Elizabeth Powell (28 page)

He skimmed his unbandaged thumb over her lower lip. “And what about Mr. Morgan’s offer—will you accept him? Once he matures a bit, he will have a promising career ahead of him.”

Amanda twisted her hands together. “I cannot say.”

Another trail of tears spilled down her cheek. He smoothed them away.

“You do not love him, do you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Good. I would hate to have to call him out,” Everly replied. He hoped he sounded as grim as he felt.

She stared up at him, shocked. “Jack—you wouldn’t, would you?”

“Not unless you give me a reason not to. I won’t let you marry him, Amanda. He will not make you happy.”

“Why are you saying this?” She tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“Why do women never have a handkerchief when they need one?” Everly’s harsh demeanor melted; he smiled and pulled his kerchief from his breast pocket. As Amanda dried her eyes, he studied her delicate profile. How he’d come to adore that uptilted nose, those sweet lips, those irresistible dimples, and the quixotic combination of innocence and hardheaded resolve that was Amanda Tremayne.

“I suppose I should explain all this bluff and bluster.” Everly tried to run a bandaged hand through his hair, failed, and flushed with embarrassment. There was no more time for roundaboutation. If he was going to do this, he had to do it now, for he’d be damned if he lost her to the likes of Harry Morgan. “I love you, Amanda. I think I’ve loved you since you landed on me that night in Locke’s garden. I did not want to admit it at first. You see, I was engaged to be married once before. When I returned home from Lissa, my fiancée took one look at my limp, then ran from me and broke off our engagement.”

Amanda uttered a little gasp of outrage and crumpled the kerchief. “That jilt!”

Everly smiled. That was his Amanda.

“I didn’t want to give another woman the chance to break my heart,” he continued, “but then I met you, you stubborn minx. I did not realize how much you meant to me until I nearly lost you—twice—at the warehouse.” Everly took a deep breath. “Amanda, do you think you could ever be happy with a crippled old sea dog?”

A wan smile shimmered through her tears. “I have never thought of you so meanly.”

Everly frowned. “But my leg—”

Amanda’s fingertips brushed the thin scar on his cheek. “It doesn’t matter to me. It never has. When I first met you, all I could notice were your incredibly blue eyes.” She blushed and would have snatched her hand away, but Everly caught it, pressed it to his lips.

“My dearest Amanda,” he murmured. “Marry me. I
want you to be my wife, to be the mother of my children.”

Amanda’s flush deepened. “Persuade me,” she breathed.

Everly’s pulse raced. He pulled her to her feet and into his arms, then leaned down until his lips were inches from hers. “I warn you, minx—I can be very, very persuasive, indeed.”

Her mouth was as sweet and yielding as he remembered, her skin soft and silky and scented with jasmine. Desire raged through him, and his self-control began to slip. His tongue parted her lips, explored her inner sweetness, holding nothing back. He reveled in the taste of her mouth, the scent of her skin, the feel of her body against his. Amanda gave a little moan. Everly’s leg twinged anew, and the pain brought him to his senses; he pulled back, breathing hard, and stared down at Amanda with narrowed eyes.

“Now will you marry me, madam?”

Amanda lifted a hand to her swollen lips and stared at him.

He added, rather sheepishly, “I would go down on one knee and do this properly, but I fear I would not be able to get up again.”

More tears threatened her composure. “I almost lost you in the fire, Jack. And when I thought you were going back to sea, it was as though I were losing you a second time.”

Everly put a finger to her lips. “Shhh, sweetheart. Marry me, and you will never lose me. Ever.”

As she considered this, her expression sobered. “I have two conditions.”

Everly straightened, a hard knot gathering beneath his breastbone. “Name them.”

“No more intrigue, Jack. No more spies, no more deception. Just a simple life, a home by the sea. And a family. That is all I want.”

The captain brushed an errant curl from her forehead. “My career as a spy is over, Amanda, I can assure you that. That whole affair made me feel as out of place as
a flounder in top boots.” He nuzzled her cheek and placed a small kiss at one corner of her mouth, then the tip of her nose, then the other corner. “All I desire is you. Now—your other condition?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “That you let me pick my own gowns from now on.”

