. She was blushing.

      His gaze veered to her beautiful breasts, then lower to her slender torso, her rib cage faintly delineated, her small pink navel and the champagne-colored delta below. Buccaneer or not, he was a gentleman, and he jerked his gaze to her face, feeling his own cheeks warm. With one hand, awkwardly, he tugged the wrapper somewhat closed. “How badly did he hurt you?” he asked roughly.

      “Can you put me down?” she asked instead of replying.

      Instantly he complied.

      She smiled at him, and kicked him very hard in the shin. And then she pushed at him and started to run.

      Stunned, he reached for her, but she was agile, swift and determined. She ducked his grasp and raced down the hall, her wrapper flowing behind her nude body like a banner. He started after her more slowly, unhappily aware of a terrible turmoil in him. He almost wished he had not gotten involved, for he sensed this was just the beginning. And when he reached the entry, no one was there.

      La Sauvage was gone.

      CHAPTER TWO

      AMANDA RAN THROUGH A pair of terrace doors and across the patio. King’s House took up an entire city block and was built around two courtyards; she rushed down a set of white stone steps and into the gardens there. She stumbled, didn’t care and fell to her knees. She began retching. But she hadn’t been able to eat in days, she was so sick with fear for her father, and her heaves were dry. Then she lay on the thick, damp grass, allowing herself the luxury of tears.

      Her terror overcame her. Papa was going to hang tomorrow at noon. Confronting the governor and begging him for a pardon had been their last chance. She hadn’t intended to offer him her body, but when he had started to look at her the way sailors and riffraff did, she had instinctively known what she must do. How often had she seen a woman coyly seduce her father in order to win a brooch or a bolt of silk? There was only one way a woman could ever gain anything from a man and Amanda knew what that way was. She had been raised amongst sailors and thieves and the only women she knew well had been camp followers and whores. The world she had been raised in was founded on violence and sex.

      But she hadn’t given her body over to Woods, because Cliff de Warenne had stopped her from doing so.

      She inhaled, her heart lurching. Why had he intervened? He was the greatest privateer of the day, as rich and powerful as a king. No one could outcommand him on the main—even Papa had said so. And he was reputed to be equally dangerous on land…

      Papa. Her heart was already grieving and she reminded herself that Papa wasn’t dead yet. But the grief and the fear had combined, as potent as opium, a drug she had once been given before Papa had realized what was happening. She sat, tugging her robe more securely closed. Rodney had slit the throat of the buccaneer who had thought to drug her and seduce her, right before Amanda’s eyes. He had protected her from the men who had wanted her, when he had been present to do so, and he had taught her how to defend herself with a sword, pistol and dagger, so she could protect herself when he was not there. His cruises often lasted months on end, and he’d leave her with enough stores so she would not go hungry, at least not if he returned on time. He was a good father and now she had failed him, when he was the mainstay of her life. This one single time, a time of life or death, she had let her papa down.

      Her mind scrambled and raced, looking for another way to save Rodney. She had dismissed the notion of trying to break her father out of prison some time ago. Most of the crew had been killed in battle with the English officer who had captured the Amanda C, and the remaining crew was also in prison, awaiting their moments at the gallows.

      If she couldn’t forcibly free him, should she go back inside to Woods?

      She was ready to vomit again. She had impulsively meant to do what all women did in a crisis, but God, she was repulsed and sickened by what had almost happened. While she had witnessed just about every sexual act possible—or so she assumed—she had never been touched sexually. She had never even been kissed. Rodney Carre had made it clear that any man who dared to do so would have his throat slit and his manhood tossed to the sharks in the sea.

      De Warenne had saved her.

      Amanda hugged her knees to her chest, no longer able to avoid where her thoughts really wanted to go. She was stunned by his selfless behavior. Why had he intervened? Everyone she knew behaved sensibly and selfishly—it was the law of survival. Strangers did not help one another. Why would they? The world was too dangerous to dare to reach out. So why had he saved her from Governor Woods?

      Her heart wouldn’t stay still. She swallowed, remembering. For he had looked at her, too, even more boldly and brightly than any sailor had ever done.

      As upset as she was, her heart started to beat with frantic haste. Bewildered, she clasped her cheeks, which were hot. He had looked at her naked body, but he had also looked at her the moment she had come into King’s House, when all her clothes were still on. She couldn’t ever recall anyone, man or woman, looking at her with such intense and piercing eyes. It was a look which she was never going to forget and she wished she could understand it.

      She knew him, of course. Who didn’t? He was instantly remarkable, standing upon the quarterdeck of her favorite ship, his thirty-eight gun frigate, the Fair Lady. A huge, towering man with that leonine head of hair, he was impossible to miss. And everyone knew he’d captured forty-two pirates in his short, ten-year career as a privateer. In the West Indies, no one had yet to surpass his record.

      Amanda’s heart continued to beat erratically. She was uneasy and confused. Why had a man like that helped her? He was far more than a privateer. While she’d heard the fancy snooty ladies in town giggling that he was more pirate than gentleman, they couldn’t be more wrong. Pirates were foul, with stinking breath and missing teeth and unclean body parts. Pirates gave no quarter in combat, spilling blood and guts everywhere, although when sworn to loyalty, no better friend could be found. Pirates wore dirty clothes, never washing them, and frequented the ugliest hags and whores.

      De Warenne smelled like the sea, mixed with spices from some Far Eastern shore and mango from the island. Although he wore a gold earring in one ear like some pirates did, and those huge gold and ruby spurs, his clothes were spotless. Everyone knew the mother of one of his bastards was a real princess. His reputation as a ladies’ man was vast, but his lovers weren’t whores and hags, oh no, just the opposite. And why not? He was an earl’s son. De Warenne was royalty.

      And even she, who had never looked at a man in any kind of admiration—except for her father, of course—had to admit that he was achingly beautiful.

      Amanda СКАЧАТЬ