Everly kissed the budding dimple in her cheek, and chuckled. “Agreed.”

Amanda brushed her lips across his stubbled chin. “I love you, Jack.”

His heart soared. “Is that a yes, love?”

“Yes. Yes, I will marry you, Captain Sir Jonathan Everly.”

Everly’s grin turned wicked. “Good. Now kiss me again.”

Amanda laughed, a rough, throaty sound. “Is that an order?”

His lips hovered over hers. “Should I make it one?”

She leaned up into his kiss. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Keep reading for a special excerpt from the next eBook by Elizabeth Powell

THE RELUCTANT ROGUE

Available May 2012 from InterMix

London

Late May 1814

Over the past five years, Sebastian Carr, Viscount Langley, had come to the conclusion that there was no catastrophe so great that its impact could not be blunted with an excessive amount of brandy, and he was not about to let this morning’s disaster negate that theory. His lack of available libations, however, might prove to be a problem.

The viscount tried to focus on the meager amount of amber liquid remaining in the decanter on the sideboard. Devil take that Corsican upstart. If not for this damned inconvenient war, Sebastian would have had enough of the exquisite French nectar to keep himself happily oblivious for days. As it stood now, yes, he might be drunk, but not nearly drunk enough. He’d have to start in on the blue ruin after this; if he’d had any foresight at all, he would never have polished off the last of the claret two nights ago. Ah, well. Foxed was foxed, no matter how one got there. He reached for the bottle.

Light glinted mockingly off the cut crystal, flinging
rainbows of pain into his tortured eyes. He winced, shielded his gaze, and squinted toward the window. Bloody hell! Had nature itself decided to conspire against him as well? What had begun as a fittingly gloomy day had somehow metamorphosed into a veritable ode to spring. A very bad ode, from the look of things, complete with brilliant sunshine, trilling birdsong, and flowers popping up everywhere. Egad, the only thing it lacked was a few frolicking nymphs. Come to think of it, nymphs would be a definite improvement. Sebastian grinned at the thought.

The gesture, however, quickly wilted beneath the sun’s dazzling onslaught. His eyes began to water. This would never do. He thought about ringing for Grafton, his long-suffering valet (come to think of it, he had never known a valet who
wasn’t
long-suffering, especially in his service), then remembered he’d sent the man out on a mission of vital importance. No matter. He could do this small task himself.

The viscount turned, and the room turned with him. Turned—and tilted at a rather alarming angle. He halted, swaying, palm pressed to his suddenly clammy forehead. Hmm. Perhaps he was more disguised than he thought; he seemed to move with all the grace of a pregnant rhinoceros. True, he did not have far to stumble in order to yank the draperies shut, but he did not trust the perfidious floor not to spin and deposit him on his backside. It certainly wouldn’t do to greet his guests from that rather inelegant position. Not that they hadn’t seen him that way many times before, of course, but according to the strict rules that governed Society, one could collapse in a sodden heap
after
they were gone, but not before. A pity, that, especially since he would be obliged to pay closer attention to those rules from now on. Sebastian swerved
back to the sideboard, then with unsteady hands managed to drain the contents of the decanter into his glass.

He stared into the depths of his drink for a moment, brought the glass to his lips … and hesitated. No, the voice was still there. He had not managed to drown it out, though not for lack of trying.

If only you were more like your brother
…

The words ricocheted through his muzzy mind with all the subtlety of cannon fire. Very
loud
cannon fire. The deliverer of those words had never possessed anything resembling diplomacy or tact, much less sensitivity, and this latest utterance was true to form. As far back as the viscount could recall, the only time his father had deigned to speak to him at all was to deliver some form of scathing criticism—with the exception of the last five years, when the man seemed to have forgotten about his heir’s very existence. Not that Sebastian had minded, of course. For the first time in his life he had been free to live as he pleased, and he had made the most of it, if he dared say so himself. But that had all come to a crashing halt this morning when the earl had appeared, unannounced, on his doorstep.

If only you were more like your brother
…

The words persisted, delivered in his father’s clipped, disdainful tones. More like his brother … Sebastian made a rude noise. He would never be anything like Alexander—or should that be Saint Alexander? Given the reverent manner in which his father pronounced the name, divinity was a distinct possibility.

He knew full well he would never attain Alex’s level of perfection. Not that he hadn’t tried, mind you. Tried and failed time and time again, until he had grown weary of making the effort. Alex had been and always would be the handsomer, the more intelligent, the more accomplished,
the more athletic, the more anything-you-could-possibly-name of the two. His father never missed an opportunity to remind Sebastian that he would stand forever in the shadow of his older brother, even when that brother was five years dead.

The corners of the viscount’s mouth twitched. Actually, he had come to this conclusion on his own years ago; it had been painfully obvious to his then ten-year-old self. The revelation had been liberating, for only then did he discover how much easier it was for him to be a scoundrel than a paragon. Why make the attempt when he could never be something he wasn’t? After all, one could not expect a leopard to change its spots, a fact that seemed to annoy his father to no end.

But Sebastian could not bring himself to say it. He had tried, wanting to fling the words at his father’s expressionless face, to provoke some response—any response—but one glance from the earl’s cold blue eyes and his tongue stuck fast to the roof of his mouth. He had stood in silence, face flaming, body tense, jaw clenched until he thought his teeth would shatter, while the earl pronounced sentence over him.

If only you were more like your brother
…

Blast and damnation! Determined to silence the hateful voice, or at least muffle it into unintelligibility, the viscount tossed back a heady gulp, then coughed as the liquor blazed a fiery path down his throat.

A sudden burst of noise intruded on his maudlin musings, a combination of the violent creaking of unoiled hinges and a torrent of invective delivered in a patrician accent. Sebastian cocked an ear.

“I am not traveling one more step, you beastly little toad, until you tell me what the bloody hell is going on!”

The viscount chuckled. Nigel sounded rather out of sorts this morning.

“Calm yourself, my lord,” Grafton cajoled in a soft, soothing tone. “As I told you, Lord Langley will explain everything. This way, please.”

“Well, all I can say is that he had better have a deuced good explanation for rousing me out of bed at this ungodly hour,” groused Nigel.

“My dear fellow,” said a third man in amused tones, “to you, anything earlier than noon is an ungodly hour.”

“And it is now half past eleven,” Nigel huffed. “Barbaric, I tell you!”

Help had arrived. Good. If anyone could steer him in the right direction, they could. After all, what were friends for? With a lopsided grin, Sebastian propped himself against the sideboard and watched as two gentlemen made their way into his shabby, Lilliputian drawing room.

Lord Nigel Barrington shuffled in, appearing more like a figure from the commedia dell’ arte than the younger brother of a duke. His straight, guinea-gold locks drooped over his forehead, and dark smudges shadowed the skin around his bloodshot blue eyes. His cravat, an intricate waterfall of pristine linen under normal circumstances, appeared as through he’d tied it in the dark. Wearing mittens. Sebastian tried to hide his widening smile; he knew the signs well. His friend was paying the price for the four—or was it five?—bottles of the questionable vintage he’d consumed at the gaming hell they had patronized last night. It was hoping too much, though, that an excess of spirits would improve the young man’s taste in dress; this morning’s combination of a mulberry jacket over a blue-and-lime-striped waistcoat
made Sebastian want to draw the shades over Nigel as well.

Mr. Jason Havelock, on the other hand, appeared every inch the young Corinthian in his coat of midnight-blue superfine, buff inexpressibles, and tasseled Hessians polished to a mirror finish. Although he was not as tall or as handsome as Nigel (well, Nigel when he was in looks, that is), his tanned skin and dark, striking countenance garnered him more than his share of feminine admiration. And it appeared that he was the only sober one of the three. Well, at least someone had a clear head.

“Good day, Nigel, Jace,” Sebastian said with forced good humor. He lifted his glass in salute.

“Well, aren’t you cheerful?” grumbled Nigel. He collapsed none too gently into one of the worn high-backed chairs by the fireplace, which creaked in protest.

Sebastian waggled a finger at him. “Cup-shot, my good man, cup-shot,” he corrected. “The only cheer in this room is the sort one pours from a bottle. I would offer you something, but I fear I’ve already drunk it all. Unless you’re partial to blue ruin, of course.